Would you play poker with fake money, but real stakes?

[imposter]

I'm struggling to find a good fake-money poker platform that actually incentivizes people to play legitimately rather than just going all-in all the time. I'm thinking about building a platform myself where people don't have to pay money but still play competitively, but I need honest feedback on whether anyone would actually play it.

It would work like this: It's no limit texas holdem. You start with 100 credits. credits are your rank, so the player with the most credits is at the top of the leader board. If you lose all of your credits, then you get ejected from the table and have to start over at 100 credits. For simplicity let's say there are 3 types of table you can join:
- low stakes: 0.5sb, 1bb, 100 minimum buy-in
- mid stakes: 5sb, 10bb, 1000 minimum buy-in
- high stakes: 50sb, 100bb, 10000 minimum buy-in

So the people who are playing mid stakes are only playing against people that earned enough credits to meet the minimum buy-in of 1000 credits. When you join a table you would be put with random people looking for mid-stakes games, just like in real poker.

It seems that generally people in the poker community believe that without real money the game doesn't work, but I think it's pretty straightforward to create a fair economy of credits with true scarcity that will allow people to play the game without betting real money.

 

[Suns of Beaches]

No, would not be interested in it.

I advice people to just play the lowest games possible or freerolls if they don't want to risk any real money. it's basically the same.

 

[imposter]

No, would not be interested in it.

I advice people to just play the lowest games possible or freerolls if they don't want to risk any real money. it's basically the same.

Thanks for the response! I'm curious to hear a bit more about why you aren't interested. Seems like you're thinking freerolls are just a better route? I actually hadn't heard of these until now. Is it just a free-to-enter tournament where there's a small amount of prize money? I usually just play cash games where I can enter/leave the table at any time. Are tournaments a worse/good/better way to play? My concern is that freeroll tournaments would be inconvenient because you need to register for them and work around the tournament schedule.

 

[YLAN]

Good Luck. I'll make it easy for you. I don't waste time if it doesn't make sense to me. Such a poker platform you're looking for is Replay Poker. I don't play there except to support Cardschat events. Playing with real money is more fun.

 

[Suns of Beaches]

Thanks for the response! I'm curious to hear a bit more about why you aren't interested. Seems like you're thinking freerolls are just a better route? I actually hadn't heard of these until now. Is it just a free-to-enter tournament where there's a small amount of prize money? I usually just play cash games where I can enter/leave the table at any time. Are tournaments a worse/good/better way to play? My concern is that freeroll tournaments would be inconvenient because you need to register for them and work around the tournament schedule.

Yes freerolls are free to play tournaments where you can win real money.

I think there should always be real money involved in poker to make the game at least a bit interesting. Because if there is completely no money involved people just don't care.

That of course is only my opinion. Good luck with ur project

 

[imposter]

Such a poker platform you're looking for is Replay Poker.

Thanks for the insight. I just checked out Replay Poker and it seems decently popular. It does appear to be pretty close to what I'm looking for. People can play for free, and the chips seem to have scarcity. Though, it doesn't use the chips as a ranking system, so it's a different approach, but still solves the same problem. Thanks for pointing this out to me.

 

[RustyRed83]

For me, it is a waste of time. If there is not a monetary prize, then i don't see the point.

 

[fundiver199]

As others have said, the vast majority of serious poker players want to play for real money. So your idea about starting a new business to cater to a non-existing market is really bad. Also why do you not want to play for real money? Real money sites generally have much better software and better security, because they have income from rake to invest in those things.

And its not like, you need to gamble your house away. Most sites offer cash games with as little as 1c/2c blinds and a maximum buyin of $2, often referred to as 2NL. So you can deposit an amount like $20, which is basically the price for 1 month of subscription to Nexflix, and then go from there. It might not be enough, since a 10 BI downswing is fairly common in cash games, but then just deposit another $20 if needed and then another.

This still only sets you back 3 month of watching Netflix. And if poker is your hobby, why cant you invest even just that in it? You might also find, that you are actually winning, so that your $20 or $60 eventually turns into $300 or more. And now you suddenly have a bankroll to play 10NL, where the game is already somewhat serious on most sites.

Your profile say, that you live in the US, and some of the largest sites are not available there. But there are still several small sites, that are available, like ACR Poker. And even though that site is not perfect, its still vastly better than any play money site. It offers cash games, SnGs and MTTs with a wide variety of buyins, so there is basically something for any taste and any budget, including the mentioned 2NL cash games.

 

[Matt_Burns88]

I agree with what everyone else has said.

I understand your concept and I'm sure that there are lots of people out there that would like to play a free version of poker seriously. The trouble is; how do you prevent the players that join a table and just shove all-in every hand from playing? They would simply re-load and join another table. So you would end up with another site with a few players wanting to play "proper poker" getting frustrated by the all-iners and nothing would really change.

 

[fundiver199]

I understand your concept and I'm sure that there are lots of people out there that would like to play a free version of poker seriously. The trouble is; how do you prevent the players that join a table and just shove all-in every hand from playing? They would simply re-load and join another table. So you would end up with another site with a few players wanting to play "proper poker" getting frustrated by the all-iners and nothing would really change.

I guess, his idea is, that only winning players would be able to move to mid and high stakes. But this takes away the only source of income for play money sites, which is selling fake money playing chips to people, who dont have enough in the free chips, that are handed out. So how is this site going to pay its expenses including the costs for software development and maintenence, servers, customer care etc.? Its just not a feasible plan, and as I said already, OP can just play micro stakes games on a real money site, if he want to play in more serious games

 

[rachelle2291]

There are still a few private freerolls out there like cardschat ones on replay so to me play money play makes no sense unless you are getting the feel for a new site or learning a new variant

 

[Debi]

Good Luck. I'll make it easy for you. I don't waste time if it doesn't make sense to me. Such a poker platform you're looking for is Replay Poker. I don't play there except to support Cardschat events. Playing with real money is more fun.

I second this. The quality of play there is far better than other free tournaments. The site can be fully trusted as well.

 

[KrazyKoo]

I like the idea of token system and kind of like a videogame. Reach specific rank when you win certain amount of chips. But probably wouldn't play regular poker with such system as there is not enough interaction in a game of poker.

 

[Gallarado777]

No, I definitely wouldn't play because people love money and winning this money for free money, I think few people pay attention and many players won't play where there is no profit to spend their time on it's not profitable just like that, so I think we should give up this venture

 

[Mauricio Perrotta]

I already played like this when I was just starting out in poker with friends, we were betting with corn kernels, and by the third round half of the participants had already dropped out because it was simply not attractive.

 

[ninocabral]

In my opinion, to be competitive there has to be some prize involved, if there is a prize in the middle, players tend to have a greater motivation to play seriously or a little seriously

 

[skaterick]

In my opinion, to be competitive there has to be some prize involved, if there is a prize in the middle, players tend to have a greater motivation to play seriously or a little seriously

yes , you gotta have a reward of some that is actually of real value to make it a challenge .

 

[Poker Orifice]

No

 

[Rijckenborg]

At this state, I won't try.
But if you add some goodies that we can spent credits on them like new felt or deck color or new avatar then I will probably give it a chance.

 

[mclay]

For me, it is a waste of time. If there is not a monetary prize, then i don't see the point.

I agree - this is a pointless waste of time. And learning to play poker is not possible by playing with candy wrappers.

 

[successlaw]

I don't like any idea that includes fake money
I would rather play the micro stakes