[WPT Global] Official Thread
Hi 2+2ers,
Welcome to the official WPT Global thread!
WPT Global is the real-money online poker business of the World Poker Tour, and we’re about to celebrate our two-year anniversary, having launched in April 2022. After such a short time, we’re already the third-largest online poker room in the world (ranked by PokerScout.com, based on cash game traffic).
We’re joining TwoPlusTwo to share information with you, engage with the community, and answer any questions you might have.
WPT Global is special for a few reasons:
- Our modern platform has been built from the beginning to leverage AI technology. We use this in two main ways. The first is to protect the games by detecting collusion, bot use, RTA use and other forms of cheating extremely quickly. We have the best Game Integrity tech I’ve experienced in my 19 years in the industry, and a team of around 50 people using it.
- The second way we utilise AI technology is in managing our ecology. We ensure that games are sustainable and beatable by reserving seats in every game for casual players and limiting the number of seats per table that can be occupied by highly skilled professionals. I’ll go into more detail on this point later, in the below FAQ, but the net result is - we have the softest cash games you’ll find online, and typical win-rates for regs are 5-10x higher than elsewhere. (If you don't’ believe me, just try them and see for yourself).
- We have had a large liquidity pool from the very beginning, especially in cash games. This is because we partnered with a couple of successful Asia-facing poker rooms to bootstrap their liquidity. Most poker startups face an enormous challenge in growing their liquidity from scratch - this solution allowed us to launch with cash games running 24/7 and it contributes to our soft player pool. Now, WPT Global is a large poker site in its own right and less dependent on the Asia liquidity, and we’re growing our games in US Dollars all the time.
- There is enormous value on offer - our explicit aim is to pay back more to players via promotions and giveaways than any other site. Check out our current promotions here.
- Global Spins is our unique twist on the Jackpot SNG concept, with a progressive jackpot and the lowest rake in the industry (5%).
- As part of the World Poker Tour family, we’re the best place to qualify for WPT events around the world, like the WPT World Championship at the Wynn later this year.
Some of you might remember me and my colleague WPT Global Peter from our previous roles. Many years ago, I was one of the first site representatives ever to engage with the 2+2 community, as the first PokerStars representative in the ‘PokerStars Software Improvement Thread’. Later, Peter and I ran the ‘Official MPN - Microgaming Poker Network...’. You can expect a similar level of transparency and responsiveness here. While I don’t promise to respond to every single thing, no constructive question or criticism is off limits.
I look forward to engaging with you all!
All the best,
Alex Scott
President, WPT Global
(X/Twitter: @AlexScott72o)
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FAQ
You can also read a more general FAQ on our website, here.
What countries is WPT Global available in?
Currently, we have a .com licence and have not entered any regulated markets (although we will start to do so later this year). We’re open to most markets that have yet to regulate, including Canada (except Ontario), Ireland, New Zealand and most of Latin America, Asia and Africa.
We don’t (yet) accept players from the US, UK, Australia, Russia, and most of Europe. If you’re from one of these countries and want to qualify for WPT events then Club WPT might work for you!
See our Terms and Conditions (section 2.5) for more detailed information.
How does the ecology management system work? Do you ban winners from playing at WPT Global?
Our ecology management system is specifically designed so that we can run sustainable games without having to penalise winners.
In cash games, our AI technology measures the skill level of every player and predicts their win rate. The model is highly accurate and continually updates so that it cannot be abused or ‘gamed’.
We reserve a number of seats at each cash game table for players that fall into one of our ‘casual player’ categories. In our most popular game (8-Handed NLHE with an ante and a straddle) we reserve six of the eight seats for casual players, which effectively means that highly-skilled pros can only occupy two seats.
Because there is plenty of liquidity, if you find yourself categorised as a pro, you can still always find a game to play at any stake, and you can guarantee yourself a seat in a great game if you start a table, since our ecology management system ensures that only one other pro can sit with you.
The system does not categorise players by their actual win rate, but by how skilled they are. If you have a great run of luck, you will not necessarily be categorised as a pro, and vice versa, you will not necessarily be categorised as a casual player if you run bad.
We find that once players get used to the system, they love it. Both pros and beginners have a better experience because we eliminate some of the common predatory behaviour that occurs elsewhere, and pros can achieve significantly higher win rates. I encourage you to give it a try!
What’s with the games in CNY currency?
Because we partnered with Asia-facing poker rooms to launch, some of our games are in Chinese Yuan (CNY) currency. At the time of writing, the exchange rate to the dollar is about 7.25 CNY to the USD. As we’ve become less dependent on the Asian liquidity we have introduced more USD games. Most cash games and all tournaments including Global Spins are now available in USD, and for those of you that want to play in the CNY games, there’s a handy currency converter in the lobby, and the ability to change the stacks to BB.
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Edit/MH: WPT Global Peter
Not quite. From 1st August we'll no longer be paying revenue share to affiliate partners on NLHE and Short Deck cash game play, on stakes where the player is classified as highly-skilled. (We're still paying rev share on all other game formats like Omaha, MTT, and spins, and on NLHE and Short Deck stakes where the player is not classified as highly-skilled).
2 weeks notice at the bottom of a random 2+2 post is a grotesque way to handle this news. This is a 4 figure per month loss (or more) to a lot of pros.
Some affiliates who offer rakeback to pros (something we always strongly discouraged) will therefore have to adjust the deals they have given to players.
Who do you think are the main customer base for affiliates?
Your affiliates are incentivised to get players onto your site, not consider if they are winning players or not. Otherwise, why would they be incentivised to push them to your site and not another?
How is an affiliate going to adjust a deal to anything but zero when you aren't paying rakeback as per the intial agreement?
As others have mentioned, rakeback is a big reason why a lot of people are playing on the site. You are about to nuke your pool, or lead people down the road of burner accounts. This is evidently bad for the site, fun players and pros alike.
There are various reasons for this but essentially, pros are, on the whole, winning much more on WPTG before rewards than they do on other networks after rewards. It is not necessary for us to further incentivise pros to play in games that they are already crushing. The money that we previously spent doing this will be allocated to other promos and rewards.
Of course, and this is the trade off for them not taking their business elsewhere due to limitations enforced by your site re: software that can be used.
You can't have your cake and eat it. Your company policy makers should realise this is a fundamental part of why the player pool plays on your site (the juice is worth the squeeze), but whoever is handling the company direction is just seeking short term windfall in the shape of "let's just take all the pros rakeback". It is an awful look and does not instill confidence from your player base that WPTG is a trustworthy place to leave your funds.
All these promos and rewards sound good on paper but rarely translate to anything resembling satisfying for pros, and are nothing but some bells and whistles for the fun players. Pros will likely hate it. Fun players won't care about it and WPTG pockets the difference.
Pros keep the action going 24/7 and create rake for the site. They want rakeback they can set their clock to each month.
Anything else is just an angle for immediate short term profit from WPTG, and giving out less money long term. We've seen other sites try this out and it never ends well for them.
If not - just sit down, you're guaranteed a great game and tables at 10/20/40 fill pretty quickly.
It is very well known now that once you are tagged as a winning player you get segregated.
When starting games previously they would fill up fast. Now my table selection is limited the only tables I start up rarely fill up, or I can only see 1 table running with 8 regs. I have tried in all time slots of the day since my tables got limited and it's the same every time so it is clearly not a "table configuration" issue. I have numerous friends who are regs who have ran into the same issue once they were long standing winners on the site, and many many posters here have advised you of the same league of issues. Not one of them had the issue initially once they signed up.
Making out an internal policy to be a bug is egregious and again does not instill confidence in WPTG as a trustworthy site.
I sincerely hope WPTG will review their stance on these matters for all parties concerned.
Removing our rakeback is like saying ''Dont play here anymore'' and well thats exactly what I'm gonna do. I bet 90% of regs will stop playing and you will lose most of the people that start and keep tables running.
Idk if this Is just my agent or its a wpt policy but on top of no More rb Im getting charged 1%fee for cashouts
Anyone else with this?
Yes, I noticed this with USD stablecoin cashouts, altough not always 1% exactly.
I checked the FAQs: https://getwpt.com/wpt-global-faqs/
Do you charge any fees on withdrawals?
We do not charge fees for withdrawals.
I emailed support to ask this and this was the response:
"Any difference charged in your withdrawal requests is due to currency changes between USD and ETH transactions.
Please check with your cryptocurrency wallet support and make sure they have applied the correct exchange."
Card sort order and 4 colour deck dont seem to be working in the PLO MTT btw
As others have mentioned, rakeback is a big reason why a lot of people are playing on the site. You are about to nuke your pool, or lead people down the road of burner accounts. This is evidently bad for the site, fun players and pros alike.
The rake is absurd compared to other sites if they dont offer RB. They rake on preflop action and bombpots hurts the most as they max rake on those and it happens every 12minute.
Idk if this Is just my agent or its a wpt policy but on top of no More rb Im getting charged 1%fee for cashouts
Anyone else with this?
About a month ago my agent informed me 1% cashout fee and a 5% administration fee on rakeback had been implemented by WPT.
Yesterday, they said the cashout fee had been removed again, though.
There is a bug now when you leave a table it doesnt close in the software itself(I guess) and when you wanna rejoin it it says table viewing limit expired(so you cant sit next 24h). Occured like 5 times to me today, always on the low stakes 4 card tables so if it happens to somebody else too might explain why volume down(since nobody can sit after joining and leaving once).
Will update if it happens more often next days.
edit: this only happe
gotta bump this cause I can sit literally no table table at the low 4 card games and judging by te lack of action/tables running nobody else either š
(also still think there is a chance this is only some error for me rn but seems likelier its for everyone since no games running and its weekend)
The final day of our Preheat Festival has just started with one of the 3 remaining $220 Championship Day 1 ($300,000 GTD) flights. There are several 15 seat guaranteed feeders running to these over the next few hours
Our $8,000,000 guaranteed [B]Summer Festival[/B] starts this time next week and satellites/feeders for it will begin today!
Found this on their web page:
In Pace games, rake is taken even if the flop is not reached. In all other games we apply a ‘no flop, no drop’ policy and rake is only taken if the flop is reached.
However, it does indeed seem to rake preflop as well in non-pace straddle games, if there is a 3-bet. I haven't checked the non-straddle games yet.
@WPT Alex, can you please comment on this?
It is my understanding that in straddle games, 3bet(re-raising an open raise) pots are raked when it doesn't go to the flop.
I think Alex acknowledged this early on in this thread.
Edit: Alex addresses the rake in Pace games in post 7, and later states that "we are going to change this and from April 30th rake will NOT be taken preflop in Pace"
The rake on 3b pots in other games is brought to their attention but I don't see a response or acknowledgment of that.
As far as I know there is no rake preflop on WPT Global. From what I understand there is 1bb taken from pots over 30bb preflop for the big hand jackpot. On average we get this 1bb back, so it is not really rake.
As far as I know there is no rake preflop on WPT Global. From what I understand there is 1bb taken from pots over 30bb preflop for the big hand jackpot. On average we get this 1bb back, so it is not really rake.
They take 10% of jackpot as "commision" so basicly its 0.1bb rake preflop
And 30bb means 15straddles
Alex, could you , please, explain, why did you take such an unfair decision to remove rakeback for strong players? It's a clear price discrimination (Price discrimination is a selling strategy that charges customers different prices for the same product or service based on what the seller believes it can get the customer to agree to. In pure price discrimination, the seller charges each customer the maximum price they will pay.). I remember times when "the more you play , the more rakeback you get" and it was almost universal rule for many reward programs at most poker sites. It worked exactly like in other areas of economy : wholesale buyers get cheaper prices compared to retail buyers. Loyal returning customers get discounts.
Now the rule is different: "If you are a winning player, we will try to find any pretext to take a big chunk of your winnings.".
That's a very unfair approach and is just hurting WPTG reputation and turning it into another GARBAGE like GGpoker network, who is trying to use any pretext to minimize players winnings and leave as much as possible withing the site. Unfair bans with money confiscations , removal of rakeback for winning players , and so on...
Such policy is especially unfair to people who play Shortdeck holdem , where rake in bb\100 is SEVERAL TIMES HIGHER than in NLHE, because you have 7bb pot on preflop already ( as opposed to 1.5bb pot in NHLE) and players have to move all-in very wide and call very wide. For a shordeck winning player, rakeback will be about half of his monthly profit.
I believe, such approach to maximize WPTG ummediate profit by any methods will just damage WGPT reputation and bring less profit long-term. The best example i remember is Pokerstars after it was sold to Amaya and they removed rakeback.. Just look at Pokerstars traffic now š It's incomparable with what it once was. In online poker world, reputation of a pokerroom is one of the most important things that define traffic long-term.
Attractive conditions attrack more and more strong players and winning regulars will win less and less overtime anyway , simply because the ratio of recreational to strong players will worsen overtime.
Please, reconsider that unfair decision to discriminate winning players ..
I am ready to join the boycot.
We all know how this is gonna end - poker site will not listen, most regulars will leave and in few weeks/months site is a ghost town.
I completely understand why poker site is not happy with ultra bumhunters - players who rake like 20k in a year, but cashout like 100k+. But it is just complete mystery for me why are poker sites going after grinders, players who are on the site day after day, grinding, opening tables, battling with 2-3 others regs to keep tables running.
We all heard interviews with Alex Scott about huuuuge winrates all the regulars have, how there are maximum 3 regs on the table, how the site is rewarding opening new tables - just sit on empty table and you have juicy game in few minutes! But players who are grinding on the site, day after day, and raking 4-5 digits for the site know that is complete bull****.
I am definitely not a huge winner and almost 60% of my income came from rakeback. Every day I started tens and tens of new tables for wptglobal. I am not bumhunter, I try to keep games running even if the table is breaking. And the reward for me? I basically dont see any tables. To open new table is almost impossible. And now they also take ALLLLLL the rakeback from me.
Well played.
I hope every single reg stops playing next month and the site instantly becomes a ghost town. Thats what they deserve with such a greedy and stupid decision
