What does the Cryptologic/Boss Media Merger Mean to us?

There have been some conflicting opinions on what the Cryptologic/Boss Media poker merger means to players and affiliates. Some argue that less competition is bad for the industry. Others are worried that their Cryptologic players will not like the software and leave. Some worry that if a player wanted to play on Boss they would be playing there anyway and not Cryptologic while others worry the monthly bonuses will go away.

While all of their negatives certainly have a case I feel this can turn out to be a good thing in the long term. Let’s face it, Cryptologic has seen better days. They have seen major skins leave the network. Littlewoods and Poker Plex have already left, WPTOnline has announced they are closing and William Hill has already announced they are leaving to iPoker. This has shrunk the player base by 20% and that is with William Hill still around for a few more months.

In my opinion Cryptologic and Boss Media are a great match. Both have the same rakeback cap, they do not deduct bonuses from MGR, have strong gaming businesses outside of poker and have strong gaming brands. This will help attract new players to the network and help retain existing players. The game quality on Cryptologic and Boss Media are also about the same so not much will change there.

So what about affiliates? What will happen with us? While it will give us one fewer network to offer the skins on the new Boss Media/Cryptologic Network will have more competition between them. There should be more promotions and bonuses for our players. I feel it is safe to assume the standard Boss Media bonus of 20% contributed rakeback will stay the same. This makes a bonus 50% rakeback when combined with the standard 30% rakeback.

The one concern I have is that currently Boss Media has a minimum $100 MGR policy for players to get rakeback in a month. If Boss Media continues to enforce this then it may alienate some micro limit players. It is possible that the Cryptologic skins may not have this policy. For that reason, and the fact Boss Media limits the number of accounts a player can have to three on the network, makes this a great time to encourage players to sign up for our existing Cryptologic offers on BetSafe, Sun Poker and Interpoker. The merger will take place during the first quarter of 2009.