Fish Buffet by GGpoker: How does the best online poker rakeback work?

Rakeback is an important argument when choosing a room. After Black Friday, rooms gradually cut rakeback and worsened conditions for professional poker players. The most vivid example is the degradation of PokerStars loyalty program: in a few years from the top with supernovas and transparent conditions, the room has rolled up to the chests with a ridiculous return of 4-5%. In October 2021, PokerStars came to their senses and renewed the Stars Reward loyalty program. The impetus for the epiphany was the poker network GGPoker. It managed to get ahead of PS in terms of the number of players. Not least because of the Fish Buffet. Let us take a closer look at this loyalty program.

What is Fish Buffet and what are its features?

Fish Buffet is a loyalty program, which operates in the network GG (GGPokerOK, BetKings). It consists of 8 levels, which are divided into 25 sub-levels. Members of the Fish Buffet receive from 15% to 60% rakeback. To grow through the levels players need to accumulate Fish Points. From Spring 2021, players have the option to switch between random rewards for spinning the reel and a fixed amount of cashback.

How to join. Immediately after registering an account, players are automatically connected to Fish Buffet. No additional action is required.

How to earn FP. Points are awarded for playing poker and betting at online casinos. For $1 you get, on average, 100 points. Why "average"? Because of the way rake is counted at GG. For example if you participate in a tournament with overlay, the rake from your buy-in will bring less Fish Points than for the same tournament but without overlay. And that is not the only element of randomness in the program. There is also a concept of "player value" (Player Value Index).

How the value of a player is determined. Here, users have a wide margin of imagination, because the exact criteria of PVI Good Game have not been published anywhere. The only thing known is that when charging FP, the following things are taken into account: the number of lost games, deposit history, game results. This is not the whole list. The key thesis of Fish Buffet: "Amateurs get more points than professional players". That is why even high limit regs can't count on 60% stable rakeback.

What are the rakeback levels at ggpokerok?

This is the bonus system offered by the official ggpokerokerok site:

Looks interesting, but incomprehensible

Each of the loyalty program levels is assigned to a particular inhabitant of the depths: with plankton your rakeback is 15%, and when you reach the shark - all 55%. Most levels are divided into several components, which allows you to accentuate the average cashback and avoid equalizing rewards for players with different amounts of FP.

The timeframe to meet for a new status is also different: 15 days to get a crab, but 30 for an octopus. Before the reboot, the number of points to reach levels was higher, as was the time for players.

How does the reel work?

In the bonus system, each of the 8 levels corresponds to a row with a payout range: $6 to $30 for the shrimp or $120 to $1,200 for the whale. The range with a randomly distributed rakeback percentage is a legacy of the original Fish Buffet program. The key role belongs to the reel, the spinning of which determines your RB.

If you forget to spin the reel, after 30 days it will automatically spin itself

The option to spin the reel appears with a new level in the Loyalty Program. You can either spin the reel immediately when you reach a level, or you can activate it later in the "My Bonuses" section.

Before the spring Fish Buffet update, the probability of a prize roll was dependent on the player's value. But that element of randomness has been removed and now there are specific numbers:

Whale

Octopus

Crab

Shrimp

Goldfish

Plankton

If you're particularly lucky, you can get up to 100% cashback.

How does fixed rakeback work?

The main novelty of the reloaded Fish Buffet is the ability to get fixed rakeback without spinning the reels. Platinum levels are responsible for this in the loyalty program. There are a total of 5 of these levels

Уровни закрепляются за игроком на год. Для подтверждения уровня на второй год нужно меньше очков, чем при его получении.

Levels are assigned to the player for one year. To confirm the level for the second year, you need fewer points than when you receive it.
To get the reward, you need to click "Collect" on the "Platinum" tab. Without activation, the money will accumulate there, but it won't go into your account.

How to switch to Platinum. The main requirement is to collect points for shrimp status. From it you will be able to switch to Platinum fish with 20% RB. For other statuses, the procedure is similar. To change reel to stable cashback go to "Rewards Program", then click "Switch to Platinum" and confirm your choice.

Solid rakeback is great news for professional players

You can switch back too, but you'll have to meet a time limit. The number of days of transition time depends on the requirements for your particular level of bonus system.

Here's what the requirements for earning and maintaining fixed rakeback levels look like:

What to do if not enough points. If a player does not accumulate enough points in a year to maintain status, he will be switched to a lower level fixed rakeback. Were a platinum whale, became a platinum octopus. For users with a reel, the same scheme applies.

Conclusions

At the headline level, GGpokerok rakeback looks like the best offer in modern online poker:

• 60% fixed RB;
• The option to switch from a random to a stable distribution scheme;
• Platinum statuses are fixed for a year at a time.

Everything is spoiled by the notion and blurred criteria of player value. Predicting how much FP you'll get for 100 or 1,000 hands is simply unrealistic. Real users express skepticism about Fish Buffet: "I got $1,900 in rake for 30,000 hands and the real rakeback was below 10%". And it is not a single opinion of ill-wishers - the network is full of such criticism in reviews of rooms. Perhaps the management of Good Game will listen to the criticism of Fish Buffet Rewards and bring it to reason. By the way, and kicked PVI to the curb. But for now, we recommend to consider the beautiful numbers in the tables with skepticism.