I've recently been hearing a lot of talk about starting a rake free poker site. The concept is fairly new to me, so apologies if this idea has already been presented, but I have some thoughts on how to successfully pull it off. What's to stop someone from starting a completely rake free, real money, poker site, which gets it's revenue through a subscription based model like Pandora? In other words, the site would be completely free to play if you are a non subscriber, you just see more advertisements. As a monthly subscriber, you pay not to see the advertisements ($10- $20 / mo). Either way, all cash games and tournaments are completely rake free, and the poker site generates revenue via advertising and paid subscribers.

A few points, questions and thoughts:

1) For non paying, non subscribers, yes the advertisements will be annoying compared to todays online norm, but poker sites are already blasting people with ads for their own site while you play. This will just be ads from other companies now. Also, to encourage recreational players to subscribe, you can offer additional promotions, freerolls, etc.

2) I can only imagine how expensive it is to setup and operate a poker website, but with such an upside potential (becoming next Stars, Party, etc), surely there are some brave, deep pocketed investors / entrepreneurs willing to take the risk? If enough money was invested to make sure programming and security was up to par, the right cash games and tournaments were offered with the right guarantees, and the site was marketed heavily and effectively, surely there would be a flood of players? Especially if you hammered home how much money you are spending via rake through the marketing campaign even as a recreational player. Obviously any half serious online player understands rake and will make the switch if the right games with the right / big enough player pools exist AND it's completely rake free. To make an impact though, I feel like a heavy investment into a long and focused marketing campaign that completely attacks the current rake structure is needed.

3) I've heard internet security is a nightmare and one of the biggest current budget drains on today's poker sites. I am no expert on blockchain technology, but people are hailing it as a revolution in internet security. Surely some methods of the technology could be implemented to help improve the sites security at a lower cost. I know people have started bit coin poker sites, but I feel that creates a large barrier to entry since most recreational players don't have, and don't want to deal with bit coin. This poker site needs to be regular cash / currency like the current sites.

Curious to hear everyone's thoughts or ideas on the subject? I obviously don't have the means or connections to even begin to pull something like this off, just want to get the idea out there as a poker fan so it may one day exist. Poker sites have been monopolizing online play for too long. The whole online rake concept structure is outrageous, outdated, and bad for the game. It's really only needed in casinos in my opinion. There's no way with today's modern technology, that a website shouldn't be able to operate profitably without a rake structure. Especially when alternatives exist, hopefully it's only a matter of time. I have a feeling this concept has already been floated out there though, and if so good, but somebody please get to building this site!