Ultimate Poker have fared pretty well in the Nevada market, where they draw 75 cash game players per hour, according to PokerScout. However, UP’s foray into the New Jersey market has been anything but smooth since they’re averaging just 14 players an hour. So in a desperate attempt to turn things around, they’ve launched a very generous ‘NO-verlay’ promotion.
The way this promo works is that whenever one of UP’s nightly or weekend special guaranteed tournaments reaches its guarantee, all entrants get their buy-in back. The small catches are that rebuys and add-ons don’t count towards NO-verlay, and the buy-ins are paid back in U-Dollars. Most players shouldn’t have a problem with this, though, because U-Dollars can be used to enter future tourneys for free.
We’ve seen some poker sites like PartyPoker (international) and Americas Cardroom offer no-rake deals in the past. But this is the first time that we’ve seen anybody actually give buy-ins back when a tourney reaches its guarantee.
It might sound like NO-verlay could end up costing UP a lot of money, especially when they run a Sunday $20k guaranteed event. However, they’re already paying huge overlays on their guaranteed tournaments in the first place because UP’s traffic is so low. That said, they might as well offer something that draws more players and makes them relevant in the regulated US market.
Now, is this simple promotion going to give them a chance in hell of catching up to the New Jersey-leading Party Borgata Network? Not at all! Ultimate Poker are currently being dominated by Party Borgata, WSOP.com and AAPN (888). But at least they’re trying something new in an effort to gain some ground on New Jersey’s three main online poker entities. And fresh ideas like NO-verlay could end up sparking some change in the international market too.