pb1711:
stevenharkin:
Funkyjunkie3000: i think the real reason they wer stopped is because 95% of players that play in them have a credit bankroll meaning they dont deposit to the game (no profit for WGT)
If they stopped it for this reason, I don't think they would have started them in the first place, as it has always been the case that it was only high roller's taking part in the HS's.
Who's to know, not easy second guessing this crowd
Regardless of whether those players deposit or not, WGT still take their cut from the RG's so they're still making their money. Those players may not deposit but must have won those credits somewhere or off someone and that someone won somewhere else and if you carry on following that chain you will eventually find the players that do deposit, (like almost all of us did). So WGT are still getting the deposits and the 20% cut of RG's.
I think the situation is more complex. What high stakes RGs probably do is differentiate people and that is no good for WGT money making. E.g. Imagine a couple of net earners, one borderline, who has say 4000 credits and another more clear, with say 8000 credits in the bank. Without the high stakes RG both of them keep playing and hoping that they can accumulate more money and eventually get something from the Elite collection. Now after a few weeks of high stakes RGs happen, the better guy will likely keep net winning, ending up with say 20000 credits and the other one will net lose (because these RGs are admittedly more tough than lower stake ones, especially in the middle of leaderboards), ending up with say 2000 credits. The first one will be able to get a T-shirt (and later the other items), whereas the second one will likely get discouraged and quit (or at least keep playing less frequently). Without high stakes RGs both of them would keep playing and aiming...
So even if they maybe getting their increased rake what matters is how that affects future behavior of different kinds of players. When I have some spare time, I may run some analyses to compute what's the probability of continuing play as a function of previous performance, tiers, stake, etc. (so may see some empirical data, not just guessing...) If WGT is not totally broke, they must have a "data team" working full time on similar analyses.