Clubs Poker CEO and co-founder Jon Kaplowitz has a message for anyone interested in the company’s new online poker site, which follows a sweepstakes business model:
“We are a social casino,” Kaplowitz told pokerfuse in an exclusive interview. “That’s who we are — with two distinct differences.”
Understanding what those two differences are will help players feel more comfortable with the platform, which we believe offers a great online poker experience because of its features — and the fact that players can play without having to spend any money.
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Redeeming Promotional Currency
The first difference between Clubs Poker and traditional social casinos, which Kaplowitz labels as “Social Casino 1.0,” is that Clubs uses a unique redemption mechanism for players to collect prizes that can be converted to real money.
“There’s been some conflation in the industry. We’re not the sweepstakes industry — we’re a social casino with one unique way to redeem what is a promotional currency.”
That promotional currency is called Sweeps Coins, which function as sweepstakes entries. But Kaplowitz points out that players cannot purchase Sweeps Coins — rather, Clubs Poker has to give Sweeps Coins to players.
“We need to give it to you, and we give it to you in a few ways,” Kaplowitz said. Examples include a daily bonus, where players can get Sweeps Coins just by logging into the site every day. Clubs Poker also gives Sweeps Coins away through social giveaways and freerolls.
He added that the “overwhelming majority” of players on Clubs Poker are free players.
Since Clubs Poker must adhere to sweepstakes law in order to operate in most US states, the site is required to offer players an alternative method of entry — players can receive Sweeps Coins for free just by sending in a postcard.
“What you can do with that sweepstakes currency is you can play that up, play it through in the sweepstakes portion of our platform, and then redeem that for cash and/or prizes,” Kaplowitz said.
“That basically adds a lot of value to customers. It’s a really cool value proposition and I think customers really love it, which is why this industry has grown significantly over the last three or four years.”
Bringing RG, KYC Tools to Social Casino Scene
Kaplowitz, who previously serves as CEO at Penn Interactive and helped build the Barstool brand and its US online casino and sportsbook, said Clubs Poker also stands apart from other social casino sites in that his platform is actively trying to improve the social casino scene.
Clubs Poker aims to do that through responsible gaming (RG) and know your customer (KYC) tools.
“We bring everything that we’ve learned from the regulated world to this social casino world,” Kaplowitz said, describing Clubs Poker’s RG and KYC tools as “best-in-class.” These include allowing customers to set breaks and self-exclusion limits, as well as installing protocols to verify customers and understand their income and risk profiles.
“These are things that are very important for us and we’ve instilled into our product,” he said. “We want to make sure that we essentially identify and eradicate bad actors from coming into and playing on our platform.
“I would call us ‘Social Casino 2.0.’ We are a social casino, but we are a little bit more dynamic in terms of this redemption mechanic as well as some of our RG and KYC tools.”
For more information, check out our in-depth Clubs Poker review.