Breaking: ClubWPT Gold’s New Model Revealed — Buying GTO Training Credits

Leading sweepstakes online poker site ClubWPT Gold has revealed its new sweepstakes business model — and it involves purchasing credits to a GTO hand analysis trainer.

No longer can you buy Gold Coins to get an equal balance of sweeps coins. But credits purchased for hand analysis also award “chips” which, for all intents and purposes, act just like sweeps coins.

The site is currently offline for maintenance, but FAQ pages posted by ClubWPT Gold, seen by pokerfuse, detail the key mechanics of the new system.

ClubWPT Gold (CWG) first announced it would be ending Gold Coins and introducing a “game-changing new feature” earlier this month. It was set to go live last week but delayed until today.

The change comes soon after three other key developments for it and the industry — its purchase of Upswing Poker, the passage of an anti-sweepstakes gambling bill in California, and its soft-exit from New York State with a bill pending there.

With the change, CWG now calls itself a “cutting-edge poker training and playing site,” rather than a pure online poker site.

In theory, the move is designed to allow it to still operate tournaments and ring games with real money prizes, but with customer purchases fueled through another funnel. The goal will be to better follow new laws and regulations coming out of US states by moving away from a pure “dual currency” system.

Hand Analysis in a Nutshell

The key change today can be understood in three key parts:

• Gold coins and their games are gone.
• Players instead buy “hand analysis credits,” which are spent to provide GTO analysis of the hands played. This purchase also awards chips.
• Sweeps coins are now called “chips.” Chips can still be used for games where winnings can be redeemed for real money.

The hand analysis portion looks like a genuine feature to help people improve their game. If a player has credits, then any hand played will be sent to the hand analysis tool which will give advice on how the hand was played, and how it could be played better.

Credits will be deducted from the balance of the user, and feedback on the hand will be given after the fact. This analysis can be available within minutes, but may take up to two hours.

The system makes game theory optimal recommendations, “developed by computers simulating many, many games of poker and tracking which hands and actions yield the highest profit (expected value) over time,” the FAQ states. Recommended play is not based on opponent profiling.

The Hand Analysis tool is presumably powered by technology acquired with the Upswing Poker purchase. The company owns Lucid Poker, a GTO solver and hand analysis and training tool.

For players to gain access to the hand analysis tool, they need to buy credits for their account, and they must have them before any hand is played.

Then, of course, there is the sweepstakes gaming part.

“With each purchase of Hand Analyses, you’ll also get 'Chips’ that you can use to play the games on ClubWPT Gold,” the FAQ explains. “You can use Chips to play poker for real cash prizes at ClubWPT Gold. The Hand Analysis tool allows you to get feedback on all of the hands that you play.”

In that way, Hand Analysis credits replace Gold Coins. They provide access to a tool that has clear value. Sweeps Coins are now chips, and are acquired through the purchase of Hand Analysis credits. But the usual sweepstakes routes are also still available, including “promotional methods,” (traditionally daily giveaways and social media promotions), or by the necessary “mailing in a free postcard.”

In this regard, CWG is still very much a sweepstakes site. But it is one trying to distance itself from a specific definition of sweepstakes gaming — most notably, dual currency formats.

The End of Gold at ClubWPT Gold

Gold Coins form the backbone of modern sweepstakes gaming. Players buy chips, which have no monetary value, but can be used in free-play games. In this way, they operate like traditional freeplay social sites, like PlayWSOP and Zynga Poker.

The modern twist is that Gold Coins also grant players an equal amount of Sweeps Coins, considered individual sweepstakes entries which can be used to play in special sweeps games. Winnings from these games — whether tournaments, sit and gos, or ring games — can then be redeemed for real money.

It was a system pioneered by Global Poker and later adopted by the likes of Clubs Poker, Stake US and, most recently, ClubWPT Gold. CWG quickly become a leading sweepstakes online poker operator thanks to a massively successful marketing and promotional campaign enlisting key ambassadors and viral social media marketing.

However, the rise of sweepstakes gaming, particularly in sweepstakes casinos and sports, has attracted the attention of gaming regulators and lawmakers, and there have been bills in multiple states to clamp down on sweepstakes gaming.

The most recent effort in California, which will require a veto to avoid it coming into law, bans all forms of sweepstakes games. Verbiage in the bill specifically mentions this “dual currency” format of sweeps. A similar bill in New York, which is also pending a Governor’s signature, states the same.

Whether CWG’s change today is enough following California and New York’s new anti-sweepstakes bill, if they do become law, remains to be seen.

ClubWPT Gold’s change takes effect today. At the time of writing, the site is currently offline for an upgrade. It is currently unknown how much hand analysis costs, the pricing of analysis credit packages, and how many chips will be awarded on purchase.