“Whilst in the last six months we've taken baby steps towards a recreational direction, these will be giant leaps to much more significant changes,” Mansour told PokerListings in Las Vegas.
To pay for these changes, Mansour said Full Tilt will be increasing rake in a few areas. The increase will bring Full Tilt's rake up to the same level as other popular online poker rooms.
“We need to be able to finance changes in the business,” explained Mansour.
“We have the aspirations of any business to grow and make more money, of course, but raising rake is not our mechanic for making more money. Raising rake is our mechanic to be able to invest in these changes.
Mansour went on to say that Full Tilt will release the details of the rake increase when it is introduced but generally speaking the increases will be at the lowest and highest stakes.
“We'll leave everything in the middle alone,” said Mansour.
Full Tilt to Focus on Recreational Players
In his new role at Full Tilt, Mansour is focused on creating an online poker room that provides value and entertainment to recreational players.
“There's absolutely no question about that, recreational is our focus,” said Mansour. “We're definitely moving into that niche but we're not shutting the door on the higher-volume players.
"The way the industry rewards players for their loyalty is on volume of play and that doesn't necessarily reflect the benefit they're giving to the site.
"Therefore the players that fall into the category of recreational, something like 95% of your total database of players, are not experiencing that reward program. And if they are, they're getting so little out of it that it's not really changing their behavior or making them play more and have more fun."
Mansour is banking on the idea that if recreational players get more bang for their buck, they're more likely to play longer, redeposit and help build a healthier poker ecosystem where professionals and high-volume players can make money playing against lots of amateurs.
"So we're not just doing what the rest of the industry did and cut off the high-volume player,” said Mansour. “That's not our intention. Our intention is to reward the recreational player better than before.
“So that will be a very significant change.
“We'll introduce a mechanic that will be very fun and entertaining in the way that we reward players so it's not just about a monetary value.”
While Mansour wouldn't give details of the incoming changes, he did say three or four major roll-outs will happen within the next month.
Watch the full video interview with Full Tilt's new Managing Director Dominic Mansour below.
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