While watching the final table of the 2018 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, I saw a player wearing a promotional patch for Stake Kings. One of the announcers, who I later discovered is the poster boy for Stake Kings as I saw his image come up as soon as I visited the site, mentioned the patch and what Stake Kings is.
First, let's discuss what staking is, which is also often referred to as "getting/selling a piece of a player," or "selling action." Staking is when a poker player entering what is usually a very large and expensive poker tournament sells a portion of their potential earnings in exchange for a vested interest in that player.
For example, watching the WSOP Big One for One Drop, which has a $1M buy-in, I learned that poker pro Justin Bonomo sold 9% of his action to around 280 different stakers. This means he raised $90,000 (at least), likely with a small markup from 10-25%. Justin ended up winning the tournament, netting him a $10M first-place prize, and bringing his backers a 10x return ($900,000) on their investment minus taxes.
Before watching this year's WSOP, I wasn't aware that staking was being crowdfunded online (I should have assumed). I had always heard of this practice among major players and just figured that is was an exclusive offer that pro players offered other pro players.
The concept of staking makes a lot of sense for the poker player even if they are likely to make money in an event because they are reducing their exposure (lessening their risk). They can also help build a fan base around them by giving their supporters a rooting interest in them.
Stake Kings allows nearly anyone to buy a piece of a professional player's action. The player chooses what percentage of their buy-in fee they want to raise and then publishes their "ask" to the Stake Kings community.
Stake Kings is not the only player in this space. Conducting a little research, I also found You Stake. The site allows players to sign up and create their first campaign for free to raise money in order to play poker tournaments.
The amount needed to get a part of someone's action starts as low as $20. While I don't believe that I would dish out a large amount of my money to purchase the action of a poker player, it does add an interesting aspect to the game of poker, especially in big tournaments.
Imagine if a player owns action in a player they are playing in a hand against. Although they would still want to win, their action may be influenced by the knowledge that if they lose, they still win in some regard because they own a percentage of that player's future winnings.
As a player, I would certainly be interested in selling a percentage of my action (if anyone wanted it) because it can be very difficult to enter and play in poker tournaments with large buy-ins simply because of the cost.
What are your thoughts on the world of staking?
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