If you steal the blinds here it seems there is $14 of called action (the blinds and the amount of your bet that covers the blinds) so dropping a buck if the trigger point is at $10 makes sense (this could occur if the pot is raked at 10% with trigger points in even dollars). In a 1/2 blind game they wouldn't take the blind steal since you never reach $10 in called action on a blind steal.

Why is it greedy? A hand was played was it not?

Randy, you were called "greedy" following your post and I think the poster was serious. Maybe this background will help.

In a limit game when you get no flop it's almost always due to a blind steal and customers get irritated when a drop is taken (even though in let's say $20/$40 limit you do get enough called action to generate the first dollar of drop). Of course LA area customers have become numb to big drops on small games; e.g., years ago Commerce took both blinds in 3/6 limit on a blind steal! Today they and some other casinos take $2 (a buck for the house and a buck for the jackpot) even on a blind "chop". As you know most players in LA chop blinds because if you play the clubs take a full drop the moment the flop hits (as an aside many dealers try to disguise this which sort of cracks me up in a perverse sort of way).

Now in no limit you will sometimes get a large pot that doesn't reach the flop - this almost never happens in limit. For example in a $2/$5 blind NL game you could have three limpers, a raise to let's say $40 followed by a reraise to $200 and all fold to the reraiser. The pot contains $102 in "called action" (am I using the right word here?). If you rake 5% with triggers at $40 and $80 then the house rake should be $2.

Oddly in LA if you get the scenario immediately above (in a club that doesn't take the jackpot drop pre-flop) you only pay $1 in drop. It's one of the few times LA is a better deal!

Now my guess is in your "raked" no limit game (given you now work outside of California) if the pot is small (i.e., below your first trigger point in collecting rake) you don't take a drop even if you make the flop (or river for that matter). If the poster who called your policy greedy reads this post and perhaps my linked story (which contains a virtual history of LA collection policies in the follow on comments) your policy would seem extremely fair.

OTOH, maybe I got the facts wrong and having worked in LA you couldn't help yourself

If more players would tell the other casinos that this one of the reasons they go to Borgata instead of the competing casino, they might reconsider whether or not this little ripoff is worth killing their poker room

Between comments you've posted here like "the only skill a floor person needs is to count empty chairs" and not understanding why a room wouldn't use NFND in a NL game, you come across as naive.

FYP

Your right my my comment about the floor is naive, I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong. But I never said I don't understand why they rake without a flop, they are trying to make as much money as possible.

However when your competition is not doing it and you are, it's penny wise, pound foolish.

This question keeps popping up as more and more players, especially new players, are playing for the first time with old nits. What do you want from the place where you play poker? Most of the players I know have a factored hourly whenever they play that varies depending on the game type and speed they're playing. The amount of rake taken in a hand where everyone folds preflop has little or nothing to do with that. (Except in cases where the table is tight and flops a seldom seen, but who wants to play in that?) There's simply a cost per round (blinds/antes, etc) if you're not catching cards.

The cardroom is usually licensed by the state they're in to allow for wagering in their facility. Whenever a wager is made, the house is directly involved, and therefore, most places are abliged to take the fee for allowing the wager in the first place. If playing in a relatively secure facility, (the reason you go to a licensed cardroom) you must understand that your rake is what makes all of that possible. If a cardroom doesn't spend some of that money on keeping their facility up to date, or in keeping with what the players expect, then, by all means, players shouldn't go there. But if you appreciate the way your local cardroom operates, why would you attempt to dictate to them how to run the business that keeps you in games?

If you want, try it the way most of us had it before poker gained such wide acceptance. Play at Joe Shmoe's home game and run the risk of getting robbed or cheated or popped by the feds looking for some RICO heavy hitter that might just be in the same room..

These are very strong reason why the brick and morter poker rooms have to charge a rake to pay their expenses plus make a profit.

But this answer also a common way for the casino to avoid or redirect the question. How common is "no flop no drop" ?

Why not explain why in some markets you can find both ways operating. No flop no drop and a drop no matter what happens. I guess the casino can do what ever they want. Just don't talk to us (players) like we are idiots

How do they get away with it? They don't at the higher limit games, since the players in those games demand a time charge, so the no flop issue never comes up. I guess another question is why do some casinos charge the 1/2 games more than the 5/10 games?

However at the 1/2 and other low limit game some casinos believe that not enough 1/2 players will complain and leave the game to play on the internet or competeing casino's. And even if there is. The casino will never admit it was due to management's decisions. They just blame the economy.

Casino's without BBJ tend to also have "no flop no drop" also. But casino's with a BBJ almost alway do not follow the "no flop no drop" rule. This is a another reason Ceasers poker room is dying, while across the street at Belliago and Venetian the rooms are still full.

It is no longer this way, but once upon a time cardrooms tried to rake the same amount from each table per hour. What this meant is 4-8 HE was 5% to $3, 10-20 HE was 5% to $2.50, 1-5 stud was 10% to $4. It used to be very common to charge smaller games more per hand because each hand took longer.

Not True. Well I guess it's true that casinos no longer try to rake different percentage on different games. That had to add some work for the dealers to keep up with what game had what percentage rake.

However, In the last few months I was in Las Vegas and the 1/2 and 2/5 games were raked the same amount and the higher games had a time charge. Also was at Harrah's Hammond this week they raked(also had a BBJ drop) the 1/2 and 2/5 games and but had a time charge(but no BBJ drop) for the higher limits.

The result are that the house actually takes more money off the table in low limit games than they do in the higher limit games.

It's kind of fun to point out to a 1/2 player that the casino is taking more off the table in their game and than the 5/10 game across the room with the towers of chips.

But there may a city or casino where the 5/10 and higher games are charged a percentage rake just like the 1/2 games

I believe this has more of an impact than you think. This is most evident when a table gets short handed, which is my favorite time to play. Most live players have no idea what to do in these situations. This happens from time to time during any given session and can be the most lucrative. But when I blind steal and instead of winning $7 I win $6 that can have a significant impact on my bottom line in the long run.

As far as dictating to a business on what to charge, this is key to the free market system. We do it everyday when we decide where to spend our money.

Just because legalized poker is much more common than it used to be, does not mean we as consumers should just accept what these businesses want to charge. It's one thing if they are the only game in town, but with competition and all other things being equal, it is in the consumers best interest to chooses the place that charges the most reasonable rates.

The vast majority of players do not make their choice of where to play based on the rake. There's at least a half dozen factors far more important to them. I'm sure there are those here who will try to argue this is not true, but it is.

What are you basing this statement on?

Years of experience working in casinos that have tried raked based promotions (1 dollar rake in the summer! Best promotion I have ever seen from a $ for players standpoint.), casinos that have raised or lowered their rake in adjustment to what their competition in the area are doing, speaking to poker room guests every day, and seeing raw numerical data.

What keeps the casinos from continuously raising their rake?

Of course like anything there is a point where you can go too far. I'm not sure where that point is. I am fairly certain that it isn't the difference in dropping 3 versus 4 or even 5 max so long as other casinos are in the same ballpark. I do think that in terms of maximizing their overall profit via balancing the rake and attracting customers that almost every casino does a pretty fair job. However, in my humble opinion, no flop no drop and a bad beat jackpot dollar are not significant factors in players' decisions on where to play. Since the rake is only absorbed by the winner of the pot, the low limit players (the bulk of a pokerrooms revenue) are by and large either ignorant of the long term effect of a dollar's change in rake, unconcerned by it, or in some cases not even know what a rake is.

Assuming this is true, casinos who charge $3 instead of $5 are missing out on making 67% more profit for no reason.

It's unfortunate that more regulars don't pay attention to rake. Lower rakes keep more money in the poker community and makes losing players lose more slowly, which is always better for the game. Where I play, I always hear regulars complaining about things like the bbj drop. Maybe they are all talk and no action.

I personally would never play somewhere that charges 25% - 67% more than another casino within the same distance, as long as the casinos were comparable and I didn't feel like there was a threat of bodily harm by playing there.

If the rake is too high you risk busting games to quickly by taking to much off the table to fast. If you kill off your games when new players show up and there is no game they move on somewhere else -- so you make money quickly at the cost of future earnings.

Also even though most players don't decide where to play based on rake (notice there are still players at Harrah's properties in Las Vegas) some rooms are going to have a higher percentage of those players, and those players are often the most vocal.

This is why when station's tried to go to $5 rake in Vegas the customers were very vocal and the attempt failed.

But shortly thereafter Harrah's went to $5 with much problem (it may have hurt Caesars if Caesars hadn't already been crushed anyway,)

We have "no flop no drop" in all our games, limit and no limit.

Commerce has the highest rake of any cardroom in the LA area. Commerce is also the busiest cardroom in the LA area.

It's always important to note during these types of discussions that the thinking players who frequent 2+2 are a pretty small chunk of the overall poker-playing community.

I think this is the key.
In an area where there is a choice of cardrooms, I think that most (but not all) regulars do take rake into account in deciding where to play (but only as one factor among several). But most casual players seem to be pretty oblivious to the rake.
Also, a lot of regular players rationalize that, since they play tightly and only participate in a few pots per hour, they're not really paying much rake, so it doesn't matter much, or a BBJ drop isn't really costing them much. (I disagree with this, but that's a whole different thread.)