In the upcoming WPT Legends at the bicycle casino in the $3700 entry $200 will be taken out as an entry fee. Then a sneaky 3% of the remaining $3500 $105 additional dollars will be taken out as an administration fee. For $10000 its $400 and $288. At first I assumed it was going to staff tips, but multiple dealers have told me they do not receive any portion of this 3%.

Shocking....until everyone finally stands up to the industry, nothing will change. We all know nothing will change.

Structure sheet for WPT Legends of Poker, for those curious:
http://www.thebike.com/pdf/tournamen...main_event.pdf

Edit: is this THAT unusual? I notice Bellagio does the same for its Festa Al Lago and Five Diamond events:
http://www.bellagio.com/files/casino/festallago.pdf
https://www.bellagio.com/files/casin...er_Classic.pdf

Edit again: and Borgata pulls another 3 percent from the prize pool for dealer gratuities, per New Jersey law.
http://www.theborgata.com/assets/PDF...ip-event14.pdf

I'll stop now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN6mp2NjMhs

As long as people enter at those prices they will remain. Funny thing people would probably pay more. Most are recreational players anyway. For example if they made the "admin"fee 5% how much less entries would there be? If it wasn't for an outcry from regs they probably would do that

I try to speak out... and often feel quite alone in doing so. $189,800 gross income for running ONE poker tournament is just obscene.

I quit playing poker on a regular basis, although I will take infrequent "shots" at a nice score. I can't justify being a "regular" at these rakes/fees/taxes/tips.

Edit: I just realized, they ran a lot of satellites for that tournament... and they raked those hard as well obviously. So let's say the gross was very likely $200K+. Run that thru your brain. We're on the wrong side of the table, boys and girls... anybody want to start a poker tournament business with me?

Edit #2: And if you're lucky enough to final table it, they'll still ask you to "remember to tip your dealer" as they hand you your cash. Brazen is the word. They play us for suckers, for fools.

If you've been paying attention at all, you may have noticed L.A. area card rooms have been raping players for decades in all facets of their operation. Yet people still sit in the games for some strange reason. I prefer driving to Vegas to play casual poker because they're not quite as greedy.

No thanks the ROI is too low, we would do better selling books on 2+2.

Let's say we go ahead anyways and host our own $3,700 tournament. We manage to attract 1000 players.

Multiple starting days and we'll need at least 50 dealers to get the game started. Even at minimum wage, with little or no benefits, dealer costs will run us about $80,000.

Additional labor costs of $80,000 for the employee training, tournament director, floor personnel, waitresses, cleaning staff, facility maintenance engineers, security, cashiers and a human resources department to manage all of those employees.

Facility costs of $50,000 to cover heating, cooling, lighting, insurance, mortgage or rent.

Unrecoverable consumable costs will run $40,000 for things like advertising, communication equipment, poker tables, chairs, computers, tournament video screens, licensed software, printers, paper, toilet paper, hand towels, soap, water and snacks. We won't offer free alcohol (like that will give us a leg up on the competition!).

Include $50,000 opportunity costs for the loss of income from the initial outlay of cash for buildings, equipment and furnishings.

We should have a reasonable expectation of profit and pay taxes for our successful business venture. A conservative estimate would be $50,000 per tournament.

To run the event we need to take about $350-$400 from each player.

Casinos are not built around live tournament poker income. If they were, we would be paying a lot more than we do now for the privilege of playing in live tournaments.

If you have any issues it should be with your government not the casino. To come up with the $3.7M buy in money for this tournament, players would have to earn about $4.7M before taxes. After our costs and tax on winnings there is about $2.5M available for player prizes.

That's about a 50% vig for our boys in DC. Makes Vegas look like small time hustler.

isn't this standard now? pretty sure several east coast venues are doing the same thing.

increased rake+increased fees+decreased hotel discounts for events= one big nut to try to cover.

On my Facebook mo the bike td claims that the $10k quantum reload has $9600 going directly to the prizepool.

Can someone snap a photo of that and post in this thread?

The total fees for the $3700 buy-in ($3395+105+200) is 8.2%, which is better than WPT Borgata's 8.5% ($3201+99+200) and WPT Montreal's 11.8% ($3395+105+350). Can "MO THE BIKE TD" confirm that none of this extra 3% administration fee goes to dealer tips?

The total fees for the terrible Quantum Reload $10,000 is 6.8% ($9312+288+400). Rich players can re-enter up to four times and repay the full fees four times totaling $1,585. This is great for Bicycle Casino, but all those re-entries with full rake are bad for the poker economy and make players go busto faster.

This is actually not a bad idea. Not a business, but maybe host a single poker tournament. Maybe, 8% rake.. 3% to dealers/staff etc, 3% to charity, 2% profit..

WHat are the regulations for say, hosting a poker tournament at just a nice hotel somewhere desirable?

I didn't see Mo Fathipour mention the "$9600" figure in his reply to you on Facebook or 2+2. Many casinos have gotten into the bad practice of showing only the entry/administration fee ($400 in this case), then burying the extra 3% fee off the prize pool in the fine print ($288).

After we succeed as a poker community in preventing the Quantum Reload virus from spreading into other Main Events, your next crusade should be for casinos to properly disclose the exact amount that actually goes to the players' prize pool, e.g., $9,312 + $688, NOT
"$9,600 + $400" + hidden fees.

This. My first visit to Commerce was like a spiritual pilgrimage until I saw how much they rake...won't be back.
Also, I remember Matusow being very vocal a couple years ago about the insane rake at the WSOP. What happened? Shouldn't more pros be speaking out about it?

Did you ever realize that if you leave a tip for the dealers after the tournament concludes, the amount you tip will be taxed twice by the IRS? It will be taxed as being your income from your tournament winnings... and it will also be taxed as being the income of all the collective dealers it is distributed to.

So one income provides TWO tax revenues, just because we're "nice guys". I just made a thread about this topic here.

The obvious solution is that we tournament players should NEVER leave a tip. Let the casinos pay their dealers and staff a wage that ensures the supply of dealers will be sufficient. They're the rich moneybags, not us!

The "a 3% fee will be deducted from the prize pool" fine print is all anyone needs in order to have a clear conscience upon leaving the casino. If reminded to tip (as I usually am reminded), just state that sentence from the fine print on their flyer, thank the TD for running a fine tournament, and walk out.

Edit: And while I'm on a roll... let's not forget my other pet peeve - "dealer toke" add-ons in cash paid at the table before the tournament begins. This stuff has gotta stop, and its only gonna stop if we poker players stand up for ourselves somehow. And don't tell me the PPA either. sigh

The difference is that the 3% goes to the dealers and staff. Multiple Tournament dealers at the bike have told me that they get none of this 3%. It seems the bike is keeping this 3% and double dipping with two entry fees.

Perhaps. But per the structure sheet, "$3 from every $100 in the prize pool will be withheld for administration fee."

So if he said that it's at least ambiguous as to whether the 3% withholding applies to the $9600.

Is this listed somewhere else than the structure sheet I posted? The only mention of a three percent fee that I can find is at the bottom of the sheet:

"$3 from every $100 in the prize pool will be withheld for administration fee."

So there is another three percent coming out of the prize pool that's not reflecting in that sheet? Or do you mean they are double-dipping by taking this AND expecting a winner's tip to the dealers? Either way, it's pretty shady if it's not up front.

Rake has been going up for years with no end in sight. It's not even worth complaining about anymore.

It's worth letting tournament managers know that you're not playing due to the high rake. Not in a bitchy way -- just engage in conversation and let them know you're amazed they get so many entries, but you're not gonna be one of them.

There're other things to do than pay ridiculous rake. The $135 tournaments at Harrahs, $100 to prize + $35 fee, are amazingly bad.

$235s at wsop everyone assumes 200 plus 35 but it's not.

I never quite understand. If they take extra money out of tournaments for an "administration fee," what is the original rake for???

fwiw always assumed that the 3% extra was for dealers and staff but was told by someone that the dealers dont get any. not sure if i believe it or not but that 3% should def go to them, the casino already takes the rake

This is what they want you to assume that the additional 3% is going to dealers and staff like other tourneys. But the bike just keeps that additional 3% as another fee. In my opinion there should only be only entry fee. Im fine with an added dealers take but it needs to go to the dealers.

That's the scam. Same as the "administration fee" that all the card rooms steal from the Bad beat jackpot pool.