Running like Fire Explained
TLDR? Nope. It's worth the read.
Have you ever noticed an obvious Newbie Whale continue to catch cards, whether it’s pre flop, or on the river? They are running like fire, and this obviously frustrates you because you can’t seem to catch dik to save your life and you are a world class player. (in your mind/in your delusional mind.)
Understand that there is a delicate poker ecosystem. There are some minor and major reasons why what was once a flourishing and booming ecosystem around 2005, is now a drying up wasteland (like a woman in her 30s)
Lack of influx of new money. You may want to argue with me that of course there is still fish money coming in. True, there will always be some people that want to gamble it up. But why would they gamble with people like us who study the game, where they have a edge of -80% in any given situation in poker with skilled players, vs going against the house in blackjack where they have only a -55% edge (50/50 essentially)? Most degen gamblers will now choose to do the latter, as they know that there is quite a bit of information and literature on professional poker playing on the internet, which these “whales” do not have time to learn and read/study/practice for hundreds of hours on end. They just want to have fun.
The demand for New money Waaaaaay Exceeds the supply of New Money Coming in. So many young players trying to be good, trying to make it, not enough degeners.
Assume that we live in a small town/city with a couple card rooms. Ask yourself, how does a casino continually sustain a negative sum game? (as there is rake of approx 6-8$/pot, meaning that if 9 players sit with 200$ in front of them or 1800$ total, without additional buy-ins the table will have no money on it in the matter of hours)
Additional buy-ins of course. But money is not infinite, unless we consider a paycheck an infinite source of income. It’s only a limited time before a repeat loser Whale at this cardroom understands that he always loses at poker, but possibly has a shot at blackjack. And thus we lose a customer.
When the whales leave, each professional grinder loses a ton of value, lets say from winning $12/hr, to $2/hr or very likely a negative monetary amount, such as -$45/hr. It’s easy to lose quite a bit of money only going up against other sharks or nits or grinders. I know from experience.
Does a casino have a way to combat this? Possibly. But you have to open your mind to the possibility of game fixing. Just as the US economy is regulated by government and banks, the individual casino is a scaled down version of an economy. The neighboring casino’s can be seen as other countries economies. The US gov’t regulates it’s economy by inflation, internal and external forces, taxes, etc. If a casino wanted to get rid of it’s poker room and send those players elsewhere to potential higher revenues such as slot machines, they would either flat close the poker room or increase the tax on playing poker (ie raise the rake) so more players “choose” on their own accord to play table games and slots.
You can see when Poker rooms try and expand their player pool by designing a variable reward program such as a jackpot or a high hand bonus. These programs have a limited effect.
When the Whales leave, games die. The top sharks eat the little sharks, and once there are 5 players or so everyone gets up cashes out. That means no more revenue for that given table. For a large casino, lets say the Bike Casino in LA, one table closing means (26 hands/hr x $7) $182 lost per hour. (26 hands per hour x 1.5$ average for tip per hand = 40$)
$220 per hour lost in pure revenue for the casino, per hour. and lets say the game closed at 11 but sometimes they go until 5 am, 6 hrs x $220 = $1320 lost for the whole night.
At your local town card room, with only 1 or 2 tables, that amount is a huge percentage the entire nights take, 30-40%, maybe higher.
Another thought to ask yourself, is there incentive for a casino to cheat? An extra table running all day is $220x24hours ($5280) in revenue, a broken table can equate to that much revenue lost. How does a casino maximize the number of tables at any given time? By maximizing medium and long-run repetition in customers. A casino can’t just gangster up and force people to come in. They can advertise, sure. But I’ve learned in banking and sales, the easiest customers to sell to are the ones that strut right into your business. So imagine a middle-aged man, with a steady income, coming into a casino for the first time. Ready to gamble, or learn to gamble it up with the big boys. How exciting! Is this gentleman likely to come back tomorrow, or the next weekend? It really depends. It depends on how he did today, and how winning made him feel. The feeling of WINNING is the determinate factor in gambling addiction. If I lost every single time I played any particular game, I wouldn’t want to ever play again. So the casino has incentive to RIGG the cards, skewed towards the NEWBINGTON. Does a casino want Mr. Whale Newbington to continue to come into their casino? YES. Is it just for his $7 rake money that they absorb every orbit?? Absolutely NOT. Is it for the magnetic attraction that this Whale has that draws other people to stay and play longer? Absolutely YES.
Tonight, Mr. Whale Newbington-first time player, will likely indeed cash up a rack or so. His bad plays and draws will hit this night. Regs and Recs will be furious that their superskills has once again been foiled by “LUCK.” Pros and sharks will have their best smiles on, shake the hand of Mr. Whale Newbington and tell him “It was awesome meeting you. Nice job!” but really hope that Whale will come back, and rationalize that his luck will run out.
At any given time, there is only a short supply of readily available rich people who love to lose money. Because of this, measures must be taken for a cardroom to remain sustainable (for a small room) or thriving (for a large room).
In turn, as they are incentivized to reward the new Whales that come in, casinos are incentivized to deplete and kill off the top of the food chain hunters, also known as the predator shark. If there are too many sharks, then all the fishies in the lake die off. Thus poker is dead.
Casinos don't care about giving winning players their fair share, the big boys don't have incentive to keep you happy. They however, do have incentive to keep Mr whales happy. They also have the technology as well. Why do you think those card shufflers cost tens of thousands of dollars? Just sayin.
