Last night I played at the Horseshoe and noticed they are now dropping 6+2. Some players at the table said that Caesar’s Palace has also raised their rake to $6. This also means the cash games at the wsop in the Paris ballroom will have a $6 rake now. This is not good for Vegas as I’m sure the Venetian will follow suit and it could start a domino effect where all the rooms raise their rake.

Instead of raising to $10, I’m going to raise to $11 and end up at least $1 ahead.

Problem more than solved

I’m surprised it took this long. Caesars used to rake $1 more than the other properties on the Strip fwiw.

But when Covid hit Venetian was taking $6+$3 and the room was packed because they were doing a high hand promotion; even regs probably showed up thinking it was profitable. Of course they were playing 1-3.

Edit: Only 2 poker rooms at Caesars properties today wow. 3 when they have the WSOP.

Caesars leads the way in penny pinching given their terrible financial situation, but like what you said it's surprising it took so long for them to really adjust things upwards. I think in most cases, most casinos are no longer looking at poker rooms as a loss leader but rather just a money losing operation. Take a look at some of the statistics related to table games on casino floors. It's drastically decreased over the last 15 years and accelerated in recent years. I literally just saw pictures last night of a casino that removed a third of their table games off the floor.

Caesars poker room was raking 4 dollars max when other rooms were doing 5 or more my last time playing in there around 2018 or so.

Why is higher rake not good for Vegas?

FWIW, I never got why poker rake was so low at the big Vegas properties based on how expensive everything else is on the Strip.

That’s true, when they opened that room they made an effort to attract business. I was thinking more around 2010-2015 when they had more rooms like Harrah’s, Planet Hollywood, Flamingo, etc.

Why is it good for Vegas?

Bring more 6/5 Blackjack, it's good for Las Vegas. lol

I didn't say it was good. I just wanted to know what benefit the city of Las Vegas has from lower rake.

It's obviously not good for poker players but how does it hurt the city?

As a citizen of this fine and great city I applaud the decision to increase the tax revenue coming in

Maybe competition. Lots of options closely packed together.

It is a trend and it sucks, but costs are going up everywhere. Eventually it does get to a point where the games become harder and harder to beat and people lose interest/there are fewer games. Someone making a few grand as a hobby may now lose, etc. The promo thing is another issue. Near me they have gone to three dollar promo drop so they can have big high hands all the time. While they give it all back you have to be there when they have the big promos to maximize and it’s extremely high variance (ie almost everyone is stuck from it) and it changes game play (not for the better…people are conservative with chips in many cases and don’t want to bet hands…you can exploit it but not as much as you can wild loose play). Best option is to not play jackpot games (ie PLO) or play time games (mid limit hold em, mix, higher no limit) if you can. But the trend sucks in general…it’s not like 1-3 is playing bigger but more and more money comes out, and it becomes more and more like a table game with the promo focus and forced sucker bet you have to make every hand.

Caesars games are horrible anyway

Why? Please explain?
I played there during last years WSOP and liked the place. You don't choke with cigarette smoke like the horseshoe and wynn..

Tight not a lot of action

But hard to generalize, all it takes is one or two people at a table throwing a party

I don’t choke in anyplace but would think there would be more of that in Caesars given where it is

Maybe this will start to help kill the 1/2 and 1/3 games. With rake increases it doesn't make any sense to play smaller then 2/5. When I started playing 20 years ago most he games were 1/2. Taking inflation in consideration we should be evolving away from anything smaller then 2/5 anyways.

when you live here full time, you get a different perspective on poker rooms... during any short period in time, like during the wsop, most places will change significantly.

On the whole, Caesars is NIT polluted with the same smelly old players week in week out... On the weekends it is better, and its not that I don't play there occasionally, but it's definitely NOT my first choice.

True although buy in min/maxes in 1/2 and 1/3 are generally higher than they were 20 years ago.

No shot in hell this happens. Small stakes recreational players will keep showing up and demanding to play these games. The casinos will keep spreading them to generate rake. They do not care if players are profitable, only if the casino is profitable.

It makes a lot of sense to play 1/2 for a lot of people. It’s cheaper to chase promotions, very few pros, nits feel more comfortable at lower stakes and it’s the level they have played at before and they have no intention to move up.

Just look at some of the vloggers playing low stakes. They don’t care about moving up. Vegas has a lot of players like this. Even after inflation $300 is still a lot of money to them.

People still played 2/4, 3/6 and 4/8 limit games even though the rake was too high for those games. For them it’s a great cheap way to chase promotions.

People pay slots and pit games despite being at a disadvantage.

Edit: I wish you were right though.

"The stuff I buy aren't affected by inflation." - Diesel

that's the point I've tried to make about limit games. We were playing 10/20 20 years ago and the game is still 10/20. Should be at least 20/40, but nope.

Where's that? Very few games of that limit anymore anywhere.

The first time I played poker in a casino, 20 years ago, it was 1/2 LHE. Those games died. Then 2/4 died. Now 3/6 is almost dead, don't think it's available in Las Vegas or Atlantic City at all, or maybe just in one place each. The smallest games are definitely dying off. Unfortunately, many of the bigger games are also.

here in AC, low-limit LHE is nowhere near dead. granted we only have harrahs and borgata (trop is on life support), but 3/6 runs at harrahs all day every day and is usually full spread. borgata has it occasionally but has switched to a 2-4-6-12 variant which almost always has a deep wait list