So in the place I live we have two main casinos both offering very attractive rake-back offers to bring in new custom/regs from competing casinos.

Casino #1
- Rake is £3 on any pot over £20 and is capped at £3.
- Every pot you win which is raked, they give you a £1 tournament token credit which can be used for all nightly tournaments and bigger (£220/£440) events in all casinos under that brand.
- High hand also a £220 tournament seat as well as another £220 seat given away every Tuesday night for the high hand of that night
- Players are generally worse and play deeper than casino #2. If the choice was to play at either casino if no rake-back schemes were in place, I'd put all my volume here and I don't think it's close

Casino #2
- Rake is 5% capped at £5 + 50p from every pot going to BBJ
- £5,000 high hand every week over 8 casinos where player who gets high hand gets the full amount or splits it with others if multiple people get the same high hand.
- £30,000 BBJ where AAA10 has to be beat when people cards are using both cards. When BBJ reaches £40,000 AAA22 has to be beat.
- BBJ is split 40% of loses, 20% for winner, 20% for rest of table(s) in casino and last 20% split between all players playing cash in 8 casinos. For references, BBJ popped at 40k last time when I was grinding in a different casino and got £69 as part of the final 20% split.
- They have a cash race which goes as follows;
Top 20 from each participating casino who play the most hours get put into a cash race where players are given varying stacks (1-5 £300, 6-10 £270, 11-15 £230, £16-20 £210) and after 3 hours of play with £1-2 blinds players with top 5 stacks go onto free regional finals where top 32 over 8 casinos
are given £500 and same tournament is played with everyone starting on £500. Top 5 from that given cash prizes £5,000, £4,000, £3,000, £2,000, £1,000 for finishing 1st-5th.
- Free £7.50 food voucher after 3 hours of play to which must be used on day/day after.



From writing them down it looks obvious to play at casino 2, however people who play there sit much more shallow, and are generally more nitty so you're making a lower hourly, especially when you are likely to get raked for max 5% a lot since pots don't get over £100 too much is very significant over a long term. Also demand in Birmingham is pretty bad for poker so both casinos only usually get 1 table a day of cash playing for like 6-7 hours max usually.

My question is, if you could put volume in each casino, which would you choose? Both definitely have their own merits.

To answer that question, we'd have to be able to compare expected win-rate (WR) at the two, as well as comp-rate. And really, rake should be considered in the WR calculations, not the comps considerations.

+1^. Also, I'd be looking to move, if at all possible. 1 table per casino sux.
Also, Alabama ranks ~46th in medium household income. Not much $$ to be made I would think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ates_by_income

First place sounds much better to me. Softer games, significantly lower rake cap, and decent comps on top with T$? Sign me up.

Since OP is using pounds, pretty sure he means Birmingham, England.

How much money other players dump and table selection is going to matter much, much, MUCH more to your winrate than rakeback/promotions. I'd take Casino #1 even if it was 5+1 a hand with no RB and even if you paid no rake whatsoever at #2.

There's the obvious truism that a poker room with generous rake/promotion is only attractive to people who give a flying crap about a few pounds an hour. In general those are not people you want to play poker with if you are concerned about winning money.

Duh...... And just yesterday I was asking why people don't read everything in OP......

Just reading the listing I like casino #1. In the long run the lower rake cap per pot will probably save you more then you will win from high hand/BBJ and other comps.

The bad beat/high hand and most other comps are really not worth much. They are mostly so hard to hit they don't matter. If you are thinking like a pro you are mostly looking at how many more people they bring in. The food voucher may be worth while if they actually have decent food. If that will get you out of paying for a meal when you go that is worth a little.

The tournament comps depend on how hard the tournaments are and if you are any good at playing in them. That is enough of a comp that it would matter if you where thinking about entering the tournaments anyways. If it sucks you into playing tournaments you wouldn't have then it is probably -EV just from keeping you away from the cash tables. Also, see if you can sell them to somebody that is entering the tournament.

I don't play tournaments and rakeback is transferable to be sold so thats not a problem.

I was almost sure that casino #1 was the optimal choice, considering you're playing less than half the rake and the players play deeper and just as easy. Just wanted to see if someone had a different perspective than I did. Thanks all.