That table take seems low to me. I haven't studied it, but I'd estimate about $120/hour. I'll do the numbers below at $100-120 per hour.

Where's 1/2, the most common LLSNL game? Also, I was not including 5/10 as LLSNL. That's a mid-stakes game. Also, it's a time rake game at a lot of venues. Last, but not least, a lot of places have 9-person tables, vs. 10, so I'll divide by 9.5.

So by my numbers we're looking at an average rake cost of about 5-6bb/hr for 1/2, 3.5-4bb/hr for 1/3, and 2-2.5bb/hr for 2/5.

At $10/$20 Bellagio the time rake is $7 per person per half hour, so $14/hr or $126/table each hour. Australia's rake is way higher than that but is still less than what you will find in many home games in the US.

During 3 days in August, I went to the casino with my tablet and I just tracked whatever I was paying for rake and tips at my 2/5 game. I wouldn't say that the tracking was perfect, but it was very close to being so.

My casino's rake 10% up to $5 +2 for jackpot. I did not track the jakepot drop separately as it would have been too tedious.

Over the course of 35 hours, I paid $420 in rake. This gives me $12 an hour for rake.

I never posted these results, because I don't if my sample size was good enough to draw solid conclusions and I don't know how the way I ran played a part in it. Fwiw, I ran tremendously hot during that time and made something like 7k during those hours in which I won a few big pots. Maybe if I was playing in a nittier game with many smaller pots, things would have been different.

So, if you can make more from this than I did, be my guest.

Beyond this, here's my take. I think I am averaging 30 hands per hour. I play around 25% of my hands. I would say on average 3 people see the flop - maybe a bit more than that, but less than 4. I don't know what percentage of those I am winning, but it can't be less than 33% and no more than 50%. Let's say 40%.

So 40% of 25% of 30 hands makes 3 wining hands an hour on average in which I pay rake. If we assume for the sake of simplicity that I pay full rake on each pot, it's either $15 per hour without the jackpot drop or $21 per hour with the jackpot. *

What am I missing?

* I just went back at the numbers I tracked and they show that over the course of 35 hours, I scooped 72 pots in which paid rake. This gives me an average of 2 pots per hour in which I paid rake.

I don't know if it makes sense to assume you pay all the rake in pots you win and no rake otherwise. Reality is whenever you contribute chips to a pot that's raked, you paid some rake. A player how never wins a pot still provides profit to the casino via rake.

So it may be an easy way to estimate rake paid but surely not totally accurate?

From my perspective, whether the pots I lost are raked or not doesn't make a difference. It's lost money to me either way.

Moreover, it makes sense to calculate rake by looking at your pots won, because the number and the size of the pots you win make a difference in the way the rake costs you as a proportion of your winnings or losses. I.e. a fish which plays 60% of his hands might be winning 20-25% of them which means they pay for 4 pots per hour which equals $20 of rake per hour.

Moreover, I just came up with the new way of looking at this. I know that in my local casino, the 5/10 game is time raked at $14 per hour. That's 1.5 BB per hour for each player.

However, from the point of view of the casino, each table has the same operating cost regardless of its stakes. i.e a 1/2 table has absolutely the same cost as a 5/10 table. So, if I were a casino operator, it would make sense for me to shoot for making the same money out of each table, perhaps trying to make a bit more where I can get away with it like the 5/10 game where the rake is such a low percentage of the money played.

So the $14 each players pays at the 5/10 tables is probably a very strong hint at how much each player pays on average at a 1/2 or a 2/5 table.

So assuming that a 2/5 and 1/2 player also pay around $14 an hour -probably even less- isn't a bad way of looking at it IMO. This also makes sense in explaining why the rake is such a burden in 1/2 as it's probably 5-7BB per hour whereas in 2/5 it's 2-2.5BB per hour.

Think you could use this information ^ to work out a 2/5 rake per hour at 10% capped at $15?

I wish I shared you optimism about this. They have been slow to spread in TX most likely because their legality is quite hazy. The first one to openly advertise itself as a legal poker room opened in Austin a year and a half ago. I heard there is one in Houston too. The problem is if they were to start popping up all over Texas that's when the out-of-state casinos would put the squeeze on and get them shut down.

If they were legal I would hope they would thrive rather than homegames that rake $20+ and skim off the top. That being said, the fish love to be wined and dined as they are in the home games.

derail deserves its own thread imo

That's true but what about this:

You're in a tight slow game and have a bad run where you lose four mid sized pots to other regs where rake comes out to just under the cap. The winners of those hands then exchange similar mid sized pots with other regs while you sit card dead.

You keep topping up to table maximum but no one else does. After 5 hours you finally get in a big pot with another reg and stack him. Trouble is he's not covering you because of all the back and forth mid sized pots bleeding chips to the rake.

So you win a big pot but it isn't as big as it would have been if V topped up or fewer back and forth mid sized pots had occurred earlier in the session. Some of those chips that left the table earlier and weren't replaced were your chips in the pots you lost earlier and fractions of the blinds you placed and lost whilr card dead. Therefore, in a very real way you paid rake on lost pots.

You don't notice it in a good game because plenty of fishy recs are sitting down, busting, reloading and being replaced by more of the same. NEVERTHELESS, the same thing is still happening.

You'll notice it immediately if you play headsup against someone who doesn't top up though.

This is a bad example ragequit, thats a very specific circumstance to where rake is effecting us if we are not winning the pots -- normally OS is correct in that rake unpaid by us should not have a (significant enough) dent in our WR

I guess it happens more than you think given llsnl players' tendency to let their stacks dwindle rather than top up regularly. To be honest I don't know how regularly it has an impact but money taken off the table whether it is in pots you win or pots you lose is money you can't win later so it must be having an effect across all hands, including ones you aren't even involved in I guess???

ragequit: that example is fine when talking about what the rake costs us, but Overtly is talking purely about money taken off the table in pots he won by the rake, and trying to distribute that across all players. Your example would be pretty much impossible to quantify, and also doesn't really add to finding out exactly how much money is taken off a table by the rake.


Calculating rake based off of how much you pay when you win the pot is obviously correct. If you ran hot over the sample then chances are you won a lot of pots after seeing the flop and paid a lot more rake than you normally would have.

Also 40% WWSF seems high if it's regularly going 3+ to the flop, but it's certainly possible.

Sample size is small, but doesn't really matter it's probably close enough. I'd say tracking rake is a pretty unnecessary thing to do and if you really want to track your rake there's better ways to do so... Overly does in the second half of his post.

How long have these places been around? How do they cover their costs? Would be very interesting to see if they remain in existence in a couple of years, because on the surface (admittedly I know absolutely nothing about them) they don't seem sustainable.

I mean, of course we'd all love to play at rake free tables. But that seems like a long term pipe dream to me.

ETA: Somehow missed your next post. 6 years in existence? Honestly, longer than I would have guessed. But you also mentioned "membership fees"; how much are these? That can't be glossed over, and could easily be priced similarly to rake (although very beneficial to high volume players, but incredibly taxing to very casual players who rarely play, depending on how the membership fee is applied obviously). Also, "self dealt" games? Sometimes there is simply a price to pay for knowing the game is above board; not sure I would ever trust a self dealt game (and ditto goes for safety of premises).

Gletmeknowifyoufindanygolfcoursesthatdon'tchargegr eenfeesG

Seems like a huge discussion to me. Could be the future of poker.

Posts were removed because it's a big derail to the thread. Would be fine as its own thread.

I do find it ironic that you are now the champion of the Portland club scene, after railing against it in the Portland LCP thread back in 2013, but that's neither here nor there to win rates, bankroll, and finances. I would welcome a thread on rake free private poker clubs, and under what conditions they can/can't work, if you'd like to start one, but this is not that thread.

Paying $10 - $15 per day (especially if you can pay them simply the days you show up) would definitely be awesome for players (compared to typical table rake). I'm just not convinced costs can be recovered offering that service for *so* cheap, but I guess time will tell.

ETA: In before G's derail comment, my bad.

Gtakeadvantageofitwhileyoucan,imoG

I don't think you re paying 3 times as high a rake as I calculated because not all pots reach $150. It's probably 2.5 times as much. I think you re paying 5-6BB per hour.

However, I do feel that with so much rake taken out of all the players that could also have an additional effect on how much you re winning as well.

Btw, do you have tipping in Australia? Because that could be around 1BB you re saving if you don't.

Actually, I didn't delete any posts at all, and didn't know that any mentioned me. I just saw the notes that another mod made, and had seen some of the posts before they got deleted, so I knew why the notes said "derail."

My assumption is that the other mod left enough of it to know what the discussion was about, without the constant back-and-forth.

As I said before, if you want to make a thread about this issue, feel free. If you want to PM APD and ask him to cut-and-paste the posts that were deleted into a new thread, feel free. Further posts about the issue ITT will be deleted and may be infracted, however.

Sorry if this was covered earlier but couldn't find it earlier in the thread, what is the name of this app?

Looks pretty phenomenal for in game stat keeping, I have been just taking notes and inputing them to excel when I get home but this seems way easier and more functional. Thanks

Rake in his casino is 7 ish bb/hr. There is also a one off sit down charge of $5 and you pay again if you table change.

Also worth noting that the game plays bigger and more multi way pre flop in Aus than other markets. 5x is very common pre and will very often get 3 callers, so max rake gets hit on most pots at 2/5.

$3 of the $15 he is quoting is taken for a permanent promotion.
there is no tipping of gaming staff allowed in Aus casinos.

Having done my own calculations, I believe I pay $10-15 more per hour than the standard American 2/5 hourly take

Also in reference to my original post thank you all for the feedback, I have already mentally converted to bb's/hour rather than bb's/100. Makes a lot more sense live and also makes the win rate seem less daunting and more realistic, was obvious but thank you none the less.

As for the rake vs "no rake" discussion, I would have to say that in my limited experience the people that care the most about rake are the people you would least want in a lineup. Old nit guys bitching and moaning to the floor for rake reductions and holding up the game while they voluntarily put 5$ per hour into the pot. Obviously rake sucks, but it is a necessary evil for reasons stated above. And while rake reduction or zero rake would absolutely appeal
to the community as a whole, advertising lower rake or no rake is a recipe for a super reg infested game in my opinion.

The players who don't care/ don't know about rake are the ones who most benefit the game unfortunately and the ones who are least likely to care about any promotion involving it. I think this problem is in the same vein that RUNITONCE will face online, while they will undoubtedly offer a more player friendly environment, convincing the recreational player of that will take more than simply showing that they have a lower rake. If it doesn't matter to the customer, it doesn't matter.

Thanks for this. Do you think the games are sufficiently fishier to warrant grinding Crown?

Pros are:
1. no tipping
2. not paying 30% income tax on your winnings
Cons:
1. rake

I'm thinking about playing full time next year but am worried if I put in the same volume in the UK with the same WR, I'd make like $50k+ more there since the rake is so much smaller...

OK I get it now, thanks Bluegrass and Overtly

Late to the party on this discussion but yea, Vegas and Florida are not even on the same planet ime, though my Florida experience is limited to a month stay about 2 years ago. Could be that the games have changed to where there's not as big of a difference, but according to squid face, that doesn't seem to have happened.

In what context is florida =/= vegas?