Quote:
For cash games, Yes. I think you can make the case that the current membership/time charge is close to equally the rake you could expect at many casinos.
For tournaments, No. Especially for lower buy-in tournaments, the time charge ends up being much higher than the typical casino tournament charge. Only large buy-in tournaments might get close to being equal.
The reason i say it is unsustainable is as follows
take all the rooms that are houston...approx 20....
on a given night you will see
10-12 tables at prime
2-5 at post oak
and a smattering of 1-3 at the others..lets say 1.5 on all the others
so we are looking at 50 tables running across all the clubs
that 500 people...and houston has a population of 2.6 million
lets even double that number for in and out people 1k of 2.6 million kinda sums up the number of people that are attracted to these places ..
poker is by and large become a very niche game after 2009-2011
its not growing in the casino world and this is widely represented in these numbers
This "experiment" is about 1 yr old and already we are seeing cracks in the concrete of the sustainability issue - bickering and break ups of ownerships - branch offs of partnerships when the club does not make the money they were when they first went in biz...
Having hosted 20 yrs - I have seen my fair share of ups and downs and seen a decline in the past 5 yrs that does not take a Nobel laureate in economics to see the overall decline.