Quote:
Originally Posted by CarlQ
There's no way the OCCC forces poker rooms to have promo funds. If it is such a hassle on their end and players are split about whether they like or hate them, why not just do away with them?
It seems undeniable in my opinion that the room is busier when good promos are running, so they'd be really dumb to get rid of them entirely and therefore lower their take (house drop). There's so many promo chasers at low limit and 1/2 NL here and elsewhere in the country that'll rarely set foot in a poker room unless they have a shot to get lucky and hit a (relatively) big additional score. This is very good for winning regs to get these players in the room for obvious reasons, so the neutral EV JP drop is usually worth it for all players up to a certain extent (which this room is pushing).
While still much better than the older 6+1 format, when this place takes a second JP dollar after only $20 in the pot, I think as players you almost have to play during the good promo time frames only or it's a complete ripoff and tough to beat the rake at all, unless you're playing 2/5. If there's no promo (or just a meager $200 HH) and you're playing 1/2 NL, it's essentially a 7+0 rake with $4 taken out of the pot after only $20! Good luck with that when at least half the pots are less than $30 total from what I tend to witness while waiting for PLO. I feel like this structure makes players go broke more quickly, especially when they're running cold on promo hits. The 2nd JP dollar should be taken at $30 or even $40 like other places I've played at, otherwise these low limit games are just too tough to beat for too many people and I think it hurts room traffic over time. I think it can also hurt the dealers' bottom line because some players may be less inclined to tip on small pots when so much is already being taken out, but I digress.
Going back to your original point Carl about them giving away $300k this month, I think part of that may be that they ran a promo recently where players earned hours to qualify to draw 5 cards and made money based on the hand ranking drawn. They offered a huge payout if you made a full house, quads, straight flush, etc., but only $25 or $50 on the bottom if you made no pair or one pair. Basically almost nobody was able to draw anything huge all month, so their total payout had to have been much lower than anticipated. They had to make sure they had the funds to cover a miracle hit which ultimately never came (from what I've heard), thus the bloated fund now. I applaud the creativity, but I thought that promo was complete garbage because it's like a lotto ticket and was too hard to make anything meaningful back. If management reads this, giving players a flat return like the pay to play is infinitely better imo. I have no interest in grinding 6+ hours to make $25 a day, but pay me $500 a week like the top end of pay to play, and you've got me 40 hours for sure paying you rake.