most of the private clubs are operating illegal or at least bend the rules hence the big ones are now shut even after lengthy legal battles (gutshot, int, big bluff) PLUS, they don't have to pay the 50% tax on income from poker/gambling as they don't have a proper casino/gambling license (we all know these venues are poker clubs, but pretend to be private clubs offering other activities to stay semi legal)

the vic and empire both run there card room as a seperate venue/licence purely for more slot machines, as the rules/licensing limits the amount of slots a venue can have. (we all know they are the same, but technically they are different and thus have more slots than they normally would have)

and as you say, tournaments lose money, alot of money, but if they can convert even a small % of the players who bust the tournament to the cash tables or pit games they make there money back very quickly, but as a card room manager discussed with me, there are lots of core tournament grinders who play just the comps and then leave, without spending/risking money, and the ones that do its very hard for the casino to track there gambling so its hard to know how good the poker rooms are at generating people to play on the pit games

in answer to cash games, a 1/2 with decent action can make £150+ an hour EASILY, more in a fast paced game with a decent dealer, thats 5% capped at £10. so all these private venues/home games with rake thats usually that or higher are making chunks, with much less running costs, even 1 decent 1/2 game could make £1000 a night for the owner, so you do the maths

as for profit of a card room, as a rough guide, if aspers is generating £70k in lloyalty drops (£1 for every hand over £20 in the pot) thats 70,000 hands over £20, now at 1/1, which is 95% of there games, thats a minimum of £140,000 or rake assuming every pot was £20, but we know lots of pots are over £20, reaching the £5 a hand cap! so a realistic indication from aspers room is they are raking £250,000+ a month (ok it might be a bit less but i think thats pretty accurate) but unless you know the running costs and rent etc of aspers its not easy to calculate profit, but who really cares?

over the last few years, i would say london poker has picked up since the so called recession, but more so in the low stakes games, which are busier than ever imo

Nice post.

Lease and location are the key points regarding running costs.

Who cares? pretty much me, sciopath, and tha other dude. So shame you ruined your post but slapping that on the end of it. Schoolboy error. Haha.

Do you ever worry when someone replies to you without reading your post?

Property prices and minimum wage though.

And yes, a very good reason the empire would make such a loss leader is that they are losing significant custom.

Im juz ****ing with u unibet. Standard 2p2 dyslexia autocorrect rub down.

Dont be sad pal. Im just a friendly unt.

But... a club makes much more money charging £10 rake - then in US paying a small amount for wages [and letting dealers keep tips to make up the rest] and charging $5.

I did look into all of these a couple of years ago.

I'm not sure what your point on Empire running Sun and Mon at £5 cap. Are you suggesting that Empire is losing money charging £10 max... and so have decided they will get MORE than double the players and so not lose money charging £5 max????

The room will make money on £5 cap. Not as much as £10 cap obviously.

Now this being the Empire... I wonder if this Sun and Mon thing counts as a promotion??? So they can make up the loss of any rake they don't take above £5 from the £1 promotional/bad beat/cash race drop.

As it felt to me like the rake free card promotions were all coming out of the £1 drop.

But just to repeat - yes casinos make money on cash games... good money. But of course they make more from table games.

It doesn't matter that casinos make more from table games than poker; they make more money by having the poker tables there rather than just having a casino floor or they would not do it.

A lot of the profit from the bar and the restaurant at the Vic will came from people who have come in only because they ahve a poker room.

Sorry to be clear - people are saying that the poker tables lose money.

That is just not true [from the evidence I have seen]

And if the casino had more people wanting to play table games [then they had tables] I am sure they would close the poker rooms. As the difference per sq ft is so high.

But they don't.

Have you ever seen any London casino where people couldn't get onto a gaming table. Maybe there are sometimes/places where this has been the case - but I have never seen it

So the casino doesn't lose money by having poker tables - as they can't fill up the number of gaming tables they already have

The Vic comps aren't that shallow. Admitedly they don't start with the mega stacks that Aspers do, but that's because aspers realised that people like to start with a large number of chips and don't look so much at the blinds. It makes sense - since most players will not make the last 2 tables, they don't care about the play then and are more concerned with how often they will be able to make mistakes and see loads of flops without going bust for.

It's a shame that the Aspers Friday comp chnaged to a longer clock. It used to be a night of drunken fun, but now it just goes on too long. Last time I played it I lost at 1.30am and was about 10 away from the money.

The main reason that none of these places will get rid of the cash races is it isn't their money. If the Vic believe that the posiitve impact is more than the cost to them of supplying the dealers for the tournament then they will run it. Aspers rake it so have even less incentive not to.

Someone told me that the casino has stats on how much the average person going in to play poker will spend and they therefore think that more players coming in equals more money. Of course this doesn't work if people coming in create dead games and discourage punters from returning or if the person coming in is in and out in a very short period to get their points.

If the poker rooms lost money they would not be open. The Hippodrome would not have launched with a poker room if it wasn't profitable for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader

Generating £1,000 gross profit per evening from a standard £1/£2 can be a lucrative business.

I've played in a fair amount of private cash games hosted at bars/restaurants around Chelsea (usually £2/£5 or £5/£10). They always attract great value but the games eventually die out due to the lack of maintaining new player interest - hosting a good private game is harder than people imagine.

I often get introduced to new people as a professional poker player and they ask if they can attend a game (friends, colleagues, club owners, girls boyfriends etc) - these people would never walk into a casino to specifically play in a cash game because they don't know anyone and are looking for an experience rather than generating profit. These people are young and have large disposable incomes (they are willing to saddle up min £500 entry to a game even though they have never played in a cash game before). It makes me wonder why I havn't started my own private game yet ... even if it only ran half a dozen times then it would generate circa £6,000 GP (without my own action)

But the games die - usually because one paticular player has gone broke... or borrowed so much from the guy who runs the game - that the guy has made no money and isn't willing to lend the person any more money.

Private games are usually built around one player

The player needs to buy in enough that other players are willing to pay the ridiculous rake

I play a lot of HS private games - and they tend to only run for so long.

The ones that can run longer are when the whale/fish is the guy running the night. There's always value. And after expenses he's only marginally down - so the game can run longer.

And again for the chump who gave a link to 'loss leader'... casinos make money from cash games. They make good money. Just not as much as from table games.

Don't be so ****ing rude. I was simply stating that there's a very good reason why a casino may choose to continue to run a loss-making card room (remember, card rooms don't just lay cash tables - tournaments exist too)

Popetman Vs Matt Crocker HU4Rollz at my first private cash game

I agree. Popetman's quote contradicts itself.

its pretty simple

tournaments lose money
cash games make money
pit games make lots of money
slot machines make tons and tons of money

its all about generating footfall and converting that person into punting on -ev games

so losing a few quid in tournament poker and sometimes a poker room in general is still hugely +ev for casino's (honestly how many people can truely say they never EVER have a punt on BJ etc when in the casino playing poker)

I remember seeing some stats on Aussie slot machines and they blew my mind. Really glad I gave them up cold turkey :|

Lol this post was fine bar the last two words. If you gave up slots, great. Well done. You saying you gave them up "cold turkey" as if you went through a serious rough patch, withdrawal problems. You're not a heroin addict ffs

How about you decided to stop being a tit and wasting your money on a machine manufactured to take it? Cold turkey is nothing to do with it, or atleast a very out of context phrase... /rant

Otompsett Vs Matt Crocker is my second home game.

Why is everyone soo angry? Be niiice!

Tell that to a gambling addict.

A lot of anger just came out of nowhere. I think it was just a turn of phrase dude

Are you honestly trying to claim that people can't have a serious addiction to slots?

Just because there's not a physical addiction a la heroin does not mean there can't be a psychological addiction.

I would be very careful (read: stop) crapping on other people's experiences with addiction in the future. It is likely to either cause significant damage to the other person's recovery or make that person really, really ****** angry at you.

Quite. Naive at best, plain nasty at worst.

I obviously felt at 6.30am slightly tilted and slightly drunk that that phrase really wasn't applicable to slots. I know about gambling addiction and physiological addiction, I wasn't disputing or knocking that. I just felt "cold turkey" really didn't come into it regarding slots. There are no withdrawal symptoms, and you're not in a living hell if you don't have a spin.

I was clearly out of line though, sorry.

Gl keeping off the slots, they're the nut worst.