its pointless to try and force them to change the rake. youcant do that. but you can vote with your feet. but gamblers are afraid to do that and just sit in the water that keeps getting hotter until it boils and cooks them like a frog will do.

as i said many times players that are good enough to use these forums and know lots of what is said surely can beat higher stakes games where you get beyond the hard effects of a rake, or play in time games.

yes you may have variance and get busted a few times if short bankrolled. but sooner or later you will get over the hump. thats better than getting ground out over the long term with no chance.

Did Hustler Casino add an extra $1 drop on the river as well? Or just Bike and Commerce?

hustlers just raised the drop yesterday. Anyone know if hollywood park or Normandie followed suit?

It appears that MJ meant that there was no liability period, civil or criminal. A conspiracy in restraint of trade needs to be based on more than the mere adjustment of prices to align with those of a competitor.

If you can prove they discussed it ahead of time, they were doing wrong. To use a poker metaphor, the colluders will only get caught red handed if there's a showdown.

When I told one of the managers at Normandie about what the other rooms were doing, he actually didn't even know that it had happened. And he said Normandie has no plans to do it.

But who knows.

The basic problem with these sorts of suits is it is hard to distinguish price signaling from price collusion.

For instance, take airlines. Flying High Airlines wants to raise the fare from LA to New York. But it can't do it if the competition won't raise it also. So they float a trial balloon, raising fares for a day on the computer reservation services. Then, Arrive Safely Airlines sees the fare increase and has been wanting to raise fares on that route itself. So it raises its fares too. And then the other airlines file suit.

There's no antitrust violation there. And yet if the CEO of Flying High had called the CEO of Arrive Safely before doing it, there might be. Hard to prove.

Well, I guess we need some evidence of wrong doing then

the problem is that since only some towns let gambling happen it creates little monopolys around. the town dosent care as long as it gets its share and only the customer gets hurt

While that is true in some fashion, the reality is due to network externalities there's always going to be a concentration of power in poker. Pre-BF, online poker always coalesced into one or two super-powerful sites (first Party, and then Stars and Tilt). There are only a couple of cardrooms in each big gambling mecca like Vegas or Atlantic City which offer mid-stakes or high-stakes poker games.

People like to play where there's an established, good poker game, where the game is always going, where there are plenty of tables, where other people are playing, etc. Thus, any poker market will naturally coalesce into one or two cardrooms who have a lot of market power. This would happen even if more towns legalized it.

You're leaving out a major factor that applies in CA though- the legislative moratorium on new cardrooms that has been in place for decades now. Even if a city wanted to legalize it, they would not be able to add a cardroom. This system was put in place at the behest of the current rooms specifically to cut down on competition. We don't even get to find out if your theory is correct or not.

Most bingo players play with electronic devices that play about 100 cards at once rather than the ink and paper where you can only play 9 or 18 at once.

Anyways, I'm a little confused on the new rake at Commerce (and presumably every other LA casino). I last played at Commerce in May and it seemed like it was $4+1 (with $2 dropped pre-flop and 3 dropped including jackpot on the flop). Is it $5+1 ($2 pre-flop, $4 including jackpot on flop) with an additional dollar dropped on the river for a total of $7 or $4+1 with an additional dollar on the river for a total of $6?

I'm normally a $4/8 player and would usually play at Commerce or Bike when I was up in LA once every few months but I doubt I'll ever go to either place again. Pechanga is still $4+1 (with 1 drop pre-flop) though it's not a great room and doesnt run anything over 4/8 limit or 2/5 no limit, but it's quite a drive from LA.

Possibly you were wrong about what rake you thought was being taken, but they do have a slightly lower rake for some very small games. For most games it was 5+1 and is now 6+1, if the hand goes to the river. For the games that are raked less they are likely just adding the dollar on the river to whatever it was before.

Oceans 11 has also added an extra dollar on the river, so I wouldn't be shocked to see other San Diego County rooms like Pechanga doing this soon as well. It is still a dollar less at O11 than in LA though.

Network externalities isn't "my theory". It's a rather well developed principle of economics, with published papers, discussions in textbooks, and all the rest.

yes there will be a concentration of pwer and a select few casinos will have most of the action. however with no other competion they get to make all the choices they want based on whats best for them.

if there is competition from smaller venues they can still control the market but be much more careful of what they do as they can lose business to the smaller competition and that can at times grow into a real threat.

a good example is the bell casino which was run badly imo, and soon after the bike had all the action. then the bike which was run badly and got into financial trouble and was eventually taken over by the govt., lost before taken over, much of its business to the commerce club which was well run and catered to its customers at the time which grew from a much smaller casino to what it is today.
solely because of its competitions lack of awareness.

What's Hawaiian Gardens like? Is it a rough area? What games do they spread?

it isnt in the best area but still safe. it got its start before the others got big and couldnt handle all the business. it always had good small games as the better players didnt go there much.

Hawaiian Gardens is in a good area.

They spread limit up to 20/40 (and every once in awhile 30/60), NL up to 5/10, and sometimes a mid-stakes Omaha game.

They pay out tiny jackpots. That's just about the only bad thing I can say about the place. The games are great.

Hawaiian Gardens is the closest legit poker room to Long Beach. I know they have a 3/5 NL game with $300 buyin. Not sure what their smaller NL offerings are. Most NL games in the LA area have a smaller buyin compared to the blind size than in other parts of the country.

Will be in Beverly Hills towards the end of the year, is there a closer option than the Bike and Commerce?

The Bike and Hustler might actually be the closest cardrooms to you, and neither is in LA. Pretty much the same as going to Hawaiian Gardens. There aren't any cardrooms near the beach.


Nope

Does anyone know what "no collection baccarat" is about lately. I've seen it on Commerce website and Bicycle outside on the billboard. Is this like "Vegas" style baccarat. Thanks.

Do any of the casinos offer rakeback-like deals anymore? It seemed the Bike had such a program for a long time, but I see no evidence of it now.

Hustler gives you $100 for every 50 hrs. of play in a calendar month at 8/16 LHE and $250 for 25/50. I think there's deal for 4/8 LHE as well. No clue if there is a similar promotion for NLHE.