I play occasionally at Hollywood Casino in Aurora, IL. The rake is $8 at $1-2 no limit, and $6 at the fixed limit games ($5-10 & $10-20). As of March 1st, 2010, they started a bad beat jackpot and they now take $1 extra preflop. That's $9 then on no limit and $7 at limit. Get this. They take the $1 every hand. If you chop and you're in the SB, you lose the $1. If you raise the blinds and win, you lose a $1 too.

People are asking if this is even beatable. For limit games, I figured it would cost a tight, aggressive winning player $2-3 and hour but with the $1 coming out every hand, a friend said it might be more, like $5+ an hour. What do you all think?

As for the no limit, I guess it depends on the game. These no limit games seem tighter than what I've played at the Rockford Charity games and at Horseshoe so I might not play that anymore at Hollywood.

there is no way i would ever play at a place with $9 rake. I live in the area and there are no decent casinos around here (never been to horseshoe, though). If your looking for a game, I would say charity game is the best. $5 max, soft play, and decent amount of tables. last time at elgin they only had 1 table going. $9 rake is terrible and most likely unbeatable.

The local games here in my city are all almost $9 max... its very beatable if your playing 2-5NL and up. Although you mentioned playing 1-2, in my experience in this kind of game the money on the table dissapears quick. If your rolled for anything above 1-2 play that.

whether it is beatable or not is open to argument. but one thing is clear is that the amount of players that can beat it will be negligible

Man, I was thinking about stopping there on my upcoming drive, but this is a crazy rake. Even the slightly lower amount on the limit games is terrible. How much is the rake at the Horseshoe Hammond or other Chicago area places for comparison?

NL w/ a $9 rake is insane. 10/20 w/ a $7 rake is probably beatable. I play 8/16 w/ a $6 rake and have beaten that game for $22/hr for the last few years. I'm also in CA where the games are LOOSE.

Whether it's 6-5 for black jack or high rakes, casinos everywhere are definitely not giving the "gambler" a fair shake. Not many Binion's around.

How is the rake taken? All at once on the flop, or in a certain amount based on pot size or by street?

If you play at any of the casinos that charge over a $5 rake you are crazy. IMO even $5 is to much. But guess what if you play there they will keep charging it and if every one stop they will either lower it or close their poker room.

you can only vote with your feet but they have high expenses and keep raising the rake to pay for them and increasing the profits. when playing at places with the highest rakes you must be careful and leave or lobby whenever the game gets tight.

This is a case where Illinois lawmakers have put casino operators behind the eight ball. Chicago area casinos could easily support twenty plus table poker rooms. Current Illinois laws are very restrictive on tables allowed. So for every poker table added a Blackjack, Craps, Slots, etc, etc is eliminated. We have seen an increase in poker tables in Illinois over the past two years. This is due to a decrease in casino revenues. If Illinois gaming revenues start to increase than the less profitable poker tables are the first to go. Under current Illinois regulations the poker room manager’s only option is to increase the rake for more revenues.

The $8 rake creates soft games. So for good players making adjustments this game should be just as profitable. I make it a point to play at all Chicago area poker rooms at least twice a year. Hollywood along with Grand Victoria’s no limit games have been very soft every time I have played.

The Chicago area rake structure is pretty standard. 10% is taken out until the max. The Horseshoe has a $5 max with a $1 bad beat. During the month of March players get a free buffet after four hours of play. Empress Casino has a $6 max rake on all games.

I appreciate all the information you have given.

However I am wondering, how does the $8 rake create soft games?

Every time I have played at Hollywood of Grand Vic there has been an absence of good players in the game. The high rake drives good players away. This leaves a large base of bad payers who care less what the rake is. This may not always be the case but what I have found playing there.

This is very true.

Good player: "What's the rake?"
Bad player: "What's a rake?"

Ouch and I was going to sit at home because I didn't want to try out this 3-6 with full kill game because they had a 10 percent up to 6 dollar rake.

Of course not.

A $9 rake is insane. At 35 to 40 hands an hour, the casino is removing over $300 an hour from the table. And that doesn't include dealer and waitress tips. If the tips are included, at the end of 8 hours over $ 2,500 has left the table.

Even if the higher rake means weaker players, you can not consistently outrun this rake and might mean you are actually one of the weaker players, who doesn't understand the effect of the rake.

The casino employees that post here will try to confuse the subject and give weird reasons why a higher rake makes for a better game.

I recently posted here the following

"No rake. The same players will still lose their buy-in. The winning players will leave the casino with more cash.

Increase the rake. The same players will still lose their buy-ins The winning players will leave the casino with less cash.

Therefore the winning players pay 100% of the rake."

This fact really upsets the poker room managers, when you point this out. And usually either try to change or confuse the subject or quickly move away from the table hoping the discussion will stop.

The bad thing about it if this is the only poker room near you it will never be much of a poker room. With a $4 rake after a year the poker room might become a booming poker room with a long waiting list for seats.

Over the last two years I watch two small casinos that had busy poker rooms with 8 to 12 tables get reduce to only three tables with no waiting for a seat on a busy saturday night after raising the rake to $ 6. The casino managers have a lot of reasons why their poker room went into the dumps, but insist it had nothing to do with the increased rake.

very few in the business or out side it understand the effects of rake and how fast it is taken from the pots. without players that can win most games will get shorter in duration and amount of players that come to it.

I laughed to myself when a dealer told me that they were considering a BBJ. That rake is brutal and will certainly kill the already infrequent 5/10 game, their lowest structured game. I suspect that the 1/2 will become tighter as well while people wait the coming of a BBJ potential hand.

this casino is a joke anyway. They do absolutely nothing for the players (no comps). Wait lists are usually 10-15 people deep

Make inconsistent and sometimes awful rulings. (ie. if 2 players goes to showdown, one mucks his hand, next to act MUST show his cards to claim the pot) Some POS regs there like to turbo muck when called so they don't have to show because they know you have to show your hand anyways.

The only good thing is that most of the players there, even the regs, are absolutely awful. However the variance is so high in LHE with almost all pots being contested multiway that I don't see how anyone could beat a now almost $10 rake every hand.

Only problem is that unless you want to drive an hour out to the horseshoe, this is the only game in town.

Just stumbled over this thread while trying to figure out whether that local card room here has a competitive rake (i barely play live cash, but consider it now after railing for some time yesterday...)

They charge 5% (50c/10$) with a max of 10$...so the rate seems very favourable but the cap is not...your thoughts?

also, they do not rake split-pots and have no bad beat jackpot or similar crap

that sounds better. but anyone taking 10 bucks out of a pot is just raping the game. and lessens the amount to be won and limits the winning players to about that number in each game.

Any of you guys still playing here? Have they changed the rake structure? How many tables to they get going of 1/2NL or higher?

Thanks!

Yeah. No. 1 usually, once in a while a second will run. None above 1/2.

I don't understand why anyone would play NL here. Most stacks are $100 or less and the rake is 8+1. They are taking over a buy in an hour off the table and with most being short buys is like 2 buy ins an hour. Not to mention this is one of the worst run rooms in the country. The limit games are soft with 6-8 players seeing a flop and the rake is either 6+1 in LHE or 6+0 in O8.

i dont think the shoe is really worth the drive (insane wait lists during peak hours) but its better than playing in aurora i guess. aurora has got to be the worst poker room i have seen and thats over a decent sample.

It sounds beatable if you win the BBJP.