The majority of the players are pro or semipro. Its slightly -EV with very low chance of seeing that money back. This is pretty standard for high stakes games.

So if you drag a $1000 pot do you really care about $1? Are you stiffing the dealer as well and tipping $1?

If this hypothetical high-stakes player is tipping $1 after winning a hand, he/she is not stiffing. He/she is tipping the accepted norm in a poker room. Your post is going to be the last post on tipping in this thread though; take it to the tipping containment thread in the main forum if you'd like for further discussion.

How about the whole concept of a BBJ is on general principles so disgusting, no thinking person would ever want to participate in it.

Those "disgusting" principles build the casinos that allows the majority of poker rooms to exist and deliver the fish to the tables.

I liken it to caring about gas mileage when driving a Ferrari...not material.

Are you saying poker would not exist in the casino without having BBJ's? For real??

Just how many fish does the BBJ deliver to the table? Quantify it. Prove it.

certainly rooms can function without a bbj. but you can easily see the draw of bbj by looking at the shifts in amount of tables being run on bravo when a room has a high bbj. remember 2 years ago when caesars ac had the bbj get over 600k? all 4 rooms were running 4 times their normal amount of tables.

I should have been more specific. Casinos are built on -EV games. Without these games there would be no poker room (in most cases). Fish play these games and sometimes sit down at a poker table. The majority of poker players also play these -EV games because they are action junkies. Lots of poker players also play state run lottery also extreme -EV.

Of course BBJ is -EV but the $$$ are immaterial to people playing 10-25 on a regular basis.

You should try convincing them of that, not us.

Room action is a function of how many new players are coming in vs how many old players quit. The biggest reason people stop playing is because they can't afford to keep playing. Imagine now that losing player had $10 extra that would have gone to the BBJ at the end of every one of their sessions.

As much as the BBJ brings in people seeking to hit it big it also has the quite pernicious effect of breaking people quicker. Long term this is going to be a negative for any poker economy.

That's an interesting theory that looks good on paper but in reality isn't true. If that theory was true that would impact every other casino game way before poker as most other gaming options are extremely -EV. For most gamblers, casino gaming is recreation and they have other sources of income to support -EV habits.

All theories aside, I won a large BBJ table share in the first Sands poker year. It will be a long time before the Sands BBJ drop will be -EV for me!

Fish do much better at virtually every casino game than poker. Do the math.

Tack on a tax on their winning pots, and they go busto even faster.

What math is that? Most casinos are built on slot player losses.

the more fish that come out to play poker when the bbj sky rockets, the more tables get opened up, which increases the total drop.

I don't agree that the one dollar on every winning pot in the long run is going to break a player to the point he can no longer afford to play poker.

... Because more people play slots than poker. And slot machines require less resources and support, so a greater percentage of what players lose is realized as profits.

So what?

The math in this case is to compute the EV of a bad player. Given that all players collectively have a negative EV because of rake, and some players are good enough to overcome this and win, the fish must have a really bad EV. Far worse than BJ (unless it is played psycho), roulette, craps, video poker (even if it is played imperfectly), and probably most slot machines.

the EV is the same for the house in poker no matter if the player is good or bad. It's the same.

Here is the math: If everyone started with 500 without any rebuys, and the dealer took out 6 bucks out of every pot, in 833.3* pots there would be no money left on the felt. It would all be in the rake box.


.

That's like when your finance professor says "Ignore the effect of taxes" lol - not reality.

Everyone rebuys. If you bust out in the first hand you probably rebuy right away or come back when your bank account allows you to play poker again.

There isn't a finite amount of poker money - its constantly being replenished though other earnings.

Playbig, that is a really good example. Midas, I agree that poker money is replenished to some extent. However unless somebody has an addiction they are not going to keep coming back regardless of their finances if they lose say 3 buy ins five times in a row. Money does definitely dry up. Eventually they will get sick of losing or their wife is going to pull the plug.

The short term success of bigo is a perfect example. Game was extremely profitable for a group of about ten players. There was a player pool of about 35 at one time and game ran three times a week. Eventually the 25 fish realized they were not winning and stopped playing. Now the game at best goes once every other week. The same thing happens for any variant including nlhe IMO.

I agree if you are horrible an always go bust you may quit playing. Most players (even fish) have some winning days and some losing days. The slow drain of rake and BBJ drop has no real impact on player participation. The best example of this is the California cards rooms that have huge rake, BBJs and all sorts of -EV promotions and they are the biggest poker rooms in the US and maybe the world.

Those california card rooms spread different games. Typically buyins are much shorter than what you're used to. The shorter buyins drastically reduce a good player's edge which means bad players:

1. have more winning sessions

2. don't go broke as fast

3. keep coming back for longer periods of time

Yes, they have higher rake too, but the average hourly loss for your typical fish is going to be lower than it would be at Sands.

That doesn't make sense. Right now Commerce is spreading 20+ different kinds of poker games. Sands has 2 types - 1-2 and 2-5 NL.

???

I say Commerce has game structure which protect fish and helps them last longer, which makes for healthier games.

You reply by saying Commerce spreads 20 different game types???

Way to prove my point (although the population/wealth of the LA area might have a wee bit to do with it)

and of course most of those 20 different game types are much kinder to the fish than the 1/2 offered by Sands. Commerce 1/2 has a $40 buyin, thats right $40 max.

The faster and more often fish lose money the more likely they are to quit. This isn't a hard concept to grasp.

The Commerce has free food for players in the top section. I remember CA being more expensive then Vegas, but I have never seen a real casino as expensive as the ones in PA. 5$ max rake, no free rooms, virtually no comps.

But all of this belies the real point. You don't see how taking several hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the game for the BBJ has an impact on player participation? For real?

Yes for real - I don't because your math isn't real world.

The -EV of lottery is way worse than BBJ - yet it continues to grow and thrive.

The -EV of slot machines is way worse than BBJ yet the players keep coming.

If BBJ actually caused player counts to drop over time don't you think casinos would have figured this out already and stopped this practice?

California 1-2NL isn't the same as Sands 1-2NL - blinds don't really matter in NL stack size does. Sands 3-6 Limit has higher blinds - than Sands 1-2 NL but we know what game plays bigger.

If I were to go to Commerce, I would find the $300 max NL game. I don't care about blinds.

where have you seen less than $5 outside of ac, foxwoods or vegas?

california rakes $5 per pot in the $200 buy-in game regardless of size of the pot. $10 dollars in the pot, $5 rake.

BBJ is actually neutral EV* so while this is all true it misses the point. It takes money from the vast masses and bestowes it upon a couple people. People who win a huge BBJ might put the money back in the poiker economy but often it instead goes to buying cars and whatnot, so the money still leaves. Whether it's more or less than other forms of gambling is irrelevant. It is money leaving the poker tables seldom to return. For the marginal players this can be the difference.

Some believe this. But unfortunately the fish often demand it. Witness AC where as soon as Trop got a BBJ everyone else was forced to as well.

edit: Parx tried to holdout but they have one now as well

There's just so much wrong with this. A $300 buyin game with 1/2 blinds is vastly different than the same buying with 4/8 blinds.

* - is this even true? I know AC the casinos can't take money out, but casinos in many other parts of the country can take a %10 (or more!) administrative fee. I know many promotions are paid with BBJ money, but does the casino take any of it?