The point of lowering the rake isn't to draw new players into the room. The point is to keep existing players in action longer.

I was responding to Mason's point:
"Reducing rake to the right amount won't immediately show an increase in business. It's takes time to develop new players."

$5+2 beats the $6+1 that Winstar just implemented.

Why this?

presumably because it attracts nits who excessively worry about the rake and not action players who don't, as a rule, care about the rake.

Fair enough, but lower rake doesn't preclude action players to play, doesn't it?

Players who are attracted by low rake are what precludes action players.

It does not but I’m sure the action player would rather play elsewhere instead of a table filled with low rake seeking nits. Especially if the rake difference is minor.

Are you guys unironically making a “no rake is better” argument? Or is it more of a prisoner’s dilemma thing, where if all players played at the lower rake it would be ok, but chances are the games are shittier because it would attract nits?

Back in the early/mid 1980s, the Bicycle Club had a lowball game called 5 Raise blind. Blinds of 5/5/10 with a forced open of $15. It had a $5 drop per hand and a $4.50 per half-hour collection (8 handed). Only the better dealers dealt it and most got 30 hands for the half hour.

That's $372 per hour coming off the table, plus tips which averaged $5 a hand.So, figure $500 an hour coming off the table. The game played fast and furious. However, it only lasted a year, or so. Everyone that played it went broke.

I got off shift one night and there was several thousand dollars in play. The next morning, all the same players were still there and every one of them was stuck.

That was a microcosm of what a high rake does to a game.

Did you mean "more rake is better"?

The answer to "better for the win rate" is probably no, the answer to "better for fun" is probably yes.

If you look at high rake environments in Europe, those games have close to zero players that would be described as OMC in the US. Australia is apparently the same. But private / underground games in the US that don't invite tight players would probably be the same amount of fun if they had lower rake.

Hi madlex and Everyone Else:

I think there's a little bit of a misunderstanding here. When the rake gets too high, whatever that amount is, the small stakes games will have trouble perpetuating themselves. This is more true with limit than no-limit where in no-limit and in games like live $1-$3 winning players who will help start games and keep games going will still exist.

But in a small limit game like $4-$8 this won't be true. (It's not that $4-$8 with a high rake can't be beat, it's just that those few players who could beat it will be playing higher.) However, in limit more hands get played in the same amount of time and the money goes in earlier. So, the rake could be lowered in limit and a similar amount of money will be raked off the table as it is in no-limit.

Best wishes,
Mason

You American's have the lowest raked games in the world and you're all still complaining it's too high.

In London the rake in public cardrooms at £1/£2, £1/£3 and £2/£5 is 5% capped at £10.
Private, underground cardrooms the rake is 5% capped at £25, £50 or £100 depending on where you go/size of the game.

I know one dealer who was told to increase the cap on the rake mid hand!. He was told the rake was capped at £35, by the turn they whispered in his ear to cap it at £50, then on the river was told to cap it at £100!

That's obviously true. If the rake is too high, every game becomes unsustainable. If you end up with 9 losing players at the table because the house collects 90% of buy-ins, the game will die.

There's just a huge difference in what kind of rake is sustainable and the most important factor for that is the player pool. At the end of the day it's about what amount players are willing to lose and if they can keep losing that much money longterm. That's the reason why there is so much more money in underground games even if the rake is significantly higher. Besides that it's also much more fun to not have 5 guys nit it up because they can't afford to lose more than $100 a session.

Because the European games would be unbeatable if they had the player pool you find in most US casinos.

My local Vegas casino takes 10% 4+2 at 1/2.

$10 pot - London 0.5, Vegas $2
$20 pot - London 1, Vegas $3
$30 pot - London 1.5, Vegas $5
$40 pot - London 2, Vegas $6
$60 pot - London 3, Vegas $6
$80 pot - London 4, Vegas $6
$100 pot - London 5, Vegas $6
$150 pot - London 7.5, Vegas $6
$200 pot - London 10, Vegas $6

My local Vegas casino takes 10/30/50/80 staggered rake 4+2 at 2/5

$10 pot - London 0.5, Vegas $2
$30 pot - London 1.5, Vegas $3
$50 pot - London 2.5, Vegas $5
$80 pot - London 4, Vegas $6
$100 pot - London 5, Vegas $6
$150 pot - London 7.5, Vegas $6
$200 pot - London 10, Vegas $6

It's also expected for players to tip a dollar (or more) on most hands. At the time of this posting, the GBP is worth 1.38 USD. So Vegas has higher rake on smaller pots and London has higher rake on larger pots. Unfortunately, a great deal of pots in my room are on the smaller side, especially at 1/2.

You can’t include the JP drop or at least not all of it. That gets returned to the player pool, at least a portion of it depending on the regs.

I don’t know what the custom is in London but the tipping is voluntary even if you think it is expected. You still choose to do it.

Harrah's Cherokee: 7+2. Only game in town.

at the Tampa Hard Rock they charge $5 + $2 jackpot drop

Then if you're playing the 2/2 PLO with a $5 rock (which is jackpot eligible) and you want to run-it-twice they double the freaking rake!

So they take $5+$5+$2 = $12

Most of the players say "well, if the pot is a thousand dollars it's worth it!"

The bottom line is that rooms are going to charge whatever they can get away with, and a number of rooms know we're going to play there anyway so they'll rake us over the coals.

As long as there are enough fish donating the regs are going to pay the price to play.

Lol just another reason to run it once.

Hi Check:

It’s not whether the rake is higher in a different location, it’s whether the rake has become too high for the particular game to perpetuate.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi mailed:

It also has something to do with how often the recreational players have winning sessions. The higher the rake the less often this will happen.

Best wishes,
Mason

People seem to have no problem playing pit games or poker home games where they are getting absolutely hosed. At least in Nor Cal, the casinos dont even like poker because they claim the pit games give them more revenue per table and the number of tables they can have is capped. So yeh, people don't seem to care much about the rake, its always the better players that have to fight for lower rake. And the trend in California at least has been the higher stakes games dont have their rake increased and lower stakes games do, because the higher stakes player make a big deal out of any rake increase, and the lower stakes players are oblivious to the rake.

An example was when Bay 101 tried to increase the time charge on the 80/160 LHE game from $11 to $15/half hour 2 years ago, the players all banded together and moved the game to Casino M8trix across the street. This forced the Bay 101 to lower the rake back to $12/half hour. Unless people are willing to do this sort of thing, the casinos will keep aggressively increasing the rake/time charge.

In games like 3/6 or 4/8 LHE, the rake is usually $6 or $7 with $1 for the jackpot. With that much rake no one ever has a chance of winning, even in as short of time as a month or so of consistent play. Its just too much rake. But people suck at math, particularly the less educated people that tend to play those limits.

In LA they recently increased the rake by $1 in all the collection games, but in the time charge games it didnt go up at all (again presumably because the higher stakes players have more sway or are more willing to move the game).

Yeah is that true though? Every time I have an American on the table or an Australian who has played in the US I ask if the games are tougher or easier and so far no-one said they are tougher in the US. Anecdotal of course but this huge skill gap is apparently unnoticeable to the players I asked.

I wouldn't say there's a huge skill gap or that US games play tougher.

And since I don't know what games you're playing in, I have no way to compare specifics anyway.

The major difference I see, not only between European casino games and US casino games but also between US private games and US casino games is the number of very tight players. Although some of my views on that are probably skewed by the fact how nitty US casino games play during the day, at a time when private games or a lot of European poker rooms don't even run. My former home casino opened their poker room at 6PM at a time when a lot of OMC in US poker rooms are on their way home for dinner and Wheel of Fortune.

I'm not so sure this statement that I bolded is true. At least it wasn't years ago. Going back in time,I once had a meeting with the then manager of the Commerce Club. His words to me was that "Poker is our horse," and what he meant by this was that the poker players became regular customers while the players of the other games were not. Now it may be that many years later things are different or that they're different in Northern California where the total number of table games are limited. But if you were right, why would these places even offer poker?

Best wishes,
Mason