My local casino spreads mostly NL across all stakes up to 5/10 publicly. About 2 years ago they started running a 2/5 plo high only game that would semi regularly start running in the evening. Some players from the day time hi/lo game would spill over and new fun players w/minimal experience would play and it started to become a regular PUBLIC game. Fast forward 2 years and the game has corroded into a 5/10/25 private game ran by one or two pros who get to select the line up before hand each night, if it’s going to be time rake or regular (there is a plo BBJ), how they will pay the time take (bomb pot, seat draw on the flop, first pot over $300 etc) if the straddle is mandatory or not etc. The game obviously plays big and the pros sometimes trade off which pros get to play which night with certain fun whales. I get the invite from time to time and it’s a great game to be in w/out a doubt, lots of money to be won/lost. My issue is all the politics that are being placed in the power of the pros which is completely unfair and toxic long term for other games running. I’ve been playing and watch 3 players get player A all in on the flop while player B and C (2pros) verbally decide to “freeze out” any side pot after agreeing to run it twice w/player A for the main which kills the action and makes player A’s hand more vulnerable. This is just one of many examples.

Over the 2 yrs this game has gone from 2/5 to 5/5 to 5/10 to 5/10/25 optional to 5/10/25 mandatory and since they can straddle to w/e they want it’s realistically been 5/10/50 or 5/10/100 which literally makes no sense for a number of reasons. Buy ins are unclear, anywhere to $500 min to whatever you can sneak on max and if the dealer tries to speak up the pro running the game for the night will remind them “hey this is a private game and they let us do what we want”.

I think the pros need to understand that there isn’t much longevity in these games given the continuing increase in stakes and the privacy factor. I have seen WHALES run their corse of dumping huge amounts of cash into this game over a couple month period only to never be herd of again multiple times only to be hopefully replaced w/some other whale w/the taste for action and believe it or not but they are running out of whales by driving the stakes up. It’s not really the privacy that bugs me it’s the killing of potential action. I think there is way more value and longevity in having a 5/10 plo w/people fighting for seats than a 25/50 that is struggling to get filled on a regular basis but lol greed I guess.

Is anyone else experiencing the private game dilemma in their local casinos? What long term effects could this potentially have to the eco system good and bad? FWIW my local casino is a mid sized card room.

You can't force someone to play with someone else. If the only way to get 8 players to play is if they are all playing together, you either give them a table or lose their business.

Honestly, it's really up to the house. If the house is getting their money, they might let them get away with a lot. If the other players don't like it, couldn't you run a 2/5 PLO game that's open to the public that doesn't have to deal with the "private" game atmosphere? If enough people don't like the politics of the pros involved, it seems like there could be a smaller or different PLO game run to compete with the big game. Lots of people might want to play 2/5 that don't want to play 5/10/25

edit: For example, my local casino was running a 5/10 uncapped PLO game that was mostly middle aged business men and a few younger guys that were either being staked or had won big online before black friday. This game started to change and get bigger. More younger kids (all 21+ but in their mid-20's or younger) started to play and the game was getting bigger. While it was uncapped for the buy-in, hardly anyone was buying in for more than $3k, but all of a sudden, kids were showing up with $10k stacks and it quickly became 5/10/20. It didn't price out the business men, but they also weren't interested in playing for $15k a night with kids being backed (sometimes kids being backed by the same outsider).

You know what they did? They went to management and started a 5/5 PLO game that was a $300-$3000 cap game. It basically played as 5/5/10 with people straddling 7 out of 9 hands most of the time, but it was still a different game than the big uncapped game. The players dictated what they wanted to play and eventually the big game died because the young "pros" realized they had alienated the guys feeding the game and they were stuck playing against each other which made the game much tougher.

Long story short, if you don't like the way something is run or something that is happening, go to management and try to make changes. You'd be surprised what happens sometimes

From someone who works in the casino industry and who also plays poker -

Two different rooms in my area have versions of private games:

Room A: There is a group of 2 or 3 professional high limit PLO players who come in a few times each month and get a game of 10-25 PLO (with a straddle). Sometimes they'll play 25-50 with a straddle, and sometimes even bigger than that. They make all of the arrangements to bring in whales who play with them. This game doesn't happen without the pro's doing the legwork to get everyone in the same place for their game.

There's another group of PLO pro's who are in the room just about every night playing whatever game is being spread. Usually 2-5 with a straddle or 5-10 with a straddle. When these guys see that the big game is going, they all try to get to the top of the list and they complain to management that it's not fair that they can't get a seat even though they were on the waiting list. What they fail to understand is that the only reason the big game goes is because other guys made it happen. The daily PLO pro's expect to be able to sit at any game going in the room simply by virtue of showing up. There will be times when there are 15 or 20 names on the waiting list to get into that big game and the casino will open up a 2nd table as a must-move game. With 20 names on the waiting list, not one of them will show up for the must-move table. They don't want to play high stakes PLO, they just want to play against wealthy recreational players.

And so the casino is justified, IMO, in catering to the group of players who actually go out and drum up business and get a high-stakes game spread that wouldn't otherwise have a chance of getting started.


Room B: Another room in the area has a regular 2-5 NLH game spread each day. And they also have a private 2-5 NLH going at the same time. The players at the private table are buddies with the poker room manager and they get to hand pick who sits at their table. When a seat opens up they'll go to the regular 2-5 game and pick one of the players to invite to their private table. The good players who never get a chance to play at the private table are irate about this. And totally justified.

So are private games bad for poker? Overall, I'd say that they are. But sometimes you'll have a group of players who simply aren't interested in playing at an open table. If a group is organized and is bringing a fully developed game and dropping it into the lap of a poker room, then it would be foolish of the room to turn them down. Especially when they're playing nose-bleed stakes and keeping 2 or 3 other smaller games going that are filled with players hoping to just stick around long enough to pick up the crumbs as seats open up at the private table.