Hi guys, myself and my best mate (both early 30s) are looking to get out of the rat race and turn a lifelong passion for poker into a business by starting a poker room in the UK. We've got a name and a website already (www.thegrindcardroom.co.uk), we've spoken to the gambling commission and have started drafting up a rough idea of costs. An ideal next step would be to pick the brains of anyone with experience in this field - please let me know!

Ignoring the fact that your name is ****ing terrible, as who the hell goes out to play live poker for it to be a grind, how exactly do you plan to cover operating costs?

lol

Fair enough, thanks for the feedback - would be more than happy to discuss alternative names and operating costs with someone who has knowledge of the sector.

Judging by the nature of your posts (90% trolling, “lolbappe”, talking about how to deal with high pressure spots in your local pub tournament) I’m guessing that’s not you!

Mason Malmuth updated his book on running a poker room. I'd suggest starting there about how to run a successful room.

If is really a dream for you, I'd start by getting a job at an existing room and see what goes on inside for a couple of months.

I would agree that what looks easy on the outside usually comes with some twists .. are either of you currently 'management' in your workplace?

.. Local ordinances or licenses you need to acquire?
.. Food and Drink also? More local/county/state issues perhaps
.. Lease or own location? Don't want a huge commitment, but don't want the rug pulled either
.. Employees or contract workers? Maybe some of both depending on role

.. What scale? 6 tables, 20 tables
.. Nearby competition?
.. Nearby population and poker 'economy' can be two drastically different things
.. Parking/Safety

You might want to hit Rob Yong up on Twitter .. perhaps had a bit more capital up-front, but he did the startup thing.

Last but not least for this post .. while you may be best mates you need to clearly define the roles that each of you will play in the business. I'm glad you're in your 30s so you've been through plenty of 'life' .. but I've seen plenty of 'best' relationships go south very quickly once they 'move in together'.

50-50 setups in business can get sticky. In the US we have LLCs (partnerships) but within the framework of the agreement you can name a 'manager' who will have final say on operations. You also should have buyout language (with restrictions).

You can be an employee AND an owner .. they are two separate roles. Employees 'work' while owners carry the 'risk' and each can (and should) have different pay scales.

It's a lot more than you really think of and you need to have some good chats before you get into it and things get messy. GL

Where in the UK will this be located?

I mean this is a very vague question. I’m sure there are many areas this could be approached from — legal, operations, finances, promotion, how to run a room. We’re not even going to be sure what you need advice on without a more specific question.

My advice would be to stick to what you can actually contribute to the business. If that’s your experience as a customer, then leverage what you thought are areas of opportunity. If you think you bring nothing to the table, then your best bet is to make sure you hire the right people.

It would be a great idea to bring someone on that has already had experience running a poker room but is looking to take a risk on themselves. Offer them some kind of equity share.

I’m not sure why anyone who is still in the industry in the UK that has experience on the general operating level would offer a competitor free advice. This might be advice you will have to pay for.

Here's a link to the book on Amazon UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cardrooms-E...dib_tag=AUTHOR

I assume some things in the UK will be different from the US, but there should still be a lot of value for you.

Also, for what's it's worth, I recently was in Cedar City, Utah and had coffee in a coffee shop called "The Grind."

Mason

Who's going to pay for everything? You're going to have high up front costs to pay and you're not going to see a profit for awhile. Surveillance and insurance alone are going to be pretty expensive.

Location in the UK is important. Where exactly?

Granted I don't live in the UK but where I'm from poker rooms print money at the moment. Grind live poker > grind online poker btw.

Any updates?

While 'The Grind' is actually an accurate poker term it may not seem as fun for Recs or draw in the curious. Or perhaps it will draw some attention since it does have some 'dancing' parallels, eh? I just don't want Recs to think of your room as a place where there's a bunch of Pros grinding it out and taking all their fun money.

Recs and bad Regs are the key to a successful room. And while you can't control the attitude of your good Regs, you can control how you treat (and take care of) what should be your larger customer base. If YOU and your staff make them feel welcome and important, then they will return no matter how the losses add up.

We have had a couple of absent owners in the rooms in our area .. and they typically get the rug taken out from them when they get 'Molly Gamed' either by a new room opening up or an important portion of their Player Pool goes into home games. GL

Bro this whole thing had equal chance of success as Tworooks.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/5...ome-casino-22/

Another online hero bashing people trying to do something with their lives, clearly you’ve achieved a lot in yours given you’re quoting two plus two threads from nearly 20 years ago 😊

Thanks for all the replies everyone, loads of work going on behind the scenes and we’ll provide a big update soon.

Seems like not the greatest time to be opening a poker room in the UK IMO

• Smallest GUKPT fields ever this year
• High stakes in-venue games running less and less over time
• Longer and Longer KYC Exclusion Lists
• UKGC getting tighter and tighter with regulation
• Insane licensing cost

Poker in the UK online market is in a small upturn at the minute, but that's after years of decline - no telling if it will continue

I thought pre-COVID about opening a room somewhere like Southampton or Bristol to compete with the poor offerings that the big companies had available, but if this is anywhere outside of London now I would be super concerned with traffic. And then in London, ground rent and business rates are absurd. In terms of risk, I lump it in with opening a pub right now. It's hard to see a poker room survive without lots of supplemental income from slot machines/casino that won't upgrade your license (and thus cost)

Best of luck with the project, hope you guys are the ones to revive the scene.

EDIT: I don't see anything on the Gambling Commission Business Register for the grind card room. Have you guys secured licensing yet?