I'd suggest that you record your hands that you've played, and then apply the different structures to the hand histories.

this

imo it's the #1 reason people in RE fail...underestimating expenses

Even more sites who have used the high rake business model have failed.

But there are sick amount of people who have stopped playing online poker because they have gone broke after paying so much rake even though they were better players than average in their playing field. They were basically robbed blind and they didn't even realize it.

So do you belong to this mysterious entity called "the people"? To my knowledge, this is what is happening in this thread, people demanding lower rake.

Also, about operating poker site being so expensive that rake must be high; if rake was halved, that doesn't mean that the site would make half the revenue they currently make. People would play more hands before going bust, and the hands/hour on the site would go up. What the effect would exactly be, may be too hard to estimate though.

Someone said earlier that having a limit on how much you'd have to pay monthly would be one solution, for example, $1,000 a month. Sites probably would never do this on their own, but would there be any possibility to persuade license regulators to add that kind of a clause in their licensing terms? Gibraltar, Malta, etc, and maybe U.S. if they decide to start regulating online poker. If presented right, in addition to other measures to protect problem gamblers it could be a reasonable thing to demand that the maximum amount someone will have to pay to the site monthly is, for example, $1,000.

A site should do this for a month or two.

It would be so awesome.

No - most people when they go "broke" just re-load and lose more. Therefore the sites get more than compensated by the few that really do go forever.

Most people do have an opinion about everything, but not many feel like they have to always voice it. Consider yourself special.

I just like to correct silly points that are misleading especially on subjects I care about. Just quoting rubbish based on nothing does not help. oh I know that

Why do posters such as Nofx, SRG and gball only want a discussion with like minded people just shouting "lower the rake" without wanting to try and understand why companies charge what they do?

Then again, some people just buy in a certain amount every paycheck. Those people will last longer with lower rake, probably. Anyway, I think online poker will probably die soon if rake isn't lowered. The rb pros will quit eventually when they realize they're working for like $20 an hour and that $20 buys nothing due to inflation.

There would be no problem if you corrected these points with facts, but you feel like you need to spout your opinions about issues you have given 2 seconds of thought, and shaped to support your already made up mind about the matter, as facts.

Yes I am sure there are many people like this. These are the players we like and they come back month after month. I honestly don't think lowering the rake a percentage point or two will have any effect on their "entertainment". Possible but doubtful. What is this based on though? where is the evidence to support this? There will always be RB pros scratching around the bottom end wherever you set the rake.

If we ever get to the point where players are leaving in their droves then demand has changed. This will affect supply and the rake will settle where it is needed. Once again, I am not pro rake but guys get in the real world. This is business and not a charity.

Sorry do I really need to quote links to supply and demand in business? Is this not a concept where you come from?

Did I question supply and demand in business? Perhaps some reading comprehension may help.

ok you win. I never based my arguments on supply and demand did I?

No you didn't, but you claimed you did. And oh, you are too persistent for me, YOU win. This is clearly what you devote most of your time and effort to, and I can't compete.

ORLY?


You cannot have a serious debate about this issue unless the SRG's of this world want to address what basically underpins every marketplace.

What is it based on? That's what I think. It's not a scientific fact. The games are constantly getting worse. At the point where there aren't enough fish to let people beat games at a decent rate the games will die unless the rake is lowered. Obviously it didn't happen yet but the poker economy is slowing down.

Yeah, they might not have directly stopped playing because they consider the rake too high, but many have stopped because they can no longer win anything.

Also, how current are those rake comparison graphs (I find it hard to believe Party is so low - Pacific taking the piss doesn't surprise me though)?

Juk

If you are a player who only plays the selected best tables and when they are fuller, then you pay more rake. As about all players are like that, the places that offer low to practically no rake, don't get enough players; there has always been such sites and there are now, though until you prop, for the US players the situation has never been good, but for the others there are always possibilities, but as there are not enough players ready to play them, it never gets going in a big way, if at all.

It would help if more people would play ring games heads up and very shorthanded, and then just go on sites offering the lowest rake that has a potential of becoming a bigger site and then having it kept popular here on 2+2, but as all of that is not the situation, we are stuck with an enormous rake; it's a questions of a choice and we have decided to pay the bigger rakes, though not without a reason as we might be able to make money that way, but the lower rake sites never get bigger, though many times there is no guarantee they won't start asking more when they get bigger and some times they say that in the beginning too. But other than that it's mainly a question of a choice and we he decided that we want to pay the bigger rakes.

If the US gets their act together and stops the ban it should help a lot. A lot of the fpp pro's will leave, and stars will have to upgrade the VIP program, which is pretty awful at the moment for small stakes players. Anyone know what the story is with the ban?

What? I already explained it but here we go again:

Lets say I'm playing two tables of 1/2 NL on Pokerstars. One table ends up taking $2 rake per hand while the other table ends up taking $0.50 rake per hand.

Do you conclude that I somehow sat on a table where there was a bug and the rake structure was screwed up somehow? Or do you maybe get the crazy idea that one of my tables had more action and roughly a $40 average pot while the other one was filled with nits and had a $10 average pot?

Larger average pot size means more rake. OMG!!!!!

I'm seriously laughing at whoever thought it was a good idea to compile a few hundred thousand hands to compare rake structures like that. I'm going to sit at all the 3% Plrs/Flop, $2 avg-rake tables on Stars because my super-duper-in-depth study shows that the average rake per hand there is way less than those evil 45% Plrs/Flop, $95 avg-rake tables. Man...those 3% Plrs/Flop tables sure are an awesome rake bargain!!!!

As far as the question on how best to compare the rake: Josem already addressed this briefly. But I think the crazy idea of looking at the ACTUAL RAKE STRUCTURES on each site might be worth considering. You don't have to compile any stupid data (which is going to be incorrect anyway). The site tells you what they're rake structure is. So you go to the site, look at the rake structure, and there you go. Why on earth some people wouldn't think to do that is beyond me.

What we basically have in this thread are a handful of people who actually care about the "OMG EXTORTIONATE RAKE!!!". And of this fairly small minority of the player base that actually cares we have a significant percentage who don't seem to know what they're talking about anyway.

There is almost a 100% chance that Stars is laughing at this thread btw. 20 or so people on an internet message board posting back and forth about how evil and terrible the rake is while thousands and thousands of players diligently pay it day after day.

You could just take one large sample of hands and run them through each rake structure and compare the results.

But Microbob is right that the results of two different samples is going to be biased upon other factors.

Logical ... but

the "ACTUAL RAKE STRUCTURES" you speak of so eloquently are in this format:
Number of players 4-10
Rake per Pot $1.00 for each $100 in Pot
Max Rake $5.00
(no flop, no drop)
which does not give a numerical result that can be used to predict the rake in the future.

but the actual rake paid from hundreds of thousands of real life hands at that level produces a result in this format
5.4bb/100 hands
which can be used to predict the rake in the future

Or is your concern that the sample size is too small? I could certainly understand that.