In an attempt to raise consciousness about the high cost of playing poker I have deciding to make this thread.

In my opinion the rake is too high. This thread does not target any particular website. Overall the rake is much too high, live and online.

The illusion that you can win money and the small increments of what you pay to play makes it possible for this to be so absurdly high. Only people who play a lot know how much the rake can effect you. I think it is unfair to have the rake so high and make it impossible for a newcomer to really stand a chance, same for any recreational player. Only the very experienced really stand a chance anymore. But the weak players aren't aware of this and I see that as somewhat unfair that the cost to play is that high.

This thread is not about egos. Sure, some people are good at poker and crush, even with the rake. It is definitely possible. But for the vast majority it isn't. This same person could also move up a few stakes if not for the rake.


Just because you can win, doesn't mean you have to pay this much. You aren't guaranteed to win anything and most actually lose.



Poker has been the most expensive thing in my life when I look at what I have payed to play this game. In comparison with anything else this is really absurdly out of proportion. Running a website and advertising doesn't cost that much. A website or live setting should not make more than most of it's winning players.




So, to raise consciousness I thought I would propose those who are willing to use one of the avatars that I have made. Others will join in and you can use whichever avatar you like. Feel free to make your own.

I suggest using these avatars on 2+2 and other poker forums that you visit. I don't know if it is allowed/good idea to use on pokerstars. But it might be a good idea. If you want to use one on pokerstars I suggest making your own, since multiple of the same pictures aren't allowed(i think).


Again though: This isn't targeting any website/setting in particular but everything as a whole.























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I think the word you're looking for is awareness! Great point all the same. You could even list some of the data from http://www.pokertableratings.com/poker-rake-analysis

PokerStars generally has the lowest effective rake but here are some figures:

For each 1000 hands of $25 PLO on Stars you pay $46 of rake on average.

For each 1000 hands of $200 NLH on Stars you pay $100 of rake on average.

And so on. It really is ridiculous. If they were forced to be honest about how much rake they charge there's no way the sites would be able to get away with it. How many people would be playing online poker if the sites charged $1000/month? Almost none. Yet even a low volume player can easily pay $1000/month to the site.

And its horrible for the games. Wonder why there aren't a ton of PLO games running? Though its obviously a somewhat less popular game than NLH the even bigger issue here is that there's almost no room for 'upward mobility' in that game from lower stakes. Where exactly are shot takers going to come from when the microstakes players are paying 2 buyins per 1000 hands in rake? That means every 10000 hands they've paid 20 buyins in rake. 20 buyins is enough for a well bankrolled shot at the next stake. Instead, they're just treading water and making the sites billions.

There's no way the sites could get away with this if people actually understood how much they were being charged to play. You pay $15/month to play World of Warcraft which offers vastly more than online poker sites do in every single way (you can even play poker in the WoW universe!), yet its somehow reasonable that you pay $2000/month to play online poker? Hah!

Nobody has talked about this before...

At least once a week sombody posts a threed like this.

As talked earlier - demand=price, there are many players that don't notice rake and does not care about this. And mostly people who complain about the rake are rakeback nits.

Ofcourse I would love to see less rake, but don't see tnat happening. Maybe better loyality programms could happen.

I know these threads are common. That is a good thing. Can't be bad to just keep it all going till maybe one day we get our way.


Blah, this can't hurt.


Paying $100 to play 1000 hands is a joke($70 or a little lower if you play a ton and get rb).

lol. I awareness is more commonly associated with suffering. When I am on the street I will start using that word. hehe

people are greedy, not you, the businesses.. why does the world and non-greedy people(surely the majority) allow the greedy people to amass so much of the worlds wealth?
re-post this somewhere that smart people post and you will find out why the rake is so high probably.

hey, I'm down
I'll use the second avatar in the list

Poker loyalty programs are not the answer here. They are flawed on so many levels. The three biggest are:

1. They give the most to the players who would be playing a ton with or without the programs, and they give the least to the players who might actually put in more volume if they received more back. In particular, recreational players gain basically 0 from loyalty programs while regulars gain much from it. We want to encourage recreational players to play, grinders will play regardless. This is something Party did incredibly well by offering constant easy to play $200+ bonuses.

2. Loyalty programs don't help where rake is an obscene problem. Loyalty programs are all based on $ paid, not BB.

BB/1000 paid:
$25 PLO: 184
$1000 NLH: 17

$/1000 paid:
$25 PLO: $46
$1000 NLH: $171

Now obviously the rake is obscene at $1000NL since the players will be vastly better so those 17bb/1000 hands really means alot. But at a game like $25PLO it is completely killing the games and in turn killing the games above it as its damn near impossible for microstakes players to run up a roll and move up.

And the players who are paying 184bb/1000 hands will hardly be able to reach a decent level of a VIP program since they aren't paying anywhere near as much as higher stakes players in terms of absolute $. This makes VIP programs again useless for the majority of players.

3. They trap you into the site. Yes I appreciate that sites obviously desire this. But at the same time its HORRIBLE for the players especially at a time like right now. Have fun spending a year earning your supernova 'x' status and watch Stars be forced to pull out of the US next year when you would have been able to actually enjoy the major fruits of that labor.

A rake reduction is the only answer.

I really do not feel that, in the casinos I've played in, the rake is unfair. Most B&M casinos make minimal profit from the poker rooms, the online rooms, especially the big two, make and extreme amount of money. They drain hundreds of millions (billions maybe) of dollars out of the game every year.
I fully understand that sites need to be profitable and there needs to be a rake to achieve this. I also understand that a portion of the rake contributes to the rooms keeping the games alive by keeping players coming in. I also understand the technical, security, payment, and other costs that go into the business. However, in the long run I can only see this killing the game.

The only thing players can do right now is take advantage of offers and promotions out there. Keep playing on different sites where you can get sign up bonuses and higher rake backs and better promotions going forward, it's all you can do for yourself now.

If there was someway we could get thousands of players to leave the big sites and tell them why, we could make an impact and get the rake lowered. Unfortunately, that's not going to be happening anytime soon. For now, I just play where I get the better offers!

Don't forget to use the avatars, guys .

qft

Also, I'd hate to troll this thread but....
I am pretty certain that most people here on 2p2 are well aware of the rakes on these sites and the impact they have on the game. So raising awareness here is going to have minimal impact.

1. I played 200 points a day on FTP, now I play 500 points a day because of black card
2. yeah, but $25 PLO is actually easily beatable while 1kNL is basically high stakes poker
3. that's kind of the point

doesn't hurt at all

A+ avatars

That's definitely inaccurate. Actually even this thread has already proven it. The third post has somebody commenting that the only people concerned about the rake are "rakeback nits." That's kind of funny considering that on Stars you get around 35%-40% rakeback with supernova and at many stakes the rake is so high that's going to be substantially more than you will earn on the tables.

Again using my favorite example of 25PLO that'd be 7.2bb/100 in rakeback (at 40%). PTR doesn't have much of a sample on that stake but in general it looks like the biggest long term earn rates at that stake/game are going to be somewhere from 4-10bb/100. Meaning rakeback is going to be the vast majority of all profit for any players who can manage to surpass the 2buyins/1000 rake there.

Even at a stake like $200NL you pay around 50bb/1000 or half a buyin in rake. And the games at $200NL are definitely not exactly the softest now a days. 40% rakeback is going to equate to 2bb/100. Now $200NL has a much larger sample and its pretty clear the biggest longterm earn rates at that game are looking to be around 6bb/100. Meaning for the most dominant players in those games rakeback makes up 33% of their profit. For everybody else its going to make up the majority of their profit.

'Rakeback nit' might have made sense back when the games were soft and huge earn rates were possible. But the games today are not soft, in fact they are quite bad. And in spite of this the sites just keep increasing the rake. There's not really anything such as a 'rakeback nit' anymore. If somebody sucks at the games they're not going to be winning even with rakeback. The games are getting to the point that even the best players are having to rely on rakeback for increasingly large portions of their profit.

People aren't as aware as you think. Also, I don't see you doing ANYthing at all.


Feel free to use these avatars on other forums too. Create animated ones. Keep the trend going IMO longterm this is good for us.


If legislation sets in we might get raked even more and taxed more and blah blah. So this must start early. At least I am doing something here.



Thanks for those who use the avatars and voice their opinions constantly.

Yeah, pretty much this....


People don't understand how high the rake is. They don't reallllly "get" it. By raising consciousness...I just want people to think about it more. Maybe realize how high it is.

Gotta take the first step.

I certainly support this, and wish things would change. It would be nice to have one flat rake instead of paying rake then seeing what I get for rakeback and points and deposit bonus's and loyalty this and that. Hopefully we see some change soon

I will use one too, about time i had something.

Was posting that comment when woke up, was bit too harsh on fellow poker players. Ofcourse it feels somewhat terrible if you have break-even days and you see that you had payed huge summs in rb. But as I earlier mentioned - how much is the demand for the product, so much will be the price for that product, basic economics. Only thing that I am hoping is better loyality programs.

Great idea with avatars. Exactly my thoughts.

Grunch:

Next up: preach Christianity to a Christian congregation - you never know who might drop in.

I wanna use this one but can you make it say 'rake me' to enhance the Nirvana reference plzkthx.

Will see what I can do hang on. Thanks