I'm amazed that people make statements such as rake should be "at equilibrium". Rake is way behind inflation and it is impossible to run a profitable room without the increases. Of you dont like it agitate against inflationary monetary policy. Pretending the casino should operate at a loss so that you can gamble for a living is ridiculous

Dude your on crack.

All casino's should be blessed and thankful to even operate a poker room
and shut there mouths.

Talk about the easiest business in the world. Have 1 person deal and game
and take in the money. You realize that (God I hope) if say 1 person in
NY or Toronto was allowed to open a poker room they would make a fortune.
With zero business skill, and they can be the dumbest person you went to highschool with.

They are all greedy ****ers. They should all be thankful for the opportunity
to have one of the best business' in the world, and they didn't earn it.
Who owns casino's? Are you allowed to open your own poker room?
This stuff is all handed down. I would love to see casino owners try and
operate other business, that would teach them.

could they be the dumbest you went to college with or is your post only for people with a high school education?

you mean like Hotels, restaurants, and entertainment ?



other than all of that, your post was pretty funny. a bit unhinged, but I lol'd

The idea that Regs aren't necessary for poker has merit, but I can see one thing they bring to the table (from the POV of the casion): bigger games.

Recs who are just there to gamble it up want the most bang for the buck. Like slot machines or roulette they know they're going to lose in the long run but they just want to pass as much time with fun and the illusion of 'getting lucky' as possible for their investment.
So what do the bigger games add to the fun? Well, the same thing that a jackpot adds to a slot machine: the illusion that you can actually strike it rich and win life-altering mnoney.

If such bigger games are available the Rec may think "maybe I'm just talented at this?" if he has a lucky streak and move up: thus generating more rake for the house and returning those lucky winnings faster to the casino.

So there's an interesting balance in rake to my mind. Too steep and Recs don't get enough playtime before having to quit (and diminished chance of getting lucky and moving up). I.e. you drive off all the Recs to other games (and drying up the ecosystem for the Regs in the process which further diminishes the appeal of poker by taking away the 'jackpot' games).
Too little rake and you get the Regs fleecing the Recs at low stakes - again driving them off. In either case the Regs are eventually left cannibalizing each other's bankrolls and the casion loses out for lack of players.

Getting rake just right so that you have lts of players in soft games which are unappealing to Regs because of slightly too high rake to sustain a living...and that at a $-rate per sq-foot that makes it worthwhile for the casino?
Hmmm...I guess they need to start stacking tables on top of one another.

Regs whine too much. Usually negative attitudes to boot! Haha

People just got a ton of free money for no reason, naturally they're going to gamble with it because degens gonna degen. Poker was already in a great place pre covid, but I could see it growing as legal online gambling keeps spreading and they link up the two experiences more and more.

I have no idea what world you people live in that view poker like this.

They operate these business alongside the casino's. Extra free cash.
Ya its hard to put a restaurant in a casino. U suck

Hi GreatBigRedOne:

Profitable short term perhaps, but in the long run if the rake stops the creation of regular players which the poker room needs to start games and keep games going, don't expect the games to last. Also, notice that this has nothing to do with inflation.

Best wishes,
Mason

other than reg on reg niche games, I'm still of the opinion that resonable variations in rake matters not for maintaining / growing games.

Recs dont care about rake. Regs care MUCH MUCH more about having recs in game than rake. Recs start bigger games. Regs will come. Regs start games, recs might or might not come.



No, U.

Up to a point. If a game is too expensive then they won't play (or go play something else). Poker is a pastime. If you can't afford to pass the time you have you go do something else you can afford. Not every rec is a whale who doesn't care about money.

Regs care about having an hourly rate at playing poker. Where that comes from they couldn't careless. If the regs can't make enough of a living given the rake then they won't play.
I agree that they care more about not having to only compete with other regs, but not to the exclusion of everything else and to an unlimited degree of rake.

By your argument (see bolded parts above) recs don't care about rake and regs don't care about rake...so why not have super high rake?

Because then neither group gets what they want.

You will not get an argument from me that higher rake damages the game. The reality however is that the poker room itself is facing increasing costs due to inflation not to mention regulation that increases costs that cannot be overcome without raising rake. If they did not the rooms would have to close and there would be no game.at all.

That inflation thus has an overall negative effect on the games by raising the lowest stakes in order for games to be relevant, while at the same time consuming disposable income, and raising operating costs is obvious to me, but blame the fed not the casino

I agree that "dont care " was a bit strong.

My main point is that as it relates to reasonable variations in rake, its impact on games is minimal.

It is the same as online. Sites/Operators are in competition with regs to convert new player buyins.

Operators convert to rake.

Regs convert to living expenses.

As a rec player, I'd rather have the former. Regs just take money out of economy. Nothing else.

News that they are needed to "start" games is way overblown in all but the extreme examples of starting niche low demand games, and/or high stakes and or in rooms struggling to get games. Those rooms should prob just close .

If they want to keep alive, they would make more money by just paying props and keeping rake high vs lower rake in an effort to cater to regs.

More profitable rooms = more opportuniy for rec attracting promos.

Which is better? rec attracting promos or a reg buying a new car?

Your a total moron. You think their is one dealer? How about the one on break? Do you know how much L&I and all the benefits and unseen taxes are. The floor, the brush, security, accounting and believe me there is alot of labor that goes into the books and cashiers cage, the janitorial staff, food service, taxes on the real estate, taxes on the room income, the cost of real estate, the cost of the equipment and furniture/software, room manager off the top of my head. Your oblivious and you seem angry because of it.

Regs buying a new car is more important.

Poker is NOT an action game. Even 5 card PLO or fast paced limit game, compare them to the speed of blackjack or the social cheering of craps. If Poker is just about promos and recs can splash around, then it's pointless because other games do the degen and splash around much, much better.

Pretending like "the poker dream" of WINNING by playing +EV is irrelevant is dumb, movies like Rounders and the Moneymaker story got popular because they sold you could win at poker with skill. In Rounders he was a strong player. And Moneymaker, you can say he's a donk but heads up he ran a ballsy, well-timed bluff on Farha and that was absolutely part of the narrative.

There are some recs who just want to splash around but there are MANY more who, even if they're just playing for fun, still aspire to win via skill. Maybe they have a few drinks and undermine that goal with a punt session but nonetheless I'd say the majority of recs still aim to be winning players. The mix of skill and luck is part of the appeal. I think it's a hard minority who just want to purely gamble, because if that's their mindset, agan, baccarat, blackjack, craps, all much better games if you don't care about potential for skill and just want to gamble.

If nobody can win because the rake is too high, yes just shut it down and get back to blackjack and craps, there's no point.

As far as inflation making games like 1/2 1/3 less viable, it's going to happen sooner or later anyway, maybe sooner because of money printing, that's fine. Instead of running 1/2 games with rake so high they are absolutely pointless, then figure out how to encourage more 2/5 5/10 and 10/20 games to go consistently, by investing in poker rooms and poker images.

I've mentioned this in another thread, but casinos need to do MORE livestreaming. LATB is by far the best hope for poker to remain relevant. Clinging to old traditions in a digital age is the most short sighted thing a cardroom could do.

Im not convinced.

Using some advanced scientific research.

Number of players in poker room: 100

Number of regs: 15
(all or most income from poker)

Number of recs who aspire to be
in above group: 4

Number of recs who play as fun
with no expectation or requirement
for long term winning: 81


Of course the 81 recs want to win because its a hell of lot more fun when they do. Sometimes they win many times they dont. They have NO desire to make poker their life, will never be a reg, and will never care about rake. Poker is just something fun to do. Rake is largely irrelevant to whether or not they have a winning or losing session.

The reason they play poker vs slots or table games is they like the skill element and find that a lot more fun then the other games in casino which or mindless. High rake or low rake does not change the skill vs luck for them.

High Rake in rooms doesn't matter to anyone but regs.

Regs dont matter cuz all they want is a new car.

the stereotypical drunk whale usually don't explicitly care about rake, but they will notice that they lose their money more quickly

It always comes back to the fact that poker is entertainment for most people, and higher rake means the $:fun ratio gets worse, even if the players don't always exactly understand why. Everyone but the biggest whales have a $:fun breaking point, and except in weird edge cases, higher fun doesn't increase proportionately for the higher $ cost

There's also the affect that regs know they're getting destroyed by the rake in actual flops, which causes them to tighten up, which makes it less fun for the recs. They don't know that everyone is tight because of the rake, they just know that everyone is tight. The affect is the same, though.

there's also a lot of slightly losing recs/breakeven players who do care about the rake, partially as a matter of principle, because they don't want to be taken advantage of by the house. my dad is the blackjack equivalent of this, used to like to go to vegas occasionally and lose a bit of money playing $5 blackjack, but won't stop complaining about how around 10 years ago they introduced a bunch of stupid blackjack variants that worsen the odds for players, and hasn't played since (ironically, now he just goes and donks off a bit of money on the slots when he goes to vegas). he also complains about the double 00 on roulette, and things like that. He doesn't think he's a +EV blackjack player, but the $:fun ratio got a bit out of whack for him

Hi Great:

Unless reducing rake has the long term effect of producing more games.

And yes, I’m not happy with the FED either.

Best wishes,
Mason

I'm not sure. Regs look really hard at the hourly they can achieve (or I would imagine that any reg worth his salt does). FRor the bulk of low level grinders the rake can quickly mean the difference between certain levels being viable as a source of income or not. The high rollers probably don't care as much - true. Although they do probably care some that fresh players get a chance to come up through the ranks and don't immediately get weeded out at the lowest levels before they get to where these players can take their winnings.

Sure. But without the Recs there wouldn't be "High stakes poker" and similar. And that does draw a lot of rec players to the game. Think what the player pool would look like without them (i.e. pretty much what it was before the poker boom)

I dont understand why is this forum so consistently negative.
Games largely stabilized throughout the world pre covid. Covid meant the biggest boom in two decades, first online and then live. Sure, it's gonna go to pre-covid levels.

It feels like poker reached an equilibrium of sorts. Sure, that might change in few years, but I see little reason to be negative right now.

---

I never finished my PhD in Econ and thus cant claim to be an expert on the subject, but I highly question any critique of FED's work given the speed of the recovery and general shape of american economy. But, again, I can def. be proven wrong. I just think it's quite a ballsy move to not praise FED right now.

Your fundamental mistake is thinking that , if you care about winning at poker, you must want to make poker your life and your primary source of income.

I have carefully tracked my stats for years, play to win, etc but never once considered going pro at poker. Because IMO it’s not a great career path and you can make a lot more money at other things. But I still track numbers and book wins every year and I manage my poker roll independently and treat it like my “level” in a video game like world of Warcraft.

So right off bat your made up stats doesn’t even include people like me since you assume every winning player aspires to play full time.

And even if I was losing, I would look at players like garret adelstein as evidence that could change. If I lost at poker I would still play and try to impro. But if rake was so high nobody could win, I would quit. And I already refuse to play most 1/2 games and I’ve tournaments under $500 cause rake is too high. Am I a one in a million rec or are there others like me?

Now you have made up stats that most recs don’t care about winning. Obviously neither of us have real data but I implore you to listen to table talk a little more. Even the biggest donators to the games will talk about strategy. People know players like Gman and Negraneau and Polk and aspire to win like them.

So while neither of us have hard evidence , I think given the interest in big winners and strategy, the idea that most recs don’t care if the rake makes the game unbeatable is obviously wrong.

The numbers we are seeing in live tournaments (and cash games) are indicative of a dead cat bounce for live poker generally.

The generally perceived downward trend preCovid will not be reversed by the temporary excitement of live play opening again in its remaining venues.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadcatbounce.asp

There will be live poker spread, for the foreseeable future, but almost certainly at levels below February, 2020.

There are planned tournaments to be sure, but not sure we will see numbers reach or maintain near pre-Covid levels. The appeal and popularity of live poker will be under the same downward pressures it faced in March 2020.

Poker is generally the red-headed stepchild of live casino operations and fails to build a following among prospective new players.

Wish that were not so, but I think it is.

Are you sure I said most recs dont care about winning?

Absolutely sure?

careful. expectation <> requirement <> caring



Edit. p.s. Gzesh... "red-headed stepchild" is derogatory toward red heads and stepchildren. and makes theM feel bad about themselves. please aPoloGiZe and let them know that just because they are red headed or step children does not mean their mama does not love them

Hmmm, I have an MBA in Finance and a BA in public policy and studied for them under two Nobel Prize winners in the field over the years. However, I do not follow your point.

What is FED ? I do not recognize the acronym. If it refers to the Federal Reserve or the Federal government, I do not share your believe that a generally robust economy necessarily yields a real growth in live poker. I share a negative long-term outlook for sustained numbers at the current reopening levels..

How do you see things as more favorable NOW for live poker than they were in 2020 prior to March that year ? If your belief is strong, maybe you can buy a discounted 2022 room package at Well Read Ted's Poker Hotel ?

I just failed to see downward pre-covid trend you mentioned. I thought that the poker scene largely stabilized pre march2020 (ME entrants werent signicantly dropping, I didmt notice gtds dropping, plenty of people deemed it worthy to continue investing into development of poker software....). I agree that current numbers wont hold, I even said so.

I'd be interested in seeing some numbers that suggest that poker was actually in downward spiral. I am open to being proven wrong.