Why don't more people take this option? It's got to be crazy profitable, doesn't it? Never mind the variance. For that matter, is it common for people with rolls in the $100Ks to just become their own Corporation? If not, why not?

Last year, I saw a guy at one of the Bay Area cardrooms player banking Ultimate Texas Hold'em. If you've ever watched people play, it has to be a pretty lucrative opportunity as long as you can avoid the royal.

Then this happened

Dude was sitting there playing UTH with ~$20k in chips in front of him...someone clearly noticed.

Ok so im at Cal Grand now and just asked about the diff rules for their "Hot Action Blackjack" game.

There are 6 decks in the continuous shuffle machine. There are 18 extra jokers/2's in those 6 decks (3 per deck). BJ's pay 6/5. If you want to bank you can do it every other hand. If you're the banker you do not cover the side bet action. You cover everyones bets starting from 1st base, if you don't have enough in front of you the house banker pays off the rest of the money due to the players. You get 4/1 if you're first 2 cards are the joker/2.

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Does this mean you can freeroll if you don't cover everyone, or do they announce at the start that say you're only banking first and 2nd base because that's all you cover?

You can only win as much as you have up in front of you. If there's 150 in bets on the table and you have 100 in front of you and the dealer gets a BJ then you would get $100 and the permanent house banker would get the other $50.

Used to work for a corporation.

The corporation generally has to pay the casino in order to get the account. This seems to kind of strain the prohibition against the casino banking the game, but that's how it goes and that's how they get money from the corporation. I guess that's enough of a filter to be legal. Obviously, the corp has to pay collection like anyone else, so they make lots of money from them that way too.

The corporation greases the floorman, but that's really just in hopes of keeping them kind of neutral. They also tip the dealers a fixed amount, like $5 a rotation.

The best thing for the casino is for the corp and the players to be pretty competitive so that as much money as possible goes to collection as wins and loses are pushed back and forth. And obviously, they want players to win sometimes so they keep at it. They want the corp to make enough money to pay them and stay in business and not too much more. If the corp gets cheated, scammed or goes out of business that's a YP. Another will be waiting to take their place. The overwhelming majority of corporations go out of business.

I've heard a few rumors about incestuous ownership, but it was rare as far as I was aware. The casinos make far more than the corps so it's probably not all that worth it for them. I mean, people are paying them $1 a hand on $10 blackjack bets. Who gives a **** about getting 10% of the action on the bet? It's easier to just make the corp pay you more to get the account.

The casino staff does better if the players win. They get more tips that way. Plus, I guess they just naturally empathize with the players, especially since 90% of them are total degens. Many dealers try to cheat the corporation all the time. It's just a normal, everyday thing. Floors aren't as bad, but some of them pick their spots.

Surveillance, to the extent that they know what is going on at all, cares mostly about the drop. If the corp calls for a camera check on something they'll usually get an honest account of what happened. But they have to take the initiative 99% of the time.

Players can bank. For the most part, you can cover whatever % you want and the corp will cover behind. Bonus bets complicate this.

It's not an inherently good thing to do because the bank has to pay collection and you have to play hands as player to have the right to bank. That's a lot of juice. Plus, you will be expected to tip, and not a dollar per win either. If you stiff the dealers, you'd better be on the ball big time. Even if you do tip them, they might take shots on behalf of the regulars. And even if they don't do that, many of them make massive numbers of mistakes that you'll have to catch.

However, if you have a big enough roll and are smart about it, it can def. be profitable. It's just one of those things where if you've got $50k in cash you can afford to lose and are smart enough to do it right, you probably got better stuff going on.