I played in a tournament last night, and here are the financial details. And keep in mind that this is a NH cardroom, so they have to give like 35% of their profits to charity.
The tournament is a 50/50/50 which means each player can fire up to three $50 bullets. There's also a "staff bonus" where you get extra chips for the first buyin, for an extra $10.
So, 121 runners - safe to say theyre all in for $60 each - 121*60=$7260
82 rebuys and 77 addons - 159*50=$7950
So they took in a total of $15,210
The prize pool was $11,079, so they raked off $4131, which is 27%. Kind of brutal. But that's the price you pay for playing low buy-in tournaments in a charity room. (Interestingly, NH limits tournaments to a maximum buy-in/addon total of $250, so there just aren't any high buy-in tournaments, but that's another story.) I've always been comfortable with it, considering the higher rake an acceptable trade-off for a weaker player pool, but that's another nother story.
But this staff bonus bullshit bothers me. I'll have to ask them exactly how that works, next time. Obviously that $1210 went to the staff, somehow, whether it's figured into their hourly or actually is a bonus for working that tournament, they're getting it. But then the question becomes, should I even be tipping? That $1210 is more than 10% of the prize pool - that's more than the dealers would get from tips, typically. Now, I'm not a cheap bastard when it comes to tipping dealers - I'm more than fair, I think. I was in for $110, min-cashed for $204, and tipped $14. But now I'm wondering if I'm the sucker. Is that extra $10 staff bonus (that everybody pays) supposed to be in lieu of a tip?
The tournament is a 50/50/50 which means each player can fire up to three $50 bullets. There's also a "staff bonus" where you get extra chips for the first buyin, for an extra $10.
So, 121 runners - safe to say theyre all in for $60 each - 121*60=$7260
82 rebuys and 77 addons - 159*50=$7950
So they took in a total of $15,210
The prize pool was $11,079, so they raked off $4131, which is 27%. Kind of brutal. But that's the price you pay for playing low buy-in tournaments in a charity room. (Interestingly, NH limits tournaments to a maximum buy-in/addon total of $250, so there just aren't any high buy-in tournaments, but that's another story.) I've always been comfortable with it, considering the higher rake an acceptable trade-off for a weaker player pool, but that's another nother story.
But this staff bonus bullshit bothers me. I'll have to ask them exactly how that works, next time. Obviously that $1210 went to the staff, somehow, whether it's figured into their hourly or actually is a bonus for working that tournament, they're getting it. But then the question becomes, should I even be tipping? That $1210 is more than 10% of the prize pool - that's more than the dealers would get from tips, typically. Now, I'm not a cheap bastard when it comes to tipping dealers - I'm more than fair, I think. I was in for $110, min-cashed for $204, and tipped $14. But now I'm wondering if I'm the sucker. Is that extra $10 staff bonus (that everybody pays) supposed to be in lieu of a tip?
