Would you play in a casino that ran like a poker room? (1 Viewer)

Would you play in a casino that ran like a poker room?

  • Pay to play? That's even a worse idea

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    7
  • Poll closed .

Poker Zombie

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While casinos make their money by taking a +EV edge on every spin, pull, throw, or deal, poker rooms make their money very differently. I've seen timed rakes where you pay for every 30 minutes of seat time, a regular rake where they pull X% up to $Y from every win, and of course tournaments, where you pay a flat entry fee and play until you leave.

By taking their money "up front", the casino could lower their edge down to 0% on many games. No-Zero Roulette, 100% pay table video poker, 3:2 Blackjack with surrender and all the fixin's, ect.

I doubt any casino would ever do this (poker rooms are not big money earners), and I dont think it would even be legal under some gaming control laws, but I was wondering what the community would think of this concept that I dreamed up at 4am, when I couldn't sleep.
 
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I think the most fair and player-friendly scheme for poker would be to just tax the total winnings by a percentage on cash-out, on winning players only, obviously.
I guess that's not viable business-wise, but I 'd gladly start a poker room as a non-profit educational foundation or gentlemen's club, if it were legal here.:)
 
No. If you’re playing games with a 0% casino edge, but paying seat time, it’s still a losing proposition, right?
I play poker because it’s a game of skill.
You could take the 0 and the 00 off the roulette wheel, but it’s still a game of chance.
 
I think the most fair and player-friendly scheme for poker would be to just tax the total winnings by a percentage on cash-out, on winning players only, obviously.
I guess that's not viable business-wise, but I 'd gladly start a poker room as a non-profit educational foundation or gentlemen's club, if it were legal here.:)

When the rake is pulled from the pot on the flop and then the entire (remaining) pot is pushed to the winner, I doesn't feel like you paid a rake. Psychologically, the rake feels less painful. The chips you stack are post-rake, so you never factor the rake into your win.

But paying a cashout tax will be money directly out of your stack. If you cash out for $300 but have to pay a 5% tax, you're giving them $15 and you're walking out with less than you won.

Even though you're likely paying much more than $15 over the course of a raked session, that tax at the end of a session feels like it stings more.

Flip your suggestion... Would you buy in for $200 and take only $190 in chips (no rake, no cashout tax)?
 
That's how I run my cash games and fund the bonus for the night.

But if I buyin at your game for $190 + $10 for the nightly bonus, I have the chance (theoretically, at least) to win the bonus, so I'm happy to pay the extra $10. That's different than paying $200 cash and getting $190 in chips, with the casino keeping the other $10.
 
Flip your suggestion... Would you buy in for $200 and take only $190 in chips (no rake, no cashout tax)?
Possibly acceptable, but it's to be paid by both eventual winners and losers, so less fair than the cash-out tax, which would be levied on winners only.
 
Possibly acceptable, but it's to be paid by both eventual winners and losers, so less fair than the cash-out tax, which would be levied on winners only.

Well, I was suggesting that all cashouts be taxed. If you buyin for $200 and tread water and take a small loss, when you cash out for $180, you pay 5% cash out tax (just a arbitrary percentage for the sake of this discussion), so you get $171.
 
Well, I was suggesting that all cashouts be taxed. If you buyin for $200 and tread water and take a small loss, when you cash out for $180, you pay 5% cash out tax (just a arbitrary percentage for the sake of this discussion), so you get $171.
But why do that and not let the winners take the burden of everybody's entertainment?
The poor loosers are already out of some money.

If it's to be done on both winners and losers, it's much easier to do it beforehand, by handing less chips per buy-in, as you suggested.
 
Only game I can see this making any sense is blackjack... Time for some gambling logic that I'm not exactly equipped for...

Assuming time is like 10/hr, you have to be making 15/hr to not lose out. At a $15 min table, that's 1 unit/hr. With dealer stand on S17, LS, 3:2, DAS etc., I like to think that's doable. That being said, I have a feeling that were this system to hypothetically materialize, the casinos would institute some form of flat betting and/or continuous shuffle, which would make the whole thing worthless. If the count continually resets and you can't press a good part of the shoe, none of the rest matters nearly as much.

So... I guess I wouldn't lol.
 
But why do that and not let the winners take the burden of everybody's entertainment?
The poor loosers are already out of some money.

If it's to be done on both winners and losers, it's much easier to do it beforehand, by handing less chips per buy-in, as you suggested.
The ecosystem of a cardroom is important. The fish feed the whales and the sharks, who in turn feed the house. If you start taxing winners only, you're disincentivizing the sharks especially from playing there. The room I played at pre-COVID was a perfect example: the floorperson always made sure there wasn't a casual-only table, and would always make sure to mix in a few regs. This was because casuals (at least here) tended to limp like crazy and play tight as hell--meaning less money in the pot and less rake taken off the table.

Plus, with regards to the losers already being out money, poker is a game of equity not equitability lol. You play to win the game, but inherent in playing cards is the knowledge that you can lose. In the wise words of Furio Giunta, "bet wit yoor 'ead, no over it"

 
Yeah, I was talking from the players', not room owners' point of view.
I acknowledged that the scheme proposed would only be meaningful if the room were a non-profit institution, meant to just be able to pay salaries.
 

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