• How Do Casinos Earn Money From Poker
• How Do Casinos Make Money On Poker Games
• How Do Casinos Make Money On Poker

The current lockdown of society due to the COVID-19 outbreak has brought everything to a screeching halt. This has been particularly hard on the casino industry and, by extension, the poker world. At no other point in history has the gaming industry faced such travails, but it may be even more problematic looking towards the future.

There are going to be changes in our world once lockdowns are ended and people are allowed to attempt to resume their lives. For example, grocery and department stores (which have already been battered by the advent of online shopping) will probably have to have even less stock on hand as they have to expand aisles to allow for people to walk with distance between each other. With this in mind, what will be the future of casinos and, in particular, poker once the coronavirus alerts have lifted.

Eight to a Table

Nov 08, 2019 Every single game, be it roulette, blackjack, baccarat, or slots has an in-built advantage for the casino that is commonly referred to as the house edge. The edge is usually around a few percentage. UniquESports Forum - Member Profile Profile Page. User: How does casino make money from poker, how does an online casino make money, Title: New Member, About: How does casino make money from poker.

One of the biggest things that will beseen in the future in a poker room are table maxes. From the timeframe of the “pokerboom” in 2003, many poker room managers wanted to jam as many people onto atable as was possible, especially for tournaments. Nine and ten handed tablesbecame the norm as poker room managers looked to maximize the numbers and takeadvantage of the popularity of the game.

How Do Casinos Earn Money From Poker

After COVID-19, however, this is going to change, whether the poker rooms like it or not. There is going to be more room put between tables – don’t expect to see tables on top of each other, like at the World Series of Poker (whenever that may be this year) in the past. See the photo that accompanies this essay? That is going to be something that disappears. These tables will have probably between 15-20 feet at the minimum between each other in the future, to make sure that people aren’t in close contact with other competitors and, as far as those at their table, that they can maintain a bit more distance than previously.

The number of people at the table will also change. Instead of nine- or ten-handed tables (be it cash games or tournaments), poker rooms will most likely make eight-handed tables the norm. Eight handed tables still allow for strategic play but it will also move the action. It is the perfect balance between the (too many) ten-handed tables and the (too few) six-handed tables, both from the playing aspects of poker and from the health concerns of the players.

One of the side effects of this is thattournament participation may either be reduced or the multiple Day Ones willbecome a staple of tournament poker (not like they weren’t already prevalent).But that’s a discussion for another time…and let’s not even get into EATING atthe table!

More Attention to Cleanliness?

The poker rooms haven’t necessarily been a bastion of cleanliness in the past. Everyone talks about the Rio “crud” that will often be circulated amongst the players, staff and other personnel at the WSOP, and it is a real thing. But poker players themselves aren’t exactly persnickety regarding how clean something is, so it was often overlooked as one of the hazards of going to the poker room.

In the future, poker rooms are going to be much more mindful of cleanliness. Chips, handled by all of the players, will be cleaned more frequently (in fact, it may become a selling point of poker rooms – “chips cleaned weekly using (insert industrial strength disinfectant cleaner) for your protection!”), and the poker rooms themselves may be shut down for short periods of time during a work day to allow for custodial personnel to perform their magic on the rails and other common areas. If you want to go to the extremes, we may also see poker room personnel – table runners, managers, cashiers at the cage – wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) such as rubber gloves, maybe even facial masks, to provide another level of protection to not only the employees but also to the customers.

Yes, Some Poker Rooms May Be Closed

The stark reality is that some poker rooms may be closed once this epidemic ends. Especially if the rooms are made to put more distance between their tables and have fewer players on the felt, this means that smaller rooms – let’s say those with 15 tables or less – aren’t going to be able to put through the traffic that they might have had previously. With fewer tables also could come fewer personnel, pushing some very talented people who work in poker rooms out through no fault of their own.

Then there’s always the scourge of thatabomination called “slot machines.” It has always been a delicate dance in acasino between the slot machines – the automatons that don’t take days off,constantly crank out profit and don’t need to have “breaks” or “vacations” –and the poker rooms, and this will become even more apparent in the very nearfuture. In the past, this dance hasn’t ended well for poker rooms.

Especially after almost two months of closure, many casino operations are going to be looking to maximize their revenues after having the spigot shut off for so long. If it comes down between putting in a few banks of slot machines that takes a skeletal staff to man and maintain versus a poker rooms relatively wide open spaces and personnel that require a pesky paycheck, which one do you think that casinos are going to go for? It has happened before, as anyone who has been around the game for any length of time will tell you.

A Whole New World

There are definitely going to be changes to what is “normal” in everyday life once the coronavirus pandemic has run its course (and just how long that will be is anyone’s guess). This will be even more evident when it comes to casinos and poker rooms in the future. Hopefully all will come out on the other side unaffected, but there is little in the face of reality that would show that everyone will emerge unscathed.

Rake is the scaled commission fee taken by a cardroom operating a poker game. It is generally 2.5% to 10% of the pot in each poker hand, up to a predetermined maximum amount.^[1][2] There are also other non-percentage ways for a casino to take the rake. Some cardrooms will not take a percentage rake in any community card poker game like Texas hold 'em when a hand does not have a flop. This is called 'no flop, no drop'.^[1]

Poker is a player-versus-player game, and the house does not wager against its players (unlike blackjack or roulette), so this fee is the principal mechanism to generate revenue.

It is primarily levied by an establishment that supplies the necessary services for the game to take place. In online poker it covers the various costs of operation such as support, software and personnel. In traditional brick and mortar casinos it is also used to cover the costs involved with providing a dealer (though in many places tips provide the bulk of a dealer's income) for the game, support staff (from servers to supervisors), use of gaming equipment, and the physical building in which the game takes place. The rake in live games is generally higher than for online poker.

To win when playing in poker games where the house takes a cut, a player must not only beat opponents, but also the financial drain of the rake.^[3]

Mechanism[edit]

There are several ways for the rake to be taken.^[4] Most rake is a fixed percentage of the pot, taken on a sliding scale, with a capped maximum amount that can be removed from the pot regardless of pot size. Less frequently, rake is a fixed amount no matter what the size of the pot.

Pot rake[edit]

A percentage rake is taken directly from the pot. In a live casino, the dealer manually removes chips from the pot while the hand is being played and sets them aside to be dropped into a secure box after completion of the hand. When playing online, the rake is taken automatically by the game software. Some software shows the rake amount next to a graphical representation of the dealer and takes it incrementally between the rounds of betting, whereas other software programs wait until the entire hand is over and then takes it from the pot total before giving the rest to the winner of the hand. This is the prevalent method of collecting rake in online poker.

Dead drop[edit]

The fee is placed on the dealer button each hand by the player in that position, and taken in by the dealer before any cards are dealt.

Time collection[edit]

Time collection (also 'timed rake' or 'table charge') is a set fee collected (typically) every half-hour during the game. This form of rake is collected in one of two ways:

• Player time: A set amount is collected from each player.
• Time pot: A set amount is collected from the first pot over a certain amount.

How Do Casinos Make Money On Poker Games

Time rakes are generally reserved for higher limit games ($10–$20 and above).^{[citation needed]}

Fixed fees[edit]

The fee per hand is a fixed rate and does not vary based on the size of the pot.

Tournament fees[edit]

The above examples are used in ring games, also known as cash games. The rake for participation in poker tournaments is collected as an entrance fee. This may be displayed by showing the tournament buy-in as $100+$20, with the $20 being the house fee or 'Vig'. Other times they will show they buy-in as $100 and list the percentage they take for expenses.

Subscription fees[edit]

Some online cardrooms charge a monthly subscription fee, and then do not rake individual pots or tournaments.

Rake free[edit]

Some online poker websites have done away with the rake altogether. These 'rake free' poker rooms generate revenue by increasing traffic to the company's other profitable businesses (such as a casino or sportsbook) or by charging monthly membership or deposit fees. Some sites are only completely rake-free for frequent players, while offering reduced rake instead for other customers. Due to high fixed costs of operating a poker room, such as marketing, few online poker rooms have been successful in offering rake-free game, often going bankrupt or sustaining themselves by exploiting loopholes in offshore jurisdictions to refuse to honor players' cash withdrawals. However, some financially sound poker rooms have on occasion offered rake-free games to entice new sign-ups or to encourage players to try out new game formats.

Rakeback[edit]

Rakeback is a player rewards method that began in 2004, whereby some online poker sites or their affiliate partners return part of the rake or tournament entries a player pays as an incentive for them to continue playing on that site ^[5]

Rakeback in cash games can be calculated using two different methods: dealt and contributed. The dealt method awards the same amount of rakeback to each player dealt into a hand, and the contributed method rewards players based on their actual contribution to the pot. In poker tournaments, rakeback is deducted from cardroom's entry fee. Rakeback is similar to comps in 'brick and mortar' casinos.

As online poker becomes more mainstream online poker professionals have begun using rakeback as a means of increasing profits or cutting their losses. Depending upon the stakes the player is playing, how many tables they are playing at once, and the number of hours played daily, online poker pros can earn thousands of dollars in rakeback every month. This gave rise to so-called rakeback pros, players using a less intensive losing strategy at many tables simultaneously while offsetting their losses through rakeback.

Not every online poker room offers rakeback. Some allow affiliates to offer rakeback as a direct percentage of rake and tournament entries paid back to the players. Other card rooms such as PokerStars, PartyPoker, Ongame Network and the iPoker Network forbid affiliates to give rakeback. Instead they offer in-house loyalty programs that gives cash and other rewards to players based upon how much they play.^[6] At such networks, rakeback deals are sometimes cut between an affiliate and a player without the poker operator's knowledge. Such deals, if discovered, tend to result in the expulsion of either offending party, and, sometimes, in penalties for the poker operator, if they are part of a bigger poker network.

In brick and mortar rooms, the floorperson may offer a rake reduction or rake-free play to players willing to start a table shorthanded.

Legality[edit]

How Do Casinos Make Money On Poker

In most legal jurisdictions, taking a rake from a poker table is explicitly illegal if the party taking the rake does not have the proper gaming licences and/or permits. The laws of many jurisdictions do not prohibit the playing of poker for money at a private dwelling, provided that no one takes a rake.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

1. ^ ^ab'Poker Rake - Calculate Poker Room Rake - Calculating the Rake'. www.pokerstars.com. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
2. ^'View The Rake and Blind Structure For Cash Games at partypoker'. www.partypoker.com. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
3. ^Raked Over the Coals: Poker Rake, archived from the original on 2015-09-15, retrieved 2017-02-13
4. ^'Poker Article: The Effects of the Rake or Time Charge on your Bottom Line By: Dave in Cali - The Poker Forum.com'. www.thepokerforum.com. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
5. ^'Is Rakeback Legitimate?'. ProfessionalRakeback.com.
6. ^flopturnriver.com (2010-01-13). 'Make Thousands by Playing at PokerStars in 2010'. Flopturnriver.com. Retrieved 2010-01-29.