[chaosuk]

The mistake that people make is comparing the services, they are completely different - they are only similar in so much hands of poker are played. For every $ rake over 90c* is money they can are free to take profits, sponsor give to rakeback. How much for the casinos?

Some players pay $150k a year or more in rake for just what is just a service. If you broke it down into its component parts, and analysed it as a product that you didn't gamble on, you have to wonder what would be a reasonable cost for the service. If this happened in other industries government watchdogs would be all over them; but they fall in the niche of the gambling industry, except they don't gamble in the same way as casinos or bookmakers, they do so like any other business. If companies can compete by offering 35% of their revenue back, just consider how much they make.

Admittedly, the excessive profits are driven a healthy advertising campaign which has swelled the numbers, but there must be a saturation level and maybe at some point
someone will compete on rake.

* I had some informal confirmation of this.