Re: What the smartest Vegas poker boss will do.
 

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Why all the talk about what the local players want. The locals are attempting to make moneys off the tourists, correct.

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This is only some of the market. there are many locals who play poker primarily against other locals. Many people play poker not to try to make money (they would like to win) but as a social outlet. They are coming to play poker to have fun, to have something to do, to have people to talk to,

Re: What the smartest Vegas poker boss will do.
 

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someone in Atlantic City should run an LA-style room.

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I was gonna post that exact statement.

Borgata is huge like an LA room (85 tables), but they wouldn't shake things up like that. They've been pretty successful thus far, and won't make any changes. But, by 2012 there will be three new (Revel, Pinnacle, MGM) luxury casino/resorts in AC. If they have each have big (40 tables +) poker rooms, Borgata may be forced to make some changes. We'll see....

Re: What the smartest Vegas poker boss will do.
 

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someone in Atlantic City should run an LA-style room.

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I was gonna post that exact statement.

Borgata is huge like an LA room (85 tables), but they wouldn't shake things up like that. They've been pretty successful thus far, and won't make any changes. But, by 2012 there will be three new (Revel, Pinnacle, MGM) luxury casino/resorts in AC. If they have each have big (40 tables +) poker rooms, Borgata may be forced to make some changes. We'll see....

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The Borgata has done little if anything to promote AC poker, the Taj was a better representative when they were the leading room. With so many struggling rooms no one wants to take a chance. You want to fill your room: good totally free food (ala Commerce/Wynn), small cap NL games, and pester the NJCC until they allow stradles, buying the button and chip runners doing fills/players checks. WTF we can't even play triple draw..it's freakin' illegal in a poker room!!!

Re: What the smartest Vegas poker boss will do.
 

I don't really think bad beat jackpots are good for the room since they are so rarely hit. I have spent a decent amount of time in poker rooms with alot of tables and I don't think I have ever seen one hit. I think these may work to bring in the regular locals but a tourist sees a super high number like that and knows he pretty much has a 0% chance of winning.

What does work I think is having high hand jackpots. Make them small, a few hundred or so, and have a board that resets every 5 hours. Maybe pay the top three hands. I have seen quite a few tourists who were about to leave stay another 4 hours or so to see if their quads hold up for a couple hundred dollar prize.

Re: What the smartest Vegas poker boss will do.
 

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I like the 3 dollar an hour idea, but I think that it should only apply as a credit to a persons hotel room bill.

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Actually thats kind of an interesting idea. Give an extra comp dollar or two that can only be applied to hotel rooms.

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This is a terrible idea. It only works for the casino if the credit is applied to a future stay, not your current one. You are going to pay your room bill anyhow (and on a credit card, so it really doesn't impact your gambling losses), so any credits hit the hotel directly on the bottom line. Giving food comps means sometimes the person uses it (breakage) and the cost of the food is generally cheaper than the face value of the comp.

Re: What the smartest Vegas poker boss will do.
 

The smartest Vegas poker boss will do absolutely nothing and thus hold on to his/her job until retirement. Every poker boss has corporate bosses, who have bosses etc. The smartest poker boss does as he/she's told.

The corporations that own casinos would like nothing better than to see this poker boom go away. They make very little profit from the poker rooms. A few years ago poker rooms were closing along the Strip, then televised tournaments brought it back.

10-handed is fine. Due to the many distractions of Vegas players tend to get up from the table a lot. 10-handed is effectively 8-9 handed. Personally, I prefer more money at the table.

Recently, a few bosses of smaller poker rooms have been fired to be replaced by lead poker shift bosses. It turns out the poker rooms run just fine. And it shows just how much the management really appreciates poker.

Re: long reply (oddly, not very ranty at all)
 

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From spreadsheets I've done, the house's average ev on a poker player is about 7.50/hour.

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That is not much.

Re: long reply (oddly, not very ranty at all)
 

I think it's funny that the common thrusts of so many posts in this thread are:

1) I know better how to maximize the profitability of casino poker rooms than do people who actually manage casinos for a living.
2) Coincidentally, it just so happens that they would be doing their jobs a lot better if they gave more free stuff to poker players like me.

Re: What the smartest Vegas poker boss will do.
 

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2. Switch from deep-stack to mid-stack or small-stack NL. IOW, switch to LA-style NL. 5/10 with $500 buy-ins. Much more action, much more fun. I don't think anyone in Vegas spreads games like this.


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You might have trouble getting a short-stacked 5/10 game going. Most 5/10 regulars in Vegas are set on the deep stacks at Wynn/B


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The B has a 1K cap on the 5/10 game. A lot of the local players hate this about it and prefer the Wynn/Venetian/Caesars uncapped action.

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That's why I like Bellagio's 5/10 game. Everyone sits down with a grand and it doesn't play ultra deep which will happen at the Wynn 5/10 game. I love the Wynn 5/10 game too, it just depends on how I feel.

Re: What the smartest Vegas poker boss will do.
 

Obviously the OP lacks a little business common sense here. Most poker bosses don't need to provide ANYTHING to the players. Why!? People will still play! This is why Bellagio is cheap with handouts and what not, people will still pack that place because it is Bellagio.

Let's take a look at the Venetian. They opened this massive room in 2006 and nobody showed up to play. So what'd they do!? Well they got smart and started freebies! A badbeat jackpot fully funded by the casino itself! Then they started comping 3.50 an hour to 1-2 and 4.50 an hour for 2-5 and higher. Such a sick deal. Obviously word spread that the room was nice and the comps were great and once the room got packed they took away the generous freebies.

Remember all those free drinks get charged back to the poker room as well. The poker room for the most part is simply there to get you into the casino in hopes that you blow your profit in the pits or stores.