[bav]

Let's do some back-of-the-envelope calculations using incomplete data for just the WSOP main event. Let's go with the dealers getting 2% of the prize pool. There were 5800 entrants last year putting $1.16M of toke money into the pool. There were 3 first days which ran from about 11am to 2:30am. They started with about 196 tables each day and ended with about 64. This part gets fuzzy but let's just say they averaged 150 tables for 14.5 hours (that assumes the rate at which people bust increases during the day). That's 6525 table-hours they needed for the three day 1's. Logical day 2 (physical day 4) started with about 190 tables and ended with 64 after 13 hours of play for another ~150*13 = 1950 table hours. Day 3 ended with 185 players at 21 tables after 13.5 hours so lets call that another 50*13.5 = 675 table hours. Day 4 ended after 13.5 hours with 58 players so I'll go with 17*13.5 = 230 table hours. Day 5 ended with 27 players after only 10 hours so I'll pick 6*10 = 60 table hours. Day 6 saw 3 tables become 1 after 15 hours = 75 table hours. And the final day lasted 15 hours. Add it up and we get 15+75+60+230+675+1950+6525 = 9530 hours.

9530 hours sharing $1.16M. That's $121.72 per actual hour at a WSOP table. Obviously that's not gonna be $122 per hour at work since the dealers take breaks and certainly after logical day 2 most of 'em are no longer needed. But the basic hourly compensation for the main event looks pretty sweet to me, even if the rumors of the final table toking almost nothing are true.

Don't really wanna do this all over again for the smaller tourneys, but I doubt it'll come out nearly as sweet for the $2000 sorta events. And I have no clue what kinda tokes they got for the side games and $500 daily tourneys and $200 daily tourneys and the single table tourneys and the super sats.