Rake v Time Charge
Recently my local casino (Crown in Melbourne Australia) changed its structures for the $10/20 Limit games. I'd played the $10/20 Omaha & $10/20 Holdem/Omaha games occasionally (usually play $5/10 Limit Holdem), and on my last venture at Omaha, I'd noticed that they had changed from a rake to a time charge with no rake.
I can see both positives and negatives for it, but I was wondering what other people thought of it.
Previously the rake was 10% with a $15 cap. Now its a flat $25/player/hour with no rake taken at all.
The obvious benefit is for the winning player, or at least a player who wins multiple pots in an hour.
The obvious drawback is for the losing player (who is paying to play, in spite of not winning), as well as the tight player who plays few hands and hence wins few pots per hour (I tend to fall into this category, though I did finish up $250 in a 3 hour session on the one occasion that I played the time charge/no rake structure, but that was as much due to a few players who would call down with very weak hands than anything special with my play).
The casino have guaranteed income - $200+/hour, which increases if multiple people leave/go broke as others join the table & pay full or part time charge, so I can see the benefit from their perspective.
What do people on the forum think?
Is it a better or worse game as a result of the change?
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