[pepitannikita]

It is no longer this way but when I played at Lucky Chances in California, they had no rake, but instead had a button drop. In a $3-6 limit game, you paid $1 on the SB, $3 on the BB and $3 on the button which was a live call (not sure of terminology here-- you were automatically in and could raise, if wanted) but the money went directly to the house, not the pot. Plus one dollar was dropped into the JACKPOT collection so it was really tough to stay playing these games for any period of time and consistently make money.

At that time, I did not play NL games there but while they had this BUTTON DROP thing in effect, they also spread their lowest NL game calling it a "One-one-two" game for which the buy-in was $100.

After they changed and went to a rake structure for the limit games, they continued having these 1/1/2 NL games. I had heard that the button drop they were doing was discontinued because new California legislation had made it illegal? Not sure about that. Suspect it must have been true to some degree, though, because the change from a button drop to a rake in the $3-6 limit game certainly did help the player and I don't think the casino would have done something like that just from the goodness of their corporate heart! LOL.

I believe the higher stakes limit games continued with a time charge which they had always had but not sure about that, either, since I never got involved at those levels.