[AWLurch]

Years before the Moneymaker era poker was the loss-leader of the casino. Just as the local grocery store sells their milk at a loss to draw people in the doors the casinos would maintain the games and the poker rooms to draw players into the room in hopes that these players will gamble in the other more profitable areas. At the time the rake was required to get the casino closer to the break even point not to necessarily provide a profit.

This is where all of these "myths" were created, I believe they were also perpetuated in some books that I recall reading that were published before the Moneymaker era. Obviously people read this and without looking at the math or using common sense they still believe that poker is not <u>profitable.</u>

On the other hand, casino suits are required to maximize the profit of their casino for the long term. In doing so, the finite amount of space available on the casino floor must be properly used to gain the full expected value of each customer. Sure there is a ton of available space for poker rooms in the desert, but the question is, if the casino can make more in the more lucrative space, on the strip properties for example, the casino will do what it needs to do as far as removing poker rooms and replacing with slots. If the casino thought it would be profitable to build a poker room in the desert off the lucrative area of the strip I am sure some would have by now.

After Chris Moneymaker made poker popular poker became such a huge draw to the common espn watching poker fan, that may not have otherwise come to the casino. It is with this craze that we saw poker rooms being expanded to hopefully lure these potentially lucrative gamblers. Also with this craze brought more action, which allowed for more open games which generates more rake, allowing rooms to finally be profitable.

Now that the poker craze is seemingly slowing down, we are seeing rooms on and off the strip, that may not have been as popular, close or downsize. Some rooms are taking away tables that rarely are filled and replacing them with machines that may rarely be used, but stand alone on their own and do not require constant labor and supervision.

Also, as poker seems to slow down, the casinos are now viewing the poker players themselves as preventing the casino from fully maximizing on their expected value from its customers. Considering most winning poker pros tend to keep their money away from table games and slots, this money from other gamblers who lost it, that the casino originally attracted in in hopes to be wagered at other games, is no longer making it to the pits. If Player A, who was planning to play Blackjack, but wants to play poker first, loses all of his money at poker, the expected value that was possible to achieve, was not maximized. Granted the poker room was able to make money off of the rake generated by Player A, they were not able to maximize the full value of the action that Player A would normally give the casino.

For this reason, some smaller casinos, that may not make a ton of money off of poker, would be likely to remove it to make the space more profitable and to eliminate who they see as a competitor for the customers money.

Without a doubt, poker is now profitable, but the bottom line is that it is not the most profitable for the casino if the trend starts to taper off.