[George Rice]

There is not enough information to determine whether or not the house is greedy, as one poster put it. It depends on their overhead, and whether or not it is a legal room.

It's a four-dollar rake, which is on the high side, but not way out of line. The dollar for the bad beat is more of a concern for two reasons. First, it takes money away from all players, including winning players, and re-distributes it randomly among few players, in big chunks. A player who wins a big chunk of money will probably not put it all back into the game--he'll spend it on other things (for example, a car). Second, who's keeping an eye on the house to make sure all the money actually goes into the pool? Some places take a part of the raked dollars for 'expenses'. And some just take some of the money. Also, it's standard procedure now to keep part of the pool to seed the next bad beat. So part of the pool may never be paid, especially if the house isn't legal and subject to getting raided.

The dollar tip is standard in all games. But you may find many players tip more than that, taking even more money out of the game.

Yes, the game is beatable. If you can manage $10 per hour in the same game with the same players and a $3 rake and no bad beat, figure your rate may be reduced to about $5-$6 per hour. If it was $5 per hour, then you'll probably break even or lose a small amount.

In a house that gets many hands dealt per hour, the game won't last long without a constant influx of players. If the dealers are typical and get deal out about 40 hands per hour, the game will probably last, unless the player pool is real small, or there are a few good winning players.