Improving smaller cardrooms

[TheJunkyardGod]

(Sorry if this has been discussed before)

After reading so many threads about cardrooms in this country that are nearly dead. I've been curious as to what can be done to save these rooms and get those tables filled up.

Alot of the rooms in Atlantic City have tried adding a Bad Beat Jackpot, with some mild success. The Hilton hosts a no-rake tournament each week and they now hold the New Jersey Poker Championships. But when you go in there they still have a hard time getting alot of games going.

So if you were in charge of a small poker room, what would you do to fill up all your tables? Reduce the rake? Increase comps?

[RR]

[ QUOTE ]
(Sorry if this has been discussed before)

After reading so many threads about cardrooms in this country that are nearly dead. I've been curious as to what can be done to save these rooms and get those tables filled up.

Alot of the rooms in Atlantic City have tried adding a Bad Beat Jackpot, with some mild success. The Hilton hosts a no-rake tournament each week and they now hold the New Jersey Poker Championships. But when you go in there they still have a hard time getting alot of games going.

So if you were in charge of a small poker room, what would you do to fill up all your tables? Reduce the rake? Increase comps?

[/ QUOTE ]

These are both bad ideas.

[bernie]

I think TT had a big long thread about this awhile ago.


One problem is you're not going to save some rooms no matter what as the player pools just aren't big enough to support all the rooms.

Put in more slots and give the bluehairs a special deal.

b

[Al_Capone_Junior]

The reason there are so many small cardrooms without enough business to fill the tables is...


There are simply too many cardrooms. With the boom, everyone tried to jump on the poker bandwagon, catering to the lowest common denominator. Most of these new rooms had upper management that was totally NOT behind poker at all, so many things that could have been done to make these rooms successful were ignored (especially location).


Bad beat jackpots as a promotuon are a joke. One casino I know of started a bbjp and after three months I doubt that one new player has come into that room as a result of the jackpot. If any players do show up just for the bbjp, they won't be desireable ones (jackpot chasers are generally useless).


Unfortunately, the solution is fewer rooms. If there are an average of 500 unfilled poker seats during primetime in a given locale, then there are simply too many rooms, and some of them need to go.

[QuadsOverQuads]

Off the top of my head (and defining "small rooms" as 3-5 tables), a "small room" must focus on the following in order to survive and flourish in the current poker environment:

* Superior customer service
* Knowledgeable and attentive floor staff
* Fast, attentive and entertaining dealers
* Generous comps
* Superior jackpot structure (tailored to room size)
* Focus on CASH GAMES (tournament venues are dying venues)
* build a community of regulars, one player at a time
* know each of your players individually and serve them well

Poker is all about relationships, service and community. There is no shortage of poker players, but there is a huge abundance of badly managed rooms that haven't had to fight for business much because of the poker boom, and now are confused that without a boom their bad practices are causing business problems.

And I'm serious when I say AVOID TOURNAMENTS AT ALL COSTS. Tournament players do not build rooms, and they eat up your resources and break up your marginal cash games. Tournaments exist ONLY to get players through the door. The house makes nothing off of them, the staff makes nothing off of them, and your cash game players lose their games because of them. If your cash game situation is so desperate that ONE SMALL tournament won't seed them effectively, then there are other issues in play (bad dealers, bad management, improper behavior being tolerated, etc). Find out what those issues are and correct them.

Also, do not cater to the nits and the pros. Focus on the social and recreational players. A dirty little secret of the poker industry is this: you DON'T want a bunch of sharks taking up residence in your room and destroying new players the moment they walk in the door. The competition must be appropriate to the limits spread. An entry-level game needs to be composed of entry-level players.

On a related point: steering obvious fish into a game where they are sure to be eaten alive is HORRIBLE business. Consider the quality of their experience, and the long-term health of the poker economy. The interests of the sharks and wannabe pro's are not just irrelevant here, they are actually contrary to the long-term health of the room. Manage your games accordingly.

Taking this into account, I would argue that a small room should focus overwhelmingly on its low-limit action (3/6 and 4/8 limit, maybe a 6/12 when your primary games are solidified). Ditch higher limits and NL entirely -- such limits are impossible for a small room to sustain without a LARGE player base (or a small base of GAME-SPECIFIC regulars). In general, they will chew up the weak players so fast that they never get a chance to see how fun the game can be, and that is BAD for the room (and for poker in general).

Lastly, maintain the quality of the experience in your games. If you have a "problem child" -- even a regular -- who insists on disrupting your game or mistreating your staff and players, EJECT THEM AND BAR THEM. It may hurt your game for a day or two, but it will help dramatically in the long run, because the social environment of your game will improve, and your players have better experiences that will keep them coming back in the future.

It all comes back to this: focus on the recreational player and building a long-term social community.

That's how small rooms can survive and flourish in the current environment.


q/q

[QuadsOverQuads]

Also, as to the "bad beat jackpot" question raised by OP:

A BBJ is generally not appropriate to a small room, because these jackpots are so hard to hit (on any single table) that it requires a large number of tables in order for it to go off with any reasonable frequency. To put a standard-issue BBJ into a small room will generally just siphon your PSJ money into a jackpot fund that rarely (if ever) actually pays out. Its promotional value can actually be NEGATIVE in this context.

This is why smaller rooms generally rely on Monte Carlo boards -- they pay out at the right rate to have promotional value for a small room. It's also why larger venues tend to AVOID such boards (they pay out so often in a 30-table room that none of the jackpots really ever build up beyond their base values).

Evaluating how to structure room-specific promotions like these is a complex art (and an extremely important one), and it is one of the key skills that separates the good rooms from the bad rooms.


q/q

[cjk73]

Honestly, poker rooms could tap into a vast pool of new customers if they did a better job of marketing themselves and the game of poker. There are still a tremendous number of "casual" or even "virgin" poker players that can be converted into more regular customers.

Does anyone remember how intimidating their first foray into B&M poker was? Even for those of us that have played the game all our lives with friends and family there is just something intimidating about the first time in a card room. Rooms need to do something to about that.

Maybe television advertising (where legal) inviting new players to once monthly free rolls where it is clear that other first timers will be there (I am not a marketing expert). Similar advertising/communication should be done to get across to the average middle class Joe that poker isn't "seedy".

Finally, the rooms need to make their environment squeeky clean in and out so first time customers arent turned off (first time I ever played live poker was at a card room in the Bay Area...you want talk about seedy).

[QuadsOverQuads]

I think this may also be a good place to point out that poker players themselves have an interest in the long-term health of the community.

A lot of young "wannabe pros" today have cut their teeth during the boom, and have very little idea that the influx of new players they have been facing is NOT normal, and will NOT last indefinitely.

Sometimes, maximum immediate return is BAD for your long-term income.

Bust every new player out in five minutes and, yes, you will maximize your hourly -- ONCE. But the price of that is that the new players have a horrible, traumatic experience and end up hating poker and leaving the community (probably going back to recreational gambling in the pits).

Understand that THE HOUSE GENERALLY LIKES THIS. Most smaller gambling establishments are, at the moment, primarily spreading poker as a draw to their table games (which is where they make their real money). They view poker as a boom that will ultimately fade back to obscurity, and the long-term health of their poker rooms is not of critical concern to them.

The new crowd of twentysomething "young pros" is right onboard with management on this, even though they don't realize it. By aiming to bust out new players in twenty minutes flat, they ensure that repeat-business is minimized, which eventually will kill the games. At which point, the house will simply go back to a few more blackjack tables.

Small-room management generally isn't bothered by this, because they don't expect poker to last anyway.

For those of us who view poker as a distinct alternative to gambling, it's an uphill battle. We have to prove ourselves to management by consistently building our daily numbers (and that's what my first two posts discussed). But we also have to fight against shortsighted mindsets within the poker community itself.

I am expecting this to become more and more a subject of debate within the poker community as the boom subsides and the "new poker community" takes shape.

The question is one of the long-term health of the community vs the short-term interest of the pros.

I think my position is pretty clear, but that debate is going to continue for a long, long time.


q/q

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
Finally, the rooms need to make their environment squeeky clean

[/ QUOTE ]

Squeeky clean? Won't ever happen. Especially with the element that gambling attracts.

The truth is, poker in cardrooms will always have a distinct element of seediness.

b

[ThaDodinski]

[ QUOTE ]

Squeeky clean? Won't ever happen. Especially with the element that gambling attracts.

The truth is, poker in cardrooms will always have a distinct element of seediness.

b

[/ QUOTE ]

For sure... many of my b&m experiences have consisted of a lot of chips sticking together and random foul odors...