Harrah's WSOP ripoff

[tourney guy]

Primerib, you ask some real good questions.

1)Q: If WSOP did not make money, why would Harrah's have it?
A: It depends what you call 'make money'

When HET got WSOP, the model is to make SOME money from the rake, but to attract thousands of people to its hotels. To that end, RIO gets much more business from room/food and gaming revenue that it does from the entity of the WSOP itself.

Yes, rake is big. But, WSOP charges to its rake:

1) Payroll - HUGE EXPENSE
2) Lease of Convention space - HUGE, HUGE EXPENSE
3) Cost of surveillance - HUGE EXPENSE
4) Lease of tables and purchase of chips - MODERATE EXPENSE

The bottom line number would shock you, but it is not the mulit-million dollar bonanza everyone thinks it is.

So, you say the event make profit, but it is not a large profit, trust me.

Q: Is there validity to the statement
"There is some truth to the separation of departments, but the entire event makes a tremendous amount of money for the property. I assure you this is not a guess."

A: Yes, but it is incomplete. The REAL value to the RIO of the WSOP is the incremental business in the pit, slots, and romm/F&B.

All I can tell you, without quoting the numbers, that that every aforementioned department set the property record for revenue in the month/months the WSOP was there. Slot revenue alone accounts for as much bottom line revenue at the tournament itself, and that stands to logic. At WSOP, the revenue is linear and static. I make X per player, multiplied by Y players, so X x Y = gross revenue.

THEN I have to pay off payroll, labor, licencing, leasing, supplies, etc. Small margin when you affect all the costs.

The same players like to gamble, thay go to a craps table and play shoot, play BJ, play slots.

In theory, a player like Phil Ivey could play in every event and HET would make $4000 TOPS off of him (it is much less since he cannot concievably play in every event).

After a day of play, he goes out and plays dice. RIO has a chace to win big against him. Dice games traditionally hold 12% in strip joints. So, if he bets 10K a day for the same 50 days, we likely are going to beat him out of $48,000.

That is the key to WSOP.

Olivert is correct. Benny and Jack Binion has WSOP not to make money from the TOURNAMENTS, but instead from the CASH GAMES AND TABLE/SLOT ACTION.

Q: Is this true? 'The WSOP makes an absolute killing........as do the circuit events.'

A: Totally false. Evidence to that? In 2005/2006, HET had 5 circuit events in Las Vegas. In 2007, I think they are only having 1. If they are such cash cows......why to event at Harrahs LV or Bally's/Paris???? It is because they do not make money.

Bottom line, the value of the WSOP is not the tournaments, it is everything else associated with the event.

If tournament players were so 'valuable', why do they not get comped other than a $10-off buffet ticket?????

Think about it.