Need some help starting up a poker room

[Mr. AtlanticCity]

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probably wouldn't even rake the game just need to figure out how to compensate the dealer(s).

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Have you considered not raking the game but maybe an admission fee, maybe like $10/person. Figure $100 income for 1 full table, an 8 hour session, pay your dealers $10/hour to total $80 and keep the other $20 to pay for expenses for your players (soda, beer, chips, hookers, blow, whatever your thing is). Of course, this is assuming dealer are working for a wage only and no tipping. If you want your players to tip, drop your wage like a couple bucks an hour and either take more for your expenses or drop the admission fee.

$10 is pretty cheap even for a 1/2 game for 8 hours, it's only a little more then 1 SB an hour. Your not going to find anyplace else that rakes that cheap.

Just my crazy late night fiscal thoughts.

[Rottersod]

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I've played in such rooms for several years. Although I've recently quit and play only at Casino's due to the owner (of my most recent fav gray game) not being able to keep the game tight and clean enough for me. That's another story....

First, I've been a member of 3 different clubs that all made it over a year, one 2 years old, the other I think is 4 or 5 years old. The cops don't care to much if they don't get complaints. When husbands go home broke week after week the wife calls the police. You must throw out these terrible losers or you'll eventually get too much attention. If they can't afford to be there you don't want them there. Believe me 95% of all players are losing money in the game just like 95% of all your friends and buddies are. If there was no rake, on average we'd all be break even.

Every successful card room needs to be located next door to an all night business like a bar or strip club. (the pool room might be perfect) Now that sounds odd but bear with me. When a building without an liquer license has 20 cars parked in front of it after last call it gets attention. All the rooms I've been a memeber of have such locations so the cars all blend in. However they stupidly stay open beyond the cover business's hours which I think is a mistake. Close down with the pool hall.

You can't let anybody in unless somebody you know brings them in. 100% no exceptions.

You can't let any drugies or thieves in period. If you do, one of them is going to turn on you (they'll tell on anybody) to get the heat off them when they get in trouble with thier other activities. They'll be the ones to bring in the cop and get them signed up.

Incidentally this is exactly how one of our local clubs got shut down about a year ago.

Understand cops play poker too. My last club has every kind of person you could imagine in it, a couple police officers (trusted in the poker community obviously), school principle, business owners, pawn shop owners, housewives, retiries, everything even some guys with no visible means of support. ;-)

Your going to grow a big game and a very profitable business very quickly regardless of what your thinking, just forget about that "just a few buddies" mentality, it's a fantasy. The money will change you, trust me.

You'll be expected to feed and water everybody. Pizza is ok for a while but it gets old.

Start each day with a tourny that moves on to live action as players get knocked out. This is how you attract players and build customers for a few busy nights a week.

Get a real dealer. Players who are being raked want a professional dealer, not a home dealer who's pretty good if the salt and pepper shaker are out of the way. A real dealer will deal out many more hands per hour which is how you bring money in. Everything I've ever been told and witnessed at my local clubs (and I known several of the dealers) tells me the pay they get is the tips they collect. For a good fast dealer that's around 15 hands every 30min. Oh yea, you need 2 dealers, nobody can deal without a break. They normally work on 30min shifts. You need at least 1 more dealer than the number of tables your running.

Get real tables or build nice ones. Nobody wants to play on some crappy home table or poorly built one. This is a big part of what keeps them coming back. A good proquality table even used might be $400-500 before you spend $100 to recover it.

Play by the rules, all of them all the time. Let somebody leave feeling cheated and you've started down the hill to failure. If you can't control this your game will gradually degenerate until it isn't any better than a home game or worse. And trust me, people will cheat where money is involved, they'll hide high value chips, soft play thier buddies, play more than one person to a hand, stack off thier hands (or othewise signal hole cards), peak at other players cards, you name it, they'll do it and you have to be watchful and nip these problems in the bud. Usually these types are terrible losers if they can't cheat and when they see they can't run teams (or whatever thier scam is) they'll move on to another game.

Rake the pot by the same rules as the nearest casino and consider doing it for $1 less per pot. You have to give your players incentive to play with you and also a reason to protect the club. If you over rake, more players go broke faster and it results in them not staying involved with in poker as long which eventually costs you.

It's hard work to do it well. Your job is to keep the game going and full and you'll have to back players especially at first to accomplish that. I've sat in as a shill many times to help my club owner (we split the profit if any on the stack he gives me.) It's also your job to ease the players loses and when they have a bad night. They need somebody to tell the bad beat story and that will be YOU. Remember, most of your players will be there to have a good time, your the host, make sure it happens just like that and you'll have a good game going.

Be sure to invite me. ;-)

Dave

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Wow. I can probably count on 2 hands the number of posts on this board that I have been seriously impressed with and yours just made that list. Having played in some home games that were run somewhat like underground rooms I can say that you are dead on balls accurate.

[Rottersod]

BTW, this is OT but I just noticed that MrAtlanticCity and GeeBeeQED registered exactly one month apart and are separated by 3865 newer members. So 2+2 is now getting 46,000 new members a year and I'm member 40,940 from 25 months ago. Pretty impressive numbers.

[baggins]

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I've got just the thread for you:

TwoRooks

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was waiting for this

[Al_Capone_Junior]

$2000 is barely enough to buy two medium quality used tables, let alone chips and all the other stuff you'll need. It's gonna be pretty darn low budget to say the least. I'd come up with a lot moré cash first.

[CHEFXCASINO]

I agree with Al. I sell gaming supplies. $2000 will not get you there. You'll need custom chips so people cannot bring there own in. High quality cards such as Copag or Kems. As well as tables, chip racks, chairs.
I think if you do so you may want to go the legal way. Like legal bingo halls. Check your local laws and see about starting up a parimutuel gaming location. Give a portion of the profits to charities. You will have to get a license and licenses for your dealers. This will take a bit of work for you to get it going, but i believe this will be your best bet from getting pinched.

[*TT*]

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BTW, this is OT but I just noticed that MrAtlanticCity and GeeBeeQED registered exactly one month apart and are separated by 3865 newer members. So 2+2 is now getting 46,000 new members a year and I'm member 40,940 from 25 months ago. Pretty impressive numbers.

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We average just over 100 new users a day now. Over 2 million unique visitors over the past 6 months. 2+2 is the worlds largest poker community now. And I still get the occasional PM from a 16 year old kid with 2 posts looking to play in underground games. Yesterday the PM's IP address very VERY suspicious, the secret is out - people know that 2+2 is the plave to go for info.

[*TT*]

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$2000 is barely enough to buy two medium quality used tables, let alone chips and all the other stuff you'll need. It's gonna be pretty darn low budget to say the least. I'd come up with a lot moré cash first.

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Al - anyone operating an underground room with a purchased table is just looking to loose their investment in the table. Most underground rooms I have visited (in four states now - I get around!) use home-made tables which are cost effective and can easily be replaced after the felt is cut during a raid.

[FireStorm]

With all due respect, not to start another argument, but people like the ones you described simply google "Hold Em" or "underground clubs" etc etc, and go seeking any place that they can find an underground game. Every forum gets people looking for spots in their area, not just here. Remiss to say that it's some sort of obvious notion to law enforcement that 2p2 is a hotbed of underground poker community information. HomePokerGames, for example, has an obscene amount of out-in-the-open illegal game listings.

[*TT*]

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With all due respect, not to start another argument, but people like the ones you described simply google "Hold Em" or "underground clubs" etc etc, and go seeking any place that they can find an underground game. Every forum gets people looking for spots in their area, not just here. Remiss to say that it's some sort of obvious notion to law enforcement that 2p2 is a hotbed of underground poker community information. HomePokerGames, for example, has an obscene amount of out-in-the-open illegal game listings.

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Most logical people would naturally you would think I have a bit more information about what happens here and who the visitors are than you do. Your not allowed to look behind the curtain, but I have a one to one relationship with the Wizard of Oz - I work for him. Shocking that you don't seem to understand that, but then again ignorance is bliss.