PokerTek Poker Pro tables: The inside scoop WHY

[*TT*]

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Canterbury pays dealers minimum wage. Still, I'd love to see these tables for SnGs and satellites. I'd probably never play on them otherwise.

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Milo - add the cost of shift management, uniforms, taxes, health insurance, 401k and other non-wage expenses. It will get a lot closer to $10/hour. Of course $10 is not an totally accurate figure, but it is what my associate used for his analysis.

[wilsonkop]

TT - I think you are spot on with your potential applications. Philadelphia Park is installing virtual Blackjack today as a work-around for the "NO tables games at PA casinos" law. I see this as a logical next step for PA casinos after the BJ proves popular (which I think it will).

[Drizztdj]

I attended a PokerTek party for bloggers this past winter and the Heads-up model was by far the more popular.

I found the interface very easy to work with, but I go to casinos to play live poker and it felt like sitting at home with a table of Pokerstars up.

[EdmondDantes]

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I attended a PokerTek party for bloggers this past winter and the Heads-up model was by far the more popular.

I found the interface very easy to work with, but I go to casinos to play live poker and it felt like sitting at home with a table of Pokerstars up.

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Heads-up, 6-handed, sng and stt satellites...all good applications.

[KurtSF]

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Canterbury pays dealers minimum wage. Still, I'd love to see these tables for SnGs and satellites. I'd probably never play on them otherwise.

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Milo - add the cost of shift management, uniforms, taxes, health insurance, 401k and other non-wage expenses. It will get a lot closer to $10/hour. Of course $10 is not an totally accurate figure, but it is what my associate used for his analysis.

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I used to work at outsourcing outfit where we'd buy employees from companies (yes, we literally paid cash for people, kinda weird), re-badge them, and "rent" them back to the company, and the quick and dirty way to figure the "fully loaded" cost (all benefits and expenses) of the employee was double their salary. Sometimes it was more, sometimes it was less, but 2x salary is a decent measuring stick.

Also, with minimum wage north of $9 some places here in the Bay Area, looking at these numbers I wouldn't be surprised to see these tables popping up in some local rooms soon. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[DRRPoker]

Poker, specifically, is illegal in NC, not just gaming. An exception was granted for Cherokee. Harrah's at Cherokee has applied to the state to permit them to us PokerTek, but so far its been denied. PokerTek is based in Charlotte, however, and I think at some point it gets approved.

[Rick Nebiolo]

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There's one argument against these tables that I don't think I've ever heard addressed. Video blackjack machines have been around forever, and yet most casinos are full of real blackjack tables with live dealers instead of machines.

It seems like all the same financial arguments would apply for blackjack as poker, so why haven't live backjack tables gone away yet?

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Because most people want to sit at a table and have a live flesh and blood dealer to either:

- flirt with

- blame for the bad luck

- share their good luck

- or help socialize with the other players.

I don't think you lose much social interaction by not having a flesh and blood dealer at least in LA; in this town they simply don't (on average) contribute much to the social discourse.

My view (over the course of about ten plays) was that the ePoker tables at Hollywood Park were far closer to a B&M experience to an online experience. ePoker's failure at Hollywood Park had far more to do with problems on the cardroom side (e.g., when to start/combine/split games, how to use props, collection issues) than any inherent problems with eTables or ePoker.

~ Rick

[Rottersod]

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My view (over the course of about ten plays) was that the ePoker tables at Hollywood Park were far closer to a B&M experience to an online experience. ePoker's failure at Hollywood Park had far more to do with problems on the cardroom side (e.g., when to start/combine/split games, how to use props, collection issues) than any inherent problems with eTables or ePoker.

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Yep. You are correct sir!

[Rick Nebiolo]

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My argument for these machines is to just run them for SNG. I spoke to Jay at HP and gave him this suggestion.

2 100+9's per day hit break even according to your info TT. The avg sng is about 45 minutes. In reality you could run 24+6s and 51+9's all day without any breaks. When action is heads up, move them to the heads up table and start a new one.

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SNGs are a hard sell in a casino. Hawaiian Gardens is the top SNG card room in LA yet they really have to press to get about a dozen from 2:00pm to 10:00pm four times a week. As a player you tend to have to much sit (ie. wait for enough players to sign up) and not enough go (i.e., continuous play as you would online).

I also think they are among the worse possible utilization for these tables. Per TT's OP:

"PokerTek's Poker Pro tables lease for $160/day, $58,400/year. At this point Poker Pro tables cannot be bought."

In a typical casino or card room SNG setup you will have very little utilization of the eTables, exactly the opposite of what you would want if you were trying to establish a mix of both types of games. It seems the eTables are the ones you want utilized the most since the cost doesn't increase much with usage over a given day (except for wear and tear).

That said, a good spot for eTables (as mentioned by TT elsewhere in either this or the other thread) might be at the WSOP single table satellite area were you have huge demand for satellites and more knowledgeable players (who will spread the word if they have a positive experience).

In any event the ePoker people (and their casino partners) need to understand their product will fail unless they get both the electronic element and the cardroom element running smoothly.

~ Rick

[Rottersod]

The best use for etables: WSOP ME up till about 100 players left.