The rake is unacceptable

[bxb]

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Listen, in the future when poker is legalized/regulated whatever, the rake will go down. Competition will do this.

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I'm surprised nobody has commented on this yet.

I don't think rake dropping is likely. When poker is regulated, it is likely that it will be restrictively licensed and heavily taxed. This means that there won't be an influx of competition and that overhead costs will increase. Sure there will be a handful of new sites, but they are much more likely to offer big signup bonuses to draw people in rather than fight a price war on rake.

It's very conceivable that when poker is regulated, the rake will actually increase.

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Good point.

Also, wrt the rake not being at the optimal level right now, it doesn't matter if it is at the optimal level. It is close enough to the optimal level that the company's risk in tampering with the rake outweighs the small amount they may gain by doing so. If the rake were way too high/low then they would stand to gain more by adjusting it.

It is hard to see cutting the rake by 30% as being a +ev move for the sites. They would need to increase the amount of play by 42% more than they could have increased it if they had kept the rake constant and spent the money on advertising/services/bonuses. Since all these sites with huge rackback deals are not nearly as big as full tilt and stars, it is unlikely that a decrease in rake would draw that many players.