let's get the facts straight: poker makes money

[Rick Nebiolo]

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I've always considered one of the worst nightmares of a casino is the large pit player who converts to poker. Take a guy who is willing to lose 10k over a weekend out in the pit. He'll give 100s of k in action at BJ, craps, whatever. And on each of those transactions the house will earn a percentage . If he converts to poker and plays at a game where he plays poorly in comparision to his opponents, then his opponents will earn that percentage. The house in that case is essentially left with a flat rate--the rake/time charge .

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I've often disagreed with your logic (or perhaps your presentation) but you hit the nail on the head here. Add in the bad manners of the typical casino poker grinder and it's not hard to see why poker could be once again pushed aside if (or when) it losses popularity.

~ Rick

[Rick Nebiolo]

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You think things are bad over where you live?

Try playing limit he in australia, star city casino.

$5/10 limit, each person pays .75c per hand, regardless of position!. Yes, over 100 hands, you will pay $75, or 7.5bb for the pleasure of playing!

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That will nit-proof the game for sure [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

~ Rick

[Rick Nebiolo]

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There was a time not long ago that I worked in a poker room that was making a small profit. The casino decided to give up that small profit to replace it with empty space to get poker players out of their casino. The demographics have changed enough that casinos suits (for the most part anyway) aren't concerned about poker players scaring away their other guests.

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Randy - I wonder if you knew a northern Nevada based card room manager named Dan Sullivan who used to post on RGP several years back.

I believe he's retired now put he had great posts on the realities of card room surveillance and other good stuff. But to me his most memorable comment was that he considered it his job to make his cardroom invisible to upper casino management. In essence it was because he knew how awful the grinder/nit/poker players treated the high rolling casino guests when they choose to sit in a poker game.

Just before posting found this classic thread which relates in part to the topic of poker room profitability along with other items of interest. Highly recommended read especially if you include my links to Dan's three part series on surveillance.

~ Rick

[blueodum]

"And what, may I ask, do you think most of these players waiting to play poker are doing?"

If they are anything like me, they are pacing and/or watching games from the rail until a seat opens up. Probably the number of times they visit the casino is inversely proportional to the length of the wait.

I don't think its unreasonable to suppose that well over half of the new breed of poker players wouldn't visit the casino - ever - if there was no poker there. I certainly wouldn't, as I have no interest in playing table games or slots.

If they magically found the space to double the size of the Fallsview poker room, there would be shorter waits, perhaps more game variety, and so people would come more often. Casual drop-in types, seeing that there is an immediate seat open, might choose to sit down in a poker game instead of leaving the casino after they've had their fill of table games and/or slots.

In short you would significantly increase the number of people coming into the casino and in some cases lengthen their stay.

Conversely, if you added 100 more slot machines (about the equivalent space wise of doubling the poker room), I doubt you'd get more than a tiny fractional increase in income - because there is such a large surplus of unused machines already.

And don't forget that high rollers sometimes win big at table games and spend that money somewhere else. You can't count on them dropping all their cash in the craps game. The casino gets guaranteed money from poker.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Good points. If these casinos have lengthy waiting lists for much of the day all the time, they should expand their poker rooms. Seems obvious to me.

The thing is, poker is here to stay. Poker players want to play poker, and they will play at your casino or someone else's. I don't know many that are willing to play blackjac or slots just because there are long lists. Most will just go somewhere else.


Much of the time small poker rooms will be empty, but there's often a reason other than "nobody wants to play poker." Usually small rooms are buried in the back, far from the main casino action, far from anyone stolling casually by; a crappy little room in a lousy location, staffed by underpaid mopes who don't give a darn anyway. These rooms have been given the perfect recipe for failure.

In contrast, a small room with a great location and enthusiastic, friendly staff can be very successful.

Essentially you will get out of something only what you put into it.

Al

[RR]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There was a time not long ago that I worked in a poker room that was making a small profit. The casino decided to give up that small profit to replace it with empty space to get poker players out of their casino. The demographics have changed enough that casinos suits (for the most part anyway) aren't concerned about poker players scaring away their other guests.

[/ QUOTE ]

Randy - I wonder if you knew a northern Nevada based card room manager named Dan Sullivan who used to post on RGP several years back.

I believe he's retired now put he had great posts on the realities of card room surveillance and other good stuff. But to me his most memorable comment was that he considered it his job to make his cardroom invisible to upper casino management. In essence it was because he knew how awful the grinder/nit/poker players treated the high rolling casino guests when they choose to sit in a poker game.

Just before posting found this classic thread which relates in part to the topic of poker room profitability along with other items of interest. Highly recommended read especially if you include my links to Dan's three part series on surveillance.

~ Rick

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know him, but I remember reading those threads years ago. It was also fun to see the names of regular RGPers that I haven't seen anything from in years.

[StevieG]

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I don't think its unreasonable to suppose that well over half of the new breed of poker players wouldn't visit the casino - ever - if there was no poker there. I certainly wouldn't, as I have no interest in playing table games or slots.


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blueodom, I think you are off a bit on this estimate, but the point remains that poker is introducing new people to casinos.

More important, poker is the way young men (and women) are now introduced to gambling, in the US and likely other countries where the game has some penetration (UK, Germany, the Netherlands).

It has only been 4 years since Moneymaker won the WSOP. The impact of that young generation will persist.

They may not completely equate casinos with poker, but the association is there. They will expect poker to be available.

Just because the boom is over does not mean something fades away. Railways are still in business, the Internet is in use, and tulips are still pretty popular flowers [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Poshua]

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And what, may I ask, do you think most of these players waiting to play poker are doing?

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I've actually found it surprising how little casinos do to encourage waiting poker players to play the tables or the slots. Often, the layout is such that you cannot go to a pit and still see the waiting list. As a result, players end up sitting around in the poker lobby, not losing money to the casino shareholders.

There are a few exceptions. Borgata recently moved a craps table right outside the poker lobby. Additionally, the Venetian set up a small table games pit right outside the poker lobby, though it's only open at peak times.

[RR]

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[ QUOTE ]

And what, may I ask, do you think most of these players waiting to play poker are doing?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've actually found it surprising how little casinos do to encourage waiting poker players to play the tables or the slots. Often, the layout is such that you cannot go to a pit and still see the waiting list. As a result, players end up sitting around in the poker lobby, not losing money to the casino shareholders.

There are a few exceptions. Borgata recently moved a craps table right outside the poker lobby. Additionally, the Venetian set up a small table games pit right outside the poker lobby, though it's only open at peak times.

[/ QUOTE ]

A big part of this is that for whatever reason different departments in casinos do not communicate or cooperate.

[psandman]

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More important, poker is the way young men (and women) are now introduced to gambling, in the US

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Don't be so sure that this is different than in the past.ii can't think of a gambling game I playe3d before I played poker (maybe I flipped baseball cards first but it would be close) As a small child I and my friends knew draw poker. As I got older we learned stud. I remember my first trip to a casino (it was with a couple of guys who I regularly played poker with) we didn't even think of poker on that trip. It wasn't till years later that I starte dto equate poker with caasino poker.

I would venture to guess that is a very common experience.