The 1/2 NL game at Foxwoods

[Ghazban]

As has been discussed on this board many times, the $5/player/half hour time charge for the 1/2 no-limit game at Foxwoods is pretty steep, but still beatable due to the cluefree playing of the fish who frequent this game.

I sat in the game last Sunday and, when somebody at the table complained about the charge, the dealer told him that the house would be making a lot more if they just raked the pots like they do in the limit games. Without going into anything about whether or not the dealer should be offering an opinion about this (personally, I think he should not have), is this correct? For a full table, the house would have to rake in $50 every half hour to make as much as they would make from 10 people paying the time charge. I've never paid attention to how many hands are dealt an hour but I've definitely noticed that the bigger pots (which would also be the ones contributing most to the rake) generally get played much slower than the preflop-raise-everyone-folds hands that would contribute little if anything to the rake.

Anyway, I'm just curious as to if other people agree with this dealer that a rake would take in more for the house than the time charge.

[Gator]

It's probably close to a wash.

I played in that game and everyone at the table agreed to take $5 out of every pot over $20 and set that aside to pay the rake for the entire table each half hour. We stayed ahead (every half hour or so we'd have about $70 in that pile, the house would take $50 and the extra would carry forward). Everyone at the table was happy with the arrangement. However, the floor came over and disallowed it so we stopped.

[blendedsuit]

At $5 every half hour from ten players amounts to $100 per hour. At the lowest limit game, $2-$4, even if only 30 hands were dealt per hour and the full rake was taken ($4), that would be $120 an hour. A full rake is almost always taken from every pot at those low limit hold'em games. There is no comparision, the NL game seems steep, but is infact not removing as much money from the table. If you were to have a fast dealer at the table, and say 50 hands were dealt in an hour, foxwoods would pull in $200, twice the NL game.

[Ghazban]

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If you were to have a fast dealer at the table...

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Didn't I say this was at Foxwoods? Clearly, there is no chance of a fast dealer at the table /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Both respondees make good points here that got me thinking. What would the 'best' players prefer? It seems that a rake is better because then you're only paying the house when you win. I know there have been half-hour sessions at this table where I haven't even seen a flop yet I'm plunking down $5 anyway for the privilege of being dealt garbage for 30 minutes.