Mason's rake

over on the internet forum there was som discussion about size of rake. one comment from Mason was that when casinos opened in Mississippi there was a $6 rake--and he wondered how may were still at it...


I don't know. But the one owned by the Mirage corp (the name is BeaRievage or similar) started with a poker room which was well attended, but they later closed the poker room. look at all the other places which have closed poker rooms. Jack Binion is supposed to be big friend of poker, but closed it out of Horseshoe in Shrevepot, La. Now that Kirk K. has bought out Steve they may even close the pokerroom at Mirage and Belagio, so they can put in more profitable slots!!!!


I am sure you see what I am thinking...we might be better off if poker rooms were bigger money makers???

Even doubling the rake would not make poker rooms as profitable as are slots on a per-square-foot basis. But it would make the games unplayable.

two good points. but at least those talking about lower rakes should consider the other side.


one thing to think about...viewing the rake as some percentage, seem the smaller the stakes the higher the percentage...thus perhaps there is room at the top to help the house.

Jellow,


The pressure to increase rakes will continue be a trend in most spots. However, note that a poker room doesn't have to make as much per square foot as the AVERAGE slot in the casino. It just needs to make about as much as the last few slots put on the floor.


In other words, let's say a casino has 1000 slots and they average $100 per day profit (casinos such as Foxwoods do much better BTW). If the casino adds 100 more slots it is very unlikely the additional slots will average that same $100 per day. They should average less (let's say $70 per day) since at some point you have enough slots to cover even your busiest days and the additional slots generally are not put in prime locations.


My guess is that in Las Vegas and other gambling centers poker rooms will lose their prime locations and be moved to more marginal areas in existing casinos or even be eliminated at some high price properties. Of course the fringe casinos (where real estate is not as expensive) will expand poker rooms to fill the demand. But this will hurt the top games, as few rich tourists will want to play at the Orleans or Palace Station.


In Los Angeles poker would virtually disappear if the card clubs where able to get in legal slots. There is little chance that new clubs would be allowed to open inside the city and few of the clubs have much room to expand. So there is no marginal real estate to retain poker tables (a few may be kept for political reasons). Here the average slots take could easily exceed that of the Foxwoods/Mohegan Sun gold mine.


Regards,


Rick

In the example above the casino's 1000 slots average $100 per day. Such a casino probably already has slots that average $70 per day or less since well located slots should do much better. So it is not unreasonable to imagine that adding marginal slots might average far less than the average slot.


Regards,


Rick

Well...I did give you simplistic answer and of course it's not quite all that simple.


There might be room at the top to help the house...aren't time charges in CA a lot higher than in LV? However, how many really high games can the room support? Anyway, I don't think the poker room making a little more or less from a percentage standpoint would be likely to sway management's decisions regarding poker vs. slots.


There is also the hidden benefit to poker in that players attracted by poker often play other games, as do their spouses or companions.


There is also a need for the casino to consider how many slots they can support. In other words, in a small casino, slots are very probably the best thing for them to pack in. However, there is a limit to how many slot machines can be filled with players in a huge casino. If this were not the case...if every slot would automatically attract players and stay busy...then the biggest casinos would probably have ONLY slots. Since huge casinos such as the MGM also offer less profitable games such as craps, we must assume that there is an upper bound to how many slots can be supported by sufficient play...else their bottom line oriented management would surely have converted the whole place to only slots by now.