Timer,
I work at the Bike and have probably written about rake/drop/collection (primarily on RGP) as much as anyone *. Naturally your post caught my attention.
According to the Bicycle Casino's Manager of Poker Operations Rick Cloward, the modified drop (used in all games) was cleared with the Department of Justice. Other Los Angeles casinos, including Hollywood Park, the Normandie and Hawaiian Gardens have some form of modified drop in their drop games. The Bike just takes it a little farther (e.g., we drop only 50 cents in 20/40 stud/8 if fourth street is not dealt - IMO the main reason we have most of the business in that game). I am working towards making the Bike's collection policies the best in town and upper management has been supportive (I'm lower management [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]).
In November of 2001, I started a thread on 2+2 regarding the new law. This was before I started working at the Bike in early 2002. Here is a link to that thread:
http://tinyurl.com/dkau
My lead post in the above thread had a link to the actual law on a California government web site. When 2+2 upgraded its software, the link was lost (it was emailed to me and I probably trashed it long ago). If you or anyone else knows how I could find it, please email me. I've already tried the following California Law search tool to no avail.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html
I personally believe that all Los Angeles clubs would benefit if they could find a way to take less from small pots without violating the current law that clearly states the drop can't be dependent on pot size. What may be possible is to take pieces of the drop based on events - i.e., part of the drop on a called postflop bet, the next part on a second called bet/raise and so on.
With a fair drop over time we would attract marginally motivated players (especially daytime retirees with other things to do with their time) that were long ago driven away by the practice of watching $4 or $5 (including jackpot drop) go down the slot on a pot that only contained $10 to $15 (and it can get a lot worse at the Commerce).
With a fair drop the clubs would make more money by attracting more reasonably tight players who tend to be the most aware of the drop. This would speed up the games, make the games play smaller (which would keep players in action and allow them to play a higher limit at a given comfort level). Of course there would be more games and they would start earlier in the day. Even the Commerce is half empty at noon.
Regards,
Rick
* If you are interested in looking over my past posts on RGP regarding rake/drop/collection in Los Angeles, go to Google's Advanced Group Search. Enter "rec.gambling.poker" in the "Newsgoup box", my name in the "Author" box, and "rake drop collection" in the "with at least one of the words" box.