Would you rather pay time or a rake?

[budman]

Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut has recently changed from a time charge to a rake in their 20-40 game. The rake is a maximum $4 per hand.

Mohegan Sun still uses a time charge of $7 per half hour at their 20-40 game.

There was some debate last weekend over which system is more favorable to the players. I think they are similar in effect.

What do you think?

[Boris]

If the games are short handed then a time charge is far superior. If the games are full, with lots of multi-way pots then I prefer the raked pots.

[Ed Miller]

I think in the long-term, the best structure for a winning regular player is whatever structure causes the least money to leave the table per hour. Poor-playing regulars are much more likely to quit playing forever if they lose their money quickly than if they lose the same amount of money more slowly... indeed they might not even notice they are losing at all if they do it slowly enough.

Having said that, if you only care about the short-term... or when choosing between structures that remove the same amount of money per hour from the table, I think a rake favors a tight player more than a time charge... as the rake is paid by the pot-winner... and tight players win fewer pots.

[brad]

well it might slow the game down and games will break because people wont want to play shorthanded.

[Vehn]

I think most places have a rake and/or time reduction for shorthanded tables though.

[JohnM]

As I consider myself to be fairly tight and therefore win a smaller number of pots than most of the other players, I always want the rake. My cost is less [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]