Do B&M rooms generate any kind of substantial profit for the casinos??

[teddyFBI]

Elementary question, I suppose, but I've been trying to work through the numbers, and can't imagine that the B&M casinos really make any kind of substantial profit from the minimal amount they take in from rake. Is it simply that they want to attract more guests who will then stay in their rooms, eat in their restaurants, and lose their money at their other games?? Because a poker room, by itself, I can't imagine being all that profitable...

[Edge34]

If there's enough tables, rake isn't exactly "minimal". I think at Canterbury, they've got 33 tables, and the max rake is something like $4 (10% up to 4 or something like that...someone will correct me). And trust me, that place could survive just fine these days without the blackjack and pai-gow in the back. Back before the poker boom, you might have been closer to the situation casinos faced, but there's always been people willing to play...and pay while doing so.

[SonOfWestwood]

I heard that a table running 24/7 grosses about 750K a year. Assuming $3 rake per hand and 30 hands per hour, my math gives me a total of $788,400 gross per year. I don't know how that compares to something like a Blackjack table, but it sure looks like a significant amount...

[Jaquen H'gar]

Per square foot, casinos make MUCH much more with slots than poker. They make more with slots than BJ; and more with BJ than poker.

[DBowling]

$3 a hand 30 hands an hour. $90 an hour and they only pay minimum wage to the dealer. Why wouldnt they profit from this?

[stabn]

[ QUOTE ]
Elementary question, I suppose, but I've been trying to work through the numbers, and can't imagine that the B&M casinos really make any kind of substantial profit from the minimal amount they take in from rake. Is it simply that they want to attract more guests who will then stay in their rooms, eat in their restaurants, and lose their money at their other games?? Because a poker room, by itself, I can't imagine being all that profitable...

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would there be private poker rooms in NY and public poker rooms here in WA then? A room i normally play in has only poker and does quite well.

[A_C_Slater]

I once asked a dealer this question and he told me if the casino could have it their way they would make the whole casino just 25 cent slots. Those are the biggest moneymaker in terms of space to profit margin. But they have to have some variety.

[The Armchair]

In the absolute sense, poker rooms definitely make money, as seen by the posts above. But yes, there is opportunity cost involved, and that suggests that the casino would be better served by other uses of their space. This suggests that to a large degree, poker annexes of otherwise normal casinos use the poker tables as something akin to a loss leader (minus the loss part) in order to draw people in.

This makes a lot of sense and I'll provide two examples: The Borgata's poker room has certainly helped it rise to the top of AC. The Borg can effectively promote the poker room with the result being that said player(s) bring their friends, who go play slots/craps/BJ. The target, note, is the poker player who would normally not have gone to AC. The other people come along for the ride.

The other phenominom is the "veto vote." I just learned yesterday that Resorts (AC) has something like three hold'em tables on their casino floor. That may be enough for a very casual poker player (who has no interest in other games) to agree to go there. Normally, that person would veto any of his group's choices that did not include poker tables. Now, that person is amenable to Resorts.

The veto vote is also why Burger King introduced veggie burgers.

[Jedster]

In 2004, Nevada casinos earned something like $97 million from poker. Overall gaming revenue was (I think) $9.4 billion. So it is a pretty small piece of the pie. However, poker revenue grew faster than any other segment of their gaming revenue, by about 30% or so. In addition, poker brings players into the casino. Basically, a casino without poker is not a real, complete casino. How many times have you seen a player bust out of a game and head straight for the VP machine?

[Dynasty]

For those casinos that have poker rooms (a majority in Vegas do not), I think the revenues represent less than 1% of the total revenue.

Despite this boom, poker isn't really that popular in the casinos compared to other games.