Poker Dopers - rake or equivalent wher you play.

Factual Questions
1

I have long bemoaned the fact that Star City Casino in Sydney has no poker tables so I have to go to Canberra for a live game.

On Friday we had our work Christmas lunch and decided that rather than a snotty sit down lunch we’d grab a bite at a noodle bar and go to the casino.

I was surprised to find that they had several poker tables running, so I checked them out. One table was playing $5/$10 Holdem and the sign said the commission was 75c a hand. I worked out that the commission was 75c for every player every hand. It wasn’t hard to work out that at this rate - $7.50 per hand, 30 hands an hour, the casino was milking $225 an hour off the table. I figured that if 10 players sat down with $100 each and played for 4 hours the casino would have all the money no matter who was winning.

As luck would have it my foolproof roulette system (have one bet only for the night on 27 and if it wins have twice that on 2) paid of so I sat in for an hour at the poker. It worked just how I said, everyone was losing. The one guy who lost his stack just lost what the casino won - we didn’t have it. We all got chipped away a little. I started fomenting rebellion by pointing out that if you are paying $22.50 an hour for your seat you need to win that much an hour just to not lose.

I have played money tables at PartyPoker and the rake is much less severe.

What is the usual sort of deal at live tables where you play?

2

Since I play only in private games (for modest sums) I can’t provide much help with your question.

But since poker often involves a lot of pushing the same money back and forth between various players, it’s hard to see how even a rather small rakeoff doesn’t usually cause the house to wind up the only winner.

3

How long did it take you to work that out?

4

Often? Not in my (admittedly limited) experience, which in ring games is online. People cycle in and out of tables pretty constantly, taking money with them when they go (or unfortunately lately in my case leaving it behind) and bringing new money when new people sit in. The online site where I play rakes every hand a percentage of the pot to a per-hand maximum.

5

I think if player X leaves the game with xxx dollars and player Y sits down with a comparable sum, it amounts to the same thing.

My notion is that the amounts actually won or lost at the end of a poker session are usually a small fraction of the total amount bet (the sum of all pots in all hands). So even a seemingly small rakeoff for the house can be large in comparison to the amounts that the winners walk off with.

What are the figures?