Minimum Collection $1/half hour (for $1-$2 game) Average Collection $2/half hour (Average for all
games) Maximum Collection $12/half hour (for $100-$200 games) Each hour/seat $2 $4 $20 Each day/seat (22-hour day) $44 $88 $440 Each year/seat (310-day year) $13,640 $27,280 $136,400
Each year/filled table
(8 seats/table) $109,120 $218,240 $1,091,200 Each year/average table (50% filled) $54,560 $109,120 $545,600 Each year/club (35 tables) --- $3,819,200 --- Each year/Gardena (6 clubs) --- $22,915,200 ---
Estimated money extracted per year by professional poker players --- $1,500,000 to $3,000,000 ---
TABLE 34
HOUSE-COLLECTION SCHEDULE
(Public Card Clubs in Gardena, California)
Stakes, $ Approximate Half-Hour Collections $/PIayer* Average Hourly Rates, $/Player 1-2 1.00 2.00 2-4 1.25 2.50 3-6 1.50 3.00 5-10 2.50 5.00 10-20 3.00 6.00 20-40 5.00 10.00 30-60 6.00-7.00 13.00 40-80 8.00 16.00 50-100 9.00 18.00
100-200 10.00-12.00 22.00
* An extra $1-$2 is added to collections from lowball games with blind bets.
Poker generates substantial profits for the club owners--even after subtracting business expenses, high taxes, and an annual payroll of over $8,000,000 (according to the Gardena Chamber of Commerce). Who, then, are the smartest and most prosperous poker players in Gardena? The answer is the quiet, invisible club owners. Indeed, those club owners deserve admiration. What player could ever match their edge odds and consistent winnings from poker?
Still, how do the other poker players fare? If the average professional poker player in Gardena nets about $15,000 per year (estimated in footnote to Table 31), then the estimated 100 to 200 professionals in Gardena would extract $1,500,000 to $3,000,000 per year from all the other poker players. After allowing for those seats occupied by the professionals plus the empty seats and vacant tables during slack periods, the nonprofessional players occupy an estimated average of 800 seats in the six Gardena poker clubs. Those clubs, therefore, must extract $28,500 per year from each of these 800 seats to account for the $22,000,000 permanently removed each year. That means that the nonprofessional regular customer who plays forty hours per week must lose an average of $7000 per year if he plays better than half the other players in Gardena. (And, as a group, the Gardena players are the best and the toughest poker players in the world.) If he does not play better than half the players, he will lose more than $7000 per year by playing forty hours per week. If he is a much better player than the average Gardena player and can extract a net gain of $7000 per year from the other players, he will break even. And if he is good enough to extract a net gain of $22,000 per year from the other players by playing
sixty hours every week, he will be in the same class with the average professional poker player by
earning $15,000 per year. In other words, except for the few very best and toughest players, people pay dearly in both time and money for the privilege of playing poker regularly in Gardena. And as indicated in Table 32, players in the lower-stake games pay even more dearly for the privilege of playing poker regularly in Nevada casinos because of the higher percentage casino rake, but less dearly in most higher- stake games because of the lower percentage rake.
To earn a steady income from public poker requires an exceptionally tough player with poker abilities far superior to those of the average player. To be a professional poker player in the Gardena clubs or the Nevada casinos requires long, hard hours that yield relatively poor yearly incomes. So most professional casino or club players seem to be wasting their abilities in unrewarding careers. And most other public poker players (the losers) are throwing away their time and money with methodical certainty.
Footnotes:
[ 28 ] The single exception to the unbeatability of casino games occurs when a Thorpe-type counting system is properly used in blackjack. The validity of blackjack counting systems is limited and provides at best a theoretical advantage of less than 1 percent (or investment odds of less than 1.01). Furthermore, such systems are mainly mechanical and inflexible--they are difficult and boring to apply and basically impractical for accumulating any significant or reliable income. Casinos can eliminate any player advantage in blackjack whenever they want to or need to (which is seldom) simply by increasing the frequency of shuffles until counting becomes impractical or unprofitable. Moreover, by publicizing their feigned dislike and fear of counting systems, casino managements surreptitiously promote and
encourage the use of blackjack counting systems. The burgeoning interest in those systems has caused major increases both in blackjack activity and in profits for the casinos. (Technically the game with a house dealer as played in all casinos is "21"; not blackjack in which the deal constantly changes or rotates.)
[ 29 ] In private poker, the good player can sponsor a game with pleasant distractions and discipline- breaking amenities (e.g., "free" gourmet buffets, rich desserts, expensive liquors). But if the good player acts as the house (with profitable collections or rakes), he could cause his opponents to believe that he is sponsoring the games solely for profit (which, of course, would and should be true). Such a belief would make his opponents more defensive and harder to manipulate, and thus harder to control and extract money from. Besides, the good player can win by finesse all available money without having to compete against himself by mechanically collecting money through a house cut. Also, most states consider
running a profitable game with regular house cuts an illegal gambling operation. Such activity could leave the sponsoring player vulnerable to a criminal complaint filed, for example, by an unhappy loser ... or by the loser's wife.
[ 30 ] California has 400 legal poker clubs. A few other states such as Montana, Washington and Oregon also have legal poker clubs. But by far the most important area for public club poker is Gardena,
California, where legalized poker began in 1936. Today, Gardena has six of the most prosperous poker clubs in the country and is the mecca for both amateur and professional public-club poker players.
[ 31 ] Some Nevada casinos are switching from harsh percentage rakes to milder, Gardena-type time collections, especially for their higher-stake games. Increasing competition for poker players is causing
this trend toward milder house cuts as more and more Nevada casinos, attracted by the profitability of public poker, are adding poker to their operations or are expanding their existing poker facilities. In fact, the maximum rake for some high-stake casino games has fallen below $2.00 per hand, reducing the house cut to well below 5%. But the competition in those games is much stiffer since the best players and professionals gravitate to the low-cut games.
But countering the trend toward lower rakes in Nevada casinos, the California card clubs are raising their collection fees as shown in Table 34.
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