Looking for Partners on Texas Poker Club (3 Viewers)

[Rhodeman77]

Here in Cleveland everything $5/5 and up is time take. There is no charge from the time you sit down until the next dealer arrives. So players can get about a 1/2 hour free if they time it right. This would offset the times a player pays time then is quickly busted afterwards, it balances out, but I’d say would be in players favor over all.

Dealers collect the time money as a bomb pot hand, everyone puts in $25 and the dealer takes $10/player of it to cover the time for the 1/2 hour.

So having the dealer collecting the money is not difficult or extra time consuming.

If chips can’t be used to pay for time the players can buy special time chips that are collected every dealer change. Volume discounts can still be offered for buying more chips.

Paying time doesn’t have to be very complex.

 

[buzzmonkey]

Somebody may have asked this, but can you sell time cheques at the cage to simplify the process? Then you can do the bulk purchase discounts and the player isn't buying out of their stack. Kind of like a time plaque in a shot-clock game. You could even have a computer system where the dealer scans the cheque when it's cashed and it tracks when their next one is due.

 

[Anthony Martino]

Here in Cleveland everything $5/5 and up is time take. There is no charge from the time you sit down until the next dealer arrives. So players can get about a 1/2 hour free if they time it right. This would offset the times a player pays time then is quickly busted afterwards, it balances out, but I’d say would be in players favor over all.

Dealers collect the time money as a bomb pot hand, everyone puts in $25 and the dealer takes $10/player of it to cover the time for the 1/2 hour.

So having the dealer collecting the money is not difficult or extra time consuming.

If chips can’t be used to pay for time the players can buy special time chips that are collected every dealer change. Volume discounts can still be offered for buying more chips.

Paying time doesn’t have to be very complex.

Somebody may have asked this, but can you sell time cheques at the cage to simplify the process? Then you can do the bulk purchase discounts and the player isn't buying out of their stack. Kind of like a time plaque in a shot-clock game. You could even have a computer system where the dealer scans the cheque when it's cashed and it tracks when their next one is due.

When I was in Tampa at the Hard Rock there were certain games that were time raked (typically $8 every dealer down if I recall correctly)

As far as having special time chips/cheques, it feels like we're just adding extra steps and extra chips needed.

If players can already pay time at the front desk and have it on their account in Poker Atlas, how does it save time to add collection of time chips into our process?

There's also still the issue of players paying time to the dealer and then going bust shortly after and wanting at least a partial refund on their time since they won't be playing the full 30 minutes.

The post pay method The Lodge utilizes is the simplest option. At the end of your session (or the beginning of the next session) you square up at the front desk, then you play uninterrupted for the rest of your session. Very few moving parts or additional staff needed to process it, or possibilities for mistakes to be made, money isn't being taken off the table, etc.

 

[doublebooyah85]

 

[Highli99]

I’d be interested in what the lodge actually collects compared to what is due. That collection rate is critical to the viability of the post-pay model.

 

[FordPickup92]

I recommended the same at Poker House, they went with burgers, fries, pizza, tacos, wings.

Then you get grease all over the chips and cards, people licking their fingers, disgusting

Fucking savages lmao

Best of luck with your endeavors, wish I could help! If I can I will let ya know!

 

[ekricket]

When I was in Tampa at the Hard Rock there were certain games that were time raked (typically $8 every dealer down if I recall correctly)

As far as having special time chips/cheques, it feels like we're just adding extra steps and extra chips needed.

If players can already pay time at the front desk and have it on their account in Poker Atlas, how does it save time to add collection of time chips into our process?

There's also still the issue of players paying time to the dealer and then going bust shortly after and wanting at least a partial refund on their time since they won't be playing the full 30 minutes.

The post pay method The Lodge utilizes is the simplest option. At the end of your session (or the beginning of the next session) you square up at the front desk, then you play uninterrupted for the rest of your session. Very few moving parts or additional staff needed to process it, or possibilities for mistakes to be made, money isn't being taken off the table, etc.

The Cardplayer cruise people take a small rake, but the button has to pay a dollar every round. They claim that the dollar on the button is the only money they make, the take and entry fees just cover the dealers and ship fees.
Something like this might be used, like no rake and minimal seat fee, but just $2 every time you are the button as the “dealer fee” or whatever you can call it to make it quasi-legal.

 

[upNdown]

I’d be interested in what the lodge actually collects compared to what is due. That collection rate is critical to the viability of the post-pay model.

On a related note, is the lodge profitable?

 

[TheYeti]

Is this because of their amazing fee structure… or because Doug Polk is a super-famous player with a big podcast audience, headlining a venue whose games are on teevee?

I've always assumed the Lodge's success stemmed from their live-streams, it's the only reason I would ever go there.

 

[Anthony Martino]

I’d be interested in what the lodge actually collects compared to what is due. That collection rate is critical to the viability of the post-pay model.

I obviously wouldn't have access to their internal numbers. But if people are leaving balances unpaid, they can't play again until they pay off the balance due. So for an individual to get in the hole with the card room, it would only be a days worth of a session that they could get in the red for.

Granted when you multiply this by many members, I'm sure it can get to be fairly significant. But there is at least some stop-loss with their model.

The Cardplayer cruise people take a small rake, but the button has to pay a dollar every round. They claim that the dollar on the button is the only money they make, the take and entry fees just cover the dealers and ship fees.
Something like this might be used, like no rake and minimal seat fee, but just $2 every time you are the button as the “dealer fee” or whatever you can call it to make it quasi-legal.

I'd want to consult with an attorney versed in the nuances of Texas law before deviating in any direction that could have us stepping over the line. There may be alternatives not in use that would work, although I imagine with the attorneys The Lodge and Texas Card House employ, if there was a better method for them to utilize they'd be doing it already.

On a related note, is the lodge profitable?

They're the largest most successful poker club in the entire state. While it's a bit slower right now because a lot of players are out in Vegas for the series, generally they'll have 15-20 cash games running and also host 2-3 tournaments daily that will see anywhere from 50-100+ participants. They also have games running 24 hours/day.

Doug & Co have found that running a smaller buyin (200-400) with a large guarantee across a ton of Day 1 flights makes them a boatload of bucks. I believe they did take a bath fairly recently on a $3,000 buyin tournament that didn't meet the guarantee, which hit them in the pocketbook for close to half a million dollars.

Also, given that they recently tried getting approval for a 100-table room in the Dallas market, and just bought Rounders in San Antonio and will be expanding it, I'd have a hard time believing they weren't turning a significant profit. Why would you expand so significantly if you aren't making money?

 

[Anthony Martino]

I've always assumed the Lodge's success stemmed from their live-streams, it's the only reason I would ever go there.

While their livestream is one of the most popular in the market and I'm sure it's brought in its share of business, it's generally the hardcore poker crowd that's most likely to follow and be attracted to that.

Again, the crowd here at PCF is going to be a much more knowledgeable crowd than the average recreational player. So this crowd here is most likely to nitpick various things like fee structures, etc. vs. the average player who probably doesn't give it much thought.

I've heard that Legends in Houston makes use of a significant number of prop players which allowed them to have and maintain the most PLO action in that market. When you have games appearing on the Poker Atlas app in large quantities, you're more likely to get more games because of it.

Doug and crew didn't really need to do that, because they were able to leverage the popularity of their MUGS to bring in significant traffic that jumpstarted things when they came in and took over The Lodge (the old owner of The Lodge makes more profit than any of them individually, but Doug and his group of partners have the controlling interest overall with their shares combined, so they're essentially the decision makers at the end of the day)

 

[Moxie Mike]

Anthony, I respect you and I don't feel great shitting on your idea - but in reading your remarks I kind of think there's some things you're not considering.

I've read through this thread and a lot of valid points have been made but unless I overlooked it, I've yet to see a value proposition that indicates there's going to be a mass exodus from the entity that currently dominates the market. Because that's where your player pool is going to come from. I surmise it's rather unlikely that there's a major untapped pool of players who are resistant to the marketplace based on the current options.

As I understand it, The Lodge can fill 15-30 tables 24 hours per day and TPC is struggling to get one or two games sustained?

Building a nicer/more rec friendly card room isn't going to bring players over in and of itself. The volume of games available is the biggest draw.

You might be able to entice some players to give your room a try, but they're going to need a substantial reason to switch from their comfort zone and there's no reason to believe they'll remain loyal. Consumers are very finicky and players go where the action is.

From the sounds of things, there's nothing so undesirable about The Lodge that people are looking for an alternative. Because if they were, TPC would be much busier.

Another issue is if you are somehow able to take marketshare from the dominant player, they're well financed to the point where they're not going to just sit back and let that happen. There's nothing proprietary about what you're proposing to do and there's nothing to stop The Lodge from doing it better in order to win back their customers. So while achieving success would be a challenge, sustaining it would be even more difficult.

Marketing a new room would be pretty straightforward... a geotargeted FM ad campaign would be cheap and easy. But are there restrictions? In MI, we have charity poker but they literally can't advertise or do any marketing AT ALL. They can't even sell or give away swag in the room I don't think. They rely on well intentioned regs to take it upon themselves to maintain a Facebook page announcing hours and tournaments.

Lastly, $1mm doesn't sound like a lot of runway for a room with 30 tables. Between your lease, utilities, staff, food/beverage costs, licensing, equipment financing, room upgrades, marketing, training, etc. that really doesn't sound like a lot if funds to work with. I think an investor is going to have a hard time with the volatility and recession-susceptibility of the industry. Comparing it to the restaurant industry is probably the closest we can get, depending on the variables a restaurant can cost between $50k and $100k/mo in operational expenses. So $1mm is probably a year's worth of runway. And that's without you paying yourself. Can you afford to work for free long enough to turn a profit?

Unless you have a track record of producing a return for your investors, it's probably going to be a challenging finding people to invest. Best of luck.

 

[upNdown]

Consumers are very finicky and players go where the action is.

Such an important point. Because when there were more tournament options in NH, we had two rooms within a couple miles of each other.

1. Hampton - nice clean room, just a really pleasant place to be. Better chairs, better tables, decent ceramic chips, better food, cuter waitresses, better dealers, personable floor men - the room was better in every way.
2. Seabrook - uncomfortable chairs, cheaper cramped tables, cheap plastic chips, dealers who ranged from bad to decent but miserable, gross carpets, I don’t even know if they had food beyond snacks.

But Seabrook had lower cost tournaments which brought in a crowd of undesirables who were very beatable.

In all honesty, I went to both places - whichever had the bigger tournament going on at the time, that’s where I went. It didn’t matter that Hampton was superior in every way - if Seabrook had the better tournament, that’s where I played.

 

[Taghkanic]

At the end of the day, if you have more games running, you'll attract more games

This seems like a chicken/egg problem.

A room needs a critical mass of players to attract more players, but it can’t get to critical mass without already having a strong number of players.

In the (relatively small) casinos near me, they seem to attract the most players with juicy high hand promotions. These typically are offered on weekdays to boost low attendance… A room that has two tables going at 11 am will suddenly bump up to seven+ at noon once the high hand kicks off.

However, this does not necessarily make for a great poker ecosystem. You get a ton of OMCs sitting at 1/2 or 1/3 milking their 100BB stack all afternoon, playing passively with very few hands except limped pocket pairs hoping to make a boat.

I’ve also seen rooms where a bad beat jackpot gets gigantic over a period of months, which attracts crowds looking for a lottery windfall. But it really needs to keep running for a long time to benefit the player pool, and lots of those players disappear once it hits.

 

[Anthony Martino]

Anthony, I respect you and I don't feel great shitting on your idea - but in reading your remarks I kind of think there's some things you're not considering.

I've read through this thread and a lot of valid points have been made but unless I overlooked it, I've yet to see a value proposition that indicates there's going to be a mass exodus from the entity that currently dominates the market. Because that's where your player pool is going to come from. I surmise it's rather unlikely that there's a major untapped pool of players who are resistant to the marketplace based on the current options.

As I understand it, The Lodge can fill 15-30 tables 24 hours per day and TPC is struggling to get one or two games sustained?

Building a nicer/more rec friendly card room isn't going to bring players over in and of itself. The volume of games available is the biggest draw.

You might be able to entice some players to give your room a try, but they're going to need a substantial reason to switch from their comfort zone and there's no reason to believe they'll remain loyal. Consumers are very finicky and players go where the action is.

From the sounds of things, there's nothing so undesirable about The Lodge that people are looking for an alternative. Because if they were, TPC would be much busier.

Another issue is if you are somehow able to take marketshare from the dominant player, they're well financed to the point where they're not going to just sit back and let that happen. There's nothing proprietary about what you're proposing to do and there's nothing to stop The Lodge from doing it better in order to win back their customers. So while achieving success would be a challenge, sustaining it would be even more difficult.

Marketing a new room would be pretty straightforward... a geotargeted FM ad campaign would be cheap and easy. But are there restrictions? In MI, we have charity poker but they literally can't advertise or do any marketing AT ALL. They can't even sell or give away swag in the room I don't think. They rely on well intentioned regs to take it upon themselves to maintain a Facebook page announcing hours and tournaments.

Lastly, $1mm doesn't sound like a lot of runway for a room with 30 tables. Between your lease, utilities, staff, food/beverage costs, licensing, equipment financing, room upgrades, marketing, training, etc. that really doesn't sound like a lot if funds to work with. I think an investor is going to have a hard time with the volatility and recession-susceptibility of the industry. Comparing it to the restaurant industry is probably the closest we can get, depending on the variables a restaurant can cost between $50k and $100k/mo in operational expenses. So $1mm is probably a year's worth of runway. And that's without you paying yourself. Can you afford to work for free long enough to turn a profit?

Unless you have a track record of producing a return for your investors, it's probably going to be a challenging finding people to invest. Best of luck.

So the Lodge isn't filling 15-20 tables 24 hours/day. 15-20 cash tables running is generally speaking their daily peak of cash games. But they do have games running 24/7, so they are generating income at all hours.

Also, perhaps I wasn't clear, there's been a lot of discussions in this thread. I'm not trying to compete with The Lodge. Overall I'd prefer they keep their non-tipping euros and grinder misregs with no personalities and overly serious demeanor.

I believe there's a massive untapped player pool in the greater Austin area and I intend to target and cater to it. I believe the Austin area is large enough for multiple rooms to find success, without having to siphon business away from a competitor.

There will be a player base that won't be attracted to the way I'd like to structure cash games and tournaments (i.e. players who'd prefer to be able to turn a 1/2/5 game into a 40/80 game or who like having the edge of being able to fire 29 $400 bullets into a multi-flight event)

Also, not sure what "TPC" is, I assume you mean TCH? TCH is definitely a nicer room overall than The Lodge, as far as aesthetics, comfort, service level, etc. But they're also significantly smaller (presently, that will be changing) and unable to accommodate the traffic the Lodge can handle.

I don't want to give away everything in the open forum, but I'll shoot you a private message with some additional details in how I would approach making a room a success in this market, in spite of the monopoly The Lodge currently has.

Such an important point. Because when there were more tournament options in NH, we had two rooms within a couple miles of each other.

1. Hampton - nice clean room, just a really pleasant place to be. Better chairs, better tables, decent ceramic chips, better food, cuter waitresses, better dealers, personable floor men - the room was better in every way.
2. Seabrook - uncomfortable chairs, cheaper cramped tables, cheap plastic chips, dealers who ranged from bad to decent but miserable, gross carpets, I don’t even know if they had food beyond snacks.

But Seabrook had lower cost tournaments which brought in a crowd of undesirables who were very beatable.

In all honesty, I went to both places - whichever had the bigger tournament going on at the time, that’s where I went. It didn’t matter that Hampton was superior in every way - if Seabrook had the better tournament, that’s where I played.

This goes into the Lodge vs TCH argument. TCH is easily the nicer room to play in. The Lodge is very mass market, no ambiance, no passion, you're just a number. Their chairs are beat to hell and they don't care to invest all the profits they've made to improve the member experience because they have the games and don't really need to. People flock to where the games are.

This seems like a chicken/egg problem.

A room needs a critical mass of players to attract more players, but it can’t get to critical mass without already having a strong number of players.

In the (relatively small) casinos near me, they seem to attract the most players with juicy high hand promotions. These typically are offered on weekdays to boost low attendance… A room that has two tables going at 11 am will suddenly bump up to seven+ at noon once the high hand kicks off.

However, this does not necessarily make for a great poker ecosystem. You get a ton of OMCs sitting at 1/2 or 1/3 milking their 100BB stack all afternoon, playing passively with very few hands except limped pocket pairs hoping to make a boat.

I’ve also seen rooms where a bad beat jackpot gets gigantic over a period of months, which attracts crowds looking for a lottery windfall. But it really needs to keep running for a long time to benefit the player pool, and lots of those players disappear once it hits.

So Poker House had this line of thinking. They have run high hands, flush frenzies, bad beat jackpots, etc. and it's done very little to get them beyond the standard 1-2 games/day they're getting regularly. This is with a BBJ that's approaching 50K at this point, and high hands that can be $500 every 30-60 minutes on some days.

Meanwhile the Lodge offers nothing for their members and still retains all the traffic.

I do agree that a lot of those promotions rooms will run just attract the OMC's who'll sit there grinding out promos and bonuses.

 

[CraigT78]

Anthony, I respect you and I don't feel great shitting on your idea - but in reading your remarks I kind of think there's some things you're not considering.

I've read through this thread and a lot of valid points have been made but unless I overlooked it, I've yet to see a value proposition that indicates there's going to be a mass exodus from the entity that currently dominates the market. Because that's where your player pool is going to come from. I surmise it's rather unlikely that there's a major untapped pool of players who are resistant to the marketplace based on the current options.

As I understand it, The Lodge can fill 15-30 tables 24 hours per day and TPC is struggling to get one or two games sustained?

Building a nicer/more rec friendly card room isn't going to bring players over in and of itself. The volume of games available is the biggest draw.

You might be able to entice some players to give your room a try, but they're going to need a substantial reason to switch from their comfort zone and there's no reason to believe they'll remain loyal. Consumers are very finicky and players go where the action is.

From the sounds of things, there's nothing so undesirable about The Lodge that people are looking for an alternative. Because if they were, TPC would be much busier.

Another issue is if you are somehow able to take marketshare from the dominant player, they're well financed to the point where they're not going to just sit back and let that happen. There's nothing proprietary about what you're proposing to do and there's nothing to stop The Lodge from doing it better in order to win back their customers. So while achieving success would be a challenge, sustaining it would be even more difficult.

Marketing a new room would be pretty straightforward... a geotargeted FM ad campaign would be cheap and easy. But are there restrictions? In MI, we have charity poker but they literally can't advertise or do any marketing AT ALL. They can't even sell or give away swag in the room I don't think. They rely on well intentioned regs to take it upon themselves to maintain a Facebook page announcing hours and tournaments.

Lastly, $1mm doesn't sound like a lot of runway for a room with 30 tables. Between your lease, utilities, staff, food/beverage costs, licensing, equipment financing, room upgrades, marketing, training, etc. that really doesn't sound like a lot if funds to work with. I think an investor is going to have a hard time with the volatility and recession-susceptibility of the industry. Comparing it to the restaurant industry is probably the closest we can get, depending on the variables a restaurant can cost between $50k and $100k/mo in operational expenses. So $1mm is probably a year's worth of runway. And that's without you paying yourself. Can you afford to work for free long enough to turn a profit?

Unless you have a track record of producing a return for your investors, it's probably going to be a challenging finding people to invest. Best of luck.

@Anthony Martino you need to read this, several times. There's a reason there's only one successful poker room in each major Texas city.

 

[Anthony Martino]

@Anthony Martino you need to read this, several times. There's a reason there's only one successful poker room in each major Texas city.

Hmmm........pretty sure Houston has a pretty competitive market overall with multiple rooms finding success.

TCH has dominated Dallas and now with the city blocking any competition from entering to compete it's even more solidified.

Austin, well The Lodge is the dominant room. I wouldn't say they're the ONLY successful room. TCH Austin (13 tables) is profitable and gets enough games to make it work (typically 3-6 cash games plus some tournaments as well), but they are going to be quadrupling in size to 40+ so they'll need to find a way to bring in additional traffic to make that work for them.

Shuffle 512 usually gets decent traffic, but they're located more towards Austin proper, but for a 12 table room they get a good 3-5 games on a regular basis which is plenty for a room of that size.

 

[DrStrange]

There are 2.3 million people in the Austin metro area. I think there is ample untapped market potential for something new to come along and thrive. Not saying it is a sure thing, but the hundreds of people playing any given night aren't the bulk of the potential players. Find a way to draw from a bigger pool of players and the project can prosper.

The value proposition to me isn't winning the zero-sum game by poaching existing customers. The best solutions pull in new customers who aren't currently playing anywhere.

 

[FestiveKnight]

I’ve been thinking. Isn’t there some kind of chicken and the egg issue with catering to lower stakes casual players and trying to avoid attracting grinders?

Create space for casuals -> game is soft -> attract grinders?

I guess maybe the folks you don’t want won’t play if you cap buy ins and limit straddles because they just can’t make as much at the lower stakes?

Seems like a curious problem.

 

[Rakrul]

I’ve been thinking. Isn’t there some kind of chicken and the egg issue with catering to lower stakes casual players and trying to avoid attracting grinders?

Create space for casuals -> game is soft -> attract grinders?

I guess maybe the folks you don’t want won’t play if you cap buy ins and limit straddles because they just can’t make as much at the lower stakes?

Seems like a curious problem.

You need to balance on a knife's edge. You want some grinders (to ensure critical mass), but you need to limit their edge like you pointed out, to protect the noobs. You also want to make it somewhat attractive to make it worth their time so they come back. They can co-exist with noobs in this environment, but you probably want to ban headphones and earplugs to make it more social, i.e. cater to the recs and not the pros and grinders. Warn and kick out misregs that berates others, or are obnoxious in general. At the same time, you need winning regs to come back and start games.

You can also mix in some variants that aren't solved yet to further reduce their edge, remove run it twice, since you're doing an hourly rate, limit hold'em might actually work for some noobs. It's not at terrifying and you get to play lots.

 

[Anthony Martino]

I’ve been thinking. Isn’t there some kind of chicken and the egg issue with catering to lower stakes casual players and trying to avoid attracting grinders?

Create space for casuals -> game is soft -> attract grinders?

I guess maybe the folks you don’t want won’t play if you cap buy ins and limit straddles because they just can’t make as much at the lower stakes?

Seems like a curious problem.

You need to balance on a knife's edge. You want some grinders (to ensure critical mass), but you need to limit their edge like you pointed out, to protect the noobs. You also want to make it somewhat attractive to make it worth their time so they come back. They can co-exist with noobs in this environment, but you probably want to ban headphones and earplugs to make it more social, i.e. cater to the recs and not the pros and grinders. Warn and kick out misregs that berates others, or are obnoxious in general. At the same time, you need winning regs to come back and start games.

You can also mix in some variants that aren't solved yet to further reduce their edge, remove run it twice, since you're doing an hourly rate, limit hold'em might actually work for some noobs. It's not at terrifying and you get to play lots.

You are correct that having recreational players will attract the grinders.

Not all grinders are created equal. When you see Doug Polk at the table he's social and trying to keep it fun and light, he gets it.

I think limiting the unlimited straddles, match the stack and uncapped buyins until you get to 5/10 and above is the right path.

You protect your entry-level games so recreationals and newcomers have a way to play where they aren't chewed up so quickly.

I also agree that you need to be willing to stand up to players that tear down the vibe of a table.

I get that sometimes a player can take a beat and get upset. But if you have a player that is a habitual issue in berating other players or your staff, be willing to fire them as a customer, the juice ain't worth the squeeze.

Also, I agree you need grinders as well. They're going to put in the most hours, start games, etc.

You just need grinders that "get it" and understand their job is to ensure the recreational players are entertained.

 

[Anthony Martino]

There are 2.3 million people in the Austin metro area. I think there is ample untapped market potential for something new to come along and thrive. Not saying it is a sure thing, but the hundreds of people playing any given night aren't the bulk of the potential players. Find a way to draw from a bigger pool of players and the project can prosper.

The value proposition to me isn't winning the zero-sum game by poaching existing customers. The best solutions pull in new customers who aren't currently playing anywhere.

PREACH!

 

[MatB]

I think there’s a gross overestimation of how much and how many people ‘enjoy’ losing money.

 

[Anthony Martino]

I think there’s a gross overestimation of how much and how many people ‘enjoy’ losing money.

I dunno, I've played with you before

Well, look at slot machines at the casino, or even scratch-off tickets and powerball. The odds are insanely against those playing them, but there's a LOT of people buying these up in every state.

The same holds true for poker. Lots of people think they're better than they truly are, there are actually people who play mostly for entertainment and don't see poker as a full-time gig, etc.

The WSOP Main Event this year set a new record with 10,112 players. 8,595 of those players will see no return on their $10,000 investment. Poker is thriving.

Also, my approach in structuring cash games and tournaments is to protect the recreationals better so they don't lose as much/as often. Not allowing the deep pocketed players to jack up the variance and run them over at lower stakes by making the games play so much bigger, paying 15-20% of the tournament fields instead of just 10%, etc.

I don't think anyone "enjoys" losing money, that's just a silly statement.

 

[MatB]

I have almost as much fun losing money as I do winning. Almost.
thankfully I don’t play to pay the bills

My comment was to say that a business model based on repeat customers who are going to be losing players that will also be happy to part with an hourly fee to lose that money has a higher than an average risk factor.

 

[MatB]

.

 

[Anthony Martino]

I have almost as much fun losing money as I do winning. Almost.
thankfully I don’t play to pay the bills

My comment was to say that a business model based on repeat customers who are going to be losing players that will also be happy to part with an hourly fee to lose that money has a higher than an average risk factor.

Most players don't track their wins/losses. They'll tell you they're up or down "a little". Losing players can still have winning sessions. The long run will see them lose overall, but I'm trying to structure things so that they aren't getting chewed up and spat out as quickly.

You need to shear the sheep, rather than outright slaughter them. Also, the vast majority of people who play poker in the long run are going to lose. More of them will win than something like slots or lotto tickets, but overall the amount of winning players is going to be somewhere in the 15-20% range.

Despite this "business model" that depends on repeat customers who are going to be losing players, poker is seeing record numbers coming out to play. So I don't see that as a deterrent in the slightest.

 

[Taghkanic]

There are 2.3 million people in the Austin metro area.

Honest question… What percentage of Americans really play poker — more than once in a while as a lark, and at stakes of 1/2 or higher?

I’ve seen stats saying that most American adults have *tried* the game. Also estimates that 10-15% play “regularly.”

— My take —

That latter number seems wildly inflated to me, even including online play.

In my rural area I have played in or at least heard about pretty much every home game and social hall game across two counties, which have a total population of about 100,000 people. I’ve looked hard to find games and cultivate relationships to keep my own table full. On the rare times that I find a “new” game, I recognize most of the regs.

The percentage of people in my area (the Hudson Valley) who would ever buy into a live game for $100 or more is extremely low. Let alone $300-$2,000. I would say less than 1/2 of 1% of the population, maybe 500 people in two counties.

There may now be lots of others playing microstakes online (on PokerBros or the like, since online poker is not legal in my state). I’d like to imagine this leads to more people trying live poker, but I don’t see it.

Maybe cities are different… But I would be surprised if the number of people who are even candidates to attend places like The Lodge and other rooms exceeds 10,000 people.

 

[Taghkanic]

P.S. If I were trying to start a room in a big city, I would probably want to hire a market research firm or the like to develop lists of likely players to directly solicit, and secondarily to identify media outlets which cover that demographic…

I assume for example that local sports radio channels might be a good start, but that is just an assumption. And you can blow a lot of money on media like radio, TV and billboards for a very low percentage return.

I might also consider modest incentives for regs to refer new players once it’s up and running. A small bonus when someone first gets a card, and another if they “stick” (play more than 5-10 times). Poker players know the population.

When I ran a startup membership organization (non-gambling related) the #1 way we recruited was by getting existing members to work their contacts on our behalf. This led to growing our membership 400x over seven years.

As the group matured, I also started using the data we had on members (volunteered by them) to study who was joining, and identify more people of a similar profile to approach more generally.

I didn’t use a marketing firm, but obtained public info like voter rolls and property rolls to create a database of the target population and figure out who was worth direct mailing etc.

Point being that whatever the business or cause, building an audience is a grind. There is no automatic “build it and they will come” thing.

 

[elemeno]

Honest question… What percentage of Americans really play poker — more than once in a while as a lark, and at stakes of 1/2 or higher?

I’ve seen stats saying that most American adults have *tried* the game. Also estimates that 10-15% play “regularly.”

— My take —

That latter number seems wildly inflated to me, even including online play.

In my rural area I have played in or at least heard about pretty much every home game and social hall game across two counties, which have a total population of about 100,000 people. I’ve looked hard to find games and cultivate relationships to keep my own table full. On the rare times that I find a “new” game, I recognize most of the regs.

The percentage of people in my area (the Hudson Valley) who would ever buy into a live game for $100 or more is extremely low. Let alone $300-$2,000. I would say less than 1/2 of 1% of the population, maybe 500 people in two counties.

There may now be lots of others playing microstakes online (on PokerBros or the like, since online poker is not legal in my state). I’d like to imagine this leads to more people trying live poker, but I don’t see it.

Maybe cities are different… But I would be surprised if the number of people who are even candidates to attend places like The Lodge and other rooms exceeds 10,000 people.

Some napkin math that could be wildly off - if @Anthony Martino wants to fill 30 tables with 9 people each for 12 hours a day, he would probably needed some multiple of 270 people a day. Let’s guesstimate the average session is 4 hours, so 810 people a day. Let’s say these people play an average of once a week, so 5670 people, which is 0.25% of 2.3M. Your estimates for your locale - 500/100k = 0.50%.

However, the above doesn’t take into account that regulars of the other card rooms may be less likely to switch (Is this true?) nor the fact that the existing cardrooms will likely compete hard for business.