Estimate for hourly house take at a 1/2 table in Las Vegas?

[Martini]

I'm in a discussion with a group of my poker buddies and am looking for numbers on how much the house takes on average from a 1/2 NL table in Las Vegas. Ballpark figures would be fine. Something with numbers to back it up would be great. I know I could estimate roughly 30 hands/hour times full rake to get worst case scenario but in reality there will be chopped blinds and small pots mixed in but I don't know the proportions.

Does anyone have any numbers on what a casino estimates their average take is? Thanks!

[Jaxen]

Generally the standard rake rate for NL is 10% of the pot, $4 max.

[DJFaight]

this may help, it may not, but you could compare it to session fees. usually at 1/2 NL, if the room does a session fee it is $5 per player per dealer rotation, which is usually a half hour. so a ten person table would pay the house $100 dollars per hour.
now, raking is much much more common than session fees, so that may mean that the rake generates more for the casino, cause, you know, every penny counts to those casinos out there struggling to get by. the only other reason i could think of a casino raking as opposed to session fees is that most players prefer a rake cause it doesn't kill you when you're on a cold streak, and casinos do need to compete for patronage.

[PhilHutchings]

I'd guess that the casino's make less on a rake than off a $5 session fee.  mind you at the casino here Rama they have a $1 min, $5 max rake @10%

hands avg btw 1 min and 3 min generally.  In my opinion a session fee is a horrible way to charge for playing poker since it puts pressure on everyone to be fast and u would get mad at anyone taking a long time to call any hands since its costing you money.  Rakes in my opinion are much friendlier for the player.  Also if its a similar amount of money taken in then the rake is a more discrete way to take your money.

[DJFaight]

In my opinion a session fee is a horrible way to charge for playing poker since it puts pressure on everyone to be fast and u would get mad at anyone taking a long time to call any hands since its costing you money.  Rakes in my opinion are much friendlier for the player.

I agree 100%.

Although....

it puts pressure on everyone to be fast

and more importantly loose, cause a lot of people see it as costing them to play on a consistent basis as opposed to only being raked on your winning hands, hope i worded that right. anyway, I've played 1/2 NL at the Fallsview Casino in niagara falls a few times (which uses session fees) and have had huge success by playing super tight/aggressive. I went up for a night a few weeks ago and played about 9 hours, only took down 6 pots, but left the table up about $350 after session fees, tips, blinds, and the few hands i folded, and I've played there other times with similar success. I know 1/2 NL is generally a very loose game, but I play the raked game at Casino Niagara and Harrahs in Vegas, and I definitely think that session fee loosens things up even more.

Just my thoughts on that, and sorry get off subject martini, I just brought up session fees as a rough comparison to guess at the casinos take per hour

[d-alamo]

Around here it is 30 to 40 hands per hour.  Multiply that by $4 per hand and you get $120 to $160 per hour for the house.

Good Luck,

[Martini]

Thanks to everyone with the math for worst case scenario (hands/hour * max rake/hand) but as we all know, not every single hand maxes out the rake. Some hands are chopped. Some pots are only $15. Etc. If anyone has more real world numbers instead of theoretical yields that would be great. Thanks!

[PhilHutchings]

chopped pots still pay the rake amount regardless.  At the casino here if your both playing say Q9 or whatever and the pot is $60 the 10% or $5 rake still applies meaning the pot is now $55 which when split pays a dollar to position.  But i'd guess a low of $65 to a high of $160 per hour for a table game of 1/2.  Now the 2/5, 5/10 and 10/20 tables here have the same rake so they would make $5 almost every hand. 

[Martini]

chopped pots still pay the rake amount regardless.  At the casino here if your both playing say Q9 or whatever and the pot is $60 the 10% or $5 rake still applies meaning the pot is now $55 which when split pays a dollar to position.  But i'd guess a low of $65 to a high of $160 per hour for a table game of 1/2.  Now the 2/5, 5/10 and 10/20 tables here have the same rake so they would make $5 almost every hand. 

Sorry for not being clear enough. I'm talking about when everyone folds around to the blinds and they decide to take their blinds back and move on to the next hand. The "no flop, no drop" policy often applies and there is zero rake when the blinds are chopped.

[PhilHutchings]

i like your casino more than mine then, anytime i've seen the hand fold off to the big blind they still take $1 off the table.  also the $4 max instead of the $5 at Rama.

[DJFaight]

If anyone has more real world numbers instead of theoretical yields that would be great. Thanks!

I think thats probably unrealistic info to obtain, unless steve wynn's reading this and wants to let us know. You have to remember that casino's bank big time on the law of averages, so even if you sat for hours and kept track of the rake at a table, it could be way off of what the casinos actually make per table per hour over the days, weeks, months, and years. now, with poker rakes it should be much more consistent than the take at black jack, craps, or other table games, but I'm pretty sure yield per table is tightly guarded industry info across the board. not sayin its impossible to get, but we'd have to hope someone somewhat high up would give us the scoop. so if you're throwing in hands taking different amounts of time, "no flop, no drop", and other situations, you'd need the frequency of those over the long run to even start to calculate anything.

so, although i think my session fee reference was a good point, what i guess i'm tryin to say is, ... i have no clue.

but....

Ballpark figures would be fine

and ball parks are big, and somewhere lost in a ballpark is a number between $75 and $100  per hour at 1/2NL

glad i could not help and probably cause more confusion 

[Jambine]

With a max $4 rake, and assuming 20-30 hands an hour, it should be around $100.  That would actually be true of most button games (not just no-limit)

[d-alamo]

Sorry for not being clear enough. I'm talking about when everyone folds around to the blinds and they decide to take their blinds back and move on to the next hand. The "no flop, no drop" policy often applies and there is zero rake when the blinds are chopped.

Not in the San Jose bay area,  there is still a $1 drop for chopped blinds.

How often is hard to gauge as sometimes there will be a tight table and it will chop about once per lap.  Other times it is a loose table and there isn't a chop for many hours.  The thing about chopped pots though, the time per hand is much less, so there would be more hands per hour at the tight table where most folks are folding pre-flop.

[FSL009]

At crown in Melbourne there is a rake plus a time charge every hour.  The time charge is $5

At starcity in Sydney I believe there is a charge for each hand dealt like an ante that goes straight to the house.  I believe that is the same at Jupitors in Queensland.

I believe that Burswood in perth just rakes and does not have a time charge

just if anyone is coming to Aus on a poker tour....

[Martini]

Wow, a rake AND a seat charge? Well I guess they have to pay for those fancy digs somehow!