Starting a "Legit" private / home game

[FNdonkey]

I live in Northern Oklahoma where there's somewhat of a hole for poker. Yes there's poker in the state but we're driving an hour plus to play anymore. The Wichita Kansas scene was great for a while but Kansas star shut their poker room down during covid and never reopened it. I'm considering hosting a game once or twice a week. In a previous life I traveled opening card rooms, I've done a little bit of everything from training dealers, establishing casino policies and procedures concerning all table games, ran tournaments etc. Part of me just says head to Texas where there seems to be (at least for now) some grey area but it seems to me they are overpopulated with games. Part of me thinks grab a different Airbnb where the game rotates locations making it less likely to be shut down. I can keep a couple of games rolling with just a few phone calls. I'm not really the type to just talk about something and for better or worse I follow through and hope for the best. I guess I'm posting it here hoping some of you play in some of these semi underground "Rooms" and might have some advice.

[Texter]

Come to Houston and buy up some of the failed rooms tables and gear on the cheap.

Freerolls which became poker starrs is defunct.

[Dan Druff]

Advice:

Be prepared for the possibility of the game getting busted and you getting charged, if you take a rake.

Be careful who is invited and who knows they exist, as these are often robbery targets.

Don't give people credit because many times they will fuck you if they lose.

If you do rake, don't overdo it, because people will get pissed off and not want to come back.

[Cerveza Fria]

Advice:

Be prepared for the possibility of the game getting busted and you getting charged, if you take a rake.

Be careful who is invited and who knows they exist, as these are often robbery targets.

Don't give people credit because many times they will fuck you if they lose.

If you do rake, don't overdo it, because people will get pissed off and not want to come back.

All of the above. Also, make sure a cop is one of your regular players, and have him park his cruiser outside on game nights. Will deter robberies and getting raided by cops.

[BCR]

Advice:

Be prepared for the possibility of the game getting busted and you getting charged, if you take a rake.

Be careful who is invited and who knows they exist, as these are often robbery targets.

Don't give people credit because many times they will fuck you if they lose.

If you do rake, don't overdo it, because people will get pissed off and not want to come back.

If you do rake, don't overdo it, because people will get pissed off and not want to come back.

This seems the hard part. People will show and play, but when you’re talking about renting airbnbs(which seems problematic on its own when twenty cars show up), paying dealers, etc, you run into expenses that also has to make it worth it in case you do get busted. It’s like an inner city convenience store where you have to charge $5 for a coke because you’re getting robbed so much you need to fade that.

I’ve watched dudes in a bunch of medium-sized cities try to do this, and it’s almost always failed. Guys who seemed to have a player pool where you’d think it would succeed.

The only ones that had some success had a membership model with moderate rake, but they still aren’t hugely successful.

I don’t know if stag parties are still a thing with young people. When I was young, there was a bachelor party every weekend for someone. You could run a quasi casino by simply renting a hall and calling it a bachelor party. Cops never busted bachelor parties and you could spread blackjack and craps and anything you wanted. In todays world, I don’t know if that’s doable. Back then we had a slew of ethnic Slovak and Croatian clubs that would rent their hall to you for $50 and you could run a casino for a night.

I’d look for whatever the 2022 version of that is rather than renting airbnbs and just calling it a home game when it’s a business. That might work in LA where you have a huge player pool, but outside a big city, the first time some dude can’t pay his rent and his wife calls the cops, it’s problematic.

[SinglesHitter]

It’ll never happen based on info in OP. You’d need a list of 100 possible players to get 2+ tables running and unless the stakes (and therefore rake) were high enough, expenses will make this a thankless pursuit of hobby for profit imo.

Based on your location and what is, I presume, a fair distance to travel for many players, no matter where it’s held, it might be better to rent an online lobby from apps/other club software. Otherwise you’d have to hit the parlay of avoiding all potential pitfalls em route to a modest sum for a fair amount of work