Is this normal for a new poker room promotion?

[Daredevil]

Went to my local casino to play a little poker, noticed that in addition to the normal 5+1 rake, they were taking an extra dollar, 5+2.

I asked the dealer about the extra jackpot dollar, he informed me that it's for the new high hand promo (the other dollar for the badbeat). I then asked him about the details of the high hand promotion, he informed me that he doesn't have any details, because the promotion doesn't start until next week.

The dealer said since its new they need seed money to fund it and it will start in a week. Is this normal? It felt like I was getting ripped off.

[abrown83]

Went to my local casino to play a little poker, noticed that in addition to the normal 5+1 rake, they were taking an extra dollar, 5+2.

I asked the dealer about the extra jackpot dollar, he informed me that it's for the new high hand promo (the other dollar for the badbeat). I then asked him about the details of the high hand promotion, he informed me that he doesn't have any details, because the promotion doesn't start until next week.

The dealer said since its new they need seed money to fund it and it will start in a week. Is this normal? It felt like I was getting ripped off.

Yea you were getting raped.

Luckily my local casino is still 4+1

[BCR]

Seems excessive, and I haven't seen it, but I'm sure others have.

The place I play does promotions like that. Seperate 4 of a kind for each suit promotions, splash the pot on one table every hour for $100, shit like that, but it's just peeled out of the general bad beat jackpot I think. It's 10% up to 5+1, so it's coming from somewhere other than an extra dollar rake. I wasn't there the first week, but I'm pretty sure they didn't fund it like that because I recall checking the structure when it opened. If they did, they didn't advertise it.

The bad beat never goes to zero, it defaults to like 50k, so I think they pretty much just fund all that shit out of BBJ, and it just grows slower. Most casinos outside Vegas and LA and a few other spots don't spread much above 2/5 on multiple tables with regularity. Going 5+2 would make some 1/2 or 1/3 game pretty much impossible to beat for more than $12-15/hour. They already are unbeatable for 95% of players.

[SrslySirius]

Isle of Capri in Lake Charles used to have the most horrendous "high hand" promo I've ever seen. There would be a poster on the wall showing some random hand like KdJcJsTd7h. If you make that exact hand you win the jackpot.

A lot of people didn't seem to realize how difficult it is to make an exact hand like that. In fact, some low ranking hands are over 100 times harder to make than a royal flush of a specific suit. Still, people would limp garbage hands if they matched cards from the promo. Good for generating action I guess.

Taking extra rake for a prize that's 10,000,000:1 is a straight up scam in my opinion. They'll most likely never have to pay out.

[shortbuspoker]

Went to my local casino to play a little poker, noticed that in addition to the normal 5+1 rake, they were taking an extra dollar, 5+2.

I asked the dealer about the extra jackpot dollar, he informed me that it's for the new high hand promo (the other dollar for the badbeat). I then asked him about the details of the high hand promotion, he informed me that he doesn't have any details, because the promotion doesn't start until next week.

The dealer said since its new they need seed money to fund it and it will start in a week. Is this normal? It felt like I was getting ripped off.

Yea you were getting raped.

Luckily my local casino is still 4+1

After shutting down Harrah's and then the Goldstrike shutting their poker room, the Horseshoe in Tunica has gone to a $5 plus $1 drop in the 1/3 NL games. They also quit comping food for poker players without using their rewards credits. Sadly Sam's Town also shut their poker room so the only other room in town is the Hollywood and they never have anything bigger than 3/6 limit running.

[Dan Druff]

Went to my local casino to play a little poker, noticed that in addition to the normal 5+1 rake, they were taking an extra dollar, 5+2.

I asked the dealer about the extra jackpot dollar, he informed me that it's for the new high hand promo (the other dollar for the badbeat). I then asked him about the details of the high hand promotion, he informed me that he doesn't have any details, because the promotion doesn't start until next week.

The dealer said since its new they need seed money to fund it and it will start in a week. Is this normal? It felt like I was getting ripped off.

You are getting ripped off big time.

They should never take a jackpot drop for a jackpot which is currently impossible to win.

[PLOL]

Totally standard.

At Horseshoe Hammond they take a bunch of money out to use towards tournaments. In Tampa they used to always cover overlays with BBJ funds. In Palm Beach during the WSOP they would actually suspend all bad beat jackpots and promotions but they would still rake 5+2. If there's a promo fund, they're pretty much going to find a way to screw you with it

[Dan Druff]

Totally standard.

At Horseshoe Hammond they take a bunch of money out to use towards tournaments. In Tampa they used to always cover overlays with BBJ funds. In Palm Beach during the WSOP they would actually suspend all bad beat jackpots and promotions but they would still rake 5+2. If there's a promo fund, they're pretty much going to find a way to screw you with it

If that's true, live poker sucks more than ever nowadays.

[PLOL]

Totally standard.

At Horseshoe Hammond they take a bunch of money out to use towards tournaments. In Tampa they used to always cover overlays with BBJ funds. In Palm Beach during the WSOP they would actually suspend all bad beat jackpots and promotions but they would still rake 5+2. If there's a promo fund, they're pretty much going to find a way to screw you with it

If that's true, live poker sucks more than ever nowadays.

My favorite is when they take money out of the BBJ to give away seats to some tournament as a promo. I've always wondered about the legality of doing that (in states where you have to distribute the BBJ), but rooms seem to have no problem doing it. Basically they'll give away 50 seats to a $365 tournament, so they get to take out $18,250 from the BBJ. But since there's a $65 rake, they now get back $3,250 that they otherwise would have to give away. Very shady but very common.

[FNdonkey]

I worked in management for a few different poker rooms. What I've seen them do should be criminal. The "Jackpot" dollar everyone refers to would always go to a fund called the player promotion fund, all the casinos I worked for did the same thing as they were ran by the same casino management company. The fund was pretty generalized. We would put a set amount per day to the bad beat, use the fund to cover overlays etc. Where it would get criminal is when these shady ass indians decided they wanted to get into the concert / fight business. They would put on an MMA fight, stick some plastic folding tables and chairs up next to the ring and sell VIP tickets for $900 each. Now no one is going to buy a fucking $900 ticket to a low level MMA fight, so what they would do is charge the player promotion fund for a set amount of tickets and force us to give them out. So they would just figure out how much the event would cost to put on and rob the player promotion fund of that much money by inflating ticket prices and give the seats away, I doubt 50% of the tickets we handed out got used but they were "Sold".