Atlassino Academy · Poker in the room · Lesson 10 of 13
Rake, swings and who pays for the room
Players play each other, not the house, and the room takes a fee out of the pots. Here is what that fee does to a table’s money, and how far luck swings a month of play.
9 players spend an evening at one poker table, playing against each other. Add up what every one of them came out with at the end. What is the total?
The short answer
Less than zero on any evening with no jackpot paid out at that table. The players only pass money among themselves, but the room takes a fee, called the rake, out of almost every pot, the pile of chips each hand is played for. A few players can come out ahead on an evening; the table as a whole cannot. And over a few evenings, luck decides far more of who is ahead than skill does.
An example pot, the room’s fee taken out of the pot, and what is left for the player who takes the pot.
An example pot at a table in B.C., with the fee by the rule there; the amount is only an example, not a suggested stake.
Leoformer dealer · rules and maths
I worked poker tables for years, and the one thing at the table I could always tell you in advance was the fee. Who would take the pots, nobody could tell you. How much the room would take from each pot was written in the rules, and the room took it, whoever took the rest.
The house does not play at a poker table
At a poker table each player plays against every other player in the hand. In B.C. casinos the dealer takes no part in the game, and Casino Niagara supplies the dealers but takes no part in the play and has no interest in how a hand comes out.
A poker room
- Each player plays the other players in the hand.
- The room’s dealer runs the game and has no stake in any pot.
- The room is paid by a fee out of the pots.
A house game
- Each player plays the dealer, not the other players.
- The house is the opponent on every bet.
- Ultimate Texas Hold’em at Grey Eagle Resort & Casino is described as a game of players against the dealer only.
The same cards can make two different games. In a house game the house is the opponent; in a poker room the room is the landlord, paid by the pot.
So the money that leaves a poker table does not go to an opponent. It goes to the room in fees, to a jackpot drop where a room takes one, and to the dealer in tips. The rest of this lesson is about how much.
How the room is paid
A poker room is paid through fees. An operator’s guide for Ontario calls those fees the way casinos make money on poker, compares them to rent for your seat at the table, and names two kinds.
- The rakeA fee the dealer takes out of a pot during or after a hand, before the pot goes to the player who takes the pot.
- The session feeA set fee for your seat, paid at regular intervals of play. In the guide and at Casino Niagara the fee is charged even to a player who is away from the table when it is collected.
The casino regulations of Nova Scotia define the rake as what the dealer collects as poker revenue, and set no rate for the rake.
This lesson counts the rake, because the rake is the fee a table’s money is measured against, pot by pot.
The rake in B.C., pot by pot
In B.C. casinos the dealer collects a fee of up to 10% of what is bet in each hand. The fee never goes past $15 on any pot, and fees are rounded down.
| The pot | The room’s fee | Left in the pot | What sets the fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| $40 | $4 | $36 | the share of the pot |
| $90 | $9 | $81 | the share of the pot |
| $200 | $15 | $185 | the cap |
Each row is one pot. Below the cap the fee is the share of the pot; from the cap upward the fee stays put however large the pot grows. Amounts are in Canadian dollars.
Three details are our reading rather than printed wording: we take the full share the rule allows, we round the fee down to the whole dollar, and we count the fee once, on the whole pot at the end of the hand.
Other rooms print rules of their own, each for its own tables.
- Great Canadian Casino Resort TorontoA higher cap than in B.C. casinos. Nothing is taken when a hand ends before the flop, the first three shared cards; after the flop a set minimum applies.
- Pickering Casino ResortThe same share and cap as at the Toronto room.
- Elements Casino BrantfordOne cap for the limit games and a higher cap for the rest, with the same rule about the flop as at the Toronto room.
- Casino ReginaSays its own rake rates apply, and prints no figure.
- Casino Niagara and Casino New BrunswickNo rake rule we could read. Casino Niagara’s rules speak of session fees without an amount.
How these rooms round the fee is not printed, so nothing here rounds the fee for them. What to ask at the desk before you sit down is part of lesson 7.3.
What else leaves the pot
In some rooms a second amount comes out of the pot along with the fee: a contribution to a jackpot, called the drop. The amount differs from room to room, so each amount below goes with the room that prints the amount.
- Great Canadian Casino Resort TorontoA pot of $40: $1 leaves the pot for the drop.
- Pickering Casino ResortA pot of $25: $1 leaves the pot for the drop.
- Casino New BrunswickA pot of $80: $1 leaves the pot for the drop.
- Elements Casino Mohawk and BrantfordPrints a range of amounts without saying which pot pays which, so no amount is worked out here.
Each pot is only an example. Below the size of pot each room names, a pot pays nothing to the drop, and the drop leaves the players’ pot either way.
No document we could read prints what players tip a dealer at a cash table, so no tip amount appears on this page.
Over any stretch with no jackpot paid out, what all the players at a table come to together equals minus the room’s fee, minus the jackpot drop where a room takes one, and minus tips.
Our arithmetic, not a quote. The equation holds for any stretch of play in which the table paid out no jackpot: a jackpot paid out hands part of the drop back to players. The model table below has neither drop nor tips, so its players come to exactly minus the fee.
A table of nine, played for a year
To see what the fee and luck do over time, here is a model table. The model table is a model, not a record of real players, and every figure below follows from the numbers it is built on.
- The table9 players; one of them is a little stronger than the others.
- Each hand2, 3 or 4 players put the same amount into one pot: $5, $20 or $60 each, amounts of the model and not a suggested stake.
- Each potOne player takes each pot; the stronger player takes a pot they are in 1.25 times as often as each other player in it.
- The feeThe room takes its fee from every pot by the rule for B.C. casinos.
- The calendarA session here is 250 hands, a month is 4 sessions and a year is 48 sessions: model figures, not a measured pace.
Over every hand of the model, the stronger seat averages +$0.23 a hand, and each other seat averages −$0.61 a hand. Those averages, added up over the whole table, come to exactly minus the room’s fee.
- One hand$4.61the room’s fee on an average hand of the model
- A hundred hands$461.11the same fee, a hundred times
- A session of the model$1,152.78250 hands, the whole table together
No Canadian document we could read prints how many hands a live poker table deals in a given stretch of time, so the fee here is counted per hand, per hundred hands and per session of the model, and never by the clock.
| After | Hands | The stronger seat ahead | Each other seat ahead | Seats ahead on average, of 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One session | 250 | 56.3% | 29.5% | 2.9 |
| One month | 1,000 | 64.2% | 15.2% | 1.9 |
| One year | 12,000 | 90.5% | 0.02% | 0.9 |
Read down the stronger seat’s column: the longer the stretch, the more often the small edge shows. Read down the next column: the fee leaves the evenly matched seats behind more and more surely.
Leoformer dealer · rules and maths
The stronger seat in this model is not a genius. That player takes a pot a little more often than the others, and that is all. Over one session you would never pick that seat out; over a year you usually would, and even then not every time. The fee, on the other hand, you can see from the very first hand.
Skill, luck and how long it takes
Data from online poker point the same way. A study of online poker games played for real money, with hundreds of millions of player-hand observations in its data, found in its authors’ simulations that skill only outweighs chance once results are measured over 1,500 hands or more. In the same study, most of the spread in players’ results still appears to come down to chance.
- A few eveningsMostly luck. Who is ahead after a few sessions says very little about who plays better.
- A long stretchA small edge starts to show, and the fee shows all along.
- However long you playThe table as a whole still pays the room. Only a jackpot paid out at that table hands some of the drop back.
The operator’s guide for Ontario calls poker a game of chance, skill and strategy, says no level of skill guarantees a result, warns that serious players will take advantage of newcomers, and says that over time a player is more likely to come out behind than ahead.
The same guide advises setting a budget before you sit down at a table, keeping to that budget, and leaving credit cards at home.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Set aside a poker budget the way you would for any evening out, and decide the amount before you sit down. Don’t treat poker as income: the table as a whole pays the room pot after pot, and a good month says very little about the next one.
If it stops being fun
If gambling stops being entertainment, help is available. 19+ in most of Canada; 18+ in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. More on responsible gaming.
Practice: a month of sessions
The model table from this page plays a session, a month and a year. Before each answer you say how many seats you expect ahead and how the stronger seat fares; the answer gives the exact share, worked out over every way the hands of the model can fall, and below it, in grey, what one run of twenty sessions actually did. Two moments ask for the fee on an example pot.
Nothing is scored here. There is no strip to fill: every moment is read through once, in order, with every answer explained. The figures belong to the model, not to any real room or player, and nothing is bet.
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The practice table needs JavaScript. Here is one moment from it, with the answer.
The first session of one run
THE FIRST SESSION OF ONE RUN: 250 HANDS
- Seat one · a little stronger+$318
- Seat two−$413
- Seat three−$52
- Seat four−$346
- Seat five−$82
- Seat six−$121
- Seat seven+$107
- Seat eight−$261
- Seat nine−$267
- ROOM FEE THIS SESSION$1,117
A model table, not a record of real players: 9 seats, seat one a little stronger than the others, and the fee taken from every pot by the B.C. rule. A session is 250 hands, a month 4 sessions and a year 48 sessions: model figures, not a measured pace.
Add the 9 results of this session together. What do the results come to?
- Zero: the money only moved between the players The money did move between the players, and the room’s fee left the pots as well.
- Minus $1,117, the room’s fee for the session Every pot paid its fee to the room, so the results of the whole table come to minus the sum of those fees.
- More than zero, because the stronger seat brings money to the table The stronger seat takes money from the other seats, not from outside the table: nothing comes in, and the fee goes out.
The results of every seat always add up to minus the room’s fee: at this table, $4.61 a hand on average. Players only pass money among themselves; the fee is the one amount that leaves the table. All 20 sessions of this run come out the same way, session after session.
Every moment in the practice run uses the same model table. The shares of seats ahead are worked out over every way the hands of the model can fall; the run of sessions is one sample from a fixed seed.
How the practice run works
Where the figures come from. The shares of seats ahead after a session, a month and a year are worked out when the page is built, over every way the hands of the model can fall. The run of twenty sessions is one sample from a fixed seed, chosen so that the run looks like an ordinary run of the model rather than a rare one; a sample jumps around the exact figures, and the exact figures do not change from run to run. In every session of the run the results of all the seats add up to minus that session’s fee, to the dollar.
The wrong answers. Each wrong answer is one named mistake: the table read as breaking even, a short stretch read as proof of skill, a long stretch read as certainty, the fee rounded up, the cap read as a flat fee or added to the share.
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Check yourself
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Three quick ones. Pick an answer, then check it. No timer, no points: just whether it stuck.
Back to the question we opened with. What the players at one table came out with adds up to less than zero on any evening with no jackpot paid out at that table: the room’s fee leaves the pots, whoever takes the rest.
Poker rooms, help and further reading
19+ (18+ in AB, MB, QC) · Play responsibly · the helplines are further up this page
Further reading
- Rules of Play for Table Games — Poker (17.0 Texas Hold’em, 33.0 No Limit and Pot Limit) · BCLCThe rules a B.C. poker room deals by: blinds, the button, the order of play, the rake, the showdown, side pots, table stakes and what makes a bet binding.
- Niagara Casinos General Poker Rules · Casino NiagaraOne Ontario room’s house rules: the waiting list, phones, string raises, the single-chip rule and who shows first.
- Poker at Casino New Brunswick — House Rules · Great Canadian EntertainmentA full set of house rules from one room, including when a ruling can still be asked for and how long you can be away from your seat.
- How to play poker · OLG PlaySmartGetting a seat through the brush, what a buy-in, a rake and a session fee are, and why a budget comes before the table.
- Poker etiquette · OLG PlaySmartThe written and unwritten rules of the table, from the single-chip call to string bets and session fees.
- Poker strategies · OLG PlaySmartNot a playing strategy: when to walk away, taking a break and keeping your seat, and what going on tilt means.
How it’s worked out
Rules, numbers, sources and hosts
Where this happens. Every table on this page is a cash table in a room you can walk into. The rake rule worked out here is the rule for casinos in B.C.; the other rules come from rooms in Ontario and New Brunswick, from Casino Regina and from the casino regulations of Nova Scotia, each named with its room. A rule of one room is not a rule of every room.
Numbers. Every figure on this page is worked out when the page is built: the fees by the rule for B.C., the drops by each room’s printed rule, and every figure of the model table from the numbers the model is built on. The shares of seats ahead are worked out over every way the hands of the model can fall; the run of sessions in the practice is one sample from a fixed seed. The figures of the model are figures of a model, not observations of any room or player. The figure for skill and chance comes from a study of online poker and is marked as online; it is not turned into time at a live table.
What is deliberately absent. There is no fee by the clock: no document we could read prints how fast a live table deals. There is no tip amount for a cash table, because no document we could read prints one, and nothing here is said about jackpots beyond the drop leaving the pot. How the rooms that print no rounding round their fee is not guessed. What to ask at the desk, the buy-in and the posted stakes are lesson 7.3; side pots are lesson 7.5; a decision judged apart from the card that came is lesson 7.8; the share of a tournament buy-in that reaches the prize pool is lesson 7.11; tilt and when to leave are lesson 7.13; swings at house games are lesson 10.1.
Sources. Every claim on this page carries a button with the sentence it rests on, the publisher who wrote that sentence and the date we read it. The study of online poker was published in PLOS ONE.
Hosts. Leo and Maya are illustrated characters. Their backstories, a former dealer and a former floor supervisor, are written for the course: neither is a real person, and neither speaks for any casino. The rules and numbers on this page come from the sources it cites, not from their experience.
No promise. Poker is played against the other players, and the room is paid from the pots. Knowing what the fee takes and how long luck lasts tells you what a table costs; nothing on this page says that you will come out ahead, or which seat at a table is yours, and nothing here says how an evening would end.
The house is not a player
Each Player competes against all other players in the game except in the case of a side pot.
The Dealer shall not participate in the game.
Section 17.0 Texas Hold'em, 1.2 to 3.5
Niagara Casinos provides House Poker Dealers for all games, but does not participate in the actual play of the game and has no interest in the outcome of play.
It’s a game of chance, but one that can require skill and strategy to beat the other players at the table, or the house, depending on which style you play.
If you’d rather play against the house and aren’t too keen on bluffing, you might want to try your hand at one of these Novelty poker games:
Unlike traditional Texas Hold'em, where players compete against each other, UTH pits players only against the dealer.
The jackpot drop
A $1 maximum amount will be removed from the pot when it reaches $20 including the rake.
A $1 maximum amount will be removed from the pot when it reaches $20 including the rake.
Great Canadian Entertainment · Pickering Casino Resort — Poker · read
1-$5 maximum amount will be removed from the pot when it reaches $20 including the rake.
Great Canadian Entertainment · Elements Casino Mohawk and Brantford — Poker · read
A $1.00 contribution is taken from every pot that reaches $20.00.
Great Canadian Entertainment · Casino New Brunswick — Poker · read
Skill and chance
Poker is a game of chance, skill, and strategy.
Remember though, no amount of knowledge can guarantee a win and no hand is ever an automatic winner or loser.
Playing more can increase your skill and knowledge, but no level of skill can guarantee a win.
A casino is not the place to learn how to play poker. Serious players play to win and they won’t hesitate to take advantage of novice players.
Over time, you’re more likely to lose than win.
Skill and chance in online poker
Although these results reinforce our earlier findings of performance persistence and the role of skill in poker, the major part of variance in performance remains unexplained by the models and appears to be attributable to chance.
The rake rule in B.C.
The Dealer shall collect a fee of up to 10% of the wagers bet per game, to a maximum of $15.00 from the pot.
Table fees may be collected at the end of each betting round or at the end of the game.
Fees shall be rounded down.
Section 17.0 Texas Hold'em, 8.1 to 8.1.2
The house is not a player
Each Player competes against all other players in the game except in the case of a side pot.
The Dealer shall not participate in the game.
Section 17.0 Texas Hold'em, 1.2 to 3.5
Niagara Casinos provides House Poker Dealers for all games, but does not participate in the actual play of the game and has no interest in the outcome of play.
It’s a game of chance, but one that can require skill and strategy to beat the other players at the table, or the house, depending on which style you play.
If you’d rather play against the house and aren’t too keen on bluffing, you might want to try your hand at one of these Novelty poker games:
Unlike traditional Texas Hold'em, where players compete against each other, UTH pits players only against the dealer.
How the room is paid
Depending on the type of poker, this may include a “rake” or “session fee”. These types of fees are how casinos make money on poker games.
Think of them like rent you pay for your spot at the table.
This is a commission paid to the House that allows a player to remain in the game.
The amount of money the house takes from a hand of poker.
A set fee for participating in a game of poker paid in half-hour increments.
A session fee is a predetermined amount typically paid every 30 minutes
Players will pay session fees even if they are away from the table at the time of collection.
The dealer or floor person will collect the fee from their chip stack.
The players will pay session fees even if they are not present at the table at the time of collection.
3. PAY THE SESSION FEE: Once at a table, you'll need to pay a commission known as a "rake" or "session fee" to play.
“rake” means the amount of gaming chips representing smaller values, gaming plaques representing larger values or coins collected by a dealer as poker revenue;
Section ss. 2 and 110(1)
Province of Nova Scotia · Casino Regulations (Gaming Control Act) · read
The rake rule in B.C.
The Dealer shall collect a fee of up to 10% of the wagers bet per game, to a maximum of $15.00 from the pot.
Table fees may be collected at the end of each betting round or at the end of the game.
Fees shall be rounded down.
Section 17.0 Texas Hold'em, 8.1 to 8.1.2
The rake at other rooms
All games will have a rake of 10% to a maximum of $20.
No Flop No Rake. Minimum $2 rake after the flop.
All games will have a rake of 10% to a maximum of $20.
Great Canadian Entertainment · Pickering Casino Resort — Poker · read
4/8, 10/20, and 20/40 – 10% rake, to a maximum of $10.
10% rake, to a maximum of $15.
No Flop No Rake. Minimum $2 rake after the flop.
Great Canadian Entertainment · Elements Casino Mohawk and Brantford — Poker · read
Casino Regina rules and rake rates will apply.
Casino Regina · Poker · read
The jackpot drop
A $1 maximum amount will be removed from the pot when it reaches $20 including the rake.
A $1 maximum amount will be removed from the pot when it reaches $20 including the rake.
Great Canadian Entertainment · Pickering Casino Resort — Poker · read
1-$5 maximum amount will be removed from the pot when it reaches $20 including the rake.
Great Canadian Entertainment · Elements Casino Mohawk and Brantford — Poker · read
A $1.00 contribution is taken from every pot that reaches $20.00.
Great Canadian Entertainment · Casino New Brunswick — Poker · read
The data of an online poker study
using a large database with hundreds of millions of player-hand observations from real money ring games at three different stakes levels.
Skill and chance in online poker
Simulations point out that skill dominates chance when performance is measured over 1,500 or more hands of play.
Most of the spread is chance
Although these results reinforce our earlier findings of performance persistence and the role of skill in poker, the major part of variance in performance remains unexplained by the models and appears to be attributable to chance.
Skill and chance
Poker is a game of chance, skill, and strategy.
Remember though, no amount of knowledge can guarantee a win and no hand is ever an automatic winner or loser.
Playing more can increase your skill and knowledge, but no level of skill can guarantee a win.
A casino is not the place to learn how to play poker. Serious players play to win and they won’t hesitate to take advantage of novice players.
Over time, you’re more likely to lose than win.
A budget before you sit down
Set a budget before sitting down to a table and stick to it.
Consider using cash only and leaving credit cards at home.
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