2015 WSOP Main Event champion Joe McKeehen joined PokerOrg’s Craig Tapscott to discuss the state of tournament buy-ins on the East Coast and rising rake.
McKeehen said low buy-ins need to rise while rake stays the same to keep percentages down and make tournaments beatable.
We wanted to hear from someone on the operator side, which is why we reached out to Tournament Director Justin Hammer.
Watch his response in the video above, or read his comments below.
I want to take a minute to respond to some of the things that Joe said from an operator's perspective so that people can understand how we think.
I’m sharing this so that if you want to push for something similar, you’ll have better ammunition to get it done.
Inflation cuts both ways
Joe mentioned inflation, but only one way: that inflation is affecting players.
You have to acknowledge that inflation is also affecting the people who are operating tournaments, and that might have something to do with the rake increases.
Plus, tournaments have changed in recent years. Eight years ago a tournament might have had 5,000 starting chips and 20-minute levels, and the entire tournament was over in six hours.
If you want to keep having more chips, longer levels, and making the tournaments longer in general, the rake is probably going to have to go up to justify it because they're more expensive to run.
Is it a problem or not?
Joe said that people don't pay attention to the rake, but also that the rake is why people aren't playing.
I know he was going off the cuff, but if you tell me something doesn’t happen but also say that same thing is the reason prize pools are shrinking, it’s difficult to argue your case.
Calling games ‘unbeatable’ won’t carry much weight
Something he says that I hear a lot from professionals is, ‘You can't run this tournament because it's not beatable.'
The entire operating model of a casino is offering unbeatable games. I'm not saying that that means they all have to be unbeatable; I'm just saying that's not something that I could present to someone who is in charge of running a casino that would make them say, ‘Oh, you're right, we need to change it.'
Tournaments were originally created because casinos believed the prestige around them would bring lots of high-value players in, who would go on to gamble — allowing casinos to make money.
Professionals figured out that there was a way for them to beat these tournaments they were running, so everybody was winning: professionals were making a living off these games, and casinos were making money hosting them.
That's still the concept that the casino is hoping for. Players figuring out how to beat them is great, but from an operator's perspective, they still see it as, ‘I want to bring people in and make money off of this.'
Telling them, ‘I can't beat this,’ isn’t something that will make them feel compelled to act.
Vote with your wallet
If you want to get through to tournament organizers, don't pay any price that you think is unfair. If you’re willing to pay it, it becomes a fair price by definition.
If you want to try and get something accomplished, what will work is withholding your money so it doesn’t go back into the system. If the rake is so high that people don’t want to play, then as an operator you’re not going to be making as much.
Remember, even though casinos are built on unbeatable games, it's not like they take 100% of a slot machine or win every hand of blackjack. Operators are aware that you have to give some back in order to make more in the long run, and they are willing to do that.
Convince them that a change will be in everyone’s interests. That's the approach players should take. That’s the approach I’m always pushing for – and I hope that's the one that more people use in the future.
PokerAtlas VALUETOWN
Talking of lowering rake, a new tournament called VALUETOWN is set to debut during PokerAtlas Tour stops at TCH Houston and bestbet St. Augustine, where your first buy-in is admin-free.
PokerAtlas is dedicated to creating more value for the poker community, and VALUETOWN is our attempt to prove that less rake is better. Be on the lookout for a VALUETOWN tournament near you, and help us convince operators that lowering rake can bring in more players.
Justin Hammer is the Live Events Director for PokerAtlas, an online tournament director for the Texas-based poker app Hijack, and a tournament director at Thunder Valley Casino Resort. He also works as a consultant and is a minority owner of Desert Bluffs Casino in Kennewick, Washington.
For more info, visit PokerAtlas.com, HijackPoker.com, and bluffs.poker. Follow Justin on X.
