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I always pay attention to Bravo and Poker Atlas, even if I’m not playing a tournament, to see what kind of turnout they get and what the payouts look like – this is something I’ve always done. With all the series going on around town this summer, I’ve been paying more attention.
Recently, I put out a StakeKings package that included a couple of Golden Nugget events. When you first look at the schedule and see a $200 buy-in, $30,000 GTD you think, ‘Great!’ And with everybody in town, you know it’s going to be bigger than a $30,000 prize pool.
The night before the event, I happened to look at Bravo and noticed what the minimum cash was. I thought, ‘This can’t be right…’ It’s a $200 buy-in and the minimum cash was $278. Really? I also know for a fact that they have one of the highest rake structures.
I’m not trying to be the rake police, but my goal is to help low-stakes tournament grinders know what their options are so they can make the best decisions and get the most bang for their buck.
Should the room make more than the winner?
I called the Golden Nugget and asked if they were able to tell me how they came up with the payouts. I was told to speak to Joel, who runs the poker room, and I left a message but never heard back. I was supposed to play the event the next day, but looking at this, I didn’t feel comfortable – knowing people were invested in me – so I decided not to play the event. I let StakeKings know and I watched the event to see the numbers.
Golden Nugget posted on X/Twitter, boasting about the $7,873 up top for first place, but the minimum cash ended up being $241 – they left that part out. They’re bragging about the $7,832 up top and they ended up making $10,800 in rake for that event. Again, I’m not the rake police, but that’s much more than the first-place prize.
When you’re making that much in rake, when first place is way too top heavy, and when the minimum cash on a $200 buy-in is $241, something is wrong.
More common sense is needed
Let’s be honest, no one’s playing to make a minimum cash, that’s never the goal, but that’s what happens in most cases. I’m thinking to myself that there are so many people coming into town and so many $200 options available – I decided to start looking at the other options around town that were comparable at that price point and compared both the rake and the minimum cash.
Golden Nugget, I feel, is being very disingenuous with what they’re promoting in their tournaments. I’m looking at other rooms like South Point, Orleans, Resorts World that are all doing around the same rake, or even less, and paying two times the buy-in on a minimum cash. Even the WSOP has flattened its pay structure, where they still pay 15%, but it’s a 2x minimum cash.
The most egregious example was a $140 buy-in, called the ‘Cheap and Deep’. The rake on that tournament was $45, which is 32%. They put on Twitter that first place was $8,005. Well, the rake on that event was $18,540 from the 412 entries. The minimum cash on that event was $174. This is a one-day event now and players had to outlast 360 others to make a profit of $34.
I have issues with that. Common sense has to come into play at some point.
In the high-stakes arena, there are always voices that speak up. They have prominent voices and anytime something is wrong, it’s fixed, but there’s no one advocating in that way for low-stakes grinders. I know a lot of times players don’t look at things like I do but if they’re here on vacation, they shouldn’t have to. They should be able to trust that the venue is not screwing them.
To me, this is screwing your customers. It just makes no sense.
Images courtesy of WPT/H2Oman/Wikimedia
