Let's talk about rake, late 2025 edition.

General inflation will kill 1/2 before egregious rake. There’s already casinos with rake caps as high as $10+$2, plus the California casinos with straight drop structure. Also worth considering people play triple 0 roulette, 8 deck blackjack, 6:5 blackjack, continuous shuffle blackjack etc.

Nobody is leaving casinos and going to underground games for rake when the rake at the underground games is much worse.

As bad as the situation is, and it is bad, the long standing paradox is still true —it is really not that hard to beat 1/2 - 2/5 for 10bb/hr, and yet only a tiny percent of players do that.

It depends on what you mean by "killing 1/2." If you mean it is a stepping stone to making some kind of living at poker, I agree. You can't make enough to support yourself with inflation today at 1/2. You've got a bare bones existence at 2/5 as it is.

However, lots of rec players are fine with 1/2 because they won't lose "too much" At least in NH, rooms that were 1/3 are converting back to 1/2.

Perennial reminder that the casinos and rec players are completely indifferent to whether it is possible to beat the rake. In fact, if the good players stopped playing 1/2 it would cause the losing players to lose more slowly. Which is in the casino’s interest.

I mean killing 1/2 as in the casino will eventually stop spreading it because of inflation , for the same reason they don’t spread .25/.50 now. You’re correct the players will keep playing no matter what, which is why rake won’t kill it, but it eventually will not be worth it for casinos to spread

Conventional wisdom that poker isn’t a viable career is so wildly over stated. 50% of Americans make less than $50K, it is really not hard to make $50K/yr playing 2/5 live. It is more accurate to say “it’s no longer viable to try to make a living playing poker by poker with just common sense and little to no preparation”

It could be that I'm a privileged white collar guy who frankly struggles to imagine how anyone lives off median income without benefits, at least in the major metropolitan areas where poker tends to be spread. (Maybe LV is more affordable, I don't know.)

In any case, I think annualizing the numbers is misleading and illustrates the difference between a profitable endeavor and a career. The median household makes $3.35 million dollars over a 40 year career. How many people have made that much playing 2/5?

Maybe it's unfair because the poker boom was less than 40 years ago, but who is meaningfully on pace for that? Ask any financial planner how much you need to save for retirement and ask yourself how many 2/5 players are holing that much away?

I know the answer isn't 0, but for sense of scale, there are over 800, 000 electricians in the US. To meet my personal definition of "viable career" I need more than a few hundred to be making enough to (after the first 15 years) still be on pace to retire some day. (Beyond that, it's semantics.)

I think a fairer comparison is to contract work, rather than a career, in which case the margins don't compare very favorably until you get to mid-stakes.

Realistically, it's a fun hobby that can make you some pocket change. And in that respect, poker will still be better than chess or MTG or competitive gaming or whatever regardless of whether the rake structure is $5+$0+$0 or $7+$3+$1.

Really depends on the situation - if you're a single guy with no kids/no wife, no house, either living at home with your parents or sharing an apartment with your buddy then yeh it can work, but if you wish to have a family one day and provide for them then 50k isn't cutting it. Furthermore poker is just a bad all around endeavor if that's all you make - the live environment is depressing/unhealthy long term, you get no health insurance, you always need a roll to keep you in the game, you have to physically be there and playing to make money, and there's variance to deal with. Now if you're young with no dependents and you want to give things a shot to potentially play higher stakes then I think you go for it, but if 2/5 is basically where you're capped out after a number of years I'd probably try to move on sooner then later.

I think the bigger thing is that it's vastly harder to make money in live 2/5 than many give it credit for. Sure, the median income for a full-time employee was about $61,000 in 2025, but the median result for a player at almost any stakes was negative. It's not "hard" in the absolute sense that is easy to take once you have studied a bit, in that's it not hard the way making any money playing professional baseball is hard, but it still requires basic intellectual skills and training that, most importantly, can probably make you more money with less heartburn in any number of other careers.

And, as someone who only plays <10 hours a week, I really cannot imagine having to grind for 40 hours a week or even close. I would get absolutely sick of poker long before that. (And ironically, I think the main reason no one is going to make $3m playing 2/5 is because they get sick of it, and move into content creation or coaching or...) As you said, it's simply a fun hobby that happens to produce money instead of cost it. I'm sure eventually inflation will "kill" 1/2 in the form of encouraging casinos to spread bigger games, but I think that's just inflation.

So I’m always surprised by people who post 6+3+1 at MGM Springfield is high. Vegas casinos also now take 6 to 60. It just reflects rising costs of living for the people working to organize the game, make a little profit, and toss change to state. I imagine the rake is lower in low cost states and rust belt cities

Working for yourself is just a different lifestyle - since you don't have the guaranteed check your always grinding, but you have the perks of freedom and ability to make an infinite amount of money. I work in the real estate field now working for myself - average probably 2 hours a day of true focused work, but I can also have a random day pop up where I'm busy all day. That 2 hours is generally in my kitchen on my laptop - there is some variance to my income every month but I would say 8 months are consistent, 2 months are low, 2 months are very high. I can't imagine having to get up everyday at 5-6 AM, drive to a job that I don't like, and have to work 40,50,60+ hours a week knowing my boss can cut me at anytime. The biggest issue with poker is scalability - you have to play to make money, there's no ability to sit in your kitchen and do it unless you're playing online. It's a complete trade of your time for money - when you directly do this it's very hard to make a lot of money or frankly enjoy the process. I still think though if your in say your early 20s give it a shot - worst case your 30 years old and have nothing to show for it but atleast you gave it a go and have plenty of time to start a new career. I did - did pretty good for a couple years, but then eventually realized I was capped out and transitioned out.

Yes, this. I don't think it's ironic at all.

You alluded to this in your own post, but this isn't about working for yourself vs working for someone else; this is about a labor-oriented job vs a capital-oriented job*. In other words, it's not enough to be your own boss: you have to be someone else's boss and/or "have your money work for you."

I've started to call (playing) poker a Hotel California occupation: https://twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58722... It's a clock-in but never clock out profession; ie: it has all the downsides of a job where the work itself (actually playing poker) is just the tip of the iceberg and also a job where you don't make a dime unless you're actually clocked in.

Of course there are plenty of capital-oriented ways to make money in poker: spread a game, start a stable, develop IP and charge subscription service for it, etc.

*Not technically applicable to you. Real estate/sales occupy a weird liminal space where you can scale and make a lot of money:work by working their way up to higher ticket items. Though even in the real estate example, most people who get rich have a team working for them.

The casinos where I live post the rake right on the table. Frankly, I don't worry about it, I don't think it changes things as much as some seem to think. It reminds me of people in my business who obsess over fees, to the point that they will make less money to minimize fees...

You're beating the game, or you aren't. What anyone else makes off your activity is irrelevant. The goal isn't to minimize the rake you pay, it's to maximize your earnings per hour. It seems to me that the player pool is going to be far more important than any rake structure. Find the games you beat the most and play them. (and tip your dealer more than $1).

I've often thought about the scenario where poker players are given a receipt at the end of each session detailing how much rake they paid. Imagine a recreational looking down a printout stating that he paid $122 for five hours of poker when cashing out (or leaving with no chips at all).

Most consumer and tax law is based on transparency of this kind. We get receipts for transactions in all other parts of the economy. On occasions we actually look at those receipts and subsequently change our behaviour, usually by shopping around, spending our money elsewhere, querying a bill, negotiating a better price and so on.

The logistics of documenting the rake paid to the winner of each pot may have been more difficult in the past, but, with many casinos swiping player cards at the table, it'd be achievable today.

I'd love to see a gambling regulator initiate this kind of provision.

The real money isn't in the game, it's in self-promotion. That's true in any game/sport. Even the ones where salaries are obscenely high. The sport is just the medium to gain attention. If you're trying to make it in poker today and you aren't getting on streams, running a YouTube channel, etc. you don't really want to make money.

My situation:

1. My game (regardless of stakes) is 10% to a maximum of 7$ (reduced at 6 or fewer players to 5$ max), +1$ for bad beat (pot has to be over 50$), +1$ for high hand bonuses (pot has to be over 50$), no flop no drop.

2. My rather crude assumption is that the 1$ high hand and 1$ bad beat come back to me through the little bonuses I win from time to time. (I've confirmed with the casino that no money enters this fund besides the rake and no money exits besides whats awarded for these high hands so its a zero-sum side-game from what I can tell).

3. On top of this, for being an agreeable reg that tries valiantly to keep the fish having fun, I get free food (incidentals, I have to ask, can get maybe one meal per 7-8 hour session), points for our points program which equates to 0.60$/hr towards menu (no alcohol).

4. I barely tip. 2-3$ per session.

5. Dealers make 15$/hr, house makes slightly more like 17 or 18$/hr (don't know exactly). Almost all are college kids or immigrants, everyone's family. They make deals regularly for the kids like if they have a college exam period they'll give them 2 weeks off to study and then extra hours when they get back to make up the $$$.

6. One of the rules in this area is the casinos (privately owned) have to give 50% of pre-tax income to charity (government approved charities only). Charity workers (all volunteer) form the majority of the outside workforce (cage, counting, refreshing coffee station, etc).

Overall I feel pretty good about this situation.

Do you think recs would care? It isn't like they are leaving the casino with money. I go on a trip to a casino, I'm not coming home with money unless I somehow win an absolutely absurd amount. When I play poker, I try my hardest to win for the same reason I try to win a chess game with no money on the line at all: because winning is fun. I'm not playing stakes high enough where I'm going to win or lose a paycheck, and I don't really have any interest in playing that big. So when I walk out of the poker room with money, it's going to be spent elsewhere. I'm going to take my girl out, and we're going to have a good time blowing the "extra" money. When we're both losers, we'll hang out in the swanky hotel room and use the amenities. Get a massage, go to the pool, etc.

That's how most recs are approaching the game, they are there to have a good time. They have a budget of money they are willing to lose, and they almost always will lose it. If they win at poker, they will lose the money at blackjack, craps, the machines, strippers, drinks, shows, fancy meals, golfing, shopping, whatever their preferences/vices are. They care as much about the $100 in rake as they care about the $100 they paid for room service or tipped the cocktail waitress or whatever. They are there to have a good time and to them winning is about getting that good feeling, not making money because they have a day job. The money isn't going to materially change their life one way or the other.

Now the regs/semi-pros who don't realize how much rake is being taken out might throw a fit, but again - I think they are focusing on the wrong thing. It isn't like there is a magic casino somewhere with no rake, and within a geographic area, there isn't usually a huge difference between casinos. The one area I've been where there is a huge difference is Columbus Ohio, you have the casino which has casino rake (not sure the exact amount), and you have Nick's Shark Tank which has a flat "membership" fee that used to be like $20. And you could play the whole night with no further house fee. It doesn't get cheaper. But the game at the tank is exponentially harder than the game at the casino because everyone in that room is a reg. Random recs aren't going to find it. Wonderful atmosphere, love playing there, it's a fun game. It's also way less profitable than going down the road to the casino full of loose passive recs. Anyone who is consistently beating the game at the Tank can probably make 3x the hourly easily at the casino. Just because there is a huge difference in average skill in the player pools. That's far more important than the rake.

People who want to make money playing poker are far better off focusing on the variables they can control, rather than the small things that are structural.

Bro just slipped #4 in the middle there like we wouldn’t notice.

What you're talking about here are those who view poker as equivalent to other table games like craps and roulette. It's primarily entertainment and if you get lucky so be it. Only a small percentage of the poker pool actually thinks this way: most of those we call recs still try to win, while regs expect to win. So, in short, yes the vast majority of poker players DO care if they leave the casino with money and they DO care about how much. The equivalence between poker rec and general gambler is a false one and I believe this false equivalence does more harm than people realise: for instance, in Australia, casinos are not regulated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Corporation, a very powerful regulator, because poker players are defined as gamblers rather than consumers. If poker players were defined as consumers then issues over price transparency and so on could be better regulated in most cases.

Aside from saying we can't control "variables" by definition, I agree that complaining about rake doesn't achieve much in terms of changing casino or regulation policy. There are many threads on 2+2 detailing the significant impact of rake on win-rates, however; I mean even Solvers advocate different strategies based on different rake structures. Saying that rake has no impact upon a poker game is like saying a tax system has no impact upon a national economy: a casino taking between $100-$250 OFF the table of a low or mid stakes game EVERY hour is going to affect how much people win in a zero-sum game such as poker. If a whale is adding $1000 dollars to the table every hour, well, then, the rake becomes less significant. But such whale sightings are rare in my experience, in most cases a variable beyond our control, but, I stress, again, rake is not a variable: in fact, it's pretty much a fixed cost for a poker player/source of revenue for the house.

1: Variables by definition are things that can be changed. The only things we can control are variables (not saying we can control ALL variables). We can't change the structural constants like rake.

2: Yes, that's how most recs view poker. Of course they "try" to win, they also try to win table games. But the guy limping in with 76o isn't really trying. He isn't studying poker away from the table, isn't calculating pot odds when making a decision, and isn't trying to put you on a range. He is a losing poker player, he knows it and he isn't taking the most basic steps to improve - you don't have to read much to know that 76o shouldn't be limped ever. Yet being a chronically losing player he keeps showing up and limping random off suit trash. If the game you play in is full of hardcore poker players studying gto in their off time - get better or find a different game.

3: On solvers - rake matters a ton if you're playing a perfect gto opponent, which is what solvers play against. Rake matters because the skill edge is zero. If you start node locking the common errors that your player pool makes, suddenly rake matters a lot less. For example, suppose there is a position where a x/r has $5 in EV in gto land and calling would have $2 in ev, if the x/r would cause $5 in rake to be taken out and calling only $1, then calling is better.

However, that is against a gto opponent who is going to 3! sometimes, is going to be perfectly balanced and is going to play future streets optimally whichever option we choose. In the real world, if our opponents are never 3! jamming without the nuts, if they are calling too wide or folding too much and playing too passively on future streets, our EV with a x/r will often be much higher than a solver because humans don't respond to aggression as well as a computer. If you run some solves with what your opponents are actually doing, it will look very different than a solve against the solver. Especially at low stakes. If you are adapting your play based on what a solver says it would do because of the rake, then you are leaving a ton of money on the table.

Basically if your skill edge is adding 5bb to your EV on average then the rake is nullified. If you don't have that large of a skill edge at low stakes, then you need to get better or find a softer game.

4: If you are treating poker like a business, then rake is no different than the fees that many businesses pay like rent, platform fees, warehousing fees, employees, etc. yeah, if I didn't have to pay my employees I'd make a lot more money.... for a month.

If you are trying to be a professional poker player, the casino is your marketer. They are spending millions of dollars to bring people into that casino, and a number of them are going to end up at your poker room and become your customers.

Paying the rake is just a business expense. And every business has expenses. If you aren't crushing low stakes, the problem isn't the rake, Just like if I can't pay my office rent, the problem isn't the landlord. Go play in the room that's bringing you the best customers, optimize your service to ensure you're getting the maximum profit per customer and you will profit. The room that's bringing in the best customers might or might not have the lowest rake, it's worth the higher rake if the customer pool is better- that's my point.

I think that's a much more practical way to look at it if you are treating poker as a business. Good successful business people, aren't running around trying to find the cheapest marketing they can get. They are focused on the quality of the customer that any particular marketing effort brings.

5) Casino poker isn't a zero sum game, when someone busts there is a line of people adding new money. You don't need one whale pulling out $1,000/hour. Multiple people are rebuying and when people go bust a fresh person comes in. If the rake is $200/hour, and $400/hour is coming in fresh whether from rebuys, add ons or new players - the 2-3 winning players have a good bit to split up.

I'd say it's unusual to sit in a $1/$2 game that doesn't have $400+/hour being added to the table in a casino. At least during prime hours. If you're in the Wednesday morning OMC game where $20 is a big pot, well game selection is an important part of being a pro.

So if you play 8pm-1am on a Fri/Sat night ... you think it's "usual" for there to be at least ~$3.5k on the table?

That's 2 people with $1k and 7 with an average of $200 in front of them. So yeah. I would expect a table running for 6 hours to have 2-3 big stacks $600-$1200, and the rest of the table $150-$300. I see that on a normal Sunday...

No state tax? Who paid the dealers? Who ran the bank?

I get bothered by hand histories on 2+2 live strat without rake promos. There’s always a rake or tip. All poker games require you to compensate the host, or you are not invited. This one’s for you, Banana.