Sneaky Prize Pool Deductions in Alberta

Tony's G

Just saw some fine print for the next Deerfoot tournament series...

All events have 2.5% for staff taken from the prize pool, and 2.5% of all buy-ins over $150 go to province - So this means that for a $50K guaranteed event that $2,500 is taken out in addition to the $30 fee (fee totals $4,500 if they get 150 players)

So Deerfoot is taking at least $7,000 from players, not bad. Is this something that is unique to Alberta? Or are there little deductions like this at all events across Canada?

BlondeFish

Looking at the Deerfoot $180+$20 tournaments, does this mean that:
- $4.50 extra goes to staff (2.5% of prize pool * $180)
- $5 goes to AGLC (2.5% of all buy-ins * $200)?
This means the total "rake" (i.e., what doesn't go to the players' payouts) = 14.8% (29.5 / 200), i.e., $170.5 +4.5+5+20.

For Event 1 and other $300+$30 events, the rake is 13.9% [(7.5 + 8.25 + 30) / 330]. In other words, it's not as great as the new Ontario tournaments that I've been playing with rake as low as 4-5%, but not unreasonable. For example, the $300+$30 Deep Stack that I cashed at Brantford had no extra staff fee or OLG/AGCO fee, so the rake is only 9.1%.

Some players are too cheap to even tip a single ¢ after a big tournament cash, so a lot of casinos add in the staff fee, but fail to clearly disclose it like Fallsview Casino. Deerfoot discloses it better based on that poster.

So if you are going to write an article at Pokernews about prize deductions aka rake, I can give you worse poker rooms than Deerfoot.

BlondeFish

Tony's G, how about doing a PokerNews article on casinos' bad practice of hiding all these extra fees in the fine print? It should be clearly disclosed to players how much of their buy-in goes back to their prize pool, and that the rest goes somewhere else. For example, instead of Deerfoot misleading players that the Main Event is $1,350+$150, it should disclose that only ~$1,282.50 goes back to the players, i.e., "$1,282.50 + $217.50." With the $150 admin fee + 2.5% staff fee + 2.5% of buy-in for AGLC, the total "rake" is 15%, which is too high for a $1,500 Main Event and is hard to beat.

While hardly anybody in this forum plays the casino tournaments in Ontario and don't realize this yet, the tournaments in Ontario casinos are among the best for non-pros as they doesn't have any hidden extra fees (except Fallsview) and their rake as low as 4% (>= 4 OLG casinos) or 5% (Casino Rama) could be the easiest to beat in the world!

Tony's G wrote: »

Is this something that is unique to Alberta? Or are there little deductions like this at all events across Canada?