What is the marginal cost of keeping a table game open an hour?

This is one I keep wondering about. Some casinos (maybe most?) seem to keep high limits during "off" hours and not open some lower limit tables. It seems to me that even though you will get your share of fleas at the low limits, you will also get more people to try a game they might not attempt at $10 for $5 or even $2. Then they will hopefully move up to a higher limit.

So, what does it cost to run a table game for another hour? I figure the lease on the shuffle-machine is monthly no matter how much you use it; as is the license fee (if any) for trademarked carnival games. So that leaves a dealer making minimum wage, lets say $10/hr after taxes and misc costs plus a part of a pit boss, maybe another $5/hr for that "table's share" of him.

Bump it to $20/hr then. A $3 table with 6 spots and 70 hands an hour would give $1,300 (rounded) in action per hour at table minimums. A game with a 1.5% house advatage would pay for itself in that case. If players bet more, and surely some would, it would be slightly profitable. Ditto if they palyed bad, which beginners will.

Now, I realize I assume full play, but why don't more casinos get more aggresive at trying to get more play? Places like Wynn don't want a low-roller crowd, but Circus Circus made an empire chasing low-play.

In AC, you find the LOWEST limits during off hours. The Craps tables at Harrah's can go down to $5 on weekday mornings, usualy hit $10 by 1pm, and are $15-25 at night. Most other tables and casinos follow the same pattern. It's why I tell all of my friends who want to try out gambling as a newbie to go on a weekday, and not Friday or Saturday night.

It is frustrating when you want to play and there is no table open, but I'm sure they are running the numbers to have the optimum operational tables and limits at all times. If all the Blackjack tables are full, maybe the average gambler will give the empty 3 Card Poker table a shot....

Beats me. And I'm sure that as in any enterprise there are conflicting factors at work. Dealer salary? Dealer shares of tokes? I think casinos know that a higher limit table is far more profitable to them than the lower limit tables. I don't know if they really think a five dollar table is all that much more profitable than an empty one. The casino tends to dismiss some action as 'garbage'. Everyone wants high rollers even in a grind joint full of fleas.

Circus Circus originally targeted itself to young marrieds with kids which is clearly not going to be the "dripping dollars where ever they go crowd". Yet I'm sure they had internal disputes as to just what was the optimal scheduling of dealers and dealer breaks. I'm sure they had internal disputes about table minimums. Its like a bartender who has to draw a fine line between chasing out the afternoon customers when it starts to get to be the early evening and things are getting busier.

Do you really lose more if a dealer is not alert? Or scheduling an extra twenty minutes may save you money even at minimum salary? Is a five dollar table going to be empty or full? Sometimes crowds descend on a casino and sometimes the play evaporates.

I think you can see that casinos have some weird and utterly unproven rules of thumb. Comp people to only three nights because they probably won't gamble much beyond that seems to be a freqent rule, but I don't know if its valid.

The casinos pretend not to value a sea of red chips but in reality there are many casinos where that is all that will be seen. Tuscany emphassizes their "if the table is empty, step right up and get a free lesson from the dealer" policy. I guess Tuscany values the somewhat inexperienced gambler. Or atleast they value getting something out of a dealer who is going to be getting a salary and a share of the tokes for just standing there.

Quote: AZDuffman

... Places like Wynn ... but Circus Circus ...

I think this answers your own question.

High class? High limits.
Low class? Low limits.


For what it's worth, this past September I visited Vegas for four days. Monday thru Thursday. I stayed at Sahara.

At no point was there more than one craps table open. It was always $5, and there was always room. One morning when I went down, it was empty. My last morning, there weren't ANY craps tables open - and that was at 7:30!