Could you do this profitably?

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In every aspect a Wolf-Trap was a public gambling house... Any man could walk into a Wolf-Trap and, if a table was available, open a Faro snap, or a game of Vingt et Un or Chuck-a-Luck, for any amount he pleased... If a Faro dealer wanted to try his luck with, say, a fifty dollar snap, he bought chips for that amount from the owner or manager of the Trap, and sold them to his players at from five to twenty-five cents each... The house provided the requisite paraphernalia... When the bank had been broken, or the dealer wished to quit, the owner of the Wolf-Trap settled up the game, redeeming checks to the amount which had been deposited with him as the bank's capital. If the bank had won, the house retained ten percent of the profits; if the bank had lost, no charge was made for the use of the tools.

There are obvious aspects of this that I don't see particularly working in this day and age. However, if a house said they would effectively rent a table to you, and you would be the banker, for a fixed price of, I don't know, let's say $20 an hour. That cost covers the cost of paying a dealer, as well as the paraphernalia: the table, the chips, the cards, etc, etc. You could then define the game parameters. If blackjack, when the dealer stands, hits, etc, 3:2, 6:5, whatever. (I apologize. I'm not a blackjack player and thus am not familiar with a lot of the terms of that game.) You would also define the betting limits. At the beginning of each hour, you had to pay the $20 from your bank. If your bank ran out of money, you were done. At any point, you could quit being the bank and you would keep any profits you had made (no paying the house a percentage). Obviously, you would only do this at the end of an hour to justify the cost you already paid for the hour. Further, if you're going to want something like craps, you're going to pay proportionately more. You have 4 employees working a craps table, so maybe $80 an hour for something like that. Also, you can offer any of the "standard" bonus bets that are familiar to players. But you have to have the bank to provide for paying those bonuses if they do hit. For the sake of this question, I'm going to say that you can't "invent" a new game or some strange new rules. It has to be stuff that's already familiar to the majority of players.

So the question is, can you make this profitable? And if so, what game parameters would you be dealing, what size of bank would you use, etc, etc.

The house is not responsible for getting you players for your game, but they are also not going to steer away customers from you. Whatever advertising they are doing, they are doing for everone's benefit, and thus any players are great. But for simplicity, we'll say that the house has outsiders banking all their games, so there aren't tables where the house is the bank that would potentially mean they would prefer players there.

The next part of the question depends on the answer to the first part. If this is something that people could do profitably, ie, being the bank in this situation, the question is, is it reasonable for a house to offer this type of thing? Will $20 an hour provide sufficient income for paying employees, equipment, rents, utilities, etc, etc.

There are further things I can think of, such as that perhaps during more peak times, the cost of the table may be higher, to reflect the fact that there will be more players with more money. Off-peak times may result in lower costs of tables. An option might be a form of auction, such as they do at swap meets for spaces. Highest bids get to pay that amount, and pick the times when they are going to be banking. But rather than worrying about all of that, let's just take the basic case of whether or not a simple cost of $20 per hour is beatable by a smart banker.

To boil this down it seems if you are asking could a casino and dealer make a good profit if the casino "rented" the table to the dealer then the dealer ran the table under whatever rules the dealer wanted to. If we assume licensing could be handled and there would be a need to "pool" a few dealers running the tables but all of this could be taken care of, would it work?

From the casino side there are advantages. First, they turn their table into a fixed asset getting a fixed return. They are no longer responsible for all the HR issues of the dealer(s.) From the dealer side, they get a return when they deal and not just minimum wage plus their toke chop. In fact, there would still be tokes.

The model for this already exists in taxicab medallions in large cities. Someone buys the medallion then rents it to the owner of the cab. That cab owner will in turn either dispatch drivers 24/7 based on who shows up for work and other factors paying them some cut or could be an individual owner who drives their cab by day then "rents" it at night for an hourly rate/cut/some other arrangement. It works well for the most part. Driving a cab has been a good extra or "starter" job for many people.

At issue in a casino is that few dealers could buy the bank. Even at a $5 table the spread will be $5-100 or more. There will not be the profit in flat $5 bets to make it work. ($5 * 7 seats * 60 hands per hour = $2100 per hour then take your HE. It is a grind. But you would still need say $10,000 to be sure you are covered, more as the average bet rises. Cheques could easily be identified by a mark unique to the table and arrangement made to "accept all at all tables" then cash out later at the cage.

Another issue is game protection, you would need another set of eyes as even a good dealer could be robbed blind.

But an interesting discussion.

I have no direct experience with California card rooms. All I know about them, I learned here.

But it kinda sounds like you're describing what is going on in California.

Quote: AZDuffman

To boil this down it seems if you are asking could a casino and dealer make a good profit if the casino "rented" the table to the dealer then the dealer ran the table under whatever rules the dealer wanted to. If we assume licensing could be handled and there would be a need to "pool" a few dealers running the tables but all of this could be taken care of, would it work?

No, not quite.

I don't think this concept would work, mainly because I think players would be too suspicious of a person dealing the same game they are banking.

Further, I'm not talking about a casino, so I don't want to use that word.

My thought process would be a house that has its own dealer employees. The banker pays the $20 per hour, but the house provides the dealer. Thus, players are assured of a fair game. So the house still has to deal with issues of human resources. Any tokes would still be going to the dealer employees. (If tokes are chopped between dealers and the house, then I suppose that could still exist, but I wasn't thinking about that.)

Game protection would be provided by the house. Not only in the dealer employees but in security. Thus the reason why I would suspect that the $20 per hour might not be high enough, depending on what all was involved.

Also remember that the size of the bank and the size of the betting limits involved would be defined by the banker. Thus if you wanted the minimum bet to be 5 cents a piece, you could do so, thus reducing the size of your bank. Whether or not this betting limit would allow you to meet the $20 per hour fee would of course be suspect.

Cheques would not be transferable from table to table. The house would make that clear to players. Obviously, you could cash in your cheques at one table, and proceed to a different table (presumably a different banker), and buy cheques for that table.

Obviously, a banker could also be banking more than one table at a time. So, a banker could have one table with a $1 minimum, another table with a $10 minimum, and a third table with a $100 minimum. He's paying $60 an hour for three tables. Maybe his $1 table is a loss leader, but could he cover that with what he makes from the $100 table?

Yes, California and Washington card rooms are similar.
The players often don't know there is a third entity doing the banking.

A Washington card room rents you a chair for an hourly rare and sells you cheap hamburgers, the "dealer" is thought by the players to be an employee of the card room but I understand they are often employees of a separate Banking Entity that actually puts up the money with the card room only getting a fee.

Does the card room get a percentage of the rake, or a set hourly fee?