Venetian Poker Room Under Fire from Regulars

Venetian Poker Room Under Fire from Regulars September 24, 2019 September 24, 2019 Carolyn J Dawson https://www.poker-online.com/author/carolyn
Posted on  Sep 24, 2019 | Updated on  Sep 24, 2019 by Carolyn J Dawson

venetian poker roomThe Venetian Casino and Poker Room has been targeted by some of its most loyal players after it was announced that a new tournament would be introduced to the platform for a completely different crowd of players. Regulars to the site have located a capped prize pool clause in the fine print of the tournament, leading them to point fingers and cause controversy over its arrival.

The poker tournament in question is the Lucky Shot Poker Series & Drawing, which has a $225,000 guarantee. It’s scheduled to take place between October 21 and 27, with seven poker events being slated to take place. This schedule is highlighted by the appearance of a $250 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament, featuring six flights and a total of $150,000 in guarantees. The whole series finishes off with a drawing, which dictates that $52,000 will be handed out to participants who manage to earn a single entry for each $250 that they contribute towards tournament buy-ins within the series.

Yet, it is the fine print of the structure sheets for this tournament series that reveals a huge difference, and that has enraged regulars at the Venetian Poker Room. The clause reveals that an unprecedented rake and bizarre prize pool system will be in place. This has caused players on Twitter to complain in their hundreds.

Uncapped Rake but a Capped Prize Pool

In the structure sheets, the sentence, “100% of all funds collected will go to meet the $150,000 Total Prize Pool”, can be seen, but it’s what comes after this that makes little sense. Any funds that are collected above and beyond the $150,000 will supposedly be the sole property of The Venetian itself, which suggests that the guarantee cannot and will not be exceeded in any way.

One of the first to comment on this was regular player and vlogger Jeff “Boski” Sluzinski, who said that 750 entries into the tournament would equate to the Venetian’s typical $200+$50 rake, with the rake percentage increasing from there. If the entries reached 900 for example, the rake would increase up to 33%, while at 1,200 entries, half of the buy-in costs would be taken by the poker room itself.

The new tournament series does look like it is being based off of promotional slot and table game tournaments. These feature a set prize pool, which is actually put up by the house. When contacted for a comment regarding the series, a spokesperson for the Venetian said that it is a new poker series catering to players who like promotions and drawings. While it has a lower buy-in, it still guarantees $225,000 in total prizes, including drawing meaning that there are “two ways to win”.

Yet, the largest worry amongst poker players is that, even if they’re not planning on participating in this particular series, most of those who do register will do so without knowing what percentage of their buy-in will enter into the prize pool. Of course, this also means that they don’t know much of their buy-in is going to the Venetian Poker Room, either.

Carolyn J Dawson is a professional freelance poker writer. She specialises writing content about poker/ bingo / blackjack/ etc. as well as breaking poker news. Carolyn has been freelancing for us over a number of years and writes high quality articles. Visit her google + page here