Big guarantees = big losses to some sites last weekend

I looked at the results of the big guarantee games this weekend, and it looks like a lot of sites took a beating this Memorial Day Weekend.

Americans were out having BBQ's and enjoying the outdoors with friends and family instead of sitting in front of their computers.

PokerStars — Sunday Million
Buy-In: $200+$15
Prize Pool: $1,500,000
Entrants: 7,214
Places Paid: 1,170
$57,200 overlay
$108,210 paid in rake, for a $51,010 site profit


Full Tilt Poker — $750,000 Guarantee
Buy-In: $200+$16
Prize Pool: $750,000
Entrants: 3,030
Places Paid: 360
$144,000 overlay
$48,480 paid in rake, for a $95,520 site loss

Ultimatebet — $200,000 Guarantee
Buy-In: $200+$15
Prize Pool: $200,000
Entrants: 802
Places Paid: 81
$39,600 overlay
$12,030 in rake, for a $27,570 site loss

Cake Poker — $100,000 Guarantee
Buy-In: $250+$18
Prize Pool: $200,000
Entrants: 769
Places Paid: 110
$7,750 overlay
$13,842 in rake, for a $6,092 site profit

Bodog — Sunday $100,000 Guarantee
Buy-In: $150+$12
Prize Pool: $100,000
Entrants: 493
Places Paid: 63
$26,050 overlay
$5,916 in rake, for a $20,134 site loss

So Captain. Whats your feelings on this. Good or bad thing. TBH... I kinda chuckled at seeing UB lose money..Kinda sick I know.

My #1 thought is that I should wait for holiday weekends to play the big games.
$47.52 per person in overlay on Full Tilt = Sweet!

$216 buy-in with an average payout of $247.52 = $31.42 in equity just for showing up.

my BR is nowhere near playin these yet but ill b starting a sweet new job next week and may make a deposit on the next holiday weekend to play the 750k! or best case scenario i have an amazing summer and my br is grinded up to that buy in level lol

Thanks for the info. From time to time I've looked for lightly attended guaranteed tourneys where the buy-ins aren't enough to meet the guarantee, thinking that this should give you somewhat better odds on your money. Very, very rarely, I have seen it at the time of the tourney start but invariably late registrants come in and raise participation to more than cover the guarantee amount.

Holiday weekends might be the time to look for that situation, I guess.

I doubt that $95k is more than pocket money to FTP, worringly :P

Are you serious? That's babyfood for FTP. I'm sure FTP is a multi-billion dollar entreprise.. w/o a doubt. Look at the absurd amount of money Clonie Gowen was going after awhile back.

Oh yeah I think there is some numbers somewhere but poker is a multi billion dollar industry, with FT and PS at the top, raking it all in...they made back the overlays plus some from cash games, sngs, and regular mtts

Does this account for the rake that they got from the satiltes for these tournaments? I got to think that they get a lot from those and was wondering if you accounted for that.

Interesting point.

But still pretty cool to see these stats for the weekend. From the way you framed it, is this completely different than most weekends' big games? I'd like to see the stats for the week before to compare.

Stix

I said that I doubt that it is more than pocket money, i.e. it is not more than pocket money, i.e. it is nothing to them - I agree entirely with you

I am just going to grind a ton of step 3s into step 5s and play all of the ftp 200$ games over the summer.
I say this now but by the time I play them, I am going to get sick very soon.

This is one commonly forgotten key to figuring the true value and rake for the biggies. Anytime there are satellites or 'steps' of any kind to the big... or 'main' event, the so called 'guarantee' becomes a rather moot point in regards to the site revenues vs. payouts.

It does NOT change the fact that the overlays for some of these were nothing short of AWESOME ...

This is helpful research. The stakes are too high for my bankroll, but I bet it also applies to lower level stakes / guarantees on similar holiday weekends. I used to search for $5 & under buyins which had overhang. Always thought that was one ideal way to find extra cash.

While this study may have excluded the extra rake from satellites it also misses the additional value of FTPs, rakeback, and bonus dollars which the sites pump out to attract players as well. So I still think that this points to at least a loss leader for that weekend.

With today being Independence Day in the United States, I expect the big overlays to return for the Sunday Majors.

If anybody has been thinking about playing a big one, today would probably be a good day.

That would have been nice to get into those tournaments while most people weren't online.

I realise it's not in the same league that you're talking about - but I have registered for the Daily Dollar!

I know there's pretty much no way to track it, but wouldn't the rake on satellites to these events go some of the way to making up the deficit? Probably nowhere near enough to make up for someone like Full Tilt eating a $95K loss on the main tournament, obviously, but just a thought.