Poker Rooms

A card room/poker room is a gaming establishment that exclusively offers card games for play by the public. The term poker room is generally synonymous, since the gambling games played in such establishments are typically, and sometimes exclusively, variations of poker such as Texas hold'em.

Such rooms typically do not offer slot machines or video poker, or other table games such as craps as found in casinos. However, a casino will often use the term "card room" or "poker room" (usually the latter) to refer to a pokeratitsbest.com separate room that offers card games where players typically compete against each other, instead of against "the house."

In the United States, stand-alone card rooms are typically the result of local or state laws and regulations, which often prohibit full-fledged casino gambling.

Since games played in card rooms are usually player-against-player instead of player-against-house, card room operators typically derive their revenues in one of two ways. In most, the dealer of each game will collect a rake, a portion of the pot from each hand. At other times, a charge will be levied against each player for a specific time period, typically each half hour.

Some are modest establishments with just a few tables, while others are the largest poker rooms in the world, offering as much as five times as many tables as the largest Las Vegas cardroom.

Though traditional poker variants such as Texas hold 'em, Omaha hold 'em and seven-card stud are by far the most popular games offered by card rooms (and sometimes the only games), others may offer games such as pai gow, Chinese poker, and variations on blackjack.

These so-called "California games", or "Asian games", may resemble such traditional casino games as blackjack, baccarat and even craps, but have rules that comply with various state restrictions.