Live action games offered at CAZ : updated

[Admin]

Casino Arizona at Indian Bend has a 46 table Card Room normally spreading the following listed games on a daily basis.

Edited on 4-17 to add: Arizona recently allowed Reservation Casinos to spread games UP to a $500 bet cap, along with the originally listed games, the following has been added:
2-250,  100/250 buy in
5-500, 100/500 buy in
10-500, 300/2500 buy in
20-500  1000/ no cap buy in
and fixed games of 100/200, 150/300, 200/400, 250/500.
Additionally, Casino Arizona has started to spread a 2-7 triple draw game at limits of 75/150 and higher only.

Texas Holdem
at limits of...
3/6, 4/8, 6/12, 8/16, 5 to 150, 10 to 150, 20/40, 40/80, 60/120, 75/150(occasionally)

Omaha Hi-Lo
At limits of...
3/6, 6/12

Mixed (no draw games)
Usually at one of the following limits...
40/80  60\120  75\150

7 Card Stud (occasionally, usually on weekends)
at limits of...
3/6, 6/12, 6/12 Hi-Lo, 15/30 (rarely)

Minimum Buy-ins for fixed limit games are always 10x the small bet...
3/6 = $30, 4/8=$40 etc..

Buy-ins for the spread limit (x-150) games are as follows:
5-150: $100.00 minimum / $350.00 maximum
10-150: $300.00 minimum / $1000.00 maximum

There are no "Big Bet "(Pot limit or No limit games) poker games at Casino Arizona.  
The state of Arizona restricts any bet or raise made in a poker game to a maximum of $150.00.
Players cannot make a single "all-in" bet for more than the cap limit at any time

Jackpot games
 see CAZ Promotions

Kill Pots
All fixed limit games are played with a full kill.  
Exceptions:
75/150-No Kill
20/40 is half kill
40/80 is half kill

In Holdem and Stud a player must win two consecutive hands, the second pot must contain 10x the small bet to trigger the Kill.

In split games, a Kill is triggered if the player sweeps( win both hi and lo portions) a single pot of a specific amount:
3/6 limit-$50.00
6/12 limit- $100.00

In flop games the "killer" acts after the big blind has acted, not in rotation.

In stud the "killer" is the opener( instead of a low card bring in) play proceeds with the player to the left of the kill.

[gotpaid]

    ON 5 to 150 how do blinds work, is it SB 5 BB 5, just the SB and BB put in preflop. I have been wanting to play but not sure of the correct type of play, example would this game play more like NL as far as strategy goes? With a max of 350 (which is weird why not 300 or 400?) should I at least have min 600? Just thinking about playing, got a lot of questions about the game, I'll ask them on general discussions forum.

[Admin]

The blind structure in the 5-150 is 3 and 5.
10-150 is 5 and 10.

[BobinskiAK]

Is it still true that no limit cash games are not allowed in AZ?  This being the reason behind the 5-150 spread?

[Admin]

Yes that is correct.
Up until several years ago there was no bet cap in Arizona.  When the Compact re-negotiations began, wherein to include Vegas style blackjack, one of the concessions that the Casinos had to make was to limit the bet in any poker game to $150.00 maximum.
The new "law" spawned the birth (in Arizona) of $150 cap bet spread limit.  It actually took some time before these games were spread, but have proven to be quite popular.

The same compact re-negotiation also prohibits spreading of any Draw game.

[jimbo]

"one of the concessions that the Casinos had to make"

The casinos didn't concede anything by capping the games at 75-150 -- they put that language in there themselves.

The initiative process in Arizona allows anyone to write their own initiative and with enough signatures it goes on the ballot.  The Cardinals wrote their own initiative for the stadium.  When health orgs put an initiative to restrict smoking in public places, the tobacco industry wrote their own second initiative and put it on to confuse the issue.  If I got enough signatures, I could have a ballot initiative offered up for vote that said I was the King of France.

The legislative process invariably requires give and take as various interests make tradeoffs.  The ballot initiative process is the exact opposite.  Those with an interest and the funds (approx $1/sig) write the bluest of blue-sky initiatives and hope that they pass 50.1-49.9.

Poker caps were never mentioned in the publicity before the election.  They were buried in the fine print.  People felt (mostly correctly) that they were voting on the legalization of blackjack.  The ballot initiative could just has easily been written with just blackjack and no changing of the poker status quo and would have passed by an even greater margin.

Those are facts.


The following is supposition, but probably true:

The casinos wanted to keep the whales in the blackjack pits and out of the highest stakes poker games that way they could get bigger $.  Variously, casinos would try to cap the games, but then the big games would just move somewhere else in the valley.  That's the problem with competition...  Ideally, they would collude to cap the games, but in a free-market, it's illegal to collude with binding contracts.  And in non-contract situations, competitors often have an incentive to break ranks.  The optimal way to enforce a collusion that no one can opt out of it is to bury it in a binding resolution that will overwhelmingly pass because of the main topic in the selfsame resolution. (e.g. blackjack legalization).

The casinos also hated triple-draw because they would only get six players paying time instead of 8, 9 or 10, and magically, that was prohibited as well...


Bottom line, the initiative was written by and for the casinos and they wrote it in a way to maximize their self interest. 

Jimbo

[DGK1186]

Thank you...I've been wondering what the reason was for that "law" but could never get a comprehensive explanation.  I always figured that the main reason would be to keep big money at the BJ table.  Now how do we go about changing it...because it's ridiculously silly!

[TheShadow]

There is no prohibition on draw games in the compact.  Its just a business decision of each casino which games they want to spread.  They play draw games at The Fort from time to time.

[PeteO]

The 150 big bet rule in AZ Casinos is terrible and will always hold AZ Casinos back from competing with the big dogs.  They lose tons of $$$$$ weekly with big dogs flying to Vegas, many end up staying there.  Get rid of the $150 bet rule, it is laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame!!!

[that_pope]

The 150 big bet rule in AZ Casinos is terrible and will always hold AZ Casinos back from competing with the big dogs.  They lose tons of $$$$$ weekly with big dogs flying to Vegas, many end up staying there.  Get rid of the $150 bet rule, it is laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame!!!

What money are they losing from these 'big dogs'?  The $7 a half hour table charge that they wouldn't be able to spread because their poker room is full +40% of the time? 

[JustinHEMI05]

Yes that post makes no sense. Every time I have been there the "big" tables were full with lists. Not a lot of money flying out the door there.

Justin

[that_pope]

I think you can remove the 5 to 150 and 10 to 150 games from your list.  They died shortly after as expected.

[Aack Thbbbt]

i think they still OFFER them, but yeah, not spread on a daily basis as stated in the OP