[OnTheButton]

Well here in California, a (private) home poker game where the host takes no money other than by winning it while playing, is legal.

We host a game EVERY weekend, give or take a few holidays.

For almost a year now, every Saturday the wife and I stocked up the house with beer, soda, snacks (chips, cookies, etc) and put out a "voluntary tip jar" in the kitchen with a sign next to it with the suggested prices on it. We only asked for the cost to be recovered ($1 a beer, 50 cents a soda...) so the margins were thin to begin with.

We tallied our expenses over 6 months of weekly games, and the tips collected after each game. And as of last week, we pulled the plug on providing these items for the players every time.

We were averaging about $30-40 a week in products consumed, and the tips collected were in the $25 range. Not working IMO. I don't mind losing a few dollars at the table, but then taking it in the shorts with food and drinks surely didn't help my state of mind each week, especially when a player would walk away with $200 in winnings, consumed all evening, and we never say them toss a dime into the tip jar.

It's hard to imagine that people are just "taking" things from our supply, but we surmised that what most people were doing, was to snack and drink all they wanted throughout the night, and then toss some random amount of chips or bills into the jar at the end of the night, instead of actually "paying as they go." If they cashed out for $46 they would pocket the $40 put the $6 in the jar, when they actually might have consumed $10 in stuff.

So now we just emphasize a strict BYOB policy, we put a cooler outside full of ice (the ice is free, heh) and hung a magnetic sign on the fridge that says, "Nothing in here is yours."

If we rotated the games through other peoples houses, and it was our turn every 8 weeks or so, I would not mind picking up a case of beer and soda and "donating" it to the comfort game. This would of course mean that I could drink and snack for free the other 7 weeks when playing at their homes.

But when you are always the host, and your hospitality becomes expected, then you have to change your plan, especially when it is costing you money to be nice to your guests.