Gambling Halls, how to profit?

[Bear]

Ok... Gambling halls...

Besides CHEATING, how does one profit from running one?

And on the cheating point, how can a non-wizard cheat at various card games?

I have a PC who may want to run an illicit gambling hall and I'm just wondering how to turn a profit without magical means...

 

[Blind Sam]

All games of chance have odds that favor the House. If the establishment also allows games to be run where they only supply a dealer then they take a cut out of the pot.
Games such a Roulette are easier to see how th e house has the benefit since there are no player options like asking for more cards or changing any of the variables. Here is a quote from http://www.roulette-guru.com/roulette_odds.html,

"The sad thing about American roulette is that this house edge is unalterable. Each and every bet, and every combination of bets, and every way you can think to hedge your bets, all work out to a 5.26% house edge."

This may be a small prcentage but from there you can add in distractions.
1) Alcahol
2) Schills - a player for the House in card games, other players do not know that they are working for the House
3) Saloon Girls (or Guys if needed), may have Brothel attached to casino

Or just go for rigged games; weighted dice for Craps, Roulette wheals with ways to select numbers, marked cards, brakes on a Big Wheel, etc...

 

[Hand of Evil]

House odds are 53% for an honest room add that drinks and it starts to go over 60%. The biggest thing is that people do not know when to quit.

 

[DonaldRumsfeldsTofu]

My friends developed a way to play poker in D&D, but I'm too tired and lazy to remember it. It was very complicated. It involved percentile dice, bluff and sense motive checks, and annying up with copper pieces.

In other words, this post is not productive in any way.

But as for cheating;

Sleight of hand: You can use it to slip hidden aces into your deck. (or in case your characters in some pathological flight of fancy decide to play Go Fish or Bull****, your character can use Sleight of Hand or Hide to stash some of their cards in their attire)

Intelligence: An intelligence check with a relatively high DC would be used to count cards, or if you're so inclined, you can always make an individual skill or feat for it.

And there's always card marking.