Just goto the tournament page and you will find that the better tournaments are at least $100 in Vegas. Very rarely you will find me playingi n an event smaller than these for that fact. PH's tourny was good for the price.

But think of it this way. You sound bitter, but an extra $144,000 in a year is nothing for a casino. I just read an article in the paper the other day about how our local boats netted $110 million for May alone (for 6 boats). I'm assuming the Flamingo makes more than $20 million a month, let alone a year, so I'm not so sure the $144,000 makes much difference for them.

I think the trend for increasing juice in small tourneys is caused by just too many inexperienced players who want to limit losses versus win money. The structures are generally horrible, the juice is high, but the buy-in is much less than a 1/2 NL table with the opportunity to win a lot if you run good. I've played a couple of small buy-in tourneys locally, one with zero juice, and I think they're crap. I'm just stunned that they can fill these things up.

144k would pay the salaries and related employment costs of what maybe 4 dealers for the year? i dont think they will be adding any new wings to the facility with that sorta scratch

Im going out 7/8-7/12, and I am actually going to play in some of those cheaper tourneys, due to the fact that I'll probably have about $1500 between me and my wife. And thats a guess, due to this coming from wedding money i'm getting on 7/7. So I think that these little tournies are good for us. $22 buy-in at Tuscany? I'll probably be there. I don't have 3000 to go out with, nor do half of America who are trying to make a living out there. I'll still play good poker. That's all that matters.