Poker

This page explains how server operators switch poker on, configure it and understand what it does to the economy.

Navigation path:

• Server Admin -> Groups & access rights
• Server Admin -> Settings -> Economy

What poker adds

Poker is the only casino game in which players play against each other instead of against the house. It is No-Limit Texas Hold'em at cash-game tables:

• Tables belong to one server. Players only see and join the tables of the server whose portal they are on.
• A table has six seats unless its opener chose fewer. By default it is public: anyone who may play can open one, watch it, or sit down on a free seat.
• Whoever opens a cash table picks the blind level and their own buy-in, and may make the buy-in fixed, turn rebuys off and decide who may use the table's voice and text chat. They get no powers over other players.
• With extra rights, players can also open private tables and tournaments, and admins can host any table.
• A public cash table closes by itself once the last player has stood up. Private and tournament tables open empty and stay open for a while without anybody seated (10 minutes by default).
• A player can sit at one table per server at a time.

Switching poker on

Poker is off on every server until you switch it on. There is no separate switch: grant the player right player.casino.access_poker (shown as Access Poker in the Casino section) to the groups that should be allowed to play.

• Groups with the player.* wildcard have it automatically.
• Every other group has to be given it explicitly. Nobody receives it through a bundle or a backfill.
• Standing up from a table always works, even without the right. A player whose right you remove while they are seated can still take their money back.

Rights

Right	Shown as	Lets a player
player.casino.access_poker	Access Poker	play, open public cash tables
player.casino.poker_open_private	Open private poker tables	open private tables and keep their list
player.casino.poker_open_tournament	Open poker tournaments	open tournament tables and start their own tournament
admin.casino.poker_host	Host poker tables	see every table, start any tournament, remove or disqualify players, cancel tournaments, add a server bonus, keep tables open for up to 24 hours

None of them is handed out automatically. Groups with the player.* or admin.* wildcard have the matching ones. Everything an admin host does is recorded in the audit trail.

Table settings

Whoever opens a table decides, for that table only:

• Fixed buy-in (cash tables): everybody sits down with exactly this amount.
• Rebuys (cash tables): on or off. Tournaments never allow them.
• Seats: 2 to 6. Only for private and tournament tables, or when an admin host opens the table.
• Speaking and writing in the table's voice and text chat: players only, everyone or nobody. By default everyone speaks and writes. The server's own chat settings and rights always apply on top. An admin host can change both later.
• How long an empty table stays open: up to 10 minutes; admin hosts up to 24 hours. That way a table for an event can be set up well before it starts.

Private tables

A private table only shows up for the players its opener let in, for the opener, and for admin hosts — in the lobby, at the table and in its chat. Everybody else cannot find it. The opener searches players by name and adds or removes them under Manage table. Players are not notified; tell them yourself. Taking somebody off the list does not unseat them.

Tournaments

A tournament is a single table (Sit & Go) that is played until one player holds all the chips:

• Tournament chips are not money. Every entrant gets the same starting chips (10,000 to 100,000). Chips are never paid out; whoever gives up loses them.
• Buy-in and prize pool. The buy-in may be 0. All buy-ins plus an optional bonus from the server (admin hosts only) form the prize pool. It is paid out when the tournament ends: winner takes all, or top 2 with 65 % and 35 %. There is no house share in tournaments.
• Registration. Sitting down registers and takes the buy-in. Until the start anybody may stand up again and gets the buy-in back in full.
• Start. The tournament starts by itself once every seat is taken, or earlier when its opener or an admin host presses Start tournament (at least two players). Nobody can join afterwards.
• Blinds. They start at 1/100 of the starting chips and go up every 5 (turbo), 10 (normal) or 15 (slow) minutes, always between two hands.
• Absent players stay in. They keep paying their blinds and the clock checks or folds for them straight away. Nobody is stood up.
• Giving up needs a confirmation. The player is out at once and takes the next place from the bottom. Players out in the same hand are ranked by the chips they had going into it.
• Results stay on the table until it closes. Prizes go to the balance automatically.

For a large event, run several tournament tables with buy-in 0 and a final table for their winners, and handle sign-up and prizes through Events.

Hosting tables

Admin hosts find Manage table at every table:

• Start a tournament that is still registering.
• Remove players. Before a tournament starts this refunds the buy-in; at a cash table the player stands up and gets their stack. In a running tournament it is a disqualification: a reason is required, the chips are gone and the player gets no place and no prize — everybody below moves up.
• Change the table's voice and text chat settings.
• Cancel a tournament: everybody who paid gets the buy-in back and the table closes.

The opener of a tournament may start it and remove players before the start; the opener of a private table keeps its list.

Money

Poker moves money only when a player sits down, buys more or stands up — never per hand:

• Sitting down takes the buy-in from the wallet. It then lies in front of the player as their stack.
• Buying more takes the extra amount from the wallet.
• Standing up puts the remaining stack back into the wallet.

A player's transaction history therefore shows one line per table visit and step, for example Poker table 12 buy-in, Poker table 12 rebuy and Poker table 12 cash-out. Money lying on a table is not in the wallet until the player stands up.

The buy-in is between 20 and 100 big blinds. Someone who stood up at a table less than 30 minutes ago has to bring back at least what they took with them, so nobody can pocket a win and return with the minimum.

The house share (rake)

Between players, money only changes hands — the house would earn nothing. So the house takes a small share of every pot, the house share (in poker usually called rake):

• It is a percentage of the pot, capped at a number of big blinds per hand.
• No flop, no house share: a hand that ends before the flop is dealt costs nothing.
• The house share is destroyed, just like every other casino loss. It is how poker drains money out of your server's economy.

Settings

Server Admin -> Settings -> Economy:

Setting	Meaning	Default
Poker Smallest Big Blind	The lowest blind level a new table may use	100
Poker Largest Big Blind	The highest blind level a new table may use	20000
Poker House Share Percent	Share of every pot with a flop the house keeps, between 0 and 10 (0 = none)	5
Poker House Share Cap In Big Blinds	Most the house takes from one hand, between 0 and 20 (0 = no cap)	3
Poker Seconds Per Decision	Time a player has for each decision, between 10 and 120	30
Poker Daily Loss Limit	Most a player may lose per day (buy-ins minus cash-outs), 0 turns it off	0

Blind levels follow the steps 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 and so on; players are offered every step between the smallest and the largest big blind. A changed blind range only applies to newly opened tables. The house share settings apply to every hand from the moment you save them.

The daily loss limit counts money that is still on a table as lost until the player stands up. Players already seated are never taken off the table because of it; they just cannot buy in or buy more.

Idle players

• When the clock runs out, the player checks if that costs nothing and folds otherwise.
• Two missed decisions in a row put the seat on a pause: no cards, no blinds.
• A player who closes the table page is put on a pause after 30 seconds. If it is their turn, they check or fold at that moment instead of the table waiting out the clock. A table left open in a background tab still counts as present.
• After ten minutes of pause — or ten minutes alone at a table — the player stands up automatically and gets their stack back.
• In a tournament none of this stands anybody up: an absent player stays in and is blinded off.

A background job runs every minute, so this also happens when nobody has the table open.

Linked accounts

Accounts that the multi-account detection links strongly cannot sit at the same table. Links based only on a shared IP address do not count, so siblings on the same Wi-Fi can still play together. The player is only told that they cannot take a seat at this table, not why.

Friends talking about their cards in a voice party cannot be prevented, and dzbot does not try.

Deleting players and moving servers

Before a player is deleted, or a server is moved to another organization, every open poker seat is paid out first. While the player is all-in in a hand that is still running, the deletion or move is refused — try again once the hand is over. When two player records are merged, the seat and its history move to the kept record.

What operators should expect to see

• Server Admin -> Dashboard -> casino tab shows poker hands played, the house share taken in the period and the players with the most hands.
• Poker counts towards the casino balance leaderboards and the biggest single win, not towards the highest stakes. Tournament buy-ins and prizes count as money won or lost; tournament hands never count as a single win.
• A tournament shows in the transaction history as Poker tournament 12 buy-in, … refund and … prize (place 1).