Rake- (aka juice, vigorish, or vig)-
A term used in poker to describe the money removed from each pot by the house. Typical casino card rooms rake 10% of the pot up to a maximum of $3 to $5. $4 per pot is the most common rake (in 2001). The chips are normally placed in a box through a hole in the table called the alligator.
The rake can often make a game unbeatable, particularly low limit games. For example, if your table is dealt 35 hands per hour then the table is losing $140/hour to the house (at $4 max/hand). At lower limit games the entire table might have less than $1,000 so we can only expect to play 7 hours or so and everyone will be broke! It's often hard to notice because broke players rebuy chips and new players bring fresh money to table.
In games that employ a rake tighter players are rewarded. The strategy is to enter fewer pots and to win a higher percentage of them by playing only high quality starting cards.
Some establishments use different methods to separate poker players from their money. At the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut there is a time charge where each player must give the house money at regular intervals to continue playing. Other places employ a button charge instead where the player with the dealer button must pay a certain amount before the hand. When playing with these alternate methods players can play more hands (of slightly less quality) than in a similar game with a rake.