Table charge (Taxe / time collection)
Also: Taxe, time collection, time charge, session fee
A fixed fee the house takes per hand or per period of play instead of a percentage rake — tiered by pot size in much of continental Europe, and charged by the half-hour or hour in higher-stakes games elsewhere.
Not every card room takes a percentage of the pot. Two common alternatives:
**Tiered per-hand charge.** The German state casinos call this the Taxe and levy it once per hand on a scale: typically nothing on pots up to €50, then €4 or €5 above €50, €10 above €200 and €20 above €500. Because it is a flat amount per band rather than a percentage, it is proportionally heaviest on medium pots and cheapest on big ones.
**Time collection.** Higher-stakes rooms switch to charging for the seat rather than the hand — the Hippodrome in London takes rake up to €5/€10 equivalent and then moves to session fees from £15 per half hour, rising to £35 at £100/£200. This suits deep games where a percentage rake on large pots would be punitive.
Working out which model a room uses matters more than the headline rake percentage, because it changes which stakes are actually beatable.