Las Vegas Poker

Nov 03, 2020 Three poker rooms in Las Vegas are reportedly closing permanently. A CardsChat report states that the poker rooms at The Mirage, Mandalay Bay, and Excalibur will not be reopening following their pandemic-forced closures in March. Now it appears that the poker rooms will never reopen. Use your Gems to get Good Luck Charms, which boost your coin winnings from playing free Poker in Vegas World. Play multiple rounds of Poker, treat each other to special food and drink Charms, and have fun! Only on Vegas World - Good Luck Charms Hint: Charms help you win more Coins!

The Nevada Gaming Control Boardreleased regulations directing casinos on how to keep properties as sterile and safe as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. Limiting live poker tables to four players is one of the directives.

Poker players and industry followers immediately noted that this plan is not feasible. Most players will not want to sit in a four-handed game. The rake and tips, even if reduced for the faster games, become unbeatable to most at this level. It also takes the social aspect out of live poker.

Will any Las Vegas poker rooms deal four-handed games?

It is apparent that most Las Vegas poker rooms will not reopen under the conditions required by gaming regulators. On the same day as the poker player table limit announcement, there were reports of Station Casinos laying off all its poker employees. Other casinos showed a lack of interest in spreading shorthanded poker before the mandatory closure by shuttering rooms early. For example, Venetian attempted three-handed tables but gave up before the closure order.

There may be some exceptions to this. According to data on Bravo Poker at the time, South Point spread games until the last hour before the forced closure on March 17. Its games were five-handed at the time. The Orleans dealt long into March 17 with the same five-handed policy. Two other Boyd Gaming poker rooms – Cannery and Sam’s Town – also stayed open until nearly the end. Golden Nugget dealt six-handed games.

If any Las Vegas poker room attempts to deal four-handed poker, I feel like these are the big favorites to do it: South Point has the biggest chance. The Orleans is a close second place.

Several Station Casinos poker rooms dealt into the last day. Red Rock Resort was the last to close before South Point. It spread seven-handed games and has reportedly already laid off its poker staff, making it highly unlikely it will restart poker any time soon.

Las Vegas Strip poker rooms unlikely to reopen in first phase

I do not believe any Las Vegas Strip casinos will launch poker immediately upon reopening. These resorts will try to generate as much cash flow with as few employees as possible due to the massive cash burns experienced during the closure.

Poker rooms, especially four-handed ones, are not conducive to generating rake that could help the bottom line in any meaningful way. I do not think any Las Vegas Strip poker room will deal a hand until the restrictions are relaxed to at least six-handed tables.

Will Las Vegas poker rooms survive?

This is all an educated guess. I have watched Las Vegas poker rooms closely for nearly 10 years and drew some conclusions from that experience.

A poker room not immediately reopening is not a cause for concern, even if the space is converted into slots. I believe some casinos will do this to help spread the machines out to comply with social distancing in the interim but will not mean permanent death for poker at that casino. Other poker rooms that do not reopen in the coming months will be walled or roped off. This allows the casino to easily bring poker back when conditions improve.

Las Vegas poker room prediction

There has been a trend of Las Vegas casinos dumping poker rooms in the last decade. I counted 27 in an article I wrote after the one at Strat closed last year. This shutdown will make that number skyrocket. I predict about 12 of the 31 Las Vegas poker rooms open in March never return. Some that do come back may be closed for a year or longer.

The poker rooms best suited to survive are destination and locals ones. I feel that Aria, Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Golden Nugget, Venetian and Wynn/Encore are huge favorites to keep poker rooms.

Others likely to retain poker are smaller locals casinos where the space inside the property is already underutilized and there is no need to remove tables. This includes most or all the casinos along Boulder Highway and in Henderson, like Boulder Station, Club Fortune, Green Valley Ranch, Sam’s Town and Skyline. The two in North Las Vegas – Cannery and Poker Palace – are also likely to be safe. Orleans, South Point and Red Rock are examples of large Las Vegas locals poker rooms that I expect to return when the dust settles.

That leaves small poker rooms, mostly along the Strip. I expect Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts to consolidate a few rooms. This will depend on the demand these companies see at the flagship poker rooms. This list includes Bally’s, Flamingo, Harrah’s, Planet Hollywood and Rio for Caesars. I think it is about guaranteed that the Rio poker room never reopens unless the World Series of Poker returns before the two-year leaseback ends. Small MGM Resorts poker rooms are Excalibur, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay and Mirage.

The balance of rooms left in Las Vegas are small and mostly at independent casinos. This list includes Binion’s, Palace Station, Sahara, Santa Fe Station, Silver 7’s and Westgate.

The two Station Casinos poker rooms are presumably closed indefinitely, though one or both probably comes back in the end. The others all feel like underdogs to relaunch.

I want to be wrong

I hope I am wrong. I do not want to see any poker room close or any employee lose a job. However, I am also more optimistic than most seem to be. When I predicted 20 Las Vegas poker rooms would survive this on Twitter, most replies took the under.

Vegas

Regardless, the market will have ample space for the demand. There may just be fewer small rooms for players that prefer that setting over a large destination poker room.

Changing landscape

Three poker rooms in Las Vegas are reportedly closing permanently. A CardsChat report states that the poker rooms at The Mirage, Mandalay Bay, and Excalibur will not be reopening following their pandemic-forced closures in March.

Now it appears that the poker rooms will never reopen.

These MGM Resorts International-owned properties have been back operating with reduced capacities, but the poker rooms were still “temporarily closed.” Now it appears that the poker rooms will never reopen. According to Nevada Gaming Control Board figures, there were 34 card rooms operating in Clark County pre-pandemic; this number is now down to 21.

The three poker rooms were not especially large in terms of volume, but there is a lot of history attached to them, particularly at the Mirage, where many notable poker professionals developed their games early in their careers. A number of poker pros reacted to the news on Twitter, including Daniel Negreanu:

MGM Resorts has given no official information regarding these closures. Currently, poker rooms in the region are not operating at full capacity and require extensive safety protocols because of close player interaction.

Three freeroll tournaments

There is still outstanding bad beat jackpot money at each of the three poker rooms. Because the funds were contributed by players, they still must be paid out. MGM has decided to distribute the funds through three separate freeroll poker tournaments that will take place in the coming weeks at the MGM Grand. Registration for each event is free, but there is a limit on the total number of players.

Las Vegas Free Poker Online

The first of these freeroll events will be held on November 3 and is already sold out. Mandalay Bay’s $24,022 jackpot money will serve as the prize pool.

The second tournament, scheduled for November 17, will use the $69,804 in jackpot cash from the Mirage. Registration begins on November 11. The third and final freeroll will be on December 1, featuring the $27,837 prize pool from the Excalibur, with registration opening on November 25.

A struggling city

Value

Poker Tournaments In Las Vegas Nevada

Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the United States, is struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Casinos and poker rooms had to close from March 17 until June 4 as a result of Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak’s shutdown order. Since then, they have been operating at reduced capacities.

As there is still a reluctance among people to travel, visitor numbers to Las Vegas have dropped sharply. In September, there was a 61% year-on-year decline in air travel to the city’s McCarran International Airport. With a lack of conventions, midweek business travel has dried up. This has led to numerous properties cutting their opening hours, such as the Wynn Resorts-owned Encore, which is now only opening from Thursdays until noon on Mondays.

Flamingo Las Vegas Poker Room

unemployment rate in Nevada was 12.6% in September

Las Vegas Poker 2021

Due to the drop in visitors, some casino operators have been laying off workers. Last week, another 1,172 lay-offs were announced at the Tropicana, Park MGM, and MGM Grand. The total unemployment rate in Nevada was 12.6% in September, a rise of 8.9% from 2019 figures.