U.S. Live Poker Still In State Of FluxTwo Poker Room Closings Serve As Reminder Of Web Poker Necessity |
|
With the recent announcements of poker room closings at M Resort in Las Vegas and Revel Casino-Hotel in Atlantic City, one is reminded that the game of poker itself is an interesting spot as many top casino firms wait for the widespread legalization of the Internet rendition.
Poker experienced the start of a big boom about a decade ago thanks to the popularization of the games in cyberspace, as well as Chris Moneymaker winning the World Series of Poker main event, but growth has been sluggish or non-existent in some spots, in recent years, with regards to the amount of revenue it generates for U.S. brick-and-mortar gaming properties.
Poker rooms in brick-and-mortar casinos, the ones with full-scale gambling like slots and other lucrative table games such as baccarat, are often considered a necessary evil for business. (In Nevada, for example, poker tournaments were classified by the state as amenities.) Poker rooms aren’t huge moneymakers for casinos, but because poker became, and still is, a popular game for many gamblers, a lot of casinos still spread action and run some tournaments, whether it’s hosting a series or simply running small buy-in daily events.
According to a recent survey conducted by the American Gaming Association, highlighted in the group’s 2013 State of the States report, 12 percent of all respondents played live poker in the past 12 months. For comparison, 53 percent of the population played the lottery doing that stretch. Poker is still very much on the minds of Americans.
Live poker in Nevada — still currently the epicenter of gambling in the country — brought in $123,253,000 in 2012, which was a 6.54-percent decline from 2011. It was the smallest amount since 2004, according to research from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Poker revenues there have been declining since 2008. Across the country, the state of New Jersey had poker revenues in the ballpark of $50 million in 2012. For further comparison, it had live poker revenues of about $84 million in a year near the end of the 2000s. The Garden State also has far fewer casinos than the Silver State, with 12 existing these days in Atlantic City.
A decrease in the number of card rooms most likely contributed to the revenue plunges for Nevada. According to the Associated Press, the Gold Coast, the Plaza and Tuscany casinos all closed down their respective rooms in 2011. A handful of other smaller casinos decided to close their rooms since, including Fitzgerald’s, a downtown property that was recently re-branded as “The D.” As mentioned above, the most recent Las Vegas poker room closing was M Resort’s, even though it just had a successful tournament series.
However, then you have properties like the Venetian, which recently revamped its massive room, and Wynn, which has made a strong commitment to bolstering its revenue from poker. Then there is always Caesars, which operates a sprawling room during the annual World Series of Poker. The cash game world looks healthy every time June rolls around in Las Vegas. Nevada has legalized online gambling, and regulators there decided that poker was the route to go in order to get its feet wet in the real-money web betting space.
In New Jersey, web gambling is also legal and games should start there this fall. Poker is also an important part of the gambling landscape there. According to a recent tally, these Atlantic City casinos have the following number of poker tables: Borgata (80 tables), Trump Taj Mahal (70 tables), Harrah’s (40 tables), Tropicana (27 tables), Showboat (24 tables), Caesars (20 tables), Golden Nugget (20 tables) and Bally’s (20 tables). Revel had 37 tables.
According to reporting from the AP, other poker room closings this year in the U.S. include Sam’s Town in Tunica, Mississippi (January) and the Seminole Casino Hollywood near Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (September). Not just commercial properties have been affected, as poker rooms in tribal casinos reportedly have recently been shuttered in Minnesota and the Dakotas.
It is worth noting that it might not just be a local decrease in interest for poker that causes some establishments to close, but the strengthening of the businesses of other rooms, or even just their emergence. Such is essentially the case in a city like Cleveland, where a charity poker room closed thanks to the insertion of a World Series of Poker-branded room at the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland, which opened in May 2012. Neighboring Michigan is trying to crackdown on its charity poker rooms. Many there think commercial casino interests are behind those changes.
According to the American Gaming Association, as of December of last year, there were 413 commercial card rooms not affiliated with a land-based or riverboat casinos. States that have such facilities include California (88 rooms), Florida (25 rooms), Montana (227 rooms), Minnesota (two rooms) and Washington (71 rooms). Poker is still very much everywhere.
In the state of Maryland, poker is set to see a nice growth period thanks to a law authorizing live table games. Maryland Live, the state’s largest casino at the present time (perhaps not for long as Caesars has just started the construction of a downtown Baltimore casino and MGM Resorts looks like the favorite to build in Prince George’s County), in less than two weeks will open its 52-table poker room. For an extended look at poker in the Old Line State, click here.
Massachusetts is set to have three Las Vegas-style casinos, and each will presumably have a poker room. New York is waiting on its voters to approve new commercial casinos upstate. In New Hampshire, some want expanded gambling which could lead to poker tables. And of course, poker has a presence all over the nation in the form of underground games.
Copyright © 2001-2024
CardPlayer.com. All rights reserved.
