Jacksonville Greyhound Racing (JGR), which operates a poker room at one of its three facilities in North Florida, has hired 100 dealers to staff a new poker room that will open at its Orange Park Kennel Club. When the room opens around April 1, it will be the second room owned and operated by JGR.
JGR opened its first card room at its Best Bet Facility in St. Johns County in February of 2003. Originally, 36 tables were opened, but that quickly expanded first to 40 and then to the current configuration of 44. The new room will start with 40 tables.
Recently, JGR held a job fair to collect applications from people who wanted to deal. A whopping 1,500 applications were collected, no doubt fueled by the thought of potentially making around $50,000 a year slinging cards, mostly in tips, because a dealer’s salary at JGR starts at $3.77 an hour.
One of the reasons the room in St. Johns County is now so large is that in 2007 Florida law changed to allow its poker rooms to spread slightly larger games. Before the law change, players had to endure a $2 bet limit, with a maximum of three raises per betting round. There was no such thing as no limit. Josh Zuckerman, the director of poker operations, said that before the change the games weren't competitive at all. How much has it changed since the limits went up and no limit was introduced?
“One word: Dramatically,” Zuckerman said. “Before, it was a $2 bet limit; there was just a total social aspect.”
Compared to other poker markets, Florida still has strict rules. For example, no matter the blinds, players playing no limit can never buy in for more than $100. They can always buy up to $100, but can never start with more than that.
Zuckerman now estimates that if he got 30 games going during a night, 20 of them are no-limit games. Zuckerman also says he spreads a healthy amount of Omaha and stud games. Crazy pineapple, popular before the stakes changed, is nearly dead.
JGR is training the dealers in-house by a manager who used to work in Atlantic City. He’s been there since the track decided to open up poker rooms in 2003.
JGR has no plans to open a third poker room at its final facility in northern Florida at this point.
