Which is why everyone should have the Bravo APP.

Having Bravo solves part of the problem, but doesn't solve the real problem.

Part of creating a good game is having a critical mass. Knowing that it will be running at a certain place at a certain time. Ideally 24x7, or at least very frequently.

It is very destabilizing to have people show up to play and have the game not go off, because those people might never come back again, and you're that much farther from having the game take hold.

I've always respected your opinions, Lee, but if Sugar House offers poker I can only foresee it cannibalizing both Parx and Harrah's as it is mid-distance between both.
A hypothetical South Philly poker player (and there are quite a few of them) would be tempted to travel 5-6 minutes to Sugar House instead of 20 minutes to Harrah's or 30 minutes to Parx.
End result: All three casinos will cater to small(er) poker attendance.

Maybe. My crystal ball on these things is foggy right now. I can certainly respect the views regarding the niche games - and they are the ones (limit O8, Stud, etc.) that I'm gravitating towards these days.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see - and hope that more poker rooms means more and better poker games.

Lee

Dinesh is right, but to confirm and expand a lil.

I do not work for a casino. And while my thoughts on the dilution was more geared towards niche games, shrink the main games and other fallout occurs. Good dealers leave, comps/freerolls shrink, etcetc. Niche games also suffer when 2/3guys decide five minutes and just play 1/2 instead of 25minutes to play 20/40stud can break a game. A.C. is a clear example, charlestown.

Plus in this specific instance, the safety will also be an issue.

The poker player base, after the boom of the last decade has become stagnant. Poker rooms are somewhat intimidating to the average casino patron and therefore, they shun the poker room in favor of slots or other simpler table games. Personally, I hope that online poker may help the "Average Joe" become more familiar with poker. A casino patron’s initial venture into playing in a live game is daunting at best.

As an employee of the private sector, I believe that competition is generally good for the consumer. Yet, opening a third room in the Philadelphia area will cause obvious dangers such as game quality and diversity because of the limited size of the area player base. There is a need to promote the game at the consumer level to increase participation in the rooms. It's not like there's a shortage of gamblers. Poker, because of its complicated nature and the significant advantage of the skilled player and relative small corporate revenue production tends to be a "black sheep" to the casino industry. Casinos will not really promote poker, as it's their intention to have players visit the slot area where most of their revenue is generated. Therefore, it's intrinsically dependent on the poker community to promote the game and enlarge the player base. There's no real reason the player base should not grow except that there is a lack of knowledge of the game and a non-existent targeted marketing intiative to introduce new players to the game. If they're so bad that they never win, they won't come back.

Poker rooms fighting over a siingle pie won't help the game. Baking another one will. Well promoted weekly live micro stake instructional classes with skilled instructors is one idea. But, each poker room could come up with plans to help teach the game to the new player. It's not a function of understanding the rules, but a need to teach the nuances of reasonable play that's important and it requires more than an introduction to the rules. Again, newer less skilled players must not be so disadvantaged that they're stupid. Dumb is OK because of dumb luck, but stupid is one or two times playing and back to the slots or blackjack. It's easy to come up with ideas, but most rooms are more concerned with it's own revenue than with the state of the game. It's a short sighted approach to the rooms prosperity.

I also believe that Parx should immediately begin to address the unavoidable New York problem they will ultimately face. I look forward to the Sugarhouse room opening, but I also can easily understand the concerns of many players and the other area poker venues.

Stopped by SugarHouse middle of last week. There's definitely some sort of construction going on at the south side of the casino. I confirmed with a customer service rep at the front counter that it is indeed a poker room and should be open "in a few weeks". That's all the info she provided.

Thanks for asking and posting the update. I saw some sort of foundation going in a couple months back. Hard to believe they can be up in a few weeks. I guess I'll pop in each weekend for updates. Thanks again!

Their building a temporary poker room right now. The new Poker room will be built afterwards along with a parking garage. If you ask me they should of started with the parking garage because this place has a serious parking problem and they don't even have a poker room yet.

Any timeframe for when we can expect the room to open?

It won't open any time soon. They have no staff hired to my knowledge and there are no poker job listings on the Sugarhouse website for dealers or supervisors and they removed the listing for a poker room manager. And that says nothing of approval from the gaming board which I believe has not been secured yet.

what are you talking about they had job listings for poker room supervisors since january.

Anyone have an update from Sugarhouse?

They took them do down and still have no listings for dealers who are kinda important to have.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using 2+2 Forums

they probably got denied the temporary permit for the poker room so i guess they'll have to start construction with the parking garage to handle the congested parking lot then move to add more tables then a poker room.

They emailed me saying "late spring/early summer". Construction is in full swing. I'll roll by tomorrow and check it out.

I've heard that poker opening will be around Labor Day. I assume that they will re list job openings in early June. I wonder. however, why news of these plans are such a closely guarded secret. You'd think that management would look for word of mouth anticipatory hype to help secure the poker communities awareness of their plans

why not list the job openings now and get their dealers into training. They need like 80-100 hours of training.

Pretty excited if this does actually happen as I live 10 minutes away. Not holding my breathe though, I've been asking about a poker room since sugar house opened and the answer has always been within 18 months.

Clearly the correct approach. It doesn't seem like they're in any rush.

I wanted to give you some information on the Sugar House Poker Room. We are opening the introductory poker room in August 2014. My name is Raye Ramsey and officially started last week as the Poker Room Manager. There will be 24 poker tables in our Introductory Poker Room. The expansion will then begin and within 18 months from that date we will move the Introductory Poker Room into the Expansion. The final number of tables hasn't been finalized for the expansion but it's hovering around 34. I worked in the Borgata Poker Room since it opened in 2003. We started with 34 tables at the Borgata. (if any of you we around back then!) If you have any questions or suggestions, I'd be happy to hear from you. My email address at sugarhouse is rramsey@sugarhousecasino.com or you can just post them here.

Congrats on the position and the opening!

As someone that is giving serious consideration to moving to the area, I'm curious what rooms will be impacted by this room opening?

All of them? Especially for 1/2 2/5 kind of stuff, plus whatever trickle down effect people deciding not to drive to play the game they want to when they can just go play 1/2.

As has been pointed out, the location is downtown, but the area around the casino is a dump(at best) Personally I would rather not play than play there if for no other reason than that. Just don't see it "drawing" people that wouldn't otherwise play. It's still about 2 miles from convention center and downtown hotels. It might bring a bit of tourist traffic to the room since it's a cab ride away vs needing a car to get to chester or Parx or AC.

One would like to see an increase in comps/promos due to increased competition, but imo that's unlikely.

34 tables is a lot. Optimistic to say the least.

I do hope that SugarHouseRaye gets his posting requirements in order here and is allowed to return.

Shame he didn't contact Bobo first, then post!!

Lee

I'm not sure why 34 tables is being "optimistic, to say the least." Look at the location! Sure, it's a dumpy area - but also geographically in the middle of a huge population, with easy on/off to I-95.

Frankly, long wait lines - especially on weekends - wouldn't surprise me.

Look at what happened at both Parx and Harrah's Chester!

Lee