Good question- so I asked my wife.

- Good service for cocktails
- Affordable limit poker
- fun promotions like high hands and random seat drawings; things that everyone at every skill level has an equal shot at. Bad Beat JPs are a bit confusing snd cause an eyeroll to a lot of occasional rec players.

Providing value to the customer is certainly part of it but it has to be differentiated too. Many are already doing these. It is a minimum buy in. "UNIQUE value proposition" is what is needed.

If you want the average woman to play poker, you need to make it fun, less expensive, and unintimidating -- not the men, but the game itself and the setting. Maybe even allow cheat sheets on what beats what and how to play.

The old Flamingo room, when it was right next to the slots with fun dealers and "flop a lock" -- that type of atmosphere might help. Being off in a private room with a bunch of people rattling chips and hardly talking is never going to get them in. You almost need two settings -- a poker room, and a place in the casino with "friendly" limit or very low-stakes poker where people can just wander in. Then some of the women might start to learn to play and move to the "poker room."

"The old Flamingo room, when it was right next to the slots with fun dealers and "flop a lock" -- that type of atmosphere might help."

I haven't been to Flamingo poker room for awhile. Is there a new poker room?
AFAIK unless there is a new room I didn't know about the room is the same as 20 years ago, and some of the same dealers and players too.

What is "Flop a lock"?

Oops, it was Imperial Palace!!! It's been a while. They did move the room, but that's moot now.

"Flop a Lock" was a bonus circle where you could put chips and if the flop came out as a flush, trips, etc., you won money with certain odds -- I think the odds were printed on the table. Whenever you put chips in the circle, the dealer would yell out, "Flop a Lock." The dealers were a blast. I was a first-time-playing-poker-in-a-casino woman, and I loved it. It was just a fun, unintimidating atmosphere.

I have never heard of that. They paid out side bets out of the well at the poker table? That is weird.
I have played at the old Imperial Palace room. FREE COOKIES! and the table was HUGE.

Found this from 2006: http://www.casinocitytimes.com/artic...-wrinkle-55293

The homegame dealers will sometimes do sidebets about the flop, all red, all black, all red face cards, etc, with different odds for each, that they seem to know off the top of their heads. Cash game only, paid out of their own stack. I guess any two players could make the bet, if they understand the odds?

Haven't seen it in the casino, though. Doubt I would partake (sucker bets, right?)

At one point the room was on 2nd or 3rd level at Imperial, then it moved down to right by the front door. It's possible it was the other way around but I think it was by the front door when it closed. I never played upstairs but remember walking up there a few times.

Actually I think there was a 3rd location at some point that I did play in, if its that poker room I am thinking of.

The good ol Imp.

Remember when it really rained a lot . . . the river of water running thru the casino.

Those were the days.

They would have quite a niche if they could get mid-range limit going. Like 6/12, 8/16, even 20/40. How to do it successfully is another question.

They still have rivers on the roads in back.

The Strat - on rainy days there were buckets all over the floor and on some tables. Too funny.

I try to talk whenever possible but yes shuffling chips is probably not very welcoming (and also horrible for your joints). Too bad it's a bad habit like my sleep schedule.

unfortunately, the best way is one that is probably lost to the ages, and that would be for people at the table to actually have a modicum of etiquette and decorum about themselves. Being able to actually carry on a conversation would be an added bonus. It SHOULD be a social setting...and a lot of players, to include females new to the game, are put off by the headphone, hoodie-wearing, non-social nonsense that pervades the game in this day and age.

Kind of like being well-dressed when traveling by air. Now, it's the lowest common denominator... sweats and a hoodie.

I would wager a buy-in most people wouldn't even know what "modicum" and "decorum" mean, let alone know how to us them.

The degradation of society?

The art of conversation is dying, if not dead. Thank you Apple et al.

As for women playing poker . . . what are we looking at, every 1 out of 10,000 women would possibly play? I don't like my odds . . .

I think it's just how males and females are "wired?" Perhaps?

They've taken the walls down to the poker room...just looks like some last touching up from what I can see. The room is very nice. Somewhat small with 7 tables that I saw. TVs all over the walls and one big central TV bank that has 4 split-screens.

Maybe it will be tomorrow(Friday) then.

This. No player vs player, make everyone on the same team. Also instead of ranking a hand by some chart, the 'best' hand could sort of an artistic creation of how the cards are arranged, followed by a player leaving the room while the rest of the table graded her creation.

As someone brought up earlier in the thread, the best way to get women in the room is to have them see other women in the room. So probably paying female props. The added benefit is that this would bring a lot of men to the room also. Advertisements with women playing would help too, and in this age of influencers and social media, the best advertisement would be to pay some influencer like Kim K (or someone more affordable) to post on Instagram that she had a blast playing poker at your room.

And don't have the female prop players or ad models be, well, models. No black leather bikinis, etc. -- unless you don't want the women to actually play and really just want more men

Although I still don't think that will really help. Need low level limit (not infested with old men), and fun, interactive players at the tables.

I remember sitting down at those tables & thinking this is dumb & with bad odds, then within an hour we were all playing it and having a blast. One dealer was on fire flopping flushes & straights.

Loved their cookies and mini sandwiches.

If you want low level limit without the old grumpy men, you need to ban both the coffee and the newspaper at the table. No coffee on the drink menu either. Could go as far as having little to no comps for poker play as well. It's like taking the life support of an OMC.

OMC's are like unpaid props that get games going and keep them going. Poker rooms would never give that up over getting a couple more female players in that might play once in awhile.

You have a point. At the end of the day, it's a business.

My guess is models in black leather bikinis would boost the overall profit of the room, so every room should do it.