It was more like "Where is the best place to move the poker room to show poker is a complete afterthought?"

I just don’t buy this idea that centralized poker rooms attract all these people that otherwise wouldn’t ever play in a casino. I’m skeptical that there’s so much energy and excitement in these bustling rooms that slots players walking by are like, I never thought of playing poker in a casino but, you know what? I think I’ll inquire how one gets a seat, then put my name on a list and wait 20 minutes to get called.

By and large, I think poker players are a specialized breed who seek out rooms. I just don’t think it matters at all that it’s upstairs and away from the casino. There’s talk here in Boston that the Encore will build an entirely new room in an entirely separate building, and everyone is thrilled. The current room is already upstairs and out of the main casino, and until management started carving it up after the pandemic, it was packed (it often still is despite a $10 max rake), and was widely regarded as one of the best rooms in the country.

I think it’s great that the Venetian is building a big new poker room, and no matter where it happens to be located, I think that’s an indication that the casino cares a lot about poker, not that poker is an afterthought. It sounds like it won’t be open this summer, but I definitely plan to try it out next year.

If you had played much at rooms that moved around much, like Bally's or PHo, you would know that it's true. Crappy location, crappy action. Good location, good action.

This.
Now does it mean every degen in the world is gonna flock to the poker room if it's in a good location? No.
They also won't wait on a long list if they weren't gonna play.

But you'll definitely pick up some randoms who won't have played otherwise.

Not a persuasive argument. If Bellagio, Aria, Wynn moved their rooms they would remain just as popular. I expect the same to be true at Venetian.

OK, let’s quantify “some randoms.” What kind of a drop off do you predict at Venetian, and what kind of drop off would you predict at Wynn, Aria, Bellagio, etc if they made similar moves?

I think everyone’s focusing on the wrong details here.

In 2024, poker doesn’t make as much for the space to casinos, compared to machines or table games. Smaller rooms are getting swallowed up and closing down all over town.

Maybe the bigger rooms are competing for the biggest Vegas poker market share. The fact that any casino is investing big money on poker has to be a good thing, in 2024.

I have no idea the cost of the renovation/move but from the bean counter's perspective, slots will likely replace the old room for a net positive and whatever renovation/move costs will quickly be regained and the poker room will make way more than whatever rent they would charge from a store in that spot, so another net positive.

I remember in the early days of poker in Florida when it first became legal but only .25/.50 limit Hold em and Stud and the pot could not exceed $10 or refunds of .25 to .50 per player would have to be given.

I think the rake was $1.50 max and the seminole casino in Tampa (pre hard rock) had a big room and Tampa Jai Alai spent 250K, it might have been more, it was a long time ago to build a very fancy room with chandeliers. lol

I guess they thought real poker would happen a lot fast than it actually did and they closed down I think less than a year later.

pig4bill listed two Vegas Strip casinos where it's widely known that the location had a huge effect on traffic. PHo in a good location was my favorite low stakes room on the Strip. Caesar's Palace is a third one I think.

Which Strip casino do you know that moved the poker room to a worse location without losing traffic?

It's not about people randomly deciding to try poker for the first time ever. It's about people looking for their next activity on the casino floor with poker being one of the options.

If you have a food court with 5 different fast food restaurants that all have the same number of customers, moving one of those to a remote location is certainly going to impact traffic at that place.

Others have mentioned the dropoffs in Vegas.
I've seen the same in other places like Wind Creek (formally sands in PA) I'm not sure why you're so easily dismissing this.

Who other than people who at least take poker semi seriously would even know where the Venetian room is on the second floor of the food court?

Can I quantity it exactly? No. But to think there won't be some dropoffs in random is silly.

And to be clear I totally get why V would want to use that space for something better than poker.

Lmao everything about this is incredible.

Neither one of those casinos was in any way a poker destination. Are you arguing they had the profile of the Venetian, let alone Bellagio, Wynn, Aria?

Your fast food analogy is a false one. If you put five fast food restaurants on a corner and one then moves to a remote location it will suffer because four other fast food restaurants are right there and it is not. The proper analogy here is that you have an already popular fast food restaurant that is a destination that people go to because it serves good food and they like it. Then you choose to move the entrance way to a different spot in the same corner.

Again, tell me the drop off you expect the Venetian to suffer because of this move. Let’s go on the record here. I say nothing. In fact, I predict an increase in tournament buyins, and cash at least holding steady. What’s your prediction?

Like everyone here, I spend a LOT of time in poker rooms. I know and talk to all kinds of players who run out on breaks to play a few hands of blackjack or some craps. I know of very, very few slots or blackjack or craps players who decide to pop into the poker room as the next thing they’re doing in the casino. I’d be genuinely curious to hear dissenting opinion about that. I trust Borg’s take on lots of things, so maybe he’s right about that and I’m wrong? But I just very rarely bump into people in poker rooms who came to the casino for other forms of gambling.

I know a ton of table game degens who come to the poker room to slow things down a bit.

How is Venetian investing big money on poker?

If anything, it's the opposite.

The space in the Shops was probably sitting empty, the have **** loads of casino carpet sitting in a warehouse somewhere and they were probably planning on changing the felt and chairs anyway.

I hate that room with a passion, and I hope it fails and they close it down so all the bad regs come play at Bellagio lmao.

RIP Venetian poker. It was fantastic 10+ years ago...

/lock thread

Absolutely bizarre to say PH wasn't a poker destination.

What you describe is very common in smaller casinos outside of Las Vegas. Particularly in the cardrooms in northern California. You'll often see a poker floor ordered not to pick up an absent player because he's blasting off at blackjack or paigow twenty yards away. The Strip is not representative of the gambling world at large.

I think it will do fine. It won’t be like the old days but it will still be one of the busier rooms. As long as they keep running the high hands and other promotions, locals will find the room. It gets packed when the high hand promotions are running. Of course that’s just true for the low stakes hames.

Why? It rarely had anything higher than 1-2 NL.

Thus my yet? I know they don’t in AC but I am hopeful it could still happen. I agree there rooms, at least the ones I have visited, but kicking Borgata butt is not assured. Another location HR has no room is Biloxi. They closed the Biloxi room because it performed poorly wrt Beau Rivage next door. But I would like to see them try in both AC and Biloxi. I don’t expect it in Biloxi considering how poorly CET did in their att3mpt. But AC maybe.

Don't forget the old IP.

It would get really good casual action, then they moved the room to the 2nd floor (up the escalators) and the room died.

Yea the original IP room was the only poker room ever that was literally the first thing you see coming in the door, and good cookies. lol

The tables were weird AF though.

It was $1/$3.

Those $1/$3 games often played like very deepstacked $2/$5 games populated with blind, drunk, hyperactive monkeys. At it's peak, PH had to have the most profitable games on a BB/hour basis on the strip by far.

I would bet a lot of money that no strip casino had even half as many 100+ BB pots per hour as PH did at it's peak. Money was thrown around. Heck, I would bet that PH had more 300 BB pots per hour than any other strip casino had 100 BB pots per hour

Then throw in the girls dancing on the poles and people watching aspect of the drunken debauchery that went on the main aisle of people going to the nightclub and it was insane.

PH was a poker destination simply because you were likely to see something that you had never seen before every time you went there.

I was checking it out again yesterday and saw the elevator in the 2nd floor mall, it is like 30 seconds from the poker room, and pretty sure it goes right down to the parking garage.

I will check it out in another week or so when I qualify for free parking and start parking at Palazzo.