Quote:
Originally Posted by lwlee
A few things about Dallas poker that Bart may not be aware of:
There was poker in the DFW metroplex a few years ago and all the rooms were forced to shut down.
In Dallas it's not as easy as just opening a room and expect everything to be hunky dory. It took TCH 2 years of lobbying just to get its Dallas location open. Since then, a room tried to open in Euless and that city shut it down. 52 Social spent tons of money on a room in Dallas and then got shut down before it ever opened. Champions Club was denied its certificate of occupancy after a bunch of families with small children protested outside the location and thus Champions has been unable to open.
Frankly, Dallas poker hasn't taken off nearly as much as I expected. There is only one busy room, TCH, which has like half the tables of Winstar and TCH is actually too busy (yes, that is a problem too). Despite this, a 2nd TCH location never opened as was originally planned. Shuffle 214 and The Poker House of Dallas have extremely low volume. The Poker House of Dallas is relatively new and seems to be increasing in volume slowly so there is some hope there, but Shuffle214 is pretty much dead in the water as I view it.
52 Social and Champions were both set to open in prime locations. Unfortunately, the city and vocal residents don't want poker rooms in great locations. Shuffle214 opened in a bad location, which I suppose allowed it to open without protest but has resulted in a 31 table location that mostly just hosts 1 table of cash games a day.
It seems a large percentage of Dallas players are still playing at the casino and in underground games rather than embracing these legal rooms.