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Originally Posted by fling85
That’s no longer the case, said Kevin Ortzman, senior vice president of Bally’s, Caesars and Showboat. With $1.2 million, the property has torn out walls and storage space and replaced it with a “Party Pit” for live entertainment and dancing.
Guests following a walkway past the entertainment area are led to the casino’s new World Series of Poker-branded poker rooms, roughly doubling the casino’s poker tables.
The move is also a first for the city, as Bally’s looks to physically incorporate the recognizable WSOP.com brand offered through the casino’s Internet gambling permit into the brick-and-mortar property.
Forty-two tables are being installed in a standard poker room and a separate high-limit room, where the WSOP branding is prominently displayed among other memorabilia. The rooms, which will open Thursday, will offer Wi-Fi and charging devices that allow players to engage in online and live play simultaneously.
“Let’s not dance around the continued decline of the industry,” Ortzman said. “We had to do something to stand apart from other properties, to differentiate ourselves. We also can’t be narrow-minded and think that our competition is just Atlantic City, when it’s broader than that.”
As Bally’s, which is owned by Caesars Entertainment Corp., works to stand out from other properties, it will reopen the Pacific Avenue entrance on Monday. The entrance located at a faux boulder formation has been closed since late 2011, as management sought to concentrate guests in more active parts of the property. Now,
the entrance will be used as a selling point for poker players, giving them direct access to the poker rooms without having to navigate through the casino floor.
“Poker players like convenience. They don’t want to have to walk very far,” said Freddie Niceta, vice president of table games for Caesars’ regional properties.
The renovations will replace the property’s current poker room on the sixth floor of the property.
The space can expand to 80 tables for tournament play. Bally’s will host the Tournament of Champions circuit event in May and has plans for other events, Ortzman said.