So some rooms close, but how many opened in the last 2 years? Please show me the net open/close figure across the US and we have a discussion.

Manipulating stats does nothing for proving a point.

If you believe the chip stealing, perhaps you should ask the card room manager to have surveillance watch her... then make a new post.

Over the years the Bellagio has caught a number of dealers stealing chips and fired them. Several floor people have been fired over what was viewed as theft. Years ago the Bellagio fired several list people for regularly taking money to move people up on the lists.

Since severe impropriety will eventually happen in rooms with a large staff, I view catching and firing as good things.

There's a separate limit and no limit area now?

In a growing market, weaker businesses can survive. Fewer rooms means the market is contracting, which is not good.

I haven't set foot in Bellagio my last five trips to LV. Not sure taking out three tables is enough to get me back. I have a snowbird friend who plays almost daily from November to June. He gets great treatment and comps. Tourists get treated like poop at the B. They need to figure it out.

My question would be how busy was the room before this update - as in, was it full? If so, that means they're giving up revenue from 30 customers. Would they sacrifice that for the sake of giving other customers "more elbow room".

My experience with poker rooms is that moves like these aren't made if they might hurt the bottom line.

Another positive change is that over the summer they changed the 10-20 LHE game to 9 handed like the 20-40 LHE game. It so much more enjoyable playing when you have elbow room!

The next change I'd really like to see is to be able to use comps at something other than the buffet, noodles, and coffee shop, which I never go to. How about treating them like standard quick comps? I'd even be happy with taking half the comp rate and make them quick comps that can be used resort-wide.

If the middle podium is gone, where do you sign up for mid limit LHE games? Is the podium in a new location or do you use the podium in the front of the room?

Be interesting to see if they stick these 3 tables back in next May for WSOP, doesn't do any harm taking them out now because it will never be full.

The tables will be staying out. During the WSOP they will be removing slot machines and adding tables. They definitely need more than 39 tables during the summer. Now if they could get rid of all the dealers and floor people that have bad attitudes, it would be a better room. The Bellagios best dealers are their part time dealers and that's a shame cause during the week we are stuck with dealers who are burnt out and could care less about their performance.

Of course these tables were very rarely in use.

If all of their tables were often full with a waiting list, they would add tables!!.. because they have lots of open casino space.

However, the room truly is much more comfortable now.

Good move.

Congrats to Bellagio for actually listening to customers! It only took how many years?

Seriously though, the amount of elbow room never really bothered me. I just never got a corner seat at the tables that I knew would get lots of walk by traffic. Or maybe poker players shouldn't be so fat?

It has nothing to do with size of the player(s). I used to often get hit in the back of my chair by someone else pushing back his chair at the table behind me. The tables were way too close together for comfort. I just went last week, for the first time in over 3 years), and the eating was much more comfortable. However, the deadness of the room made me sad.

Manipulating stats? The number of entrants in the WPT Championship at Bellagio has dropped 78% since 2007.
Manipulate that.

I think his point is that games and rooms have dropped in Las Vegas, but many rooms have opened in other parts of the country in the last few years.
People don't need to go to Vegas to play poker anymore.

What do the numbers from the WSOP Main Event show from 2007 to 2013? It seems like the WSOP Main Event would be a better indicator of poker popularity since it is the Super Bowl of poker and most televised event.

2007...6,358 entries
2013...6,352 entries
(source Wikipedia)

So in the time frame you mentioned, the numbers are almost identical. The stats prove you wrong!

Does anyone know this guy? Got impression he is a reg there

No sooner do we sit and I try and strike up a friendly conversation that I am met with "I don't really give a ----" by this guy

After friend and I are chatting he then wants to challenge me to a round of golf for a million dollars giving me 4 strokes a side and makes a big deal of it and his supposed net worth when I say no

Then goes on to berate many players play, curse, get my normally mild mannered friend to say "why dont you just shut the F up" and basically just misbehave while all dealers simply ignore his shenanigans

From being next to him I could tell he had been drinking a lot. I think he tried ordering a double White Russian and was rebuffed by CW

I pray I can pick up a hand and bust him just for the pleasure of it evening I couldn't keep the chips.

He's got glasses held together with scotch tape and I have a good idea of what could have happened and partially just to get a rise out of him I ask "what happened to your glasses?"

This really sets him off and floor has to come over and settle things down while seemingly knowing about his boorishness but not wanting to do anything about it

What's his story?

Here in LA, we refer to that guy as "everyone."

Here's a stat for you:
The WSOP Main Event runs for 2 weeks every year with part-time dealers.
Most casino poker rooms are open 365 days a year with full-time dealers, who depend on their sustained income to feed their families.
On Thursday night, the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City closed their poker room.
Those dealers and floor personnel are now unemployed.
Add that to the loss of jobs at Revel (AC), the "M" Resort in Vegas, the Tropicana in Vegas and about a dozen other poker rooms in the last year that closed across the country.
How many rooms does that make?
Now, try telling those unemployed dealers about your view on the "burgeoning popularity" of poker.
I think they may disagree with your position.

Pretty unfair to mention the Revel in AC; that place should have never hired more than two dealers to begin with, and those just for weekends. They hardly ever had any games going from the day it opened because they hid it upstairs in a cubby hole with no signs telling how to get there.

How about the dealers who now have jobs in OH, PA and MD? Those jobs weren't there 5 years ago. I think they would agree poker is growing.

poker isn't growing, it's just shifting.

Poker is evolving.

Did the GN really close the poker room?

Golden Nugget in Atlantic City opened in Nov/Dec 2011 so it entered a saturated and diminishing Atlantic City market less than 2 years ago, failed to establish a share of the market, and closed. Just an example of a failed attempt to enter the market.

Revel in Atlantic City is the same story. The room was hardly ever open except for a few tables during peak hours so just a sign of a horrible launch into a saturated and shrinking Atlantic City market.

The problem with Atlantic City in general is that with casinos opening in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, and even Ohio (another sign of the growing popularity of poker), there is much for competition and the Atlantic City poker rooms are too slow to respond since they have had a regional monopoly for way too long. The casinos around Philadelphia are enough to steal away a major share from Atlantic City poker rooms!

The Tropicana in Las Vegas is the same story. They opened with Jamie Gold as the room sponsor and had a bunch of horrible promos and never built up a share of the local market. They were closed most days and had 1-3 tables going on some Fri and Sat nights. They were new to the saturated LV market and never got any momentum going. Not a sign of less poker interest since other rooms around it are doing well; just horrible management.

The M Resort is an interesting story. They closed their poker room but it was simply as a business decision since they needed floor space for their slot tournaments. Clearly slots bring in more money per square foot than poker rooms so they decided to close the room as a business decision and not due to lack of demand. In fact, they had a $500K guarantee recently that drew over 630 players and built a prize pool of $1.4 million. They are even planning to repeat that tournament next year even without a cash game poker room.

In that same time, LVH opened a new poker room and an electronic poker room opened in downtown Las Vegas. So even though these rooms closed, others are opening due to the demand for poker!

So all those employees are simply working at bad businesses and should move to other poker rooms opening up around the country. Just recently, a big room has opened up in Maryland and earlier this year, CET opened a casino in Cincinnati complete with its own poker room.

So you're only telling one side of the story and picking poor examples to prove your false point.

Whether I agree with your position on not, I admire your attention to detail.
Too often, people mislead others by giving opinions without doing adequate research.

What's the status of the 10 limit game? Last time I was out it was running pretty much daily through the late evening. Is that not still the case?

Does the 20/40 game run most of the night? Get a must move game going?