Quote:
Originally Posted by RidePolaris
Anyone notice an alarming trend in the number of poker games running overall in the Denver market? I'm only talking about casino games here, not underground. If you add up all the active tables running on the weekends across Isle, Gates, Ameristar, and Monarch, they don't come close to years past during poker boom phases 1, 2 and 3. Denver metro is home to over 2.9 million people. We're the largest city in over a 500 mile radius. I think the total table count on average has been about 23-26 games on weekends. That is WEAK for a city our size.
Either many of the weaker players have mostly gone broke, greatly reducing the pool of regular players, or we're still under reduced capacities due to lack of labor. I think it's a combination of the two.
Thoughts? Where do you see us headed in the next 5-10 years as a poker market? Holding steady, increasing, reducing?
Like me, sounds like you were expecting a bit of a post-COVID, post-5/1 boom, but that hasn't really manifested itself yet. Agree the overall # of games are about even to what they were pre-COVID, it's just spread out across 4 rooms now instead of 1. The phrase "the new normal" makes me cringe, but maybe this is the new normal for poker in CO (for now)? Definitely seems like Monarch stole Ameristar's thunder where poker is concerned. I assumed Ameristar would likely bump back up to a full room when everything reopened with no restrictions. Heard this second-hand from a few people at Ameristar, so take it with a grain of salt -- where poker is concerned, the "casino" people are irked with how many machines they lost when the sportsbook opened (and I suppose the associated lost revenue), so poker isn't their biggest priority right now. Could explain why their poker room is seemingly going downhill at the moment.
Overall I think the staffing issues are playing a big part everywhere in BH. To me that's probably the # 1 issue right now. Any dealers or floor people I talk to all say it's been a nightmare trying to get new staff in. Signing bonuses nor any of the state-sponsored "back to work" stimulus stuff is working right now. Sounds like most places held on to the majority of their dealers through the initial shutdown then had a mass exodus when the 2nd (table games) shutdown hit. Could be other socio-economic factors at play here, but maybe the dealer shortage will end once all the unemployment and stimulus plans run out? Are people who would be filling those positions taking the summer "off" to party/travel now that everything is back open? Who knows? I'm sure there are a number of factors at play here.
Agree with other post saying demand is still there and is vastly out pacing supply. Regardless of the time of day, I've still had ridiculous wait times whenever I've gone to play lately. I expect a bit of a wait during peak times on a Fri or Sat night... but the 2+ hour waits on a mid-week afternoon are nuts. Don't think the player pool is drying up due to people going busto. Wasn't up this weekend but pretty sure I saw M was running at 100/200 LHE game Sat night on Bravo, so there's definitely still $ around. I know a lot of the anti Amendment 77 people ITT were worried about games drying up and people going busto, but I don't see it. That might hit the higher limit games like 5/10 NL or higher with smaller overall player pools, but people are always going to have a 1-200 to throw around for 1/3 or 2/5.
Looking forward, once Amendment 77 passed I assumed there would be another poker boom in the area and I still feel that way today, but maybe it's not going to happen as fast as I thought. Definitely not to the likes of what TX has seen, but assuming we might see an influx of players (pros/wannabe pros) moving to the area in the next year or so. Someone already mentioned the "backpack crew" starting to take over at M, so maybe that's already started to small extent? God bless the Isle for keeping 1/3 spread-limit alive in CO, but I can see their room fizzling out in the next few months whenever everyone else gets their staffing issues sorted. Hedging all that under the assumption the economy doesn't completely tank and fall into another recession in the next 2-3 years.