Sounds great! Good to hear there's at least one casino east of Perth capable of opening a good poker room. Hopefully all the poker-starved pros in Sydney and Melbourne haven't moved up there en masse On another note Uncle Dan is supposed to ease more restrictions later this week - no idea if that might include Crown and their poker room.

if you're looking to travel east, might be worth researching NZ casinos

I'd assume they'd be a waste of time - haven't been tho, can you tell us any different? (I'm in Melbourne btw.)

Sky Auckland Poker Room definitely closed (and it was starting to die off away from Fri/ Sat nights) . Re-open is a few months away.
Queenstown Casino stopped playing poker 3 plus years ago.
Hamilton Casino (really small like Queenstown) poker folded about 8 years ago.
Weekend games at Dunedin are probably on hold like AKL.
Which leaves Christchurch (most of the time only gets a 1/2 NLHE game up) left. Their small tournaments seem to be running, not sure if they have actually restarted cash games. Locals seem to prefer tournies over cash most of the time anyway.

Auckland is the only viable option. But it is now only the size of Adelaide or Brisbane. Was ok a decade ago, but now.........you will find out when you go (when travel bubble is fully back on). Most regulars only talk about their trips, or dream trip, to Melbourne. Seems ironic Melbourne players think it is an El Dorado, when AKL locals think the same of their trips across the ditch. Gotta know your way around Auckland after midnight too keep yourself in one piece too. SkyCity Hotel at the casino aint that cheap on weekends if you wanna stay in-house (although they used to do a Wotif Mystery on Sundays, quietest night, that was really attractive but they stopped doing it a couple of years ago).

A fair proportion of casinos in Oz/NZ won't bother reopening their poker rooms when it gets safe later in the year. No traffic, no casino profit margin, no enthusiasm.

If you are in Aus or NZ the only two legit good options for poker cash games right now are:
- Gold Coast/Brisbane(opening cash this week)
- Adelaide (Royal poker club has had big cash games for a while, Skycity casino just reopened poker apparently too)

Forget NZ, seems like they would prefer to go into lockdown over 1 covid case than learn to deal with it in a responsible manner.

Brisbane has been open since December, playing 7 handed games, usually a few tables going. Not sure about Gold Coast.

I was in Auckland in October 2019, went to SkyCity in search of a game at approx. 7pm on a Sunday evening and there were no tables going or any signs of life.

My bad - tournaments are back from this week apparently at Treasury.

And yeah have heard the same reviews from Auckland. Pretty grim state of affairs

The resignations continue, that's six now since Feb 10:

Board resignations this month: Chief Executive Ken Barton; Directors Andrew Demetriou, Michael Johnston, Guy Jalland, Harold Mitchell, John Poynton

Remaining directors: Helen Coonan, John Horvath, Jane Halton, Antonia Korsanos

I’m heading up to QLD this weekend and will report back on how the treasury games are - so we’ll finally have some up to date intel 🙂

Treasury Brisbane isn’t too shabby - gets a few tables up most nights, but Friday/sat it gets ****ing packed and all ~ 10 tables are full.
Used to hear about the long lines there and it is true. On a Friday night I joined the 5-5 list in the afternoon (never made it to the top - only 1 table all night and the players never moved), and 2-5 list took about 4 hours to get a game.

Otherwise it’s a pretty standard Aussie poker room - maybe 2/3 the size of Sydney’s? And like <1/4 of Melbournes

Also they had Omaha which was nice to see

Crown receives $8 billion private equity takeover offer from Blackstone

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-...stone/13266246

Casinos back at 75% capacity as of Friday night, wonder if it will make any changes to the poker room

Just got home from Crown, stopped by for 10 mins to have a look.

To begin with, in the food court, a slice of margherita pizza is now $13.90 at Cucina's! I remember when it was $9.90 and more fancy slices were a dollar or two more. I also remember when you could get a big fat slice at Pizza Head for $5 or $6 and that felt expensive, that might have been 10+ years ago.

In the poker room, there's the usual table games in the entrance area as there has been for years. Moving forward to the poker area, on the left is about 25 tables of blackjack, craps, etc while on the right there was about 10 tables and lots of empty floor space. The high limit poker area was empty.

Many factors lead me to believe that poker is not imminent. The fact Crown might lose their gaming licence given the current royal commission, the complete lack of activity from the @crownpoker Twitter account, TD Joel Williams moving to APL, poker staff either being moved on or to other areas, no international arrivals for probably at least another year, rumours of the Aussie Millions moving to Sydney, etc etc.

I could be wrong and Crown is just waiting for all government restrictions to ease, which is expected by ANZAC Day. Or maybe we will still be waiting come July 1 with no idea what the future holds for poker at Crown let alone Crown Resorts as a viable entity. I don't know much about the US Blackstone Group that might end up running Crown properties. I'd guess a takeover might be a positive for poker compared to Crown remaining in charge.

The PokerMedia Australia team sit down with Australia’s first lady of poker, Jackie Glazier, and former Crown Melbourne tournament director Joel Williams to discuss latest developments at the Australian Poker League. Topics include Joel’s recent move to become the APL’s Major Events Director, the birth of the new APL Poker Tour and plans for the 2021 APL Million.

[QUOTE=kerr;56989745]Just got home from Crown, stopped by for 10 mins to have a look.

To begin with, in the food court, a slice of margherita pizza is now $13.90 at Cucina's! I remember when it was $9.90 and more fancy slices were a dollar or two more. I also remember when you could get a big fat slice at Pizza Head for $5 or $6 and that felt expensive, that might have been 10+ years ago.



In the poker room, there's the usual table games in the entrance area as there has been for years. Moving forward to the poker area, on the left is about 25 tables of blackjack, craps, etc while on the right there was about 10 tables and lots of empty floor space. The high limit poker area was empty.

Many factors lead me to believe that poker is not imminent. The fact Crown might lose their gaming licence given the current royal commission, the complete lack of activity from the @crownpoker Twitter account, TD Joel Williams moving to APL, poker staff either being moved on or to other areas, no international arrivals for probably at least another year, rumours of the Aussie Millions moving to Sydney, etc etc.

I could be wrong and Crown is just waiting for all government restrictions to ease, which is expected by ANZAC Day. Or maybe we will still be waiting come July 1 with no idea what the future holds for poker at Crown let alone Crown Resorts as a viable entity. I don't know much about the US Blackstone Group that might end up running Crown properties. I'd guess a takeover might be a positive for poker compared to Crown remaining in charge.[/QUOTE/]


I have heard that Blackstone are only interested in making the easy money and will strip Crown right down. Don't think poker will return to the Melbourne Casino. Sydney and Queensland will vie for top dog status; APL will gladly take local players and cut a licensing deal with the State Govt. Too many Chiefs in the Crown hierarchy, not enough Indians. Blackstone won't bother trying to make it efficient and viable. APL wins.

I suspect you are probably right but I hope that you're not. But even if poker did return to the casino one day, maybe they'd increase the rake yet again! Surely there's a limit to what the punter will put up with.

Either way, I don't see international poker pros ever having a reason to return to Melbourne, which is a shame. January is such a great time given that it's Summer and we have the Australian Open tennis.

Back in one month with 28 tables downstairs. You heard it here first

Wow! As I said yesterday, that would coincide with the ANZAC Day weekend and the final easing of restrictions in Victoria.

If you do have insider knowledge, is there a future for the Aussie Millions in Melbourne?

Also, can you do anything about the price of pizza in the food court?

Aussie Millions has already gone to Sydney, that's why Joel left.
APL has a case to take the licence for regular cash games. (and do it more efficiently with a lower rake)
28 tables downstairs in one month? What you hope for, and the contents of Blackstones business model, might be different. Very different.

All I know is what I'm told the dealers have been told. For more info go into Crown and ask the dealers/pit bosses. I can't as I'm too busy on the Gold Coast helping to part the locals from their hard earned

See what happens at the end of April then. I think it will be identical to the previous 12 months - absolutely nothing happening. Lot of time and expense to move out the traditional tables in the old location, and move 28 poker tables back in.

Enjoy yourself at the Gold Coast and be ready for a snap border lockdown. Bad time to be moving in or out of QLD.

Re moving tables a pit boss told me they could do it really quickly.

Snap border lockdowns? You mean I could be trapped up here by the beach with all these terrible players? Oh the horror!

What stakes are getting up usually and how long are the wait times?
Anything 5/10 and up?

I just had a stint in Brisbane at the Treasury but never made it down to the Star in GC - man the games are good on the coast 😂

One or two 2/5 games, sometimes 5/5 but 2/5 players are often straddling. Wait times can be over an hour depending on the games and what time you come in. You get seven minutes to respond to an SMS when you're on a wait list. Tourneys on Tues and Sat in the arvo usually mean no 2/5 until about 6 pm.