I heard from an encore employee that the top two poker guys were let go, so I don't think poker is coming back any time soon!

Only whispers I hear is they're going to close the room forever. Which given their decision making so far, wouldn't shock me. If that is the case, they should just give up, sell out to MGM and go back to LV.

If they remove poker I hope they at least replace it with Sports.

I'm sure they would love a sports book, but that's up to the state at this point

A Sports-book cannot pay its overhead. Massachusetts will shakedown the Sportsbook for 40% right off the top. Now you're down to a 3% gross margin and you haven't paid for an employee or a stick of furniture yet.

Does the Encore want to tie up a parking spot with someone making a $25 bet that has a 75 cents gross profit margin ?

You will never see a stand alone Sportsbook built in this country.

Sportsbooks are legal in New Hampshire, and as of this date, a total of zero have been built, and you will never see one built in New Hampshire or any other state for that matter.

That's all the Encore needs is a bunch of sportsbook deadbeats hanging around on Saturday and Sunday taking up valuable parking spots.

The profit margin for a poker room is considerably higher than that of a sportsbook, and casinos love to pretend poker rooms aren't profitable.

Twin River has a sports book. The line is always packed and they only have to pay like 2 cashiers to run whole thing.

They only have 2 cashiers cause there's no money in it.

It is operated by William Hill.

I doubt Twin River is making a dime from the operation.

they have two live betting spots .
one on the 3rd floor where the race book is and one on the 2nd floor where the poker room is.
also they have at least 8 by my count which im sure is low self serve betting kiosks.
the twins book has improved a lot since first opening.
the RI Lottery runs the betting app
so they are raking revenue

Where are the betting kiosks at TR?

Folks, if you want to talk about TR, do it in the TR thread. This is the Encore thread.

Word on the street is the sports book is going in where the buffet was. The buffet is no longer listed on their website.

LMAOOOOOOOOO

if the avg edge on a sportsbook bet is 10% and they are keeping 17% of sportsbook revenue after tax

so for every $100k in wagers they take in they are keeping only $1,700 before a single casino expense can be paid.

did you ever graduate high school?

a keyboard tiger . Hear me roar.
even with the covid the total revenue is 3.47M.
not bad for a start up in a pandemic.

Ever work in casino management and look at numbers? Or do you just throw numbers at the wall and say see!?

twin river revenue for sports betting is public information my guy.

Anyone who thinks a sportsbook is profitable for a casino, has never managed a sportsbook for a casino.

There's a reason why William Hill manages the majority of sportsbooks around the usa and world.

Sportsbooks are loss leaders for Casinos.

Extremely thin margins.

If the money is so bad, why do they keep buying up/operating sports books?

Neither is Sinatra's, which is a shame

Really? lol. Buffet was average and very expensive. Also Buffets are def more of vegas thing. Not many all you can eat buffets in northeast.

Because William Hill specializes in one thing, their overhead and profit requirements are much lower than the casino itself.

It’s the same reason why stadiums have their concession stands run by an outside company.

I thought the Buffet was fantastic, best Buffet I've had in my life outside of Vegas. I also thought it was reasonably priced, with easily available discount using comp dollars. The Encore Buffet had the best Clam chowdah I've ever had, and I've had a lot of Clam chowdah. A person could eat at the Buffet for half (or less) than the price to eat at almost every other restaurant in the Encore. I will surely miss the Buffet !

Exactly !

lol yea those concession stands are also loss leaders

Encore buffet was a major disappointment.
Hard rock AC and pre mgm borgata buffet were way better. It's absolute garbage compared to Wynn or Caesar's buffet in Vegas.

Hopefully they're bringing them back in phases. Every time I went, Sinatra's was excellent.

Since I had a few K in casino chips in my pocket since March, and my landlady has refused to accept them as payment for rent, I went first thing today and did some reconnaissance.

The elevator from the garage no longer goes up to the mezzanine; you have to get off on the main level to get your temperature taken. It's all done with cameras, a little like a metal detector at the airport but without any sort of door frame.

Left side of the poker room is now all blackjack, although no one was there at 10:30 AM:



Right side is where they moved some of the video poker machines. The video poker that used to be outside the downstairs elevators are also now pit games of some sort.



I could also swear this sign above the escalators used to say "poker room"? Maybe not, but in any case, you can read what the little sign says:



"Explore our new gaming area upstairs. For your enjoyment, you will find additional blackjack poker and video poker machines." Share and enjoy!

Since I was feeling a bit peckish, and since the burger place was open, I also went to the Red Desk and asked if I could use my poker comps. I could not. The women behind the desk, after ducking into the backroom to find out, told me our poker comps would be saved and would be available again once the poker room reopened.

Which I guess means, optimistically, despite all the changes, that someday they do hope to reopen the poker room?

That's so ****ing stupid, you should be able to use your poker comps right now the same way you could before.