They would definitely need to make some legislative changes that may actually require a vote at the polls to increase the licenses or allow card rooms specifically.

Idk it it’s still the case but originally there was suppose to be 3 casino licenses and the slot parlor. The 3rd one is suppose to be somewhere toward the Cape.

Supposed to be the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian tribe license. First Light Casino in Taunton IIRC

I had to spend the rest of my poker comp dollars before they expired so I went over there a couple Saturdays ago and showed my friend what used to be the poker room around 530ish and it was dead up there. I took a piss for old times sake and I was the only one in the bathroom, it was actually sad seeing what used to be there and now just fu-king slot machines everywhere. I don't get why they just don't move them a little closer together and give us 33/40% of the floor, hell even if they had to remove a few slots they would still have a ton of them up there. I know things are never going back to what they once were I'm just worried about really getting the shaft where they just open up 10tables and it's 5/10nl and higher and it basically shuts the door on a huge % of players. The sports book is ready to go they did a nice job putting that together for the amount of space they had but even that wasn't all that busy for a college football Saturday afternoon. I guess they were showing the big boxing match later that night so maybe they packed them in but it wasn't busy while I was there having a few beers and a sandwich from shake shack.

Oh, bull. If parking was that much of a problem they would have continued requiring payment or validated parking for the garage. And looking at the sheer number of people in the casino overall vs the poker room, the poker players couldn't have taken up that much of the space. I doubt the rest of the casino players were pedestrians.

We agree to disagree here. I'll leave it at that.

Have to go with Shawn on this one. I don’t think parking is a major part of 2hy poker not back.

I know with 100% certainty that the 500k GTD events were being discontinued due to a lack of weekend parking prior to Covid making the issue moot. I also know that Vegas was disappointed with the room performance. Having 30 games on a Tues night looks good to the consumer but their expectation was that of double including a full array of high limit games. By the end those games had all but disappeared with the exception of maybe 1-2 going on a weekend.

So was it “only” the parking? Probably not the primary reason but it seems like it was a contributing factor.

They messed up. I have no reason to ever go back, and I’d blow a few hundred bucks on blackjack or craps after or during a poker session. Now I drive to NH or CT instead. MA is the worst run state in the country, we’ll never have sports betting, and I guess COVID killed poker too.

Then somebody in Vegas was smokin too much or just dreaming. In 4Q19 how many rooms across the country were getting 60 games with 5+ high limit ones outside of a series on Tues night? I can think of one. That was never going to be sustainable in Boston.

Also at 10pm on a Sat night, how many were left in those 500k gtd events?

Yes we had discussions here about how Encore misread the Boston market between the space reserved for 10/25 and up poker and the $50 min blackjack even during the week when they first opened among other reasons.

To the best of my recollection, Day 2 on Sundays began with 120-140 players who bagged. I believe this event had multiple Day 1’s but play ended around 1am or so on Sat nights. If there were two Day’s and you factor in all those who bust from 10pm to 1am I’d take a guess and say without great confidence, around 120.

And we are expected to believe those 120 parking spaces or heck even 200 was going to kill the tournament. Maybe it was the reason. But again if true they really have a mgmt problem.

Went to Encore on Thursday. Didnt have much cash on me so I went to the ATM.

The fee for withdrawals is now $ 7.99

#$%^ing thieves

It's not an issue the players are making up. Management really was complaining about poker players using too many spots. You could go out into the garbage at like 12-3pm during one of these day1 flights and it would be pandemonium.

The last time I was there was for their 500k Gtd in Feb 2020. I went there on Thursday's night for the 7pm satellite and they already had the garage closed at 5:30pm and valet took 45 minutes. It's clear that they messed up on their garage big time and they know it now.

It wasn’t “going to” kill the tournament. It already did! Several of us were told by the top of the poker room that the March event would be the final one and the sole reason was that of the parking situation in the garage.

Edit: What Billy said.

Anyone more familiar with the immediate surrounding area? Sounds like a few large developments may be in the works, although the Exxon one will take many years, that may improve access. It looks like they did just announce a pedestrian bridge. I'm bot sure if that will increase parking/public transit options or not.

Beyond me why they don't have 24/7 shuttles from Assembly Row to Encore and have people use some of the garages. 5 garages and a lot at Assembly Row seem like more than enough additional space.

Assembly Row and Wellington are charging for those parking spaces though. EBH was originally charging for their parking as well, and then put in a caveat that parking could be validated if you play long enough, and then just scrapped charging for parking all together? (Either that, or EBH couldn’t figure out how to effectively enforce the validation? I can’t really remember 100%…)

My point, though, is that everyone complained being charged for parking when they were parking underneath the casino. I don’t think customers will be thrilled to pay for parking that is a 10-15 min bus away, and I don’t think Assembly/Wellington are going to give their parking spaces up for free to EBH customers


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Those garages are privately owned and only free for residents from what I recall. You can’t simply take over private property.

I've parked in a few different garages there when going to the movies/shopping, even the Partners garage

They had police or some sort of security out at the shopping mall w/ the Costco trying to enforce the "no casino parking" restriction. The parking really was fubar.

Anyway, Encore says they'll make a determination about poker around the end of the year, so we'll see what happens. In the worst case, what was done by voter referendum can likely be appended/amended by voter referendum. Here is some suggested reading: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/th...tition-process

Amazingly, it only takes the signatures of 10 registered voters to begin the process. Then it's a matter of collecting <100k signatures. The casinos would then have to decide whether to allow a referendum question on allowing for dedicated poker clubs to hit the ballots or try to appease that base to put the kibosh on having to possibly face that (or having to dump a ton of money marketing a "vote no" against a poker club referendum when it could be money better spent buying or building something).

Imagine a Boston Billiard & Casino that's actually located in or around Boston. Amazing?

If the casinos really do not want poker, why would they fight poker only rooms? Plus if both casinos and state are against poker only rooms, the referendum vote would only be the start of a very long process. “They” could write the regs so onerous that even if once approved rooms still would not open. Certainly more than one way to stifle poker if that is their intent.

Competition for the gambling dollar

A gambling dollar they are choosing to not chase.

I am sure there are some who prefer poker but will play house games if poker is not available. Some of these would leave Encore for a poker only room but in the overall scheme his is a tiny segment.

This forum suffers from a bias. To many of us the whole casino world revolves around poker. The reality is poker is a minor part of the gambling biz and gambling isn’t even all of a resort casinos biz.