what are the games like at casino niagara? tough? soft? limp-fest?

I’m not a regular by any stretch but I recognized quite a few people in the room and only two on my table.

If you can’t beat a weekend game at Niagara, gotta put in some more study hours as it’s fairly soft. Opening weekend means punters have had two years of foaming at the mouth to get in and shoot loose.


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Your biggest enemy should be the rake box as the average player is terrible. Maybe a weekday afternoon the games could be rock infested but won't be anything like tag infested Stars games.

I was just at Casino Niagara for Easter Weekend. Coming home now. A couple of thoughts

1) The waiting list for $1-$3 & $2-$5 is very very long on weekends. Call in an hour and a half before you want to play. If you don't call in and you sign up at the room, you will likely have to wait 2-3 hours at least. The wait list for $1-$3 was literally at 120 players at one point on Friday night.

2) I don't know who runs things at Casino Niagara but it's clear to me that poker is almost an afterthought there. They have literally no tables or dealers to meet the demand which is why the wait times are so long. They have tons of slot machines AROUND the poker room but literally little to no players to play on them. Seems like Poker is the main attraction, so treat it as such.

3) Games are omega soft. I'm not sure if its because I came during easter weekend and there are a ton of out of towners / Americans looking to splash around or maybe I was lucky but Friday night / Saturday night is an absolute **** show. I saw a guy punt a stack of $450 on $1/$3 table with 63o pre. Lots of crazies doing wild stuff like that so take note.

4) People will literally call you down with any piece of the board, so value bet the **** out of your good hands. Punish limpers, raise a good tight range, 4-5BB + 1bb per limper. Charge them to see flops and force them to call with shitty holdings.

5) If you can beat 5nl-10nl at stars, you will be astounded at how easy live is.. at least $1/$3.

6) Session fee is $7 every half hour for $1/$3. The rate is fairly reasonable given how insane rake is everywhere else in the province.


limp fest and soft. I would never describe these games as "tough", they're very loose passive if anything.

You can beat niagara games but can't find niagara thread. Toronto thread should be locked up bc this city is a useless casino poker wasteland. I can't stand driving past durham live almost nightly. Pisses me tf off.

Link or source?

Man this information is so useful and great that you made such a detailed reply. After reading this, I will be making trips out there soon.


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https://theex.com/main/entertainment...-rules-of-play

Credible rumours that Woodbine is getting live poker. Nov. 30th, 30 tables.

These rumors have been going on since we found out about it closing, so even before it was closed. I won't believe it until I see it. How many times can people fall for this

I'm not 'people'. And none of the previous rumours were credible or based on anything. I've now heard this rumour from 3 sources - a guy whose company is doing work on the new building @ WB, a guy who has a family member in mgmt @ Great Canadian, and a dealer at Port Perry who said mgmt confirmed this to them.

I was right on Niagara, let's see this time. I'm not as certain as I was on Niagara, but not far from it.

If they have it, we’ll wish it was the old electronic tables with 10% $5 rake and no tips. Bet it’s $15 max rake and bad beat like GBH, Rama and Brantford.


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Yes, this is the million dollar question. They have $50-$100 min blackjack at Pickering, I don't see them flinching at $30 max rake across the board for Woodbine. The demand in Toronto is through the roof, and half the players are too stupid to understand what that level of rake means to the game. They're already $15+1 at their other casinos, so that's the baseline. And given Port Perry has $10 min Blackjack....

So the real question is how much will they be able to gouge?

Woodbine is now 100% confirmed, 30 tables, early 2023.

Where did you see this? The GTA needs a room more than anywhere else in the planet but I'm not letting my hopes get up again for this.

I heard something similar this morning as well, it seems legit to me.

I asked the mods to unlock the old Woodbine thread.

was woodbine a good place to play before it closed?

Lots of people didn't like the electronic tables, but live tables will be better I guess.

No one wants to travel 90min each way to Niagara.

Email from the GM @ WB.

Is 30 tables enough to support poker in Toronto?

I mean pre covid, in Montreal, playground was probably running 30 tables on Fri-Sat nights. Assuming they have some 2-5 and some 5-10 and limit and some omaha, how many tables will there be for 1-2/ 1-3 NL poker? Maybe 15-20 tables.

There are going to be waiting lists.

Problem in all this is this casino is being run under the Great Canadian gov't sponsored monopoly. They're greedy *******s, and very short sighted. Their current rake in Port Perry and Brantford at 12 is $15+$1, $200 max buy in, and if you table change you have to go down to the table max, you cannot take your stack with you. They do everything they can to keep the pots small so they can maximize number of hands and dropped rake.

Given all this, I think there's an excellent chance they try something over the top ridiculous and do $20+$1 max rake. They'll be able to get away with that for 6 months, then when all the small stakes players disappear cause they're losing every single month cause not possible to win at those rates, it'll become a niche room with 3-4 5/10 & 10/20 tables, and the odd 25 table, and they'll end up running 5-7 tables a night in a 30 table room. Then they'll all go back to their corporate boardroom, look at each other smugly, and say "See I told you there's no market for poker".

There's 1/2 underground games in Toronto that have a $5 flat rake, why would anyone support a rake this high once the novelty has worn off?

I pray the Ontario government allows poker only card rooms sometime soon, Great Canadian is incompetent. We desperately need some competition in the market.

Very good post (Great Canadian is indeed a gov sponsored monopoly). The 2nd paragraph which accurately depicts the very likely scenario, is both truthful, humorous and above all else pathetic.

does anyone know what or if any legalities there would be for opening a playground-ish type of room in Toronto? would it be able to be supported with enough players or general thoughts on this?

My view was if you could beat woodbine, you can win at any other game around the world. he 2/5 was probably the strongest group of players I've ever seen. The 2/5 at woodbine was probably comparable to 5/10 NL at the WYNN (from my experience).

Their incompetence made us lots of money in August 2019 when they updated their bubble craps and awarded too much points (especially on the odds). People were raking in over $100 hour playing it. Took them over 1 month before the idiots figured it out.