I always felt that Woodbine only had poker because they felt forced to. I guess the undergrounds in Woodbridge will get more customers..

Thanks! Just the info I was looking for.

Probably down money in that room but I'm still gonna miss the high hands/hr, $5 max rake and no tipping.

Does anyone know if they do intend to open a real room? I was there a couple weeks ago and the staff told me they think a real card room would be coming but had no idea on the time line of when it could happen. Really going to miss having the option to hop on the highway for 10 mins to get to woodbine.

Unfortunately, the OLG appointed the politically-connected Great Canadian Gaming to run Woodbine and many of the other Ontario casinos. There were silly rumours that live poker would start this month, but GCG hates poker as evidenced in most of its no-poker casinos and closing down the low-cost electronic poker room. Re-opening a poker room with unionized dealers may be the lowest priority for GCG and Brookfield Business Partners as they build a hotel and entertainment centre.

Is it a silly rumor though? The staff at the cage themselves told me that they were opening a real room, they just didn't have a time table.

Not sure if the bolded is true. While their properties with small horse racing tracks don't have poker rooms,the full fledge casino properties all do besides one in BC. Since Woodbine is supposed to be developed into a "full service" casino I'd expect they'd get a poker room too like the GCG owned casinos in British Columbia and Nova Scotia.

+1 - i looked into the same thing too and its mainly the racetracks that didnt have poker. I believe they will get one but it is likely on the bottom of their priority list

Just wondering if anyone has any updates re: poker at Woodbine.

Or even more general updates about Woodbine- like have they added table games with real dealers/chips, have they renovated anything, etc.

I was there about a week ago. The east half of the 2nd floor has been walled off for construction. I asked one of the nearby staff and they said that a temporary gaming area will be built there, and will operate until the permanent casino building is built.

They did mention that this temporary room will have B&M poker tables (non-electronic), and that the room is scheduled to open in the "summer" - they were unable to give me anything more specific than that.

The staff did not know:
- what other casino games will be offered beside B&M poker
- how many tables there will be
- what forms of poker/what limits will be offered

Thx for the update above, a few woodbine regs have been telling me bad news in talking with the new owners, so the above seems very good!

What kind of bad news? The new Casino will have to have a poker room as far as I know, in order to be classified as a certain type of casino it has to have a poker room.

we getting ze pokerz in GTA?

Pickering's new casino to open late next year, hope it has a poker room:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...late-2019.html

WB players phoned GCG execs and they mentioned no immediate plans for poker at WB once they closed the tables in the winter.

the long term plan must include poker given the scale and type of casino they're planning. fingers crossed. Ajax is also getting shutdown and a new casino at Durham Live being put up. so there could be two poker rooms within 30 minutes drive of TO in the next 3-5 years

i just hope the rooms are well run / good structures. cuz there won't be a shortage of action.

I love how all of the employees just lied to the players before it fully closed and just told players that a new room was coming in just a few months.

Does anyone play the blue heron NL games regularly? How are they compared to casino niagara?

Woodbine's bid to open a full casino got approved by city council today, which should be operational by 2021. And they also plan to have a poker room running by August!

Spoke to someone on the phone today, plans for a real card room to be open by mid-july 2018. Pretty hype.

I keep reading about q Pickering casino to be open by end of 2019. We might have some decent competition soon

sweet

yup fingers crossed

This is incorrect. You need to be careful when speaking with WB staff, most of them know nothing but like to pretend they do. Everything any staff there has ever said about poker has turned out to be false. The only thing they ever said that was correct was that the electronic poker was disappearing.

You were told a card room is coming, which is actually true. They're getting table games in July. However, poker will not be part of the setup in the initial expansion. This is from Spencer Parazader, General Manager, Casino Woodbine. If poker ever is added at Woodbine it'll happen when the new building is operational, so 3-5 years would be my guess.

I agree, this is our best hope. That having been said it's owned/operated by GCG, the same people running Woodbine, and they've demonstrated repeatedly their lack of interest in poker. But it is in Pickering, and it will be significantly larger than Woodbine, so there's a chance. We'll see.

Guess I'll have to continue driving all the way to Niagara Falls for a while.