LV Hilton closing poker room 10/17

[psandman]

The key here is there are different kinds of tourists even within the low limit crowd. Some who want to go see the big game, some who fear the sharks at the big rooms, some who fear sharks in small rooms, some who don't like crowds some who like crowds. And in the end the poker scene will be smaller but probably have a little something for everyone.

[steamboatin]

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I'll be visiting St Louis within the year because my friend is opening a nightclub at the Ameristar, at this point I don't know enough to give feedback.

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PM me before you leave and I try to will cruise up there while you are in town.

[bav]

At Harrah's the dealers claim how busy the poker room is depends incredibly on who the floor is. Most of the Harrah's floor people get on the casino-wide PA and announce the games at least every 15 minutes. Some do this about every 2 hours. The dealers swear this makes a huge difference, and nights with vocal floors they'll have 6 tables going while nights with a mute floor they'll have 3.

This is the set of walk-by tourist traffic you will lose through consolidation. If there's no 12-table room in Harrah's, folks walking from the monorail station toward the strip can't be diverted to the poker room. Losing those players is surely not good for Vegas poker. And I think those are the players that represent the largest fraction of the non-freeroll-chasing Hilton players. They'll just be lost to the winds and we won't be seeing them seated in Wynn's room.

[*TT*]

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Not if there is sufficient competition and the player base isn't brain dead. The abundance of poker rooms in LV is what caused Station Casinos to bring the rake back down to $4. If the player base didn't have other poker options, they would have had to deal with it.

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Stations is $4 + $1 BBJ drop - $5 off the table from every hand. Thats a locals casino, they made the error of making the change before the market finished its adjustments on the strip. Trust me on this one, its happening. The card room managers around town know its coming, we are in the middle of a cat and mouse game of who acts first so nobody loses their core business.

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nope, the max would remain 10% up to $5 because thats what the market has dictated is the top end

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Without sufficient competition it doesn't matter what the market dictates. The poker rooms will rake whatever they can get away with so long as there isn't somebody across the street offering poker players a better deal.

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Sorry, you wont see card rooms jacking it up more than this. Your concept is a common falicy, rakes will top out at $5 and some rooms will have BBJ drops. You wont see $6 rakes for a long time in Vegas. I anticipate a slimming down to 15 or so poker rooms in Vegas within the next 5 years, thats a good number since 2/3 will likely cater to low limit players only.

[*TT*]

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in the end the poker scene will be smaller but probably have a little something for everyone.

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Precisely. The balance between operations needs and player needs will be better maintained when the market shrinks. Its hard to say for sure if there will be fewer players or not when consolidation happens because although we will lose the on premise tourist in tiny rooms like Hilton we will gain tourists who crave action. Can you imagine if Bellagio was large enough to fade the action it could get? People in the lower limits would flock there in droves to playt he best low limit games in town while they get to see the famous players on TV.

On a related note if it was legal I think a centrally located "card barn" ala Commerce operated by a trusted name like Dave from Bellagio would explode. Since its illegal to spread card games without hotel rooms we will never see this happen. Also if Dave changes casinos yet remains in Vegas its a fair guess that a lot of the high-limit traffic will come with him.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

First off, I don't think Mason makes a conscious effort to be the puppet master of the forums. I do think he sets an example by thinking before he speaks, an example which long lasting INTELLIGENT posters follow. If there's any truth to his being unpopular or not well respected, it's a symptom of too many teenie-bopper wpt trained loudmouth morons who aren't being properly supervised by their martini chugging parents posting on 2+2.

Al

[malo]

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At Harrah's the dealers claim how busy the poker room is depends incredibly on who the floor is. Most of the Harrah's floor people get on the casino-wide PA and announce the games at least every 15 minutes. Some do this about every 2 hours. The dealers swear this makes a huge difference, and nights with vocal floors they'll have 6 tables going while nights with a mute floor they'll have 3.

This is the set of walk-by tourist traffic you will lose through consolidation. If there's no 12-table room in Harrah's, folks walking from the monorail station toward the strip can't be diverted to the poker room. Losing those players is surely not good for Vegas poker. And I think those are the players that represent the largest fraction of the non-freeroll-chasing Hilton players. They'll just be lost to the winds and we won't be seeing them seated in Wynn's room.

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Bav, wouldn't think the Harrah's room would be a likely candidate for closure. Look's like a pretty nice room, seems to do an OK business.

My picks for Harrah's closures on the east side would be O'Sheas (does that really count as a room?) and maybe Paris, since they moved their room to such an out-of-the-way location.

[bav]

Yeah... I wasn't intending to suggest that Harrah's would close the Harrah's room. Just pointing out that the closure of a couple of these small, low-traffic, out-of-the-way rooms like Harrah's isn't going to suddenly boost the traffic to the remaining rooms a bunch. Lots of their patrons are opportunistic walk-by's that simply won't play if they don't happen to walk past a poker room.

I definitely agree with O'Shea's and Paris being first on the chopping block. Nobody will even know O'Shea's closed, and Paris already shot themselves in the foot when they moved the room--they may as well have closed it. Which also means closing them won't be good for Vegas poker, nor will keeping 'em open be good for it... they are both mighty unimportant in the grand scheme.

[Photoc]

Bav, I can see Trop, Riviera, and Gold Coast all going by the way of the Hilton next year as well.

[bav]

Yep. Those are also all barely noticed rooms. The thing about O'Shea's and Paris is they are part of the Harrah's empire and are located such that closing them will unlikely drive customers away at all. Paris guests will walk to Bally's to play poker, not Planet Hollywood, and probably not Bellagio. O'Shea's players... well... who cares.

Tropicana and Riviera are independent. If they close the poker room, the companies have NO poker presence in Vegas, and any tiny fraction of guests who actually want to stay in a place with a poker room will be lost. So they may (or may not) be a bit more stubborn about keeping 'em open.