Planet Hollywood Poker Room Folds on July 11

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• Michael Alexakis" height="43" width="43">
  Michael Alexakis July 1, 2021

  Planet Hollywood has never had more than three poker tables going, they are a tiny poker operation. Obviously this trend is a concern for avid players, poker is a game that you need certain conditions to be met in order to play, time, space, and people need to all be there concurrently... The Golden Nugget continues to offer my friends free rooms to visit Las Vegas and play poker, other friends have told me that the Orleans poker room is jammed with players. We will all get to see this shake out, if major rooms start closing, yes, that is a big concern to me, a concern on a par with reports of giant craps table minimums like $15, take away my games and my interest in visiting goes down exponentially... Gambling to me is all about playing games, multi-color branded slot machines that require zero brain power are non-starters, it's up to the casinos themselves to decide if they want players like me to come or not...

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  William Wingo July 1, 2021

  We were in Las Vegas last July not long after they reopened from the first Sisolak closure. Orleans and South Point poker rooms were operating, but Orleans had not restarted tournaments yet. Those two have been our favorites in Vegas for a long time. We've played once or twice at Rio (non-WSOP) and Harrah's (dodging timeshare hawkers coming and going) but those were both small operations. Nowadays I'd think twice about going back to the strip--or downtown--because of parking fees and bad vibes. Pre-pandemic, it was possible to get comped at Orleans and/or Gold Coast playing not-too-terrible video poker; so as soon as I was out of a tournament, I'd go play some pNSU Deuces. When Boyd revamped their points system, that option became less attractive--but still workable--and then came the pandemic. For many years hands-down favorite was the Colorado Belle poker room in Laughlin. Then the room closed after the Golden takeover, and the whole place closed in the pandemic. AVI closed their poker room about the same time. One theory was that poker was sort of "overbuilt" and that the closures there and in Las Vegas were just a market correction. Now Laughlin has only two poker rooms, and [personal opinion] only one good one; but it's still a viable option so far, and an hour and a half closer. As you say, it's the casinos' decision whether they want that kind of action.

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  William Wingo June 29, 2021

  With the decline of playable Blackjack, we have switched mostly to hold'em poker tournaments. That's virtually the only reason to go to Las Vegas any more. At last report, our two favorite off-strip poker rooms were still open; but since our last Las Vegas visit in July, we've been to Laughlin four times. Right now it looks like we'll be up for WSOP in October ("Yes, dear...") but that's still tentative. Here at home we've got at least two local casinos with poker; maybe another opening soon; and a couple of sports-bar leagues. If both Las Vegas and Laughlin poker closes up, I can live with it.

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