Luxor: 86s PokerRoom

No later than June 18th Poker Room will be closed.

Quote: FleaStiff

No later than June 18th Poker Room will be closed.

hm.. lack of players?
or they want the space to do something more profitable?

Its hard to measure a poker room's profitability.

A bingo room makes its money during the hours of NON-play and often attracts pension check deposits which can be profitable for the casino but are not allocated to the bingor room by the bean counters.

A poker room gets rakes but it draws in players who have spouses and who themselves may enjoy other games as well. So if a poker player takes money from other players but his wife drops ten grand at blackjack, what would a bean counter to reflect that "profit" for the poker room? His wife would drop that ten grand somewhere else if her husband was somewhere else. That ten grand is really poker room profit that is solely counted as blackjack profit.

The Luxor has been doing a lot of 86ing lately *!?*!!!

Quote: FleaStiff

Its hard to measure a poker room's profitability.

A bingo room makes its money during the hours of NON-play and often attracts pension check deposits which can be profitable for the casino but are not allocated to the bingor room by the bean counters.

A poker room gets rakes but it draws in players who have spouses and who themselves may enjoy other games as well. So if a poker player takes money from other players but his wife drops ten grand at blackjack, what would a bean counter to reflect that "profit" for the poker room? His wife would drop that ten grand somewhere else if her husband was somewhere else. That ten grand is really poker room profit that is solely counted as blackjack profit.

6/5 blackjack is a charity compared to the Forum Shops, Canal Shops and the stores at the Wynn.

Quote: Rigondeaux

6/5 blackjack is a charity compared to the Forum Shops, Canal Shops and the stores at the Wynn.

Sure is. However, the customers of those stores won't be there if Vegas becomes just a "has been" town where people sit around at upscale bars and upscale restaurants and upscale shows and just talk about the good old days when gambling went on.

Quote: 100xOdds

hm.. lack of players?
or they want the space to do something more profitable?

The room was never busy when I walked by. Hotel guests have a short walk to games at Mandalay Bay or Excalibur. I'm not surprised at the closure.

Hopefully they don't close the deli in the back corner. The only place you can sneak free fountain drinks.

That will bring the total closed or closing so far in 2017 to three: Hard Rock, Luxor, Monte Carlo. In my opinion this is not a bad thing. Just like it wasn't a bad thing when it was four similarly pointless rooms finally being put out of their misery last year, and three the year before that.

These rooms were always at least half-dead from the day they started pretending to be open, among the ill-conceived poker rooms that never drew much real business to speak of, eventually relying on an endless succession of "creative" (desperate) truly weird gimmicks that essentially turn a small band of scruffy local promo chasers into very low-paid unofficial props for the house, just to be able to look like they kinda sorta had a game going. Usually sitting there putting in their time for whatever was that month's obscure weird-Harold promo as the semi-derelicts they managed to recruit are shuffling the blinds around to do their promo thing and colluding like all Hell against any unfortunate occasional stray guest who might've thought they'd actually play poker. And the under-employed dealers and poorly trained sleepwalking floor staff in some of them will let them. I think that allowing the chronically ill rooms to finally die a natural death, further consolidating at least the Strip's part of Las Vegas area poker business at other sister properties nearby with thriving successful rooms (and finally admitting that the poorly located Hard Rock was always born to fail) results in a better selection of better games for players in better managed rooms.

I don't disagree at all with the theory of having poker mostly as an amenity to support the broader overall business of a casino-resort property, I agree that is often the main point of it for a casino, or it should be; I think that can be a sound plan and it has worked well with some poker rooms for some properties. But in practice it also sometimes became a very mixed blessing at best when it was not well executed and was mindlessly copied at some of the wrong venues for it to ever work. Not every casino needs a post-modern cute-food celebrity chef and sushi master as soon as that is a hit somewhere; some are better off with hot dog, pizza, and cheesesteak diners.

There are still over 40 poker rooms in the Las Vegas valley. I think that's still about 20-25 too many for everybody's good.

If it wasn't for ESPN, WPT, and the hole card cam, I highly doubt poker would've gotten any more popular than it was. I don't credit Moneymaker for it. No matter who won in 2003, just being televised the way it was, was the catalyst for it.

"...Usually sitting there putting in their time for whatever was that month's obscure weird-Harold promo as the semi-derelicts they managed to recruit are shuffling the blinds around to do their promo thing and colluding like all Hell against any unfortunate occasional stray guest who might've thought they'd actually play poker. ..."

A former poker room manager at The M Resort felt the same way and had to deal with managerial policies and managerial lies as to the poker room's intentions. He happened to get out shortly after alot of promises were made but the room was closed in a matter of weeks after those grandiose promises of a real poker room having been made.

I've said this before but in the lifespan of a game, poker is around 60 years old. The game has become infested with sharks and no longer much fun. Casino poker rooms generally don't pull in much per square foot compared to the rest of the casino floor, especially the slots. As the old poker players die off they are not being replaced by new blood. It is just simple economics that the weaker poker rooms start to die off. This pattern will continue for the next 20 years. The big question is what will be the game of the next generation?

Quote: Wizard

The big question is what will be the game of the next generation?

Perhaps Texas Hold 'Em because its played in so many bars? Or perhaps roulette which is making strides for some reason. Shall we keep our fingers crossed for Faro?

The Luxor had a poker room? Who knew?

Quote: MaxPen

The Luxor had a poker room? Who knew?

More like an area. It wasn't a "room"

Quote: Wizard

I've said this before but in the lifespan of a game, poker is around 60 years old. The game has become infested with sharks and no longer much fun. Casino poker rooms generally don't pull in much per square foot compared to the rest of the casino floor, especially the slots. As the old poker players die off they are not being replaced by new blood. It is just simple economics that the weaker poker rooms start to die off. This pattern will continue for the next 20 years. The big question is what will be the game of the next generation?

Why play in a poker room when you can play six hands at a time on the internet? I consider poker boring as you endlessly throw away hands waiting for a good one.
My nephews play high speed games on the net, figuring in dozens of decisions. Do that all year and the prospect of sitting at a live table is boring.

Quote: billryan

My nephews play high speed games on the net, figuring in dozens of decisions. Do that all year and the prospect of sitting at a live table is boring.

I think the prospect is enlivened when considering that those at the table are far less experienced and will lose their shirts.

I can offer a few reasons in support of poker rooms from a player's perspective. Poker rooms are one of the safe havens for non-smokers who like to gamble. This is big reason. Poker is also a social game that can be played at casual speed that makes it potentially enjoyable for those who are not in a hurry. Poker room offer daily tournaments that help get regular foot traffic into the casino. The tournament players have to eat and do something why they wait for the tournament, such as use the sport book or casual gambling.

What was the poker room scene like before the poker "boom" in the early 2000's? Is poker really diminishing in Vegas, or is it merely going back to pre-boom levels?

From what I've heard its diminishing due to experienced dealers being long gone and MBA types vascilating on decisions. It takes time for a poker room to change and it takes managerial committment.

Totally serious, I'd like to play Rummy 500 in the casino. It's fun and bad players enjoy it.

Quote: Wizard

....As the old poker players die off they are not being replaced by new blood. It is just simple economics that the weaker poker rooms start to die off. This pattern will continue for the next 20 years. The big question is what will be the game of the next generation?

What seems so crazy here is that Poker has so many of the attributes that supposedly "millenials" want.

It is a social game, skill based & competitive. That sounds a lot like what Gamblit and others are peddling as the "next thing for millenials" in brick & mortar casinos. Then there is this article on the WSOP starting today: WSOP @ All Time Highs

So why if Poker is diminishing do so many people believe social, competitive, skill based gambling is the next big thing for Las Vegas or the industry in general?

Quote: TigerWu

What was the poker room scene like before the poker "boom" in the early 2000's? Is poker really diminishing in Vegas, or is it merely going back to pre-boom levels?

It is diminishing somewhat in Las Vegas, but it is nowhere remotely near "going back to pre-boom." There are still some 40-odd freakin' poker rooms. And while the most recent boom has long since peaked, as it inevitably would, especially with the initial unsustainable tilt toward the inherently flawed no-limit structure created by ESPN broadcasts, some of it also has nothing to do with how poker in particular is doing.

Part of it is that it is like the rest of gambling and what Las Vegas tourism is about: it is now easier to play poker, along with everything else to warm a gambling degenerate's heart, near home for most people, now that we are pretty much Casino Nation with local & regional casinos having spread like crabgrass that are now more numerous around many parts of the country than highway rest stops. After being amazed lately over seeing what appeared to me to be an absurd proliferation of local-tweaker casinos cropping up like weeds at what seemed like every bend in the road or flat spot with electricity, I actually counted to pass the time during a 1,500 cross-country drive last summer, and it wasn't close. Casinos beat rest stops about three to one.

And, closing some of these ridiculous "rooms" that were never successful, ever, and never could be, because they were just stupid venues for poker rooms and/or badly executed and poorly staffed and managed, hasn't got much to do with any of those things. Some other Las Vegas area poker rooms are attracting as much or in some cases even more business than ever, and are running at capacity in peak times.

Quote:

OMFG! JCCH (Joe's Crappy Corner Hardware) and LEOSH (Leroy's Expensive Office Supply Hole) are gone! People must be letting their houses fall apart, and closing all their offices and even dens! Or, maybe that's not it at all? Maybe they weren't so good, and there are fewer places but larger ones succeeding at doing a lot more of it much better for less, instead?

I will still argue Vegas is only following the rest of the country. TV did a great job of promoting the game and everyone played for a while. Every small town had weekly tournaments and multiple home games. But too many became fishes and got sick of losing and moved on to the next fad. Vegas had casinos like Paris offering 5 tournaments a day, but never got decent cash games going. They were doomed from the start when the fad ended.

As DD said, I still see too many rooms left. The only question is who is left playing when the number is reduced?