Hoteis em buzios

Hoteis em buzios

Sure, there could be ways for the Rio to make more money off it, but they simply don’t lose coin anytime they bring 60k+ gamble-minded people through their doors over a 6-week period. It even spills over into Caesar’s and their other properties.

http://wickedchopspoker.com/exclusive-jeffrey-pollack-parting-interview-part-i/

Gene, I feel bad for telling you there was little to see at the November Nine. We had so much freedom to just do our thing this year … and it was great. Truly led to some nice coverage and made doing so a blast. I think it was a win-win-win-win.

By the way, I do think Pollack’s dismissal was about the almighty dollar. He can spin it into moving onto bigger and better things all he wants, but it’s clear that his presence was deemed no longer necessary.

I guarantee that the top 100 big wigs in the Harrah’s chain of power see poker and the WSOP as nothing more than a necessary evil at best. Those more concerned with the bottom line don’t give a crap about exposure if it doesn’t fill their restaurants, hotels and pits.

There’s a reason poker was near-dead in the mid-90s. There’s a reason there were only five poker rooms in the city. Even places like the Bellagio don’t appreciate poker beyond Jack and his crew. I’d say the only room in Vegas right now that more than tolerates operating a poker room or running a tournament is the Venetian, and that’s because it’s very likely the only profitable thing in that entire casino.

As for Caesars, I do agree that it would solve things from a centrally-located standpoint. The only problem is the parking situation, which is abysmal even on a weeknight. Maybe commissioning 10x the number of shuttles and allowing people to still park at the Rio would work. Hell, how about all day ones starting at Rio and day twos moving to Caesars? Or just the final days moving to Caesars?

Jeffrey did a great job from the poker player’s perspective. Just maybe not so from Harrah’s perspective.

Dan, I love Pokerati and I love reading it. You go so much above and beyond the reporting and you get into the analysis of it. That’s why I contribute. But I do have to do it anonymously due to the role that I play within the poker economy.

I was going to come up and introduce myself to you at the Final Table but I didn’t make it down. I’ll say hi to you next year at the WSOP.

And I also have sources to back up Dan’s comment that the “$1″ bottles of water cost the WSOP far more than that. (As Poker Shrink mentioned, that amount is deducted from the WSOP and credited to Rio Food & Beverage for each bottle of water used at the WSOP.)

I agree with BJ on this one. Hey, we all understand business is business … people come and go. But really, any praise might actually be a disservice to us. After all, we basically have to build relationships now with a new regime … one that may or may not have pushed Pollack out, and certainly one that didn’t try to stop him.

It just makes me a little sad that this news reads a bit like an obituary.

All I’m talking about is the proximity of the casino’s gambling and restaurants to the WSOP itself. In that respect, the WSOP fails miserably, and it affects the bottom line at the Rio.

Compare that to the days of the WSOP at Binions, when winners were often seen at Craps or Blackjack mere minutes after winning a bracelet. That rarely happens at the Rio. Sitting down in a cash game doesn’t have the same impact.

When the WSOP was at Binions, even players who lived in Vegas would reserve rooms in various downtown casinos for convenience, and they would play, eat, and live in the area of Fremont Street. (Even walking from a different downtown casino was *far* closer to the WSOP than walking from a hotel room at the Rio.) Now, most of the players hit their cars and leave the property, spending their money elsewhere.

This is convenient for the players, but bad for the Rio’s bottom line.

I have no idea whether or not any of this factored into Jeffrey Pollack’s departure. But I know it definitely affects the Rio’s bottom line, and they want more of that money to be spent at their property.

Online gaming is definitely a factor going forward, but again, I have no reason to believe that online gaming factored into Jeffrey Pollack’s departure.

BJ, with all due respect, You’re so wrong. I can hardly think of a better place to hold the WSOP, as it has grown and continues to do so. (Have you self-parked often at Caesar’s? Not fun!)

This is not about the Rio, as far as I can tell … When I read between the lines, it’s all about online gambling. That simple. In with the new boss, out with the old.

Just one point of order here, it’s a little more cut-throat than Shrink suggests within Harrah’s. The WSOP had to by their water from either the Rio, or maybe it was Rio Convention Services, but the price they paid per little half bottle … I had heard $4!

Switching to those big Ozarka-like tanks in the press room was at least a 5-figure cost savings.

RE: Anonymous
We have three semi-regular anonymous commenters here on Pokerati that I allow … one because he’s protecting his job (and I know exactly who he is) … and this Anon, whom I don’t really know who he is, but even when he’s off base he generally raises some decent points … doesn’t get all flamey.

But he is posting as anon (without leaving me a reachable email address) so feel free to flame him a new one just for fun!

10 people if they watched any of the event and you will get an overwhelming reponse of yes.

My point is that the WSOP generates plenty of money in a city that has been suffering through this economic climate. They would be foolish to sell this event to anyone. Also I do love the idea of having it as Ceasar’s.

Dan M. Please email me if you get the chance I have a few questions for you and I don’t have your email anymore.

The World Series of Poker is a brand like it has never been before. This credit goes to the work that Pollack did. Ask

For instance, every time a play is given a bottle of water at the tables, the Rio food and beverage division is credited a dollar and the WSOP division is debited. The Amazon room is cleaned each morning, a plus for convention housekeeping, a deduction from the WSOP bottom line. So the question is not whether the rake pays for the tournament, but rather how does a six week WSOP compare to other clients who might occupy that space during the same period. Including, of course, setting up and tearing down the displays, banquet rooms etc.

Might be an interesting question to ask another hotel convention property: What if we could guarantee six weeks of uninterrupted customer walk-thru with zero interim set-up costs. There are so many interesting questions that will never be publicly answered: dealer’s tips, floor staff compensation, and the biggie: How much does the WSOP gross before the creative bean-counting?

So far as the other Harrah’s casinos, do they offer discounts/deals for WSOP players? Are there buses shuttling players from Caesars to the Rio? Maybe it was Pollack’s job to make deals with the online sites to house their qualifiers in Harrah’s hotels, but I thought Harrah’s took a hands-off approach to the online sites. If that wasn’t Pollack’s call then THAT would seem to be a major reason why, say, PokerStars took over the Palms across the street instead of Caesars.

From my own anecdotal evidence I saw lots of players eating at restaurants in the Rio and playing in the pits. Of course after too many 14-hour days in the Amazon Room the last thing you want to do is hang out at the Rio, so it’s understandable that they might want to go elsewhere to eat/gamble/debauch. If they chose to go to non-Harrah’s casinos, how do you hang that on Jeffrey Pollack?

I mean he could say “look, the WSOP brought 62,000 people to the Rio. SIXTY-TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE. And those are just the paying customers, that doesn’t count fans, railbirds, gawkers. We got them in the door and they paid their juice–what they do afterwards is someone else’s responsibility”. There’s also all the advertising and exposure Harrah’s and the Rio receive from the ESPN broadcasts to consider as well.

The problem, if it is a problem, is that the Rio is fairly isolated and if you don’t feel like going to the Voodoo Lounge or Buzio’s you have to drive to go somewhere else. And I think we’d all agree that there’s A LOT of competition in Vegas for your entertainment dollar.

I don’t know why you’d need a 5-7 year window for Harrah’s to sell the WSOP. They’ve have four HUGE years in a row, and every year the fields have gotten bigger. If Harrah’s can’t make a reasonable profit now, is that really going to change in the future? Well, one thing that COULD change is the US legalizing online poker, which would allow Harrah’s to cozy up with the online sites. Unless Harrah’s launches their own site and declares jihad on the already existing rooms.

One last point–are we really sure that the WSOP only breaks even? I could believe it if its true, but do we have any numbers/projections to play with?

In the pre-2005 days, players gambled at Binion’s and stayed in downtown casinos because it was so damn convenient. At the Rio, the valet seems to be half a mile closer to the WSOP than the casino, decent restaurants, or any of the hotel rooms. At that point, it’s just as easy to stay at the Bellagio as it is to stay at the Rio.

Even as a reporter, I felt I could drive-thru In-N-Out Burger as conveniently as I could eat at a restaurant out in the Rio Casino. (Not the Poker Kitchen and not the Sao Paolo diner, which only serve in a pinch.)

If Harrah’s wants people to spend more money at their casino, they need to hold the WSOP at a different casino — possibly Caesars Palace.