Maybe this is old news, but new to me … while scouting out the pre-2011 WSOP bowling-alley bar scene late Saturday night — things were bumpin\’ — I popped by the Gold Coast poker room and saw this:
![\"\"](\"http://old.pokerati.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/gold-coast-closed.jpg\" "\\"gold-coast-closed\\"")
The Gold Coast poker room is apparently no longer … The flat-screens were dark, and tables had been replaced by video-poker and slot machines. And according to the sign they intend to turn the previously post-boom-downsized poker room into a slots and video poker tournament area. Not that anyone misses one of the least raucous, nittiest $2/$4 limit games in town … and I don\’t think you can say much about this being a trend of poker continuing to recede or anything like that, but it may say something about smaller rooms being unable to justify their existence when small-stakes players gravitate to the bigger rooms in town.
As the sign says, all Gold Coast player(s) are being shipped over to The Orleans, which seems to be re-emerging as the big-little off-Strip room that locals like for the sake of convenient parking if nothing else. (Their Friday-night tourney continues to set field-size records, consistently drawing 100+.)
