The Boardwalk can’t catch a break.
For the past two decades, Atlantic City’s casino industry has been under siege from gaming competition in neighboring states.
The Southern New Jersey seaside resort, where saltwater taffy was created in the late 1800s, which thumbed its nose at Prohibition in the 1920s and was the inspiration for the board game Monopoly, once owned the monopoly for casinos in the East.
But starting in the mid-1990s, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia and New York legalized gaming. The competition, combined with the recession, took away business and caused Atlantic City’s annual casino revenues to fall more than 41 percent between 2006 and 2012.
A comprehensive reform package pushed by Gov. Chris Christie in 2011 that created the Atlantic City Tourism District and focused new attention on boosting the city’s 12 hotel-casinos — nine on the famous Boardwalk and three in the Marina district — was just beginning to take hold in October.
Then Superstorm Sandy washed ashore.
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If you didn’t arrive by 8:30am, you didn’t get a seat. (The room wasn’t even supposed to open until 10.)
On its last day, the Tropicana would give away nearly $16,000, and draw its biggest single-day crowd
The last day at the new Tropicana Poker Room, this past Tuesday, may have been their busiest ever, as they gave away nearly $16,000 in leftover jackpot cash before closing down to make room for more slot machines.
Every seat in the 6-table room was filled until the last drawing at 4 p.m.– with a wait-list at one point nearly 100-long before those realizing they would never get a seat disbursed.
Nevada law stipulates that any jackpot drop must go back to the players, so twice every hour, there were drawings for $1,111 in cash, and in the final hour, the money was juiced up a bit more to fully empty the coffers. I had a deal to split the money with fellow Pokeratier Andrew, if one of us hit, but our numbers were never called. One guy won 3 times, and didn’t share with anybody but his wife.
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Sit-n-Go-Away: The Tropicana Poker Room tried everything, but just couldn’t get enough action to stick.
I went to the Trop poker room Wednesday night, about 10:30, to see if a few friends might be working or playing. The room was totally dark but for a single flickering light. No dealer in a box, no suit at the counter. It seemed odd, but the room had been growing noticeably quieter in recent weeks.
Sure enough, the new Tropicana Poker Room, which opened on Black Friday and briefly enjoyed a stretch as the Jamie Gold Poker Room, is closing tomorrow. Supposedly for good, with its current space, next to the CantorGaming Sportsbook, slated to be transformed into a special area for slot tournaments.
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Say what you will about the WSOP Ladies Championship — I’ve got the over/under at 15 for number of men who enter this year — it’s still the kinda event that some people get super-excited about for weeks if not months beforehand. And our super-good friend Donna from Pink Ladies Poker Tour has a series of single-table satellites this Sunday, June 24, St. Jean Baptiste Day, at the Tropicana.
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It’s hard to play anywhere in Vegas as a non-tourist without hearing noise about the room you’re in or one down The Strip. No wonder so many regs wear headphones. But I keep my ears unplugged to filter through it all for Pokerati — and so Dan has at least half a clue about what’s real, what’s bullshit and what’s a live tell.
Some of what I’ve picked up lately:
Karina Jett is the MGM’s new poker room ambassador, meaning she will promote the room and host the weekly $120 HORSE event at 7:15pm every Tuesday. Jett has hosted the HORSEament previously at the Palms and then M Resort before settling into her new gig at MGM. The inaugural running at MGM featured a drinks-flowing pre-party that saw Cyndy Violette, Gavin Smith, Layne Flack, Allen Kessler, and Erik Seidel.
DonkDown Radio founder Bryan Micon won the tournament last week, beating a pro-filled field of about 80 for a $2k score, along with besting several others in a last-longer bet that paid an added $4k. The next running, earlier this week, attracted a field of about 60 players.
Meanwhile, WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage is also on board with MGM, serving as tournament director for the upcoming Grand Challenge Tournament series. Savage apparently was looking for something else to do in Vegas now that the Epic events are off his calendar.
Occupy Aria?
Players take Ivey Room mixed game back to Bellagio
This hasn’t been confirmed yet, but according to at least one regular player in one of the bigger regular games in Vegas:
FWIW I saw Jean Robert Belande (@BrokeLivingJRB) still playing in Ivey’s room with David Williams (@DWPoker) just last night, so there could be more to this schism. If it’s all political, as Crazy Mike says, that could explain why Barack Obama was in town yesterday.
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Officials with Tropicana have responded to a story we posted Thursday about Jamie Gold’s relationship with the casino and recent changes in the poker room, saying Gold remains the ambassador and will focus on training seminars.
After we published, the Tropicana released the following joint statement from Fred Harmon, vice president of talent and image relations, and John Fort, director of gaming, via QuadJacks:
“We have seen a few false assumptions posted regarding Jamie Gold. The Jamie Gold Poker Room is alive and well! It appears Jamie not being at Tropicana Las Vegas everyday (sic) has sparked some assumptions that are just not true. Jamie is part of the Tropicana family and will be focusing on his seminars, including the one on March 24th, and bringing exciting poker events to the New Tropicana Las Vegas.”
The unceremonious close of Jamie Gold’s short-lived affiliation with the Tropicana poker room.
Less than one month after the “Official Grand Opening of the Jamie Gold Poker Room,” the relationship between the Tropicana and the 2006 WSOP main event champion has apparently ended — more quickly than it began. Though no word yet from either side about what prompted the abrupt change of course, posters of Jamie Gold, hands to the sky, and videos of him daring players to “catch me bluffing” are gone.
(But you can still see on YouTube what the plans were supposed to be.)
The Feb. 17-19 launch-party weekend included a Sunday afternoon “second chance” tourney that got canceled when only two players registered, and Gold himself showed up an hour after cards were supposed to have gone in the air. But the 2/5NL game (with David Williams and other pros) that sprung up in the Jamie Gold room looked to be growing successfully — running regularly on Wednesdays and Saturdays — as it was fast becoming known as the biggest 2/5NL games in Las Vegas, with reports of pots as big as $20,000.
Now the Gold promotional posters have been replaced by signs for a March Mania Mega Stack Poker Tournament, which starts today, March 15, and runs through March 25.
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I think I was in Los Angeles at the end of last summer. Somewhat amazingly, that was the last time I was outside of the desert. I did go to Palm Springs with my girlfriend and met some family there for Thanksgiving … but that’s still in the desert. I didn’t go home this past Christmas for the first time ever in my life, and I haven’t left Vegas once in 2012. This can’t be healthy. I need to get out for a while.
This was THE nit festival of all nit festivals. Your normal hourly rate simply does not translate when you remove the fun-loving, didn’t-come-to-fold tourist factor and replace it with the game-has-obv-passed-me-by-but-I’ll-still-sit-here-and-fold-for-$10/hr-zomg-dreams-do-come-true jaded older Vegas reg. I mean, it was truly miserable.
Las Vegas is awesome. We all know about the availability of booze and gambling 24/7, and the ability to keep whatever sleep schedule you desire. As cash game poker players, we never have to endure the pain of an alarm clock’s rouse, as Vegas embraces daywalkers and nightowls alike. The cost of living is relatively low, especially considering the quantity and quality of entertainment options available as compared to other cities with similar offerings, such as LA, San Francisco, Miami. If outdoor adventure is your thing, you can find plenty of that at places like Red Rock Canyon; hikes such as the Gold Strike near Hoover Dam, which takes you all the way down into the Colorado River; and weird natural beauty like the Valley of Fire. And for those less willing to leave Clark County, there’s the peaceful Summerlin suburbs, and the increasingly interesting downtown Vegas scene.
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We know about Jamie Gold’s poker residency at the Tropicana in Las Vegas — where he can be found playing 1/2 and apparently trying to fill the poker world’s Professor void by offering lessons that cost about as much as a college education. (The Jamie Gold Poker Room official launch party, btw, is Feb 17!)
But what about the rest of ’em?
You can currently find Jerry Yang, the 2007 WSOP’s biggest winner and #20 on the all-time poker tournament money list, bussing tables while commanding an otherwise lackadaisical staff (according to Yelp) at Pocket 8s Sushi & Grill in central California. Um, pass the yum-yum sauce?
Via Pokerati’s resident Vegas grinder-thug @AndrewNeeme:
Poker Fish: You wouldn’t believe how many of Jerry Yang’s relatives are always hitting him up for free sushi.
A middle-aged local approached the Treasure Island poker room supervisor early Sunday evening, inquiring about how many hours he had played.
“I want to make my $50,” he said.
At the start of the year, the room announced its latest promotion on signs around the casino, flyers outside the room’s entrance, and business cards on the supervisor’s counter — “GET PAID TO PLAY POKER!”
The 8-table room at TI pays back players with money collected in the rake. For every 10 hours of play (up to 60 hours), a grinder can earn as much as $599 in extra cash each week. This good-for-players promotional trend is catching on around Vegas. Whether it’s called “rakeback” or advertised as an hourly rate, it pays close to a minimum-wage job.
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I’m sure Jamie Gold and Las Vegas will eventually become friends. I for one have a whole new respect for the WSOP-champ in Residence @TropLVPoker after hearing his interview on Donkdown; and philosophically, he’s trying to bring some of the same things to the Tropicana that the Pokerati Game tries to bring to the Palms. But still …
Really … $1k an hour? I mean that’s not quite Carrot Top money, and supposedly Gold’s already had five students pony up … but jeesh … you’d think at that rate they could at least afford a nicer sign!
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