After being shut down since March, poker rooms at two of the most popular card rooms in America return to action. The Bellagio poker room reopened on Thursday, while the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles opened its doors on Friday for the first time in over three months. While casinos and card rooms reopen, gamblers remain cautious with case surging and hotspots developing in SoCal, the Southwest, and Florida.
Time to gambooool! You know those tables are gonna be fishy right now with poker player itching to return to the tables... albeit a five-handed table. But hey, poker is poker and action is action. If you host it, they will come. Vegas reopened at the start of June and locals and some tourists trickled into Sin City to resume the decadence, debauchery, and degeneracy.
But when Vegas reopened, poker rooms were not among the games to get priority. But in the last few days, several more rooms finally reopened for the first time since March. And poker players could not wait to get to the tables and felt their fellow donks, while sharing pandemic bad beat stories (both online and in real life) and other sordid tales and conspiracy theories while stuck in lockdown.
Seven poker rooms are open for business in Las Vegas. The opened the doors and the donkeys and fish poured in like famished animals wandering the desert in search of hold'em action.
Last week's poker room openings included the Golden Nugget downtown, the Orleans just off the Strip, South Point just south of the Strip, and the Venetian as the sole poker room on the Strip.
This weekend in Sin City marked three more poker rooms opening up for busines including the much-anticipated Bellagio. The Bellagio reopened last week, but the poker room had to wait a bit before that section returned to its old glory.
In addition, the poker rooms at the Caesars Palace and the Sahara also opened up on Thursday. You now have multiple options to gamble on the Strip aside tom the dreary Venetian.
The Sahara new poker room gets another reopening! Their new room opened up just before the pandemic hit. Locals, myself included when I lived there during the poker boom in the 00s, always loved the Sahara poker room and tourist dug their fun tournaments that last a couple hours but you could net some decent dough. And the 7pm nightly tournament were catered with free giant subs (the size of a poker table) to nosh on. The Sahara got shuttered a while back after it fell behind the times. Someone tried to rebrand it something else, but the Sahara brand has always been a part of the Vegas gambling landscape. And poker at the Sahara has always been a big draw since the Brat Pack days. Ho hum, Sahara poker rooms reopens... again… so let's call it Take 2.
And yes, face masks will be required at all table games in Sin City. You must protect yourself from the selfish, brainwashed denizens and other infected zombies mashing away at the slots.
After a week of reopening, majority of gamblers did not wear face masks, which freaked out Gov. Sisolak and health officials. But money is money and the casinos pushed to stay open. But after several casino workers fell ill with coronavirus, the NGC stepped in and required all gamblers at table games to wear masks.
In the post-pandemic world, poker will be five-handed. Some poker rooms want to expand to more, but for now it's five-handed.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said its now required that everyone in the state will be required to wear masks in public. That definitely means inside casinos and at poker rooms. The new precaution comes on the heels on several card rooms reopening for business in the Los Angeles area.
On Friday, three of the most popular card rooms reopen in the greater Los Angeles area... the Bike, Commerce, Gardens, and Hustler. And the infamous Hollywood Park will open on Monday.
Commerce will be packed with degens from all over SoCal that were locked up for almost 100 days and cannot wait to get their gamble on… like NOW! Commerce prided itself as being one of the largest card rooms in the world. But with short-handed table restrictions, the wait list should be redonkulous.
Commerce reopened at 6am on Friday and players were lined up as early as Midnight. Action is action, right?
Seat open! Make sure you wash your hands.
