The USA is drastically spiking with coronavirus cases rising in 40 out of 50 states. Governors have been scaling back reopenings. In Los Angeles, card rooms and poker rooms were shut down when Governor Gavin Newsom ordered casinos to be closed. At the start of June, several of the most popular card rooms in LA reopened such as Commerce, the Bike, and Hustler. They've all shut their doors indefinitely while the pandemic peaks in SoCal during the Fourth of July holiday.
Fitting that America, the nut-low in the fight against coronavirus, will celebrate its birthday while 80% of the states are seeing a big spike in coronavirus cases. The growing sentiment is that states opened up way too early while the pandemic still ravished parties of the country while the President raged at his critics via Twitter meltdowns, but at this point local leaders stepped in and quickly shutdown any public places that had reopened for business, such as casinos and card rooms.
Meanwhile in Las Vegas, they made slight tweaks and changes, but it's business as usual on the gaming floor and in the pits. You can still gamble it up and run it twice in Vegas... fade the bug and roll the dice.
The City of Angels... aka Hollywood... aka LA... is now a disaster movie waiting to happen. The city has been spiking over the last two weeks. The Mayor finally shut down bars and restaurants that finally reopened after almost three months of lockdown.
According to the LA Times, the state of California has 246,814 confirmed cases with 6,264 confirmed deaths as of July 3, 2020. LA County reported 105K cases and 3,457 deaths.
Governor Newsom put forth new orders for 19 counties in California that were spiking with new cases. LA County by far has the worst number of cases. Poker rooms are on the long list of places that are not deemed safe right now.
Who knows when Newsom with lift the new shut down order? But that means Commerce, the Bike, Gardens, and Hustler will shut its doors. The Bike had been open for just two weeks before it got shuttered a second time.
"Due to the revised Governor's order, The Commerce Casino is currently closed," tweeted out Commerce Casino. "Cage transactions may be conducted next Tues & Wed, July 7 & 8, 2020 between 11am and 4pm. Continue to follow us on social media for updates. We cannot wait to welcome you back to our beloved Casino."
And it totally sucks to be a resident of California and not have the ability to gamble online. Yes, one of the greatest and strongest economies in the world does not have online gambling, online poker, or legalized sports betting.
Gov. Newsom thinks that legal sports betting would be a good idea in order to help boost much-needed state revenue. But lawmaking in California is a tedious task, especially when it comes to gambling-related industries. One estimate suggested it would be as early as 2023 before Californians could legally places sports bets.
And online poker? Bwhahahahahah. Yeah, that's not happening any time soon. If sports betting is still three years off, then online poker is at least five or more? 2025? 2030 if we're lucky. Sad!
