In the next few weeks, MGM Resorts International’s, Monte Carlo Casino in Las Vegas, will close its eight-table poker room. It is all part of a new $450 million renovation plan that includes a rebranding of the new luxury hotel Park, MGM. Slowly over the last decade, there has been a steady depletion of poker tables on the Las Vegas Strip.
Chris Moneymaker kicked off the Texas Hold’em craze in 2003 as poker rooms began to thrive. It seems the popularity, however, has diminished since the glory days of Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, and Daniel Negreanu. Rooms are decreasing or have been eliminated from the casino floor altogether.
"Casinos added more tables in response to popularity, and once it became less popular, they took away the tables," said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
By 2007 casinos tripled in poker revenue to $97 million with 405 tables, to $78 million and 320 tables in 2016. We can blame Black Friday in 2011 when the US government implemented a new law prohibiting financial institutions to approve transactions for online poker and casinos.
Other closings in recent years include Hard Rock Casino Hotel, Ellis Island, Palms, and Tropicana. The current flow of closures is consistent across the US.
"Gaming has become a smaller portion of the overall revenue mix and things like poker rooms are candidates for further evaluation as to whether they make sense or not at a casino property," said Brian Gordon, a principal at the Las Vegas-based research firm Applied Analysis.
Source:
“Poker tables keep decreasing on Nevada casino floors”, lasvegassun.com