Around the country, other operators have decided not to offer poker at this time, Bruce Band, the assistant director of the commission's Investigations and Enforcement Bureau and chief of the Gaming Agents Division, told commissioners last month. Poker rooms at casinos are 'somewhat notorious for their inability to produce competitive levels of profit per square foot,' researcher Anthony Lucas wrote in a paper published in the UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal in 2013. Instead of the casino generating revenue by winning a game, as it usually does, casinos generally profit off poker by claiming a rake, or a percentage of cash game pots and tournament entry fees. Poker is different from many other games in that gamblers play against (and win money from or lose it to) each other rather than the casino. If and when poker should return to Encore, it will likely be at a reduced capacity,' an Encore spokesperson said in July.

'Based on current market conditions and the resulting need to prioritize space, Encore Boston Harbor will not be bringing back live poker at this time. An Encore executive also said the former poker room is now filled with 'some of our highest-performing slot machines.' 'We have listened to our poker players and also our previous dealers that want this back as an option at our casino, and we want to provide it to them,' he said.Įncore Boston Harbor told the Gaming Commission in late July that a reintroduction of poker would require the casino to close other table games because it cannot find enough people to hire as dealers. Players can expect about 10 to 12 tables instead of the 28 that used to populate the casino's poker room, Miller said. While poker will return to MGM Springfield, the casino will bring the popular card game back at a reduced capacity. We have at least made that decision and we will move forward with a plan on how to return it within that quarter,' Miller said, rounding out what ended up being a discussion of less than two minutes.

'Where previously we had made the statement that we would make a decision on it by the end of the year. This spring, the Gaming Commission began to take notice of the 10-fold increase in complaints about the lack of legal poker in the Bay State.īoth casinos said they would make decisions about the future of poker by the end of the year. The state's two casinos - MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor - were freed of nearly all COVID-19 restrictions and resumed mostly normal operations in late May without offering poker, which had been prohibited by the commission when regulators first allowed the casinos to reopen under health and safety restrictions last year.

Mgm springfield casino slot play