South Point Poker Room Number
- South Point Poker Room. South Point is a locals casino on Las Vegas Blvd south of the Strip. It is one of the largest poker rooms in town. South Point hosts 30 poker tables in its newly remodeled room. It is one of the few Las Vegas poker rooms open 24 hours a day. The poker room at South Point offers mostly no limit Texas Hold’em.
- The studios for the Vegas Stats & Information Network are based at South Point. Television history. During 2006, the South Point was the venue of NBC's Poker After Dark, ESPN's Pro-Am Poker Equalizer and the third and fourth season of GSN's High Stakes Poker. The South Point was the host site for the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon from 2006 through 2011.
Poker rooms asked, NGCB answered
As locals and tourists visited Las Vegas casinos over the weekend for the first time in more nearly three months, the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) already started loosening safety requirements. In a minor decision, the NGCB permitted three poker rooms to increase the number of players per table from four to five.
South Point Location: South of The Strip 9777 Las Vegas Blvd South Las Vegas, NV 89123 Contact: 866-796-7111 website Number of Rooms: 1,350 Rooms Rates: $69 and up double Average: $100-$150 per night. The poker room was expanded to 30 tables and with all brand new tables, chairs and electronics, meaning you will find plenty of room around the tables and all new furniture to find comfort in. The South Point enforces a strict non-smoking policy to conform to Nevada health and safety laws. The design of the poker room includes carpets.
The South Point Hotel Casino & Spa was the first to get the green-light to increase its maximum table capacity. It was soon followed by the poker rooms at The Orleans Hotel & Casino and The Venetian. The rest of the casinos in Las Vegas are still dark.
licensees may submit alternative plans for approval by the Board”
There was some confusion in the poker world as to how the poker rooms could expand their seating capacity by 25% in the first weekend, particularly because the NGCB’s guidelines say that there should only be “four players per poker table.”
The guidelines also say, however, that “licensees may submit alternative plans for approval by the Board,” and this is exactly what the casinos did. South Point replied to some questions on Twitter the day before casinos reopened when it looked from pictures like games would be five-handed, saying that the casino specifically asked the NGCB for the leeway.
Money was the motivator
As mentioned, this is a rather slight relaxation of the NGCB’s health and safety guidelines, one that may not seem to be of much significance. In terms of health, it likely is not; four players are not all six feet apart at a poker table, so five will not change much.
It is important to the poker rooms, though, for the simple reason that poker players are much more willing to play five-handed over four-handed. As South Point said, “That did seem an unrealistically small number of players.”
Poker is much more dependent on player traffic than are other games, since poker is player-versus-player and not player-versus-house. While casinos could get by with fewer, high-volume customers at games like slots and blackjack, they cannot feasibly run a poker room with minimal player traffic, as it is a low-margin game.
Las Vegas enters “new normal” stage
Nevada casinos were permitted to reopen on Thursday, June 4. According to those on the scene, things were somewhat slow at the outset, but Las Vegas looked much more like pre-pandemic Las Vegas during the weekend.
Videos from inside casinos show most visitors feeling very comfortable returning to their favorite gambling venues. The vast majority of guests did not wear masks or abide by social distancing guidelines. All employees of Nevada casinos, however, are required to wear face coverings.
Not all casinos have reopened; most gaming companies are reopening in phases. Caesars Entertainment, for example, reopened Caesars Palace and the Flamingo on Thursday, followed by Harrah’s the next day after the company experienced high demand. MGM opened MGM Grand, Bellagio, and New York-New York, with Excalibur set to welcome back gamblers on June 11.
The Nevada Gaming Control Boardreleased regulations directing casinos on how to keep properties as sterile and safe as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. Limiting live poker tables to four players is one of the directives.
Poker players and industry followers immediately noted that this plan is not feasible. Most players will not want to sit in a four-handed game. The rake and tips, even if reduced for the faster games, become unbeatable to most at this level. It also takes the social aspect out of live poker.
Will any Las Vegas poker rooms deal four-handed games?
It is apparent that most Las Vegas poker rooms will not reopen under the conditions required by gaming regulators. On the same day as the poker player table limit announcement, there were reports of Station Casinos laying off all its poker employees. Other casinos showed a lack of interest in spreading shorthanded poker before the mandatory closure by shuttering rooms early. For example, Venetian attempted three-handed tables but gave up before the closure order.
There may be some exceptions to this. According to data on Bravo Poker at the time, South Point spread games until the last hour before the forced closure on March 17. Its games were five-handed at the time. The Orleans dealt long into March 17 with the same five-handed policy. Two other Boyd Gaming poker rooms – Cannery and Sam’s Town – also stayed open until nearly the end. Golden Nugget dealt six-handed games.
If any Las Vegas poker room attempts to deal four-handed poker, I feel like these are the big favorites to do it: South Point has the biggest chance. The Orleans is a close second place.
Several Station Casinos poker rooms dealt into the last day. Red Rock Resort was the last to close before South Point. It spread seven-handed games and has reportedly already laid off its poker staff, making it highly unlikely it will restart poker any time soon.
Las Vegas Strip poker rooms unlikely to reopen in first phase
I do not believe any Las Vegas Strip casinos will launch poker immediately upon reopening. These resorts will try to generate as much cash flow with as few employees as possible due to the massive cash burns experienced during the closure.
Poker rooms, especially four-handed ones, are not conducive to generating rake that could help the bottom line in any meaningful way. I do not think any Las Vegas Strip poker room will deal a hand until the restrictions are relaxed to at least six-handed tables.
Will Las Vegas poker rooms survive?
This is all an educated guess. I have watched Las Vegas poker rooms closely for nearly 10 years and drew some conclusions from that experience.
A poker room not immediately reopening is not a cause for concern, even if the space is converted into slots. I believe some casinos will do this to help spread the machines out to comply with social distancing in the interim but will not mean permanent death for poker at that casino. Other poker rooms that do not reopen in the coming months will be walled or roped off. This allows the casino to easily bring poker back when conditions improve.
Las Vegas poker room prediction
There has been a trend of Las Vegas casinos dumping poker rooms in the last decade. I counted 27 in an article I wrote after the one at Strat closed last year. This shutdown will make that number skyrocket. I predict about 12 of the 31 Las Vegas poker rooms open in March never return. Some that do come back may be closed for a year or longer.
The poker rooms best suited to survive are destination and locals ones. I feel that Aria, Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Golden Nugget, Venetian and Wynn/Encore are huge favorites to keep poker rooms.
Others likely to retain poker are smaller locals casinos where the space inside the property is already underutilized and there is no need to remove tables. This includes most or all the casinos along Boulder Highway and in Henderson, like Boulder Station, Club Fortune, Green Valley Ranch, Sam’s Town and Skyline. The two in North Las Vegas – Cannery and Poker Palace – are also likely to be safe. Orleans, South Point and Red Rock are examples of large Las Vegas locals poker rooms that I expect to return when the dust settles.
That leaves small poker rooms, mostly along the Strip. I expect Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts to consolidate a few rooms. This will depend on the demand these companies see at the flagship poker rooms. This list includes Bally’s, Flamingo, Harrah’s, Planet Hollywood and Rio for Caesars. I think it is about guaranteed that the Rio poker room never reopens unless the World Series of Poker returns before the two-year leaseback ends. Small MGM Resorts poker rooms are Excalibur, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay and Mirage.
The balance of rooms left in Las Vegas are small and mostly at independent casinos. This list includes Binion’s, Palace Station, Sahara, Santa Fe Station, Silver 7’s and Westgate.
The two Station Casinos poker rooms are presumably closed indefinitely, though one or both probably comes back in the end. The others all feel like underdogs to relaunch.
South Point Poker Room Phone Number
I want to be wrong
I hope I am wrong. I do not want to see any poker room close or any employee lose a job. However, I am also more optimistic than most seem to be. When I predicted 20 Las Vegas poker rooms would survive this on Twitter, most replies took the under.
South Point Poker Room Phone Number
Regardless, the market will have ample space for the demand. There may just be fewer small rooms for players that prefer that setting over a large destination poker room.