Message sent to poker players on my home game invitation list, and some of their responses:
I'm soon interviewing for a poker podcast and would like to hear your insights about the state of liver poker in Washington state. Below are my observations but I'd be interested in your remarks so that I can consider them in my interview.
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Historically (up until about 2017-18), legal commercial live poker in WA was offered by both tribal casinos and non-tribal cardrooms, with the larger tribal casinos - Muckleshoot, Tulalip, and Emerald Queen Casino having large enough rooms to offer large sized tournament series. The cardrooms in the Puget sound area - Silver dollar, Caribbean, Hollywood, Red Dragon, Hideaway (anyone remember that one?) were small-sized and limited in their offerings. Many casual players preferred to play at the tribal casinos where they had a better game selection, food and beverage offerings, non-poker activities and great poker tournaments.
In the 2018-19 period, Muckleshoot and Snoqualmie tribes shut down their poker rooms, inexplicably.
After the Covid pandemic, other tribal properties like Tulalip and EQC failed to re-open their poker rooms as well.
To fill the gap in the market, Fortune (Renton and Lacey), and Palace opened 15-table cardrooms and a few others expanded their rooms. Maverick gaming purchased and modernized a number of commercial cardrooms, includes Aces and Caribbean in the Seattle area.
However, tournament opportunities are still severely limited compared to a decade ago, and there is no indication from the Tribes of imminent re-openings or new investments in poker.
Mainly to blame for this sad state of affairs is the regulatory framework. While the commercial cardrooms fall under state legislation and the state gambling commission, tribal casinos have their own separate framework. Commercial cardrooms operate under the presumption of generating food and drink revenue, with card games as a secondary priority. Every time there is a proposal to raise gaming limits (the most recent being a proposal to go from $300 to $500 per bet), the tribes - although inactive in the commercial cardroom and poker economy - oppose the proposals with the argument that it would encourage "problem gambling". This is a sham and hypocritical, given that they are allowed $500 limits; so their true intent is likely to severely limit legal poker in WA state so that gaming revenue stops bleeding from their casinos to private cardrooms. This is also a short-sighted tactic, since they could just as well re-open their poker rooms and draw in the crowds - if run effectively. So the entire saga seems to be one of poor leadership by the tribes and their inability / lack of knowledge how to profitably run a poker room. Incidentally, the gaming commission eventually compromised and raised the betting limit to $400 effective 9/25/23.
An offshoot of this situation is that illegal and gray-area games - from rake-based tournaments and large private games - are flourishing. No-rake low stake home games of our type are never a problem (aside from the odd Keith-style cheating event), but when people start raking them and large sums of money change hands, that creates inherent risks to the players including running into the commission's crosshairs. As well, the short sighted regulatory environment creates incentive for players to go online, where they are at risk of contravening state laws to the extent of facing felony charges.
All in all this is a sad state of affairs, which should be addressed in the future by a more modern-looking and less puritanical approach to gaming at the state legislative level. Refer to recent legislation in states like New Jersey, Michigan, Delaware to allow online poker and other states like Arizona, Florida, California to raise live betting levels to the extent where (e.g.) in California and Florida you can go all in for unlimited amounts.
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Responses:
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Steve:
I think the tribal casinos continue to be short sighted as you noted on at least two things:
- I think they keep investing in table games instead of poker because they think it's a zero-sum game of gamblers. If there's no poker room, gamblers are going to have to play table games or slots. However, I know many poker players that would never play table games (again) because they understand the odds favor the house (and frankly, table games just aren't fun).
- It's my understanding that the tribal casinos had heavily lobbied to make online poker a felony in WA state as they feared it would take players away from their (once existing) live games. I think the WSOP in 2006 showed that online poker brought in MORE players to live games. Some people start out online and then want to play live. Certainly some live players may decide it's more convenient to play online, but live games and online games play very differently and appeal to different folks. I still believe that legalizing online poker in WA would have brought in more live players over time.
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Rory:
Super interesting stuff. I'm not sure the context of the podcast, but I do think more attention should be given to the other side of the argument to get the full picture.
Is poker just inherently expensive to operate and as such not a great business for the casino's?
What other reasons do the casinos have for opposing other cardrooms/online poker in Washington State?
I think trying to fully understand the opposing point of views would be helpful and may, in fact make your "argument" stronger.
If I were an unbiased party listening in, I would really want to understand the strongest points for both sides.
Mannes to Rory:
Good points Rory. Hard for me to think of motivations for lowering poker investment other than high operating costs, and perhaps the existing legislation hinders the tribes as well.
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Greg:
Hideaway...on my paper route in Shoreline. Next door was Cliff's card room until 1986.
Great thoughts. Maybe throw in the rise of casual players after 1996 or so that mirrors the rise of wealthy tech-bros in the region (obviously Microsoft and Amazon but includes major a ton of Google, Oracle etc). There was/is nightly games inside a [company] cafeteria that would routinely have $50,000 on the table back in 2005 when I played.
Mannes to Greg:
Thanks Greg, good point to add. Don't think I'll mention [company] by name but just refer to the existence of these games until very recently.
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Steve:
I was part of the early [company] poker tournament and cash game scenes and although they aren't run anymore, would hate to get anyone in trouble by drawing attention to them. When you have young employees that are single with lots of money and gamble in them, the games can get quite big. We had legal approval of our home games on campus (generally in 2 cafeterias depending on who was hosting) because there was no rake. At the peak, there were games every weeknight and sometimes a bigger buy-in deepstack tournament on the weekends. Those were the days...
Mannes to Steve:
Thanks Steve - interesting that they were legal. I wish we had room somewhere for more tables and we could do this with $0 rake :)
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Neven:
Thank you for sharing. This all sounds good and I want to learn more about this next time I see you.
The only note that I have here is that I would recommend to just be a bit careful when discussing tribal casinos. As we discussed at Rainier, I do believe that only way to relaxation of regulation goes through tribal gaming. One should try not to create enemies (even if everything you said is of course absolutely true).
Mannes to Neven:
Agree - I'll soft pedal and say that we don't have a full understanding of tribal considerations - also that we are all here courtesy of the tribes and not the other way around.
Wish we had someone from the tribal community who understands poker to talk to.
Neven:
And also, as you are probably aware, poker is still 300. Only house-banked games are 400 now (https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=230-15-135 and https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=230-15-140 )
Mannes to Neven:
Uh oh. Looks like I misread the whole situation. I thought that "house banked games" also apply to poker. Damn.
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Josh:
Mannes, I think your observations are accurate. From what I've seen, the tribal casinos have filled poker room spaces with high-end slots, which produce a greater profit margin. Most gaming decisions are designed for this purpose (like various blackjack side bets), so clearly they are bringing in more per day or week on slots than what could be obtained in table rakes minus staffing/overhead. It's interesting why this has happened in Washington while casinos in other states still offer robust poker games + tournaments. I was in Albuquerque a few months ago and the largest tribal casino had a huge, crowded room, including high limit tables. And obviously Vegas has plenty of options too, although those casinos offer greater comp incentives to play more.
Another notable situation is the fact that only a few states allow online poker with real money exchanging hands, but Washington is completely at the other end by designating the activity as a felony. And we might be the only state to do so. I'm sure if Caesars or a similar large company backed it like they did with sports betting in tribal casinos (only, which is a whole other issue), then we'd see the law change. Plenty for you to talk about!
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Scott:
One more note about live local poker - I played a Vegas tournament this summer with a big poker producer and he mentioned that he’d love to do a big MTT series in the PNW but none of the current poker rooms can hold 600 players. They would handle the logistics and the dealers but they’d need the facility. Back in the day, the tribal casinos could have opened up a ballroom and a big series like this would fill hotel rooms.
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Talib:
Tell them to make it no limit :)
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Carla:
Hi Mannes. I've been bummed that most poker rooms in WA state have closed - most prior to the pandemic. There are no attractive tournament options.
A few months ago I decided to make my first trip to Vegas in years with the intent of spending 3 to 4 days playing tournaments and lower stakes no limit
Unfortunately I found most rooms in Vegas have closed as well. The ones that are open rarely run tournaments and those that do are funky structures.
I realize that this may not be at all relevant to your comments about WA state poker but it's important to notice the trend. I spent a couple of weeks before my trip calling casinos to find out their poker room status and was disappointed day after day. I'd ask why they were closed but never really received answers.
Just some observations my friend.
Mannes to Carla:
Thanks Carla!
A bit surprised you didn't find enough variety in Vegas, but it's true that many of the older rooms with lower buyin structures have made place to newer ones (Wynn, Resorts World, Venetian, Aria, Caesar's) that run higher buying tournaments.
The app I use to find tournaments is Poker Atlas.
