Excalibur poker room removes electronic tables

Gaming News

6 July 2009

Gary Trask

LAS VEGAS – Less than year after going all-electronic in its poker room, Excalibur is going back to live dealers and real chips and cards. A MGM Mirage spokesperson confirmed that the company planned to remove the 12 PokerPro electronic poker tables on Monday and hoped to have its live poker room back in action by as early as Friday.

But on Sunday night, Lynn Holt, the VP of Marketing for Excalibur admitted that did not turn out to be the case.

"Excalibur was happy to be the first Las Vegas Strip casino to offer poker players the opportunity to enjoy the PokerTek automated system," Holt said. "We found the system to be an efficient and viable poker alternative for players at all levels.

"While our experience was successful, we ultimately found that live poker games more accurately reflect the interactive poker experience customers have come to expect when they make their way to the excitement of the Las Vegas Strip."

In a press release last month, PokerTek said that it received notification on June 19 that the Excalibur had "elected to exercise its rights to terminate its agreement at any time if the field trial for the PokerPro system lasted more than four months." PokerPro received final approval by the Nevada Gaming Commission and exited field trial on March 19, 2009.

"We thoroughly enjoyed working with the Excalibur and their partnership was critical to the success of our field trial in Nevada," said Mark Roberson, PokerTek's acting CEO. "Over the past year, we've built a strong base of PokerPro players and our product is stronger than ever as a result of the field trial process. We do not expect the termination of this agreement to have a significant impact on our reported revenues or results of operations."

As Casino City's Senior Editor, Gary helps coordinate, write and edit all of the editorial content for the company's Web sites and publications. The Boston native has worked in the journalism field as a writer and editor for more than 15 years and he is the former editor of a golf magazine. Gary has been with Casino City since 2007 and he was recently asked by Harrah's to become a member of the Poker Hall of Fame's Media Committee.

Gary's gambling "career" began in junior high when he and his friends would buy hundreds of pieces of bubble gum and use them as the stakes in a weekly poker game played in a friend's garage. The bubble gum eventually turned into poker chips and thus an avid card player was born.

No Limit Hold'em tournaments are a personal favorite of Gary's, but he also enjoys a night of dealer's choice with a variety of games like Seven-Card No Peek, Guts or Five-Card Draw with a qualifier. In addition to playing cards, another of Gary's interests is golf, a game that allows his two favorite hobbies to collide quite naturally.

Gary, who, when in Las Vegas, spends most of his time inside the sportsbooks, welcomes your comments, questions and story ideas. You can reach him at gary@casinocity.com or you can follow him on Twitter at @casinocityGT