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Excalibur poker room removes electronic tables

6 July 2009

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.

It was just last August that Excalibur became the first casino in Las Vegas

 pokertek_table
to host a poker room with exclusively electronic tables. The flashy PokerPro tables made by PokerTek were installed and Excalibur's Vice President of Gaming Operations Todd DeRemer said at the time that the hope was the new tables would give the casino an "opportunity to pique the interest of a different kind of player."

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."

Excalibur poker room removes electronic tables is republished from Online.CasinoCity.com.
Gary Trask

Gary serves as Casino City's Editor in Chief and has more than 25 years of experience as a writer and editor. He also manages new business ventures for Casino City.

A member of the inaugural Poker Hall of Fame Media Committee, Gary enjoys playing poker and blackjack, but spends most of his time sitting in the comfy confines of the sportsbook when in Las Vegas.

The Boston native is also a former PR pro in the golf-casino-resort industry and a fanatical golfer, allowing his two favorite hobbies - gambling and golf - to collide quite naturally.

Contact Gary at gary@casinocity.com and follow him on Twitter at @CasinoCityGT.

Gary Trask Websites:

twitter.com/#!/casinocityGT
Gary Trask
Gary serves as Casino City's Editor in Chief and has more than 25 years of experience as a writer and editor. He also manages new business ventures for Casino City.

A member of the inaugural Poker Hall of Fame Media Committee, Gary enjoys playing poker and blackjack, but spends most of his time sitting in the comfy confines of the sportsbook when in Las Vegas.

The Boston native is also a former PR pro in the golf-casino-resort industry and a fanatical golfer, allowing his two favorite hobbies - gambling and golf - to collide quite naturally.

Contact Gary at gary@casinocity.com and follow him on Twitter at @CasinoCityGT.

Gary Trask Websites:

twitter.com/#!/casinocityGT