Best poker rooms Downtown Vegas

Hi all,

I will be in Vegas later this month. Does anyone have opinions on the best poker rooms in the Downtown area? What kinds of games/bet amounts should I expect to see? 

Ha! There is exactly one poker room in the downtown area (at the Golden Nugget) so I guess it's the best. They used to spread a decent $1-$3 game, along with some mediocre to ok tournaments. Haven't been there in a while, so I'll let somebody else fill in the details...

Usually one or two 2-4 or 3-6 limit games going, three or four 1-3 NL, and daily tourneys that get 3 to 5 tables.

Opposition is medium-lousy, but there are about a half dozen resident sharks who swim at the 1-3 games, looking to eat tourists. There's a fair amount of inadvertent (?) collusion between those sharks and the staff (favoritism in rulings and such). The dealers know where their bread is buttered, since often, tourists don't toke.

The 1-3 NL buyin isn't capped, so the game often plays bigger than you might otherwise expect, especially on weekends. At such a time, the sharks team up. But those games can be very soft, so if you can scope out who the predators and prey are, you might do OK.

One strongly negative factor is their awful Monte Carlo/high hand promo, which I characterize as such because when I calculated how much they take off the tables for that every hour, it seemed doubtful that they were returning even 50% of the money collected to the players. And the regular rake is pretty high as well. You just can't beat a game where eight bucks goes down the hole every hand.

So I don't really like this room, and there are better alternatives elsewhere, but it's the only game in (down)town. It's best utilized to play goofy-ass 3/6 limit, knock back a few drinks, and have a few laughs with all the terrible players who are hoping to hit the Monte Carlo.

Thanks to both of you for the info. 

1-3 NL sounded great until I got to the part about no cap on buy-in. That sound like it could get pretty brutal. 

 Goofing off watching people chase the ptomo at the  3-6 limit might be fun. Haha. 

 The tournament could be interesting what is the buy-in? 

Golden Nugget is the only poker room downtown and there haven't been any daily tournaments at all since Covid, except for their Grand series which runs usually the end of May through early July in their conference rooms.  Those are $250 on up to thousands depending on the tournament...and they run all kinds of poker game variants.

If you want a cheap tournament, play at Westgate, ~$60.  The others I'll play are Horseshoe $100 or Southpoint $120.  All the other rooms are PiTA to get to and no matter which one you play the structure is garbage.  Westgate is just convenient, small, and free parking with your players card in the sportsbook's back lot just steps from the poker room.

Don't know what the most recent tourneys require, but it used to be "$100+30," meaning that the house charged $130 to enter and then raked $30 out of your entry fee. No tournament with that kind of juice is worth playing. Not to say that any short tourney anywhere in Vegas will be any improvement.

GN doesn't have tournaments since Covid, but all poker rooms are charging a massive vig on their tournaments, usually 20-30%.  I still tip if I get paid, but not nearly as much as in the past, unfortunately.  What you put in and get back is reduced so much,

FYI.....Golden Nugget is 1 -2 NLH.  It is NOT 1 - 3.  It believe it is also the only poker room in town where cash on the table ($100 bills only) can play. 

That is true for sure Downtown!  I remember years back, maybe over a decade ago, playing GN and Binions cash games and I'd buy in for 2-300, then late at night 2-3 guys would show up with 10k+.  I had some really great sessions those days.  Binions was fun to play, GN was decent, but I hated being there on a table next to the rail with aholios smoking a foot away.  Made the non smoking poker room a joke.  Now I'm too slot brained/social media trained to have the patience to play cash correctly, as I get bored.  So it's usually VP, old school slots or a tournament with rebuys....with BJ and some Pai Gow if socializing with friends,

Actually, I've played both 1/2 and 1/3 there. Not really a lot of difference, though, as the stack sizes dictate the play. Either the 1/2 or the 1/3 play more like 2/5 quite often, particularly on the weekend.

There are still a couple of Strip rooms where cash on the table plays, as far as I remember, but it really doesn't affect things either way, aside from speeding things up a bit.