Regarding the slow but steady decline in $2-$4 hold 'em. My usual venue the Flamingo recently removed the game. The tourists and locals, even the so-called regulars whom I’ve been playing with for ten years, have now dispersed to the Orleans, Red Rock, and Golden Nugget. I wrote the Flamingo bosses and we’re not happy with their responses; the rake is bigger, so the heck with the small time 2-4 players. They now only have 3-6 limit or 1-2 no limit. I tried to explain to them how many players they lost and their money at the shops and restaurants. Can you address this?
[Editor's Note: Blair Rodman, co-author of Kill Phil and long-time Las Vegas poker aficionado, tackles this one.]
The question references $2-$4 limit hold'em, in which the maximum bet or raise on the last two rounds is $4, as opposed to no-limit, where all bets are only limited by the amount of money a player has on the table.
Poker in Las Vegas has had its up and downs. Prior to the poker explosion of 2003 (when the game went crazy due to the rise of Internet poker, televised poker featuring hole cams, and Chris Moneymaker's unlikely win at the WSOP Main Event in 2003), poker was declining significantly in Las Vegas and many rooms were being downsized or closed.
As a result of the poker explosion, many new poker rooms opened or existing rooms expanded in Las Vegas. Also, no-limit hold 'em was the game supporting the frenzy and limit games suffered. The arc was straight up until poker's Black Friday of 2011, when American players were denied access to the popular sites, such as PokerStars and Full Tilt, which offered world-wide player pools and great action, but were operating outside the law.
The result of Black Friday was that poker fell out of the public consciousness. TV poker shows were cancelled, poker magazines suffered due to the lack of advertising from the illegal sites, and many people who had come into poker by playing online gave up the game.
In Las Vegas, poker rooms, which were a less profitable use of casino footage than slot machines, struggled to justify their existence. Many downsized or closed altogether. The bean counters cast a critical eye on the bottom line of their poker rooms and I'm sure that's what happened to your 2-4 game. Not spreading it was a better financial decision for them than continuing to offer it. Casinos exist to make profits, not to accept less profits to placate customers, not matter how loyal.
In regards to the last parts of your question, I've argued for years about the benefits of having a poker room, primarily for the reasons you stated. However, corporate decisions often don't make sense to consumers. Different departments are autonomous and managers are concerned with their immediate profits, not the benefit to the business as a whole. Benny Binion understood the value of getting poker players in the door, but his family-owned operation was a far cry from modern corporate casinos.
Sadly, unless you can demonstrate to the card-room manager that having the 2-4 on a permanent basis will increase his own bottom line, as opposed to those of the different hotel operations, you're probably looking at patronizing other rooms for your game.
That said, if you show up at the room with a full table's worth of players ready to play and there are open tables and dealers to work it, most rooms will spread whatever you want. I've seen this happen many times.
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