For poker rooms, what they'd call a winning hand | HeraldTribune.com
For poker rooms, what they'd call a winning hand
By Doug Sword
Published: Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 1:00 a.m.
STAFF PHOTOS / E. SKYLAR LITHERLAND
State- approved gambling regulations have allowed poker rooms across the state to offer "no limit" buy-ins, up from a $100 maximum buy-in for a cash game.
The economy is in the doldrums, but you couldn't tell from the way Florida's poker rooms have been rejuvenated by a new law allowing high-stakes games.
The two dozen card rooms around the state reported a 31 percent spike in July, the month after the state relaxed some betting limits, removed others and allowed card rooms to stay open 24 hours on weekends.
The change in the law brought in high rollers, with a surprising influx of players from California, Las Vegas and Atlantic City, said Noah Carbone, card room director at the Palm Beach Kennel Club, whose $1.15 million "take" in July was tops in the state.
The take is how much the house gets, usually per hand, for hosting the game.
"A lot of our business right now are the higher-limit games," said Carbone, noting that card rooms like his and the other Florida operation that topped $1 million in July - Pompano Park - are now regularly hosting big games that are the equal of those in Atlantic City.
There also were some stunning increases in business at East Coast gambling rooms, including Miami's Magic City, where revenues jumped 73 percent, and Palm Beach, up 46 percent.
The increases on the West Coast were generally more pedestrian: 15 percent at the Sarasota Kennel Club, 16 percent at St. Petersburg's Derby Lane, and 19 percent at the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track.
But that is a Florida thing: Midwesterners tend to buy second homes on the West Coast while those from New York and New Jersey gravitate to the East Coast, said Wil Herrera, director of poker operations at Mardi Gras Racetrack & Gaming in Hallandale Beach.
"They're much more aggressive," said Herrera, who should know, because he used to work in the Naples-Fort Myers cardroom.
In all, Florida card rooms took in $11.3 million in July compared with $8.6 million in July 2009.
It is too early to tell if the increased availability of high-stakes poker is going to spur an increase in addiction problems, said Brian Kongsvik, director of the help line at the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling.
Increasingly, callers to the help line list card games as their primary problem. But in July, the first month that the limits were lifted in Florida card rooms, blackjack overtook poker as the card game most listed by callers.
Then, again, poker staged a comeback in August, when 60 percent of those with problems related to card games listed that game.
It will probably be three or six months before a pattern becomes discernible, Kongsvik said.
Generally, though, Kongsvik worries about two possible impacts to the easing of card room rules.
His first concern is that high-stakes poker was already available at Indian casinos in some parts of Florida, but the new rules will introduce high-stakes games to rural areas that did not previously have any.
The second is that the "stars" of poker are now showing up in Florida. Kongsvik worries that some college student who idolizes a big-name poker player appearing in Florida will see an opportunity.
The thinking might be: "I see this guy on TV. I'll sit down and take a shot at him."
Generally speaking, the new law, which went into effect July 1, changes both the when and the how of poker playing.
Card rooms had been limited to 18 hours of operation a day, but can now stay open up to 24 hours on weekends and holidays.
Also, at dog tracks, card rooms could only open on racing days or if there were simulcast races. But that link to racing is no longer required.
When it comes to betting, the new law bumps the maximum raise in a hand of poker from $2 to $5. But that is on "limit" games.
If they can afford it, players can sit down at "no limit" Texas Hold'em games where there is no maximum bet.
For example, Tampa Bay Downs advertises games with buy-ins, the amount of chips you have to buy to play, ranging up to $10,000.
A technical review of the new rules would be, well, technical, but what they amount to is that gamblers can now play for whatever they want, Palm Beach's Carbone said. At a high-stakes table, the players are limited only by what they agree to.
"Now the cap's off; the player sets the limit," he said.
When it was pointed out to him that Palm Beach County, like Sarasota County, was among the counties hit hardest by the end of the building boom, Carbone recalled something a college professor once told him:
"The two industries that survive during a recession - one of them's gambling and the other is alcohol."
This story appeared in print on page A1
Copyright ? 2010 HeraldTribune.com ? All rights reserved. Restricted use only.
For poker rooms, what they'd call a winning hand
By Doug Sword
Published: Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 1:00 a.m.
State- approved gambling regulations have allowed poker rooms across the state to offer "no limit" buy-ins, up from a $100 maximum buy-in for a cash game.
The economy is in the doldrums, but you couldn't tell from the way Florida's poker rooms have been rejuvenated by a new law allowing high-stakes games.
The two dozen card rooms around the state reported a 31 percent spike in July, the month after the state relaxed some betting limits, removed others and allowed card rooms to stay open 24 hours on weekends.
The change in the law brought in high rollers, with a surprising influx of players from California, Las Vegas and Atlantic City, said Noah Carbone, card room director at the Palm Beach Kennel Club, whose $1.15 million "take" in July was tops in the state.
The take is how much the house gets, usually per hand, for hosting the game.
"A lot of our business right now are the higher-limit games," said Carbone, noting that card rooms like his and the other Florida operation that topped $1 million in July - Pompano Park - are now regularly hosting big games that are the equal of those in Atlantic City.
There also were some stunning increases in business at East Coast gambling rooms, including Miami's Magic City, where revenues jumped 73 percent, and Palm Beach, up 46 percent.
The increases on the West Coast were generally more pedestrian: 15 percent at the Sarasota Kennel Club, 16 percent at St. Petersburg's Derby Lane, and 19 percent at the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track.
But that is a Florida thing: Midwesterners tend to buy second homes on the West Coast while those from New York and New Jersey gravitate to the East Coast, said Wil Herrera, director of poker operations at Mardi Gras Racetrack & Gaming in Hallandale Beach.
"They're much more aggressive," said Herrera, who should know, because he used to work in the Naples-Fort Myers cardroom.
In all, Florida card rooms took in $11.3 million in July compared with $8.6 million in July 2009.
It is too early to tell if the increased availability of high-stakes poker is going to spur an increase in addiction problems, said Brian Kongsvik, director of the help line at the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling.
Increasingly, callers to the help line list card games as their primary problem. But in July, the first month that the limits were lifted in Florida card rooms, blackjack overtook poker as the card game most listed by callers.
Then, again, poker staged a comeback in August, when 60 percent of those with problems related to card games listed that game.
It will probably be three or six months before a pattern becomes discernible, Kongsvik said.
Generally, though, Kongsvik worries about two possible impacts to the easing of card room rules.
His first concern is that high-stakes poker was already available at Indian casinos in some parts of Florida, but the new rules will introduce high-stakes games to rural areas that did not previously have any.
The second is that the "stars" of poker are now showing up in Florida. Kongsvik worries that some college student who idolizes a big-name poker player appearing in Florida will see an opportunity.
The thinking might be: "I see this guy on TV. I'll sit down and take a shot at him."
Generally speaking, the new law, which went into effect July 1, changes both the when and the how of poker playing.
Card rooms had been limited to 18 hours of operation a day, but can now stay open up to 24 hours on weekends and holidays.
Also, at dog tracks, card rooms could only open on racing days or if there were simulcast races. But that link to racing is no longer required.
When it comes to betting, the new law bumps the maximum raise in a hand of poker from $2 to $5. But that is on "limit" games.
If they can afford it, players can sit down at "no limit" Texas Hold'em games where there is no maximum bet.
For example, Tampa Bay Downs advertises games with buy-ins, the amount of chips you have to buy to play, ranging up to $10,000.
A technical review of the new rules would be, well, technical, but what they amount to is that gamblers can now play for whatever they want, Palm Beach's Carbone said. At a high-stakes table, the players are limited only by what they agree to.
"Now the cap's off; the player sets the limit," he said.
When it was pointed out to him that Palm Beach County, like Sarasota County, was among the counties hit hardest by the end of the building boom, Carbone recalled something a college professor once told him:
"The two industries that survive during a recession - one of them's gambling and the other is alcohol."
This story appeared in print on page A1
Copyright ? 2010 HeraldTribune.com ? All rights reserved. Restricted use only.