In December, Maryland residents voted to expand table games offerings at its state’s casinos. The news was huge for poker players, who were previously forced to travel to neighboring West Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania for their action.
Last month, the first poker room in the state opened at the Hollywood Casino Perryville, just an hour outside of Philadelphia. The eight-table room spreads low- and mid-stakes games, as well as a $5-$10 no-limit hold’em game twice each week.
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According to Table Games Director Tony Ventura, the room has been packed to capacity since day one and the casino is now considering adding tables and introducing player promotions such as a bad beat jackpot.
“The response has been tremendous and you can tell that this is something the players have wanted for a long time,” said Ventura. “Before table games came to the state, many of our Maryland players were leaving the state to play poker. Now, they have games nearby. As soon as I open up a game, it fills up, and it’s been that way ever since we opened.”
This summer, the state’s largest casino will open up its own state-of-the-art poker room. Maryland Live! in Hanover, located about half an hour from both Baltimore and Washington D.C., has begun construction on a two-level poker room which will boast a whopping 50 to 60 tables among its 160,000 square feet of gaming space.
The room will be one of the largest in the Mid-Atlantic and will undoubtedly become a target for major poker tour stops, but Senior Vice President of Marketing Mario Maesano revealed that nothing has yet been confirmed.
“We do plan on offering tournaments, but it has yet to be determined if we will open with a tournament schedule or introduce them once the room has been broken in,” said Maesano. “We are currently reviewing partnership options to see if any make sense for our operation. Game limits and spreads are still being determined, but we are planning to offer a full array of games to accommodate every level of player from the casual to big games.”
The state of Maryland gets 20 percent of table games revenue and a whopping 60 percent of slot revenue, depending on whether or not the casino rents or owns their machines outright. This money is distributed monthly to various programs such as education, horse racing subsidies and small, minority and woman-owned businesses.
The Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore, currently under construction and scheduled to open in mid-2014, will feature between 80 and 110 table games, but there has been no announcement as to how big the poker room will be. Caesars Entertainment has, however, confirmed that the property will feature a World Series of Poker branded room.
A golf course in Western Maryland dubbed the Rocky Gap Resort will open a casino in June featuring 10 table games, but poker has not yet been mentioned in the expansion. However, the property will be owned and operated by Lakes Entertainment, a casino company headed by Lyle Berman, a prominent businessman and poker player who has worked on the board of directors for the World Poker Tour.
Hollywood Casino Perryville Winners
Another casino called Ocean Downs in Berlin, Maryland, will only install electronic table games.
In the first month of operation since introducing table games, Hollywood Casino in Perryville saw a 34 percent increase in their slot machine revenue, jumping from $5.964 million to $8.02 million. The casino brought in an additional $1.465 million from tables games alone.
By next summer, there will be at least three major poker rooms operating in the state and although Maryland’s state budget will reap the benefits thanks to a sizable revenue tax rate, the players in the state will undoubtedly be pleased with the additional poker options.
For more news from Maryland, check out its state page.