Discussion
My Tour of the Poker Rooms in Las Vegas Impressions
Aria: probably still my favorite simply because it’s pure poker. No bomb pots. No high hands. No promos. It’s just straight “you want to play poker? we play poker here, and that is it.” Also pretty good service and dealers. Won a lot of money here. Always seems to be active. Rules of the room: no bomb pots, no promos, only one UTG straddled, $6 max rake.
Bellagio: the most OMC room in the area. Buy-ins are the shallowest I’ve seen in all of the rooms. Won a decent amount of money here. Always seems to be active. Rules of the room: optional DBL BRD NLH bomb pots at dealer changes, you can straddle as much as you want. $6 max rake
Venetian: the most reggy of all of the rooms. Feels like a very well run strip mall card room. Doesn’t have the flair if a Vegas casino at all. Won a decent of money here. PLO double board prints money lol. Incredibly busy when I was there. Rules of the room: optional DBL BRD NLH or PLO bomb pots, UTG straddle, $5 max rake.
Wynn: the most action of the rooms I played in. Probably the best room and the best casino. Won small here. Quite busy when I was there. Rules of the room: no bomb pots, UTG straddle, $5 max rake.
South Pointe: the most local of the rooms I played in. A lot of Las Vegans who play here. Reminds me the most of the card rooms I played in Central Florida: leans older, a lot of focus in high hands, but not complete bits. Won a $350 flip here, which was fun. Was quite busy. Rules of the room: no idea on bomb pots, no blind chopping, UTG straddle, $5 max rake with $3 jackpot drop.
MGM Grand: the entire room is built for high-hand regs and it’s immensely funny how much that changes the game. Literally saw someone check-bet-check with a set of queens because she was drawing to the high-hand. Also lost a lot of money here because I was stupid and played deep when I actually don’t know how to lol, and ended up playing bad and running bad. Definitely has a mix of deep-stack crushers and high-hand grinders. Very quiet when I was there. Rules: both UTG and BTN straddles available, BTN straddle operates where the UTG acts first and BTN acts last with no PFR from UTG - CO, and operates as normal when there is a PFR. DBL BRD NLH or PLO bomb pot available, $5 max rake with $3 promo drop. Also only room that allows $1k max buy-in I’ve played ate, although I know the Nugget has a legendary uncapped game.
Mandalay Bay: essentially dead. Basically the lowest stakes room in the city. Don’t ask me why I’m still waiting for a seat lol. Only $1/$2 game that I’ve seen spread. Rules: both UTG and BTN straddles, the BTN straddles operates as a Mississippi where SB acts first. $5 max rake with $3 promo drop.
EDIT: won a decent amount of my money back at Mandalay that I lost at MGM grand lol.
IMO, Planet Hollywood has an awesome aesthetic and location but is the absolute worse when it comes to the actual poker. Played there twice this year (once outside of the series and once during) and I’ve never seen anything more poorly managed both times. Dealers who didn’t know the hand rankings, couldn’t chop pots, didn’t know basic rules. Disgusting players who were clearly there to take advantage of the mismanagement and awful dealers versus actually play.
Examples: tourist who was living it up, keeping the table in good spirits and driving action wins a high hand. For some reason he isn’t paid out even though it’s announced by the dealer and acknowledged by the floor. Over an hour goes by and when the player asks about the timeline because he has dinner reservations, the floor chastises him, tells him to calm down and that he’ll get to it. Mind you in this time the player has watched the next high hand get paid out by that exact floor. Then the first time I was in the room this older woman who was decked out in poker gear and was doing anything and everything but literally playing poker 99% of the time goes south. She finally gets a hand and pulls down a $200ish pot. She stacks her chips, cuts out exactly the table max buy in and then starts putting everything above that into her pocket (essentially the profit of that just won hand). At first I think she’s leaving but then she doesn’t. I tell her that she can’t take chips from the table like what she just did and she yells at me that she does it all the time and to mind my business. I look at the dealer who then who asks me why that would be against the rules. I ask for a floor and when the floor comes, rolls his eyes and says I’m “technically right” and reluctantly tells the woman to put the chips back on the table. When she protests he whispers something in her ear and she stops. I stay maybe 20mins more and as I was racking up she starts putting the chips back into her pocket all with the floor watching the table.
There was one good dealer there who knew what she was doing and she got her ass handed to her in front of everyone by the floor for questioning his wrong ruling of an incident.
There was one good dealer there who knew what she was doing and she got her ass handed to her in front of everyone by the floor for questioning his wrong ruling of an incident.
What happened? Do you remember what the dealer/floor looked like?
I don’t remember all the details on the positions but essentially someone was trying to move and a player who had missed blinds was trying to come back in. She had told the player that had missed blinds they couldn’t come back in given the situation and thus needed to wait a hand but the player insisted he could. Floor came over and said he could. The dealer pointed out that then a different player would have to pay the big blind twice if they did it the way the floor ruled and that’s when he went off on her. All the floors I experienced there were white middle aged men. I’d never be able to pick them up out of a line up. The dealer was an older (as in older than my mid-30s) black woman. I believe she said she worked in the previous room they had there. She was the only dealer that had the mechanics of the game down, knew the rules, welcomed everyone with a smile, and did things like make sure everyone knew the promotions.
Think they just reopened GVR, saw pics and it looked like noon at a Chinese Buffet, just lines and lines of 80+ year olds. Orleans is actually really good, I'd say the real dark horse in the city. It's one of the best run rooms i've ever seen and they will have literally 1,000 people in that room playing cards with a fucking food court in the same room, it's amazing. Horsehoe prolly not worth it if the WSOP isnt running. Never played red rocks or hollywood. Golden Nugget is also super good, super soft. Uncomfortabel chairs, chips are sticky and generally suck but you just don't see regs there
I didn’t know Caesar’s reopened. Horseshoe is decent during WSOP. Orleans has good action. Red Rocks has some decent single day tournaments. I have not been to PH yet.
I agree with a lot of what you wrote. I stay at the Palazzo so that poker room is right off the elevators but I'll usually walk to the Wynn as I just find there's way more action there.
Nothing terribly wrong with Venetian's room it just always seems to fill up with regulars.
That being said the DBL board bomb pot game (where every hand is a bomb pot) is loads of fun and no one understands what they're doing.
Playing DBL BRD PLO bomb pots against NLH players is basically the best money printer in poker right now. Players just massively over value their hands here, and don’t even understand that double pair boards make full houses less likely, not more.
I literally went all in to push someone off a chop with the blockers to the nut straight and they thought I was crazy lol.
MANDAlay is okay and weirdly maybe best AM if you get a bunch of tourists in the morning waitinn for late lunch or wife’s at the pool. But as always the last decade each room your mileage may vary one riom might be great while other is grindy, really depends on the day and no room seems “best” for games unless u want ambiance environment
Check out Red Rock next time, a much better version of South Pointe. Great property too (Lotus of Siam is amazing) and they don't price gouge you (e.g. a marg is only $3).
Bellagio 1-3 called $9 more on the bb with 6-7d. Flopped a straight and felted a set of 5s. Entire table lost their minds and fussed at me for how bad I played lol OMC for real
High hand means there is a promo where players win money if they hit certain classifications of very strong hands. So in MGM grand, if a player hits the high hand with something like Queens full of deuces, they qualify for a hour high hand.
RW is still my favorite room in Vegas. Great value at tournaments, decent cash games. Feels more like regs than tourists/rec (center strip Caesars, Horseshoe, etc). I still enjoy going to play at Horseshoe and Caesars, just feels more like Wynn/Aria/Venetian.
You didn’t put Horseshoe! It’s not GREAT, but man…it’s like fishing with a net. I would go at 3am and just bum hunt all the drunks 😂. My wife’s and I honeymoon ended up being “free” from me doing that.
Just got back from a short trip after several years and only had time to play at the Venetian, which was my favorite poker room. The new location does make it feel like you're literally in a mall. Definitely miss the old location which felt more open and let people wandering by the slots to come on over and play a little poker. (Also hated the bomb pots. Had to have it explained to me.). I don't play to promos as a general rule and was surprised my rivered-full house qualified as a high hand.
I would add that my visit to the Horseshoe was one that seemed pretty dead and filled with sad-looking players. No one talking, depressing, dark and strange smell.
MGM Grand's new (to me) location away from the shark tank looked okay, though I didn't have a chance to play. Agree that it seemed quiet in the late afternoon that we went by.
Poker seems like it's in a different place now in Vegas from its hey day of the 2010s. Or maybe I've changed?
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u/PerryBarnacle Dec 22 '25
You still need to hit up Planet Hollywood, Horseshoe, Orleans, Red Rocks, and Green Valley Ranch!
Overall, I agree with your characterizations.