Poker Articles

Poker: How It Was, How It Is, & How It Should Be...
By Oklahoma Johnny

Part Two: How It Is

Just as the President gives a State of the Union Address once each year, I am going to tell you how it is in the world of poker. It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. First I'll explain why it is the best of times...

More people are playing poker today than ever before. More people play poker than golf, fish or play football or basketball. In fact, almost all of the people that do those things play poker also. So more people are playing poker than ever in history. The average age of poker players is increasing, so we have more and more seniors playing these days. The world of poker is expanding at a very rapid rate. The number of legal places that seniors can play has increased this year, as many new casino and Indian cardrooms have opened.

The Seniors World Championship of Poker will be holding its seventh annual event in Los Angeles the 17th through the 24th of October 2000. The 31st World Series of Poker will begin April 20th at Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas, and in the Big One 500 players are expected to put up $10,000 each, creating a prize pool of $5,000,000. The prize for first place will be $1,500,000, and 45 places will receive $15,000.

My good friend Bob "The Silver Eagle" Thompson will again be doing a wonderful job as Tournament Director, and oh yes, the kids will be playing with us also. I was down at Binion's last week playing in a $10,000 Satellite with Benny Binion's grandson, Benny Binion, Jr. I met his grandfather 50 years ago and played with him before the beginning of the World Series, and now I'm still here playing in his casino, this time with his grandson. It got down to the two of us, and I got lucky and beat Benny Jr., which is something I was never able to do with his grandfather (see my Card Player column in which I told how his grandfather beat me). But the kids are coming along, and there will always be a poker game.

We have the TOC in July at the Orleans, and there are more and more tournaments all over. Look at all the major tournament listings and local daily tournaments here in the Poker Pages Tournament section, in Card Player and in Poker Digest. Poker is alive and well.

And now for the bad things about "how it is." I would never want to hurt poker because I love the game so much, but the casinos are the poker players' worst enemies. They consider the poker room the armpit of the casino and treat the players accordingly. The poker magazines can never say anything about the way a card room does things because of the relationship they have with them, but here for the first time I can tell you how it is.

The casino knows it is going to get the money, but they want to get it more quickly. I have seen casino managers walk through a full card room unhappy, because the pit is empty and he wants all the players out there pulling on the slots. They want each square foot of the casino to pay off. The food and beverage manager will charge the poker room full price for each drink because he wants his bottom line to look good. He will charge the poker players full price for buffet tickets when he is giving them away for free or half price.

I remember at Harrow's, the Hotel manager charged the poor old poker player $15.00 more for a room than he charged the average guy who walked in off the street. Hot dogs at the Orleans last year were $0.75 downstairs, yet in the poker room they were $1. Also, all of the overhead items are charged out to each department by a square foot ratio. Of course a poker table takes up as much room as 10 slots, and slots produce 65 to 75% of the casinos bottom line. The casino gives no credit to the fact that the wives and friends of the poker player are there with him and are playing the slots, table games or sports books while he is playing poker, not to mention filling up the hotel rooms. Did you know they had the Nevada law changed so that you cannot have a freestanding cardroom -- you must have a minimum of a 200-room hotel to get a poker room -- but you can have slots in the 7/11.

Also the casino wants you to feel sorry for its poker employees, who they pay the minimum wage, and expect you the poker player to tip him to fill out his income. The casino also does not want you to like the poker room manager because they are afraid that you will arrange something with him. That is why the card room manager is hardly ever in or around the cardroom. Then it is bad when the casino accuses one of the players of wrongdoing and have him barred from their cardroom and other cardrooms where they can. They want to deal with us one on one, and they can ruin a player's reputation without even charging him in a court of law. This is wrong in this country. We have the right to face our accuser.

One more thing... the jackpots today are one of the worst things to happen to poker. Do you think they return 5% or more of the jackpot take? I want to end this and go play some poker. I Love the game but I hate the casino.

Until next time, stay lucky.