Lee Jones poker writer
Lee Jones

What's the worst poker room?

Asked on Feb 5 2025
comments-icon
8

Let's say you're getting ready to visit San Diego. You've never been, and are excited to experience a new city. So you call up a friend who's lived there for 20 years, and say, "Hey, what are the worst restaurants in San Diego?"

Yeah, me neither. 

So it's not surprising that nobody has ever done a review of the worst poker rooms in Las Vegas (or anywhere else for that matter). PokerOrg recently asked if the Aria was the best poker room in the world, but we've never surveyed the worst.

That's where y'all come in. Tell us about terrible poker rooms. Or at least, an aspect of a perfectly fine poker room that would be the first thing you'd change if you were in charge.

I'll go first. Sometime in the late 1980's, I went to check out Sutter's Place – a tiny cardroom in Alviso, on the northern outskirts of San Jose, California. I drove out there – walking into the building, I felt that I was entering a time portal to the 1960's. Which was actually pretty cool, and I wish I'd paid more attention to that aspect of it. Sadly, all I noticed were very old men, sitting playing $1/2 limit hold'em. 11-handed. I should have pulled up a cup of coffee and gotten some stories – the place had opened in 1929 and closed in 1992. But all I could see was a terrible poker game, so I turned around and left.

What's your story about bad, or terrible, or awful cardrooms?

Two final points:

  1. Keep it light. It will be best if that poker room no longer exists, or at least has been through a makeover or three. No names of people. Let's have fun with this, not make it a bitch-fest.
  2. Why did Sutter's Place close? So glad you asked. San Jose had a limit of two poker room licenses (and may still). While Sutter's Place itself was worth very little, its gaming license was worth millions of dollars. They took that gaming license, and used it to build the legendary Bay 101. In fact, the holding company that runs Bay 101 is called "Sutter's Place, Inc." Now you know the rest of the story.

Okay, the floor is open. What are the worst poker rooms?