Poker is back at Planet Hollywood — the first room to reopen after closing during the COVID pandemic in the summer of 2021. And poker will return again soon to Caesars Palace, joining Horseshoe's Hall of Fame Poker Room to form a trio of rooms under the Caesars Entertainment umbrella that is poised to serve large crowds during the WSOP years to come.
The decision to reopen Planet Hollywood bucks a perceived downward trend for poker in Las Vegas. COVID was the final straw for many poker rooms. While Las Vegas has rebounded, poker hasn’t returned across the board in the casinos that shuttered their rooms.
Even now, the perception lingers that Las Vegas faces an economic downturn. Whether or not you believe that depends on what you read and whose data you trust, but one can't help but notice a gray cloud forming over the city in 2025.
Poker remains on the back burner all over, so why is Caesars bucking that trend? They're a poker company, Senior Vice President of Poker Operations Jack Effel says. So, why not?
"Here's the way I looked at it," Effel says. "Caesars owns a lot of big resorts, and we're a poker family. We're a poker company. We support poker, and as part of our product line, we should offer poker anywhere that we possibly can."
Planet Hollywood fits the profile of a casino that should have a bustling poker room. Its location in the middle of The Strip makes it accessible from the WSOP, and the upstairs space is set to expand for larger events. Management's full embrace of Planet Hollywood's party vibe throughout the summer and the rest of the year will be key to differentiating it from other rooms.
Big demand at the best rooms
Caesars Entertainment also operates the Hall of Fame Poker Room at Horseshoe, with a reboot of the flagship Caesars Palace room expected by the end of May. It's a return to form for the self-described poker company that wants to remain at the heart of the action as the home of the WSOP for at least the next two decades. COVID? A temporary setback.
"I think that the COVID era was a much different time, and business was tough for everyone. The liquidity didn’t shrink — players just found other places to play. Now they’re back, and so we're in a much different era. You go to the Bellagio, you go to the Aria, they're all busy. I just think there's a big demand for poker, and as long as there's a demand, it would be against our best service to our customers to not offer it."
Effel pushes back further on the idea that there is a downward trend for poker in Las Vegas. That's not what they see in the market, and that's not what the data is telling them — at least for the Caesars family of poker rooms.
"When they (Caesars) were assessing whether or not to open these rooms, with all due respect, these were popular rooms. These weren't rooms that just closed because they wanted to close them. They closed them because they had to close them because they couldn't spread any games, right?"
Those decisions have no relevance to what is going on right now, Effel says, and Planet Hollywood is well-positioned to re-emerge as a go-to place for a certain kind of poker on the Las Vegas Strip.
"This is a fun place. This is a fun casino. So there are casinos that are a little more serious. There are casinos that are a little more high-end. There are casinos that are a little more low-end. But [Planet Hollywood] is fun, right? So when you come in here, you expect to have fun. You expect to go eat something. You expect to go drink something. You expect to go play something while you're here. So I think poker checks all of the boxes in terms of an amenity that should always be here."
A must-have amenity
Poker is an amenity in Las Vegas. It exists to draw customers into the building so they can spend their money on other (more profitable) activities. But, like many other great amenities, poker works. People love playing it, and they're always going to love playing it in Las Vegas.
"In my opinion, it's kind of a no-brainer to have it. And I love the new space [at Planet Hollywood] because this is like a high-end lounge the poker is being put in. This is easily on the same level as all the really nice rooms in town.
"I'm proud. Look, I'm proud of what has happened here and what the direction is. And I love the fact that Caesars is supporting more poker and taking care of poker players and looking forward to poker. I'm in the meetings with people and they're talking very highly about poker."
That wasn't always the case. Poker has been on the chopping block with the bean counters since the first tables were installed.
"You know, we go back way, way back in history. Let's go back to the late 1990s. Let's go back to the early 2000s. Go back to the pre-Moneymaker days. Poker rooms were closing everywhere.
"I was a victim of some of those early rooms, you know, and had to move around in my early career. And so I know what that was like, but that's not what it's like now. People like it. They realized that poker is not only fun, but it also brings a lot of people into the casino. It brings people to play other things in the casino. It's just a great amenity to have."
The message is clear and a welcome one: Caesars is betting on poker again and The Strip is set for a poker resurgence. That's good news for players and another reminder that live poker the world over is booming.
