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At 2AM on Monday, August 18th, the final hand of live poker will be dealt at the Excalibur poker room.
The room will then close and reopen on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 (6PM), as Las Vegas' first all electronic poker room, with 12 PokerTek PokerPro tables, each with 10 seats.
The grand reopening party and advertising campaign is being paid for by PokerTek. Also, the tables are being given to Excalibur for a free 6 month trial basis. At the conclusion of the 6 month trial, the property will have the option of either signing a 2 year lease or returning all the tables. Should the property opt to return the tables, it is uncertain if the property will reopen its live poker room or permanently remove live poker from the property.
The new Excalibur eRoom will have 12 tables. The rake will be 10%/$3 max with no jackpot (the current rake is 10%/$4 max with a $1 jackpot).
The current jackpot promotions (including spinning the wheel for aces cracked and the progressive Bad Beat Jackpot) will not be carried over to the eRoom. The current money from the jackpots will be used to fund freerolls and other promotions in the new eRoom.
The poker room will have Hosts that will monitor all the games and maintain game control. Each new player will be issued a card that can be charged and recharged with ones personal electronic table bankroll. Each time the card is inserted into the table, a pin must be entered. In order to see ones cards, hands must be placed over the screen. At showdown, players have the option of showing one or both holecards if they are not the winner. Also, one can view the previous hand (much like the internet). It is uncertain if all called hands (mucked or not) will show when the previous hand is displayed on the individual players screens (as it is on the internet).
Each player is given 1 minute to act on a hand. The individual players screens will have touch screen buttons, and will give the chip counts of each of the players involved in the hand, as well as the pot size, much like internet poker.
Over 40 full time dealers and a few cashiers were laid off as a result of this changeover, and they will be having a private going away party on the night of the 17th.
For additional details and to comment on this, please see the Discussion Forum thread located HERE.
Electronic tables being installed at Excalibur. Photo courtesy of the LVRJ.
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