(Continued from page 14)

close or relocate offshore.
• The recession hobbled casinos across the board, but while winnings from other games began to pick back up in 2010, poker revenue continues to slump by an average of 6 percent a year, according to annual reports from the state Gaming Control Board.
• Poker revenues stacked up to $123 million last year, down from a high of $168 million in 2007.
• Entries in the World Series of Poker's main event also took tumble in 2007, falling by 28 percent from a high of 8,773. Entries have only topped 7,000 once in the years since.
• On April 15, 2011, the federal government took its strongest stand yet against the semi-legal world of internet poker, blacking out three major sites on a date later dubbed "Black Friday."
• No longer could fresh crops of poker players develop their games online.
• The Tropicana hotel-resort, which was remaking itself with several major renovations at the time, opened its new poker room the same spring day.
• "Poker had gone through a dramatic popularity phase. It grew really quickly. And we jumped on board," said Fred Harmon, chief marketing officer for the casino that sits on a busy Strip intersection opposite the MGM Grand and New York New York.
• The decision to replace the room with slot machines last fall was pure economics, Harmon said.
• "I think every company over the last several years have had to look at what they do and what makes money," he said.
• Casinos across the country are making the same calculation.
• Sam's Town in Tunica, Mississippi, closed its poker room in January, citing the economy. The Seminole Casino Hollywood near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., replaced its room with slots in September.
• Indian casinos in states like Minnesota and the Dakotas are also pulling their rooms, according to marketing consultant Theron "Scarlet Raven" Thompson.
• "What you're seeing is the mom and pop-sized poker rooms are closing. The larger properties are monopolizing the poker crowd," he said.
• Several smaller Las Vegas casinos decided they no longer wanted to bet on the game in 2012, including Ellis Island, which closed its room just two months after opening it. Casino bosses also removed rooms from the Silverton south of the Strip, Aliante to the north, and Fitzgerald's, which eliminated its room when it rebranded as the D.
• The Gold Coast, the Plaza and Tuscany casinos closed their rooms in 2011.
• Poker has never been a high-profit game for casinos is because players ex

(Continued on page 16)