Tuesday, December 18, 2018

MGM’s Massachusetts casino revenue falls for second month

MGM’s Massachusetts casino revenue falls for second month

MGM Resorts’ new Massachusetts casino reported its second straight month of gaming revenue declines, while its Connecticut DewaPoker competitors were also in the red.

Figures released Monday by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission show the state’s two licensed brick-and-mortar casino operators generated gaming revenue of $34.1m in November, down from $35.5m in October.



MGM Springfield, the $960m venue that opened its doors to the public in late August, reported gaming revenue of $21.25m in November, down from $22.2m in October and $27m in September. Penn National Gaming’s slots-only Plainridge Park Casino generated $12.85m, down from October’s $13.5m.

MGM Springfield had earned $9.5m in its first eight days of operation, which suggested that the property was on track to realize its forecast of $418m in gaming revenue over its first 12 months of operation. But MGM Springfield has so far earned just $80m in its first three-plus months and, as they say on Game of Thrones, winter is coming.

Across Massachusetts’ southern border, Connecticut’s two tribal casino operators were also reporting a negative November, their fifth consecutive month of year-on-year slot machine revenue declines.

The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation’s Foxwoods Resort Casino reported its November slot revenue hitting $35.3m, down 8% from the same month last year. Slots handle was down 4% to $454.8m. The property hasn’t posted a year-on-year slots revenue improvement since May.

Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment’s Mohegan Sun venue reported its November slots revenue falling to $44m from $47.5m in November 2017, while slots handle fell 5.6% to $555.2m.

The Connecticut tribal operators have been largely philosophical about the declines, saying they expected to take a hit once their big shiny competitor opened across the state line. However, Mohegan Sun’s president Ray Pineault told local media that “the declines are less than we anticipated” and thus “we’re not at all disappointed.”

888Poker launching Pick’em8; downloadable Shot Clock; Tonkaaaa deep EPT run

888Poker launching Pick’em8; downloadable Shot Clock; Tonkaaaa deep EPT run

A trio of news stories from Poker88 including further details on Pick’em8, a downloadable shot clock, and a deep run at the PokerStars European Poker Tour in Prague for Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot.

888Poker launching Pick'em8; downloadable Shot Clock; Tonkaaaa deep EPT runI leave my teabag in the cup until that’s all there is. I used to press the life out of it with a spoon before it joined the carrot tops and celery ends in the brown bin, so I am a man who embraces change, so why is the latest offering from 888 bugging me?

News started fluttering around the digital airwaves that 888Poker had plans to launch a new game back in September. There was even a name ‘Pik’em Poker,’ but nothing from the mouth of the horse.

Nearly four months later, the mouth of the horse remains shut, but that hasn’t stopped the word hitting the street.

As is typical with these things, Nick Jones and the team at Pokerfuse had the scoop, acting as 888Poker’s marketing vehicle before a press release hits any one of fifty poker media email inboxes.

Pik’em Poker is Pick’em8, and it’s the byproduct of a good shagging session between a casino game and poker. The game has poker’s face, but the mechanics are from the guts of the casino industry. There are no opponents. It’s a game of luck against the house.



The Guts 


The cost per play is $0.25 or $1, and when you begin, you get to choose two hole cards from eight possibilities. You are up against the clock, so if you fail to select in time, the AI will pick two at random.

And that’s that.

The end.

Game over.

It’s the equivalent of sticking your money in a slot machine and pressing ‘Play.’

The AI creates a random flop, turn and river, and the winning hands share the prizepool, with 888Poker the only stable winner thanks to the rake.

So why does this thing make me want to vent my spleen?


I think it’s an offering that moves too far away from the DNA of poker. I’m not saying that all new games have to be ‘spoon in spoon’ close, but it’s a far cry from the new games that have surfaced from PokerStars in the past 12-months that all maintained a skill-element at its core.

However, 888Poker is too smart to spend time and development costs creating a game that their customers don’t want, so maybe poker is poker, and there is a need for a quick button mash while talking a morning dump.

Time will tell.

Thumbs Down For Short-Deck; Thumbs Up For 888 Shot Clock; Talbot’s Perfect Prague Birthday Present 


One game I thought 888Poker would include in their roster, either live or online, was Short-Deck after a freelance writer produced a guide on how to play the game for 888Poker’s online magazine.

A representative of 888Poker’s poker team has since brought the axe down on that idea, confirming that as of today 888Poker has no plans to introduce Short-Deck into their online or live menus.

One new poker-related thing that 888Poker has released recently is the 888 Shot Clock. 888Poker became the first live tour operator to introduce the 888 Shot Clock in all Main Events and High Rollers back in January 2018 and remain the outlier in that regard.

Recently, 888Poker’s development team created an online 888 Shot Clock that you can use in your local home games. Click here to download it.

Last but not least, 888Poker’s ambassador Parker “Tonkaaaa” Talbot is celebrating his birthday in style. The Twitch star currently sits 5/16 at the end of Day 4 of the PokerStars’ European Poker Tour (EPT) in Prague. There’s €1m up top in that event.

Super High Roller V: the non-pros stay at home; 35 players start

Super High Roller V: the non-pros stay at home; 35 players start

The Super High Roller Bowl V PokerClub88 hits the record books as the smallest field in its short history, leaving the door wide open for the Triton Poker Series to take over as the premier event for high stakes action.

Super High Roller V: the non-pros stay at home; 35 players startI don’t know when.

I can’t remember.

The only thing I remember right now is playing If I Only Had A Heart in an attempt to get my daughter to sleep and when the lyrics picture me, a balcony, above a voice, sings low, my daughter keeps saying, “Dad, what balcony mean?”



That’s all I can remember.


I do know that back in the day, I asked the world’s best players to name the best tournament in the world and they didn’t choose the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event or the Big One for One Drop – it was the Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) that made their body forget they had knees.

I think that’s about to change.

As October was about to die, Poker Central surprised everyone by announcing plans to pull the May 2019 SHRB V back to December 2018. The decision is still shrouded in secrecy, with many industry experts believing the WSOP 50th Anniversary partly responsible.

Regardless, plans were set in motion to host a live lottery on November 27 where 25 seats would go to the winners with a further 18 seats reserved for specially invited ARIA guests. The event would take place over three days beginning December 17.

The live lottery date came and went without any announcement from Poker Central. Eventually, on December 4, the lottery went ahead and instead of 25-players emerging from a hat, there were 34, leaving a handful of players for the ARIA to put into the event.

Reading through the list of 34-players only Cary Katz, Talal Shakerchi and Bill Klein are non-professionals. I don’t know anything about Klein’s game, but I know enough about Katz and Shakerchi to not refer to them as amateurs.

So where is the value?


The pros must have been hoping that the ARIA was going to turn up with the goods, with 6-7 wealthy not so good at poker players filling the void. Only, it didn’t happen. The SHRB V went ahead with 35-entrants after Rick Salomon entered at the last minute, and there was also a change in structure at the 11th hour with players starting with 3 x 100,000 stacks as per Short-Deck tournaments.

So we have the lowest attended SHRB in the history of the game.

2015 – 43-entrants, Brian Rast ($7,525,000)*
2016 – 49-entrants, Rainer Kempe ($5,000,000)
2017 – 56-entrants, Christoph Vogelsang ($6,000,000)
2018 – 48-entrants, Justin Bonomo ($5,000,000)
*Indicates a $500,000 buy-in, all other events were $300,000

Given the short notice of the changes, I imagine Poker Central had prepared for a smaller field, what is concerning is the quality of the field.

With the Triton Poker Series announcing their intention to host the biggest buy-in event of all-time in 2019, the SHRB has a serious challenger for the title of The Superbowl of SHR competitions.

What the Triton Poker Series has that the SHRB is sorely missing is a tribe of non-professionals eager to play in the biggest games in the world who are unafraid to gamble with a smile as broad as the Cheshire cat. If you are paying $300,000, $500,000 or $1m+ to play in a poker game, are you going to fly to Vegas to take on the world’s greatest players, or are you going to fly to somewhere like the Landing Casino in Jeju or the Maestral Casino in Montenegro and pay to play with the Triton tribe?