Downtown Poker Rooms
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- There are dozens of poker rooms located throughout the Las Vegas Valley. Many are familiar with the big rooms on the Las Vegas Strip. There are many smaller rooms located away from the Strip that are popular among locals and tourists in the know. There are also two rooms downtown on Fremont Street.
Golden Nugget is the only major poker room left in Downtown Las Vegas.
This decade has seen the demise of poker rooms at El Cortez, The D, and Plaza. The Binion’s poker room traffic collapsed to the point that the casino abandoned its poker room and tournament area and moved a few tables to its table game pit. This left Golden Nugget as the only relevant poker room on Fremont Street.
There are 20 poker rooms in the Portland & Oregon area, and we at PokerAtlas provide complete and up-to-date information about every room in every location including Eugene & Southern OR, Portland, Salem & Central Coast, and Woodland & La Center. There are 27 poker rooms in the Las Vegas area, and we at PokerAtlas provide complete and up-to-date information about every room in every location including Downtown, Henderson & Southeast, North Las Vegas, Summerlin & Northwest, and The Strip.
The Golden Nugget is best known for its no-cap no-limit Hold’em games. These can be wild tables, especially on weekends.
It spreads the Grand Poker Series every summer with a variety of games on the schedule. This is held in convention space, as the normal 13 poker tables hosted by Golden Nugget cannot handle the capacity of the Grand Poker Series.
Golden Nugget tables offer automatic shufflers, phone chargers, and free Wi-Fi. Golden Nugget validates parking for players.
Best and Worst Features of Golden Nugget Poker Room
There is no cap on its cash game buy-ins. This includes no-limit tables. This makes the games play deep. The tables can be full of action because of this. The Golden Nugget poker room is well managed. The dealers are all experienced.
The room can feel a bit cramped when it is busy. The bathrooms and sportsbook are not convenient.
There are only two cash games spread with any regularity at Golden Nugget’s poker room. One is a 2/4 fixed-limit Hold’em game. The other is 1/2 no-limit Hold’em with a $100 minimum buy-in. There is no maximum.
Players sometimes buy into these games with $1,000 or more. Be prepared for that when considering whether to play and how many chips to buy. The deep tables explain why there are no regular games above the $1 and $2 blinds.
Golden Nugget rakes 10% up to $4. There is also a $1 jackpot drop.
Golden Nugget gives cash game players $2 an hour in comps when clocked in with the casino’s 24 Karat players club card. This may be used for hotel bills or any restaurant owned by Landry’s in the world.
There are four poker tournaments held daily. There is a $51+$19 at 11 am (except Sunday) and 7 pm. It starts with 10,000 in chips and has 20-minute levels. There is a $33+$17 daily at 3 pm and 10 pm. This tournament starts with 5,000 in chips and has 20-minute levels.
The major weekly tournament is on Sunday at 11 am. It has a $100+$25 event with a $5,000 guaranteed prize pool. Players start with 15,000 in chips. Levels go up every 20 minutes for the first eight levels and every 30 minutes after that.
Golden Nugget hosts a tournament series every summer. It is called the Grand Series of Poker. Each day has at least two tournaments. One is always no-limit Texas Hold’em. The other may be as well. However, there is often a non-Hold’em game.
These include mixed games, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo, pot-limit Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, and draw games. The Grand Series of Poker buy-ins run from $150 up to $1,100. Most are one-day events.
The Golden Nugget poker room is not large enough to accommodate the Grand Poker Series. It is held in the Grand Ballroom by the Rush Tower.
Golden Nugget offers progressive high hand promotions. There are separate prize pools for royal flushes and straight flushes by suit. Every four of a kind has its own progressive payout.
There is a bad beat jackpot that triggers when a player loses four of a kind or better. Both the winning and losing hand must use both hole cards. The progressive jackpot starts at $10,000.
Things to Do at Golden Nugget Besides Playing Poker
Golden Nugget offers a large casino. Many of the games have a $5 minimum bet. There are plenty of blackjack tables that pay 3 to 2. Make sure to avoid the 6 to 5 ones.
We recommend avoiding the video poker there, as it is well below average for Downtown Las Vegas.
Golden Nugget operates an independent sportsbook. For video poker, walk to Plaza, El Cortez, or Main Street Station. Each of these casinos spread games that return over 100%.
If you are looking for something to do besides gambling, Golden Nugget hosts several great restaurants. Chart House is our favorite. Vic & Anthony’s Steakhouse is another good option. Grotto is a great casual Italian joint.
Golden Nugget has the best pool in Downtown Las Vegas. You can swim with the sharks there. It also has a waterslide and other amenities.
The Fremont Street Experience is just outside Golden Nugget. It has bars in the street. There are nightly musical acts. The Viva Vision screen has a light show at the top of every hour during the evening hours.
Golden Nugget is the best poker option in Downtown Las Vegas. Its 13-table room is full of action 24 hours a day. If you need a break from it, you can check out the poker room at Binion’s across Fremont Street.
Unfortunately, the Binion’s poker room has seen better days. It got so slow over there that the poker tables were moved to the rear of the table game pit. There are six cash game tables, though they typically do not need more than one. The only game spread is 1/2 no-limit Texas Hold’em.
Most daily tournaments at Binion’s only draw one or two tables, if they get off the ground at all. The summer poker tournament season gets more action. This is when you may find five to ten tables. This series, known as the Dog Days of Summer, spreads a variety of games.
About half of the tournaments are no-limit Hold’em. There is a variety of non-Hold’em games throughout the summer. Those include pot-limit Omaha, fixed-limit Omaha Hi/Lo, as well as some stud and draw games.
Golden Nugget and Binion’s are the only two poker rooms still operating in Downtown Las Vegas. The next closest is at Stratosphere. It is about as slow as Binion’s these days and probably not worth the trip.
Live poker rooms remain a major draw in the United States. Most major U.S. casinos have a dedicated poker room near you. The best tribal casinos operated games of Texas Hold’em, Omaha, and Seven-Card Stud, too. Even places without the luck to have a major casino often have a private poker club.
Finding good up-to-date information on the legal card playing venues in your area can be difficult. Most poker information blogs focus so much on online and mobile poker sites. While it’s helpful to provide reviews of desktop and mobile poker, land-based players need to know the name, address, contact information, and number of poker tables a site near them has. This section of our site offers the live poker information you seek and answers the question of “Are there any poker rooms near me?“.
United States Poker Rooms Near You
Poker is a huge draw in most US casinos, though very small poker rooms often have a difficult time surviving. Larger poker rooms can offer tournaments and more cash game variety, which attracts more players and enables the room to thrive.
Casinos in some cities have struggled, such as in Atlantic City, but it is not a result of poker issues. Poker does not make or break a larger casino; it only enhances the offerings if the space is available.
In recent years, casinos in New Jersey and Pennsylvania have been able to link with online poker and casino game operators to offer internet gambling. These states have laws that allow online poker and online casino games if operators and land-based casinos partner and obtain licenses together. This has been helpful to land-based casinos in Atlantic City, especially, because of the ability to cross-promote and use online gambling to bring new players to the casinos. The online sites also provide significant revenue on their own.
Poker rooms vary from state to state in America. In California, casinos are only permitted on tribal lands, but card rooms operate across the state. These rooms typically offer some table games and almost always offer poker. Card rooms like the Bicycle Casino and Commerce Casino in Los Angeles and Bay 101 in the Bay area have been very successful in the past decade or so, partially due to notoriety garnered from partnerships with poker tours like the World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker.
Since Legal US Poker Sites is primarily dedicated to online poker options for US players, we do not provide a comprehensive list of casinos and poker rooms across America.
However, we do provide some updated overviews of the largest poker states in America.
Nevada Poker Rooms
Las Vegas is perhaps the best-known gambling city in the world. It is also famous for its poker rooms, from Binion’s where the World Series of Poker began to the Bellagio where some of the highest stakes poker games in the world occur frequently.
As of March 2020, there are 19 poker rooms located on or near the Las Vegas Strip, and only one (Golden Nugget) remains in Downtown Las Vegas. There are also off-strip poker rooms at casinos like Red Rock Casino and Green Valley Ranch.
Reno has significantly downsized its poker options in recent years, though there are still rooms in casinos like the Peppermill, Boomtown, and the Atlantis.
California Poker Rooms
As of March 2020, there are approximately 85 card rooms offering poker in California. This includes Indian casinos that offer poker as well.
The most well-known of the poker rooms are in the Los Angeles area, with the Bicycle Casino, Hustler Casino, and Gardens Casino as ones frequented by players from around the country. The best known is Commerce Casino, which is the largest poker room in the world with 270 tables and always adding more to the 91,000-square-foot casino floor.
Farther north in California takes players to Bay 101 in San Jose and Thunder Valley near Sacramento. And areas a few hours outside of Los Angeles also offer some poker rooms in Native American casinos like Pechanga, Morongo, and San Manuel.
New Jersey Poker Rooms
The only city currently allowed to host casinos is Atlantic City, where casinos have long made the city famous around the world. Tough times in the past few decades prompted several casinos to close, but some of them remain open and offer thriving online poker scenes. The most popular is the Borgata, but there is also poker at casinos like the Golden Nugget, Harrah’s, and Resorts.
Several casinos are also linked with online poker sites, such as Borgata with PartyPoker, Harrah’s with WSOP/888, and Resorts with PokerStars. This has improved their live poker rooms through online poker tournaments.
Pennsylvania Poker Rooms
Pennsylvania has become a state with numerous casinos and poker rooms, and attendance is so high that the number of games offered often rivals Las Vegas. Parx Casino in Bensalem is one of the most popular, but there are also Harrah’s and Rivers in Philadelphia, Hollywood Casino, Mount Airy Casino, and Mohegan Sun Pocono. There are nearly one dozen poker rooms now in Pennsylvania.
Las Vegas Downtown Poker Rooms
Downtown Las Vegas Poker Rooms
This state also legalized online poker several years ago, and PokerStars was the first to launch its site in conjunction with Mount Airy. As with New Jersey, online poker and casino sites must partner with land-based casinos, and more have done so. There are about seven casino sites operational in the state, and at least one more online poker room (WSOP) expected to join PokerStars for online poker this year.