Local news reports that the Excalibur will close it's poker room and revamp it to be completely automated. The whole project should start in the next few days and take about 10 days to complete. Details are sketchy, but I'm thinking it will be those machines that several people can sit at and deposit money and let a video dealer deal the cards. They have been discussed here in the past.

This is just another step by MGM to tighten their gaming policies. No word on what will be offered to the existing poker dealers.

I played at one of these on our last cruise.

I saw it as mostly an improvement. The computer keeps the game moving and there's no room to try and bend the rules.

At Harrahs Cherokee in North Carolina, they do not have LIVE games. All the Black Jack, etc is the Machine with a person that pays off the winners. I saw them a few weeks ago and kept on walking. Then the other day, there was a bust of a ring where one "Dealer" was paying off around 11 people that didn't win. I think they caught him or her, when the machine setup showed that it had payed off X amount but the dealer had payed off thousands more. I haven't read anymore about it in the local paper.

The poker machine I played had electronic payouts. The only real people involved were the players.

You couldn't use cash to 'buy-in' to the game. You had to load money on your card at the cage.

I can see some advantages and some disadvantages to the video dealer. I'm not a poker player though. I can't imagine walking into a poker room and see it filled with machines. They might as well put them out on the floor with Caveman Keno.

I looked up an article in the Asheville, NC Paper. Since I didn't pay much attention, I'm not totally sure of how they operate up there. But it looks like you sit down and the "Dealer" pushs a button to deal the cards. Then if you win they pay in chips instead of the electronic IOU's. I guess they want you to think that you are playing the Big Boy game for real. But from what I did see, all the tables were full and it appeared that you had to put your name on a waiting list to play. When someone dropped out, they would call your name.But even with Black jack, I would rather play the odds with real cards instead of trying to outguess the programmer.

The interesting parts is whether or Not the FBI is going to prosecute or if it is going to be handled by the Cherokee Tribal Court. I can just imagine a scene from the old Daniel Boone show on TV, for those of you old enough to remember the show. Maybe they will tie the 26 year old to a couple of trees with leather straps???

I felt safe playing a poker machine. The house has no stake in the outcome of the game so there's no reason not to give you a totally random deal of the cards.

Another thing I liked about the machine running the game was time. Each player had an alloted amount of time to react. If you didn't make a decision in time, your hand was folded.

Also, there was no chance of a dealer flashing a card since there was no body actually handling a deck. You'd cup your hand over the screen in front of you and it would 'curl' up the corners of the cards for you to see.

Most of the Excalibur poker dealers lost their jobs completely. One got a part time job of 2 nights a week at the Bellagio. 3 got go back to Blackjack where they were qualified dealers before they dealt poker. Their seniority with the company is only good in the casino that they deal in. They have zero seniority in other MGM properties.

They use some of the video dealer machines in the poker room at Horseshoe. However, the poker dealers are treated as a separate breed from the rest of the dealers. They are considered a separate department, and they are on a separate pay scale. Security is tight enough that I doubt they would even let me into the poker room since it's not my department.

Cheers,

Tim the Dealer

Rumor has it that Harrahs will begin working with these new machines at it's properties in Las Vegas. So far, it seems that they will be used for overflow when there are no "real" tables available. I strongly suspect Harrahs will soon dive in full force because it makes financial sense.

Robo-Poker turned out to be the huge failure many predicted and has been replaced with live poker.

I think that the automated poker won't be back soon but it seems like the video roulette is catching on and this last visit they had new CGI dealer blackjack that might catch on to provide more low limit BJ. Many of the new tourists probably are nervous about putting down $25 while they would play the $1 or $3 version. You can find these games (sometimes) downtown or off strip but not in the main tourist resorts.