Best Las Vegas Poker Rooms

Best Vegas Poker Rooms

The best overall poker room in Vegas is the Venetian because of its great chairs and tables, very good service and amenities. Their only weakness is an average comp policy. However, other poker rooms have different attractions so you may be better off at another room after reading our reviews.

If you want to play for bigger stakes and favor slightly better dealers and room managers you might prefer Bellagio and Mirage. For the best non-smoking experience, Caesars would be your choice. If not a strong player and on a budget, tournaments are a great way to limit losses. Gold Coast’s total entrance fee is $22 for their no-rebuy/add-ons 10 am daily tourney.

Luxor and Circus Circus only require 15 hours for a freeroll. There is a chance to win outright or chop (split with other contestants) bonus tournament money. Binion’s, Imperial Palace, and Treasure Island offer $2 an hour in comps which add up quickly.

For Locals, Luxor is our top choice but it is not bad for visitors either. If you are a willing to play a lot of hours, Joker’s Wild has a big cash bonus.

Bellagio and Mirage are usually the strongest rooms. If you want to play against the best, try those 2. For the easiest pickings, try Excalibur, Paris, Imperial Palace, and Riviera. Hooter’s and Suncoast can also be full of fish.

Las Vegas Poker Room Overview

The greater Las Vegas area has 53 Poker rooms with a total of 722 tables—almost all ten seats. The Vegas Poker rooms with 25 or more tables are Caesars, Mirage, Bellagio, Venetian, Binion’s (downtown), Orleans (off strip) and Wynn.

Some of the smaller poker rooms have 0-3 tables active during slow periods. You should always call ahead before heading off to a poker room.

Poker rooms usually have more tables for live than tournament play such as Caesars which is split 31/29 and the Mirage which is 30/25 and Orleans which is 23 live versus 12 tournament tables. Binion’s has more tournament than live tables at 13 versus 25.

Vegas poker rooms offer limit and no limit versions of Texas Hold ‘Em, but usually favor one over the other. Although 30 or so poker rooms offer 2/4 limit (Stratosphere and Luxor have 1/2 games) which seem like low risk games, you may run into tables where everyone sees the flop. When playing 6/8 or higher, play is often tighter.

For no limit, there are over 30 poker rooms that offer 1/2 blinds. 2/5 and 5/10 blinds are also popular. Be sure to check for minimum and maximum buy-ins especially for no limit.

Bellagio’s 10/20 has an $800 minimum but unlimited max buy-in. Venetian’s 5/10 on the weekends has a $400 min but no cap on the max. This means someone can shortstack the entire table by a huge buy-in. At Golden Nugget and Luxor the buy-ins are limited to a small range which puts everyone on a more equal footing.

Las Vegas Poker Tournaments

Almost all poker rooms run tournaments at some time of the day or week. Binion’s, Circus Circus, Golden Nugget, Harrah’s and Planet Hollywood, have 4 a day. Treasure Island has 6. Boulder, El Cortez, Green Valley, and Red Rock have no tourneys and Wynn is moving more to live play although they still have some tournaments.

Bigger rooms have bigger prize money. Bellagio has $540 and $1,080 entry fee tourneys and a recent first place returned over $14K. Mirage’s tournament fees vary between $130 to $430 with a recent first place of $10K. Venetian tourneys at $125/$330 may have a first place in the $3K area but on weekends, their $540 tourney can go over $10K for first place. Caesars’ Saturday $330 tournament has gone over $19,000.

Orleans can get good sized pools because they attract about double the players as others and first place can be $3,400 up to $6K or so with much lower entry fees of about $40-75. The Orleans is the best Las Vegas poker tournament value if you think you can win.

If you think you will certainly lose, Gold Coast, Speedway, Hooter’s, Joker’s Wild, Tuscany and Fitzgerald’s have entry fees of $30 or less. Fitzgerald’s has rebuys and add-ons, which make the typical entrance fee much higher.

However, first place in these low entry fee games may be less than $200 although usually $300+. None of these are on the Strip. Gold Coast, Hooter’s and Tuscany are the closest. Gold Coast is $22 total; Tuscany is $22 but with a $10 rebuy. This is why we consider Gold Coast the lowest entry fee of all the Las Vegas Poker Rooms. A rebuy replenishes a chip supply.

The Vegas Poker Rooms and dealers keep about 1/4 of the entrance fees. Bellagio, Mirage, Venetian, Mandalay Bay, Wynn, Caesars and Riviera, give a higher percentage back to the tournament winners, usually 85% or more.

Joker’s Wild, Santa Fe, Luxor, Tropicana, Sam’s Town, Sahara, Rio and the Gold Coast return less—often under 70%. However, poker tournaments are a very high variance game so your results will be heavily determined by how often you finish in the money. If you play tournaments regularly or professionally, you are probably already playing at the high returning Poker Rooms.

Poker Room Quality

In terms of room quality, Venetian is our favorite. Bellagio, Mirage and Wynn are very well run with good managers, cocktail service and dealers and could be slightly preferred over the Venetian if the physical room is not as important to you. If you are a very high stakes player, you would prefer Bellagio.

The least amount of second hand smoke is at Caesars because their room is down a short corridor apart from the casino. It is one of the best Poker rooms in Las Vegas with a strong weekend tournament.

Cannery (off strip) is TV watching friendly and a pretty good poker room for Vegas locals. Cannery’s $2 max rake for Omaha Hi or Hi/Lo (Sunday to Thursday) is the lowest in Vegas. Elsewhere, rakes can be $5 max or higher.

Mirage has the best chair for big butts and is one of the best overall poker rooms in Vegas. There is not much difference between the top rooms. Red Rock is the newest luxury poker room inside a top locals’ casino in Las Vegas but its staff is not as strong as some other casinos.

Even rooms that could stand improvement have strong points. Gold Coast has a low entry fee tournament. O’Sheas (owned by Flamingo in turn owned by Harrah’s) is part of the Harrah’s bad beat jackpot network which has been hit for as much as $71,000 when 4 queens lost to a king high straight flush.

Arizona Charlie’s Decatur has good cheap food at their café and also buffet that you won’t choke on although their smoke is another matter. Fitzgerald’s has nice staff.

Level of Play

The quality of live play varies significantly from table to table but often Caesars, Orleans, Wynn and especially Bellagio and Mirage have strong players. For very high stakes in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio, there will always be sharks. However, even Bellagio and Mirage can be profitable if your table is full of drunks (such as between 4-9 am).

Sometimes “fish” are found at Excalibur with Paris, Imperial Palace, Suncoast (off strip) Riviera, with Hooter’s and Circus Circus also soft rooms. However, you may also run into local “rocks” patiently waiting for the right hand and the right victim.

Comps

The standard Las Vegas comp for live play (tournaments are not comped) is $1 per hour usually for food only up to around 4-5 hours when it drops to $.50. Daily total comps may also be capped as well.

Comps add up much faster than you think. Many casinos have reduced room rates for poker players (sometimes called the casino rate) that can save you big money if you can play their minimum hours at the designated games so be sure to call for details. There are 10 or so casinos with no room promotion of any kind.

Station casinos offer $1.00 an hour plus entry into their Jumbo Jackpot (up to $150,000--$50 each if anyone hits). You can redeem at any of their casinos. They usually have good value food (also movies, gift shop, etc.) so their average looking dollar redeems in a very above average way. Here are Station casinos with poker rooms (Fiesta Rancho’s closed on May 13th):

• Boulder Station
• Green Valley Ranch
• Palace Station
• Red Rock
• Santa Fe Station
• Sunset Station
• Texas Station
• Fiesta Henderson

Of the large poker rooms in Las Vegas, Venetian and Wynn offer $1 to $1.50 an hour depending on the game. Orleans is $1.25 and Caesars and MGM are $1 an hour. Bellagio and Mirage have a $15 food comp for 4 hours but you may have to politely persevere to actually get it and play for higher stakes than you may like. Bellagio and Mirage players are not there for comps.

Golden Nugget comps $10 food for 4 hours ($2.25 an hour) but has no room rate discount unlike most Vegas casinos. Also, they expire their comps in a year which is faster than some other casinos. Binion’s, TI and Imperial Palace offer $2 an hour. Of these 3, we prefer TI as a Poker Room slightly over Binion’s.

Rampart only offers $1 an hour but has a 12 hour $1,500 freeroll. A freeroll tournament is often not played with qualifiers simply splitting the prize money—chopping the pot. If 22 players qualify and agree to chop, each gets $68. Rampart’s new Poker Room is still trying to build up clients for the live games.

Luxor and Circus Circus have freerolls for 15 hours (very doable for locals—less so for visitors) plus $4 food for 4 hours. Luxor and Circus Circus often have more players for their live games than Rampart.

Of these 2, we prefer Luxor comps for better redemption value. The Luxor buffet (now called MORE instead of Pharoh’s Pheast) is okay unlike the improved but still not good Circus Circus buffet. For our buffet review, please click here.

If you play at least 126 hours a month, over 4 hours every day, the biggest comp in Vegas is $599 at Joker’s Wild in Henderson. This is worth about $4.75 an hour. 3-4 days after the end of a qualifying calendar month, you can pick up the cash from the cashier’s cage. If you don’t make it to 126 hours, you get $1 an hour consolation comp instead. You cannot get both comps.

A casino with a room rate discount might be a good place to play for a visitor. If a casino offers freerolls or bonuses for a lot of hours, it might be better for Locals.

The Las Vegas Poker Rooms without comps are Fitzgerald’s, Planet Hollywood, Stratosphere and Tropicana but most room managers have discretion if they see you playing loyally such as at Planet Hollywood.

Tropicana’s new manager wants to add $1 an hour, room rate reductions, and possibly more so call to confirm if you would like to try that room. Stratosphere might comp show tickets or freerolls if the room managers are in a rare good mood. The Stratosphere also has bad beats and a competitive rake.

Poker Room

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