Atlantic City Weekly

Share this Story:

Atlantic City casino revenues for June were relatively flat compared to June 2011, which nowadays is a win for the city, which has been constantly seeing monthly decreases.

And the same can be said of poker revenues by and large, as the addition of a small Golden Nugget poker room and a larger room at Revel still isn’t making much of an impact on the city’s poker scene.

OK, first, the Borgata, buoyed by the Borgata Summer Poker Open, did just fine pulling in $1.85 million for the month. That’s about the same as the Summer Open brought in last year and roughly about 40 percent — and I do mean roughly — of the total poker take in the city.

After that, things played out pretty normally for the city’s remaining rooms.

The good news is that Revel did see a bump to just under $100,000 in poker revenues, up about $40,000 over May. Showboat, meanwhile, which is no longer the cellar dweller among city poker rooms, also saw an about $50K bump in poker revenue over May.

Showboat may be seeing its own Revel bump as the new property has brought some needed foot traffic to the north end of the Boardwalk.

The Taj Mahal’s poker room, however, was down slightly, but still relatively flat over May, so, apparently, it’s not that big of a bump.

For the rest of the city’s rooms, however, things are looking up. Harrah’s Resort had a nice increase over May, coming in at about $500,000 for June, up almost $120,000. With one of the city’s larger rooms, it’s nice to see Harrah’s getting some more summer play.

Tropicana and Caesars did their usual business and, unfortunately, the Golden Nugget is still struggling with its 20-table room, bringing in only about $40,000.

With the World Series of Poker winding down in Las Vegas, some of the better East Coast players should be back in the area, so things could be looking up for July.

Speaking of the WSOP, amateur poker players have to love what’s happened with the final nine this year.

There really isn’t one well-known, established pro left standing. As the Las Vegas Sun put it, all nine are about to win “life-changing” money. All have already won at least $750,000 with the final winner getting $8.5 million.

A couple of players, such as Greg Merson, of Laurel, Md. (who is the one big gun in the nine with just better than $1 million in total winnings) and Michael Esposito, of Seaville, N.Y., have a few A.C. cashes on their records, but none of the city’s “name” pros made it.

Of course, there are other events at the WSOP and one Atlantic City regular has just busted through in a big way. Ryan Eriquezzo, of Danbury, Conn., parlayed a win at the WSOP circuit event at Caesars Atlantic City in March, good for better than $161,000, into a $416,000 win at the WSOP Circuit Championship event. The championship is a $10 million freeroll. Players win seats based on points earned at circuit events.

Along with his first place in the Caesars championship circuit event, Eriquezzo had a 9th place finish in an earlier event and a 19th place finish in an event at the WSOP circuit events at Harrah’s Resort in December. He also did some traveling and had a couple of cashes at other circuit events around the country.

Still, most of Eriquezzo’s previous about $500,000 cashes have been in Atlantic City and Connecticut. And his WSOP circuit run definitely started here in A.C. 

And you wonder why people love poker?

In some other news, ever since Governor Chris Christie announced he wanted to encourage sports betting at Atlantic City casinos and at the state’s racetracks despite a federal ban on sports betting, there’s been a pretty tepid response from casinos.

Christie has laid down the challenge to the feds, saying he’s ready to fight any move to stop New Jersey from moving forward. But that challenge isn’t that easy to accept for casino companies with casinos in other states, especially Nevada.