They seem to have it all covered, the casinos offering electronic poker tables. They are becoming popular with players as well as casino bosses, and for the die-hards who like the feel of poker chips in their hands there are chips available for that purpose. PokerTek, headquartered in North Carolina, develops and markets the electronic poker tables designed to increase casino revenue, decrease overheads and attract new poker players. Excalibur Hotel and Casino is the official field trial site in Nevada for PokerTek’s PokerPro fully automated poker tables.

"We are delighted beyond words that an operator of Excalibur's quality is opening a 100% PokerPro poker room on the strip. It is commentary on how far PokerTek and automated poker have come in such a short time," said PokerTek's CEO Chris Halligan when announcing the opening of the 12-table poker room at Excalibur. "The acceptance of the tables has grown substantially in the last year and continues to grow as our footprint expands."

It appears that initial response to the dealerless tables at Excalibur has been good and MGM says that the 40 poker dealers who have lost their positions have been re-employed in other positions or at one of the company’s other resorts. Some of the former dealers are disputing that MGM has done enough to find them jobs of similar status.

In New Jersey pilot programmes were approved last year for electronic roulette and poker machines, and in October approval was also given for casinos to test server gaming. The electronic gaming tables allow for more rapid play than traditional gaming tables, thereby increasing revenue for the casinos at a time of economic slowdown and more competition. On 28 August Trump Plaza started running tournaments on its PokerPro tables, following customer demand.

It makes sense to be able to offer poker games at all times without maintaining staff levels at off-peak periods. In Canada this February the Casino Montreal ran a no-limit hold’em tournament for 240 players in its fully automated poker room with just four members of staff. Of course not all poker players want to give up handling the cards and chips and calling their bets but particularly for low-stakes poker games the electronic tables are being seen as the way of the future. (E-09.02.08)

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