This post at Pokerati links to a recent New York Times article about the end of the poker boom. I was struck by this snippet:
Poker’s golden era of growth was highlighted here by the $7-million
refurbishment of the poker area at the Bellagio hotel and casino in 2005. But
now poker rooms around Las Vegas are contracting; the one at the Las Vegas
Hilton was replaced last year by 36 Wheel of Fortune slot machines, and the one
at the Excalibur was replaced with dealerless electronic poker tables.
Hmmm. I detect a bit of unbalanced reporting there. How is it legitimate to use as evidence of a poker decline the number of rooms in Vegas that have closed without simultaneously mentioning the number that have opened?
Yeah, the Hilton closed its poker room a year ago, and at about the same time the Stardust was imploded. But since those events, we have had the opening of poker rooms at Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon, the Hard Rock, the Eastside Cannery, Rampart (though it closed again almost as quickly as it opened), Aliante Station, and we have the M Resort set to open in about March.
Maybe we are in a poker decline. I don't claim to know. I'm not even sure exactly how it could be measured objectively. (Does the state Gaming Commission collect stats on poker revenue separately from casinos' other gambling income? I have a vague memory of seeing such numbers once, but I could be mistaken.) My point is only on the bias of a reporter to point to one room closing and one converting to electronic tables without informing readers of contrary evidence: the subsequent opening of six other poker rooms. Eastside Cannery alone has about the number of tables that the Hilton did. Combine all six, and there is a large net increase in poker tables in the valley. But you wouldn't know that from reading the New York Times.
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11 comments:
And no reference to the UIGEA or other legal applesauce either (as possible factors influencing the "decline")? Seems a fairly significant omission.
I dunno ... I definitely agree that it's in an overall decline, particularly in Las Vegas ... but pretty much all industries in all of America are in a decline right now.
Not commenting on this article, which I'm not competent to comment on, but just in general:
I wouldn't attribute all incompetent reporting to "bias."
There are many other potential causes.
As for gaming reporting on poker revenue. take a look at http://gaming.nv.gov/gaming_revenue_rpt.htm
you will see monthly reports in PDF form are available.
Taking a look at the most recent report page 4 shows statewide figures for September 2008.
Poker is listed as "card games" (located below the "total games" listing)
we can see that there are 107 locations in the state reporting poker tables. and the total number of tables is 913. The total "win" for the month of September was 10,856,000 (that sounds like a lot but remember that's 913 tables over 30 days which averages a bit over $16 per hour per table and this is just the amount dropped).
we then see that this is -13.22% decline from the same time period last year.
At the far right we see that the decline is 5.40% for the 12 month period ending September 30 2008 from the same time period last year.
You can look through the reports and see that Nevada poker revenues have been in decline for some time now, and prior to the decline tthey had greatly slowed growth.
Maybe we need to start a poker nostalgia craze.
Poker isn't dead, but there's certainly a lot less dead money, and the UIGEA is not helping. Fewer new U.S players online (getting one's feet wet) has to impact the B&Ms as well, perhaps in ways they didn't anticipate.
And yes, then there's the economy.
Yeah, what Pete said.
Also, you can tell there's a decline when you walk into one of these many new rooms and see only one small, pathetic limit game going. If poker's still so healthy, where are all the players?
I think some people aren't reading carefully what I wrote. I am not saying that there is no decline in poker over the last couple of years. I am merely making a comment on the shoddy journalism of citing as evidence for a decline that one poker room closed, without mentioning that several more have opened in the same time frame.
You somewhat tangentially asked about the gaming figures which lead me to give you the link.
If you look around you will see it somewhat supports your points.
In September 2008 there were 107 locations and 913 tables.
In September 2007 there were 109 locations and 909 tables.
September 2006 there were 103 locations 908 tables
In September 2005 there were 91 locations and 753 tables
In September 2004 72 locations and 537 tables
This supports your point that technically there is growth in the number of tables even though there is decline in the number of rooms in the last year.
And it supports your point there there was a much better way to report a downturn in poker play - that was to use the revenue as reported by gaming (at least if you consider Nevada to be representative)
There are 16,500 hits on a Google search of "demise of the New York Times". They have become a politically motivated mouthpiece of all that is anti-conservative, and they are experiencing the reality that such polarization and opinionizing of the news will result in. They have moved from being "The Paper of Record", as was there slogan, to a tabloid of opinion slanted editorials with little credibility.
Michael said it best.
Not sure if you follow the NY Times out there in Vegas. Here in NYC its clearly apparent.
The paper is run by people who don't believe in REPORTING the news, the believe it's their job to CREATE the news right down to the last detail.
I know dozens of friends who have cancelled their subscriptions out of digust while I continue to monitor its decline.
This is not a political commentary. There are plenty of newspapers in NY that call themselves tabloids and lean EXTREMELY right wing.
What is dangerous about the Times is that most people look to them as the standard, and what they have become is another partisan rag dressed up in the cloak of a national institution.
The thing I love about this "decline" stuff (and I'm a reporter myself) is that poker is still HUGE compared to what is was before the boom. So to say it's not as hot as it once was is entirely accurate, and as a result, some rooms/Websites will have to close as corrections. But it's still an extremely popular game compared to what it once was, and that's probably never going to change.
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