After years of contraction and pandemic-era uncertainty, poker in Las Vegas looks like it has finally turned the corner. In 2025, the Strip saw two poker rooms reopen amid renewed tournament interest and a locals casino announcement about a reopening, which together suggest the game is making a comeback in the city that made it famous.
Two Las Vegas poker rooms reopened this year
Two high-profile Las Vegas Strip rooms have already returned. Caesars Palace brought back a 24/7 poker room, relocating the tables to the Appian Way retail area with a full daily tournament schedule. That room is expected to return to its old location next to the sportsbook by the end of 2025.
Planet Hollywood reopened its new card room on the casino’s second floor in early May.. Both reopenings were in preparation for the additional demand created by the 2025 World Series of Poker. Each stayed open after the series finished in July.
Those reopenings are especially meaningful after a long decline in Las Vegas poker rooms since the 2020 pandemic. Las Vegas had 31 live poker rooms in March 2020. Today, it has 18 after consolidating to 17.
However, Las Vegas had 19 poker rooms in September 2025. Poker Palace ceased operations then, taking its poker room with it. It was the only one in North Las Vegas. The poker room would be open today had the property not closed, so that action is not related to any decline in demand.
The last poker room shutdown that left a casino otherwise operating was at Sahara. It closed in November 2024.
Green Valley Ranch will bring poker back in 2025
As Vegas Advantage first reported, poker will return to Green Valley Ranch as part of the property’s larger remodel by the end of the year. The room is expected to operate 24/7 and will offer 16 tables. Cash games and tournaments will be available. Promotions will network with poker rooms at Boulder Station, Red Rock Resort, and Santa Fe Station. These are all Station Casinos properties.
The Green Valley Ranch poker room will be in its old location next to the sportsbook, before it closed in March 2020. The space has been used for promotional purposes, a sports viewing area, and is currently a nonsmoking slots room.
Tournaments are helping to drive Las Vegas poker action
The live tournament scene is helping drive the renewed interest. The 2025 World Series of Poker drew the third-biggest Main Event turnouts in history. It had 9735 entries and generated a prize pool north of $90 million. Smaller events also drew large fields.
Online poker has also been healthy, and the hybrid live/online ecosystem is proving complementary rather than cannibalistic. WSOP’s expanded online festival footprints and large online series on platforms such as GGPoker continued to post substantial prize pools and entry numbers in 2025. Large online series this year showed tens of thousands of entrants and prize pools in the millions, signaling sustained demand and a broader field of players who will travel to Las Vegas for live events. That steady online activity gives operators confidence that tournament fields and cash-game turnouts can be supported.
Poker rooms are usually unprofitable amenities
Lowered demand was not the only reason Las Vegas lost more than a dozen poker rooms after the pandemic shutdown. Poker is not a profitable product at most casinos. It takes a large number of tables and action to run a room in the black. Many casino companies knew they would lose money as properties reopened in 2020. That led most small poker rooms to close. As the casino industry started turning profits again in 2021, more brought poker back as an amenity.
While poker may lose money, it draws customers to casinos. The small poker room loss can create profit in other departments. These players may play house games while on the property. They may also eat or visit other amenities. Some have spouses and friends who go to the casino with them and play slots or tables, while another grinds out a poker session.
Can the momentum continue?
The Green Valley Ranch poker room reopening will bring the Las Vegas poker room count back to 19. It will likely be three openings in a row without a closure, except for Poker Palace, which was a popular room that closed only because the property was sold. The recent uptick feels like a tell that the Las Vegas poker room situation is stable and likely trending up. Players looking for more options will like the current landscape, especially compared to how gloomy the outlook was just a few years ago.
Last Updated on October 20, 2025 by John Mehaffey
