The Aria poker room in Las Vegas reopened July 1, but only for cash games. Two months later, the world-class card room is finally bringing back daily tournaments for the first time since COVID-19 struck.
Tournaments are slowly returning to Las Vegas. Venetian is currently in the midst of a DeepStack Series, which features $400,000 in prize money guaranteed over the course of 32 events up through Sep. 27.
The Strip casino owned by Sheldon Adelson’s company, Sands Corp., also offers daily tournaments. Play at Venetian is limited to eight players per table, the maximum currently allowed at any Nevada card room. Plexiglass dividers are in place to separate players, for health safety reasons. The Aria poker room, however, is still limited to six players per table without plexiglass dividers. Face coverings are a requirement inside every Las Vegas business, and that includes casinos.
Aria Poker Room Mixing it Up
On Sep. 18, the Aria poker room will spread its first daily tournament since mid-March. Each day, at 11 am, the casino will host a $140 buy-in tournament with a $3,000 guaranteed prize pool. Players will start with 20,000 chips and the blinds will increase every 20 minutes.
For those who played the dailies pre-coronavirus, the 11 am structure is the same as the old 7 pm weekend tournament. The Aria poker room also previously hosted 11 am tournaments with a $240 buy-in on the weekends (20,000 chips, 30-minute levels). And also $140 buy-in tournaments at 7 pm Monday to Friday. For the time being, however, the popular card room will limit its daily tournaments to one per day.
Many Las Vegas poker rooms — 15 to be exact — still remain closed. But the poker capital of the United States is slowly starting to return to some normalcy for the first time since the global health pandemic struck in March. With the Westgate reopening its poker room this week, poker players now have 16 places to play cards in Las Vegas.
Most of the top poker rooms in town are back in action, including Aria, Bellagio, Venetian, and Caesars Palace. But one popular spot to play poker — Wynn — is surprisingly still closed. Las Vegas Review-Journal journalist Jim Barnes reported this week that he contacted a Wynn spokesperson who informed him that the casino still doesn’t have a date set for the reopening of the poker room.
Wynn, a luxurious property on the Strip, also recently closed its expensive buffet two months after reopening.
