For months, casinos and poker rooms were closed across the United States due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Once casinos began to reopen, it still left bettors without poker gaming due to the need for social distancing. Over the past few months, poker rooms have started to reopen and offer services. The Rivers Casino Philadelphia is ready to welcome back poker players and recently announced the new upcoming events.
Back in Business
Poker players can return to the casino’s poker room and enjoy cash games and tournaments will return very soon. Mask mandates have been lifted indoors and Plexiglas that was once in-between players and the dealer is now removed.
In early June, the changes were made to the poker room and players have been coming to the casino in large numbers. The room usually provides seven-handed tables and has recently had to change to eight-handed options to handle the crowd.
To welcome back players to the facility, the Rivers Casino Poker Room is hosting a welcome back event. On June 27, a special event will take place along with $500 high-hands offered every 30 minutes. The event will take place at 11:15 am and include a $240 buy-in. The guaranteed prize pool is set at $20,000.
Players will be given 20,000 in starting chips and blind levels will increase every 20 minutes. This will be the first tournament hosted by the poker room after gaining approval from the state Gaming Control Board.
Getting Back to Normal
In Pennsylvania, the Rivers Casino reopened its poker room back in October. The property was only allowed to offer half of its 28 tables. By mid-December, the governor shut down casinos again due to an increase in positive COVID-19 tests. However, the shutdown was short-lived and only lasted through January 4.
The poker room as well as the casino was unable to serve drinks until May. This was a strong deterrent for players and one reason why the gaming floors were not very busy in Pennsylvania for quite some time.
According to officials at the Rivers poker room, there is pent-up demand and players are coming back in high numbers to be able to play the game they have missed. Poker is a social game and those who enjoy it have missed out on the social aspect especially due to the many restrictions that were previously in place at the venue.
For players new to the Rivers Casino Poker Room, the Bravo Poker Live option is a great way to see how busy the poker room is. The app offers online pre-registration for events as well as an online waiting signup list for events. Major branded tournaments are also listed on the site so you can easily find out what’s coming up in the near future.
It’s good to see the poker room full of happy poker players after many months in 2020 of in operation. Hopefully, the pandemic will continue to lessen and players will be able to get back to normal, enjoying cash games and events like we used to pre-pandemic.
