Planet Hollywood’s Poker Room Cashes in Its Chips After Eight Months
Oh, you can bet your ass we wanted our headline to read “Planet Hollywood’s Poker Room Folds,” but that bastard (sorry, distinguished colleague) Corey Levitan got there first. In poker, you don’t “cash in” your chips, you “cash out.” Now, it’s all just very awkward and the only saving grace of this story is we have some inside scoop nobody else has reported. Take that, Levitan.
Planet Hollywood’s poker room closes Jan. 31, 2026. It felt temporary; turns out it was. It opened May 9, 2025.
This leaves just 18 poker rooms in Las Vegas, generating a combined revenue of nearly $240 a year. Because poker rooms don’t generate very much revenue for casinos, in case our joke was a smidge esoteric, which our jokes can be, which is why we sometimes make 69 jokes, too, just to make everyone feel comfortable.
Why did the Planet Hollywood poker room close? Answer: Softening consumer engagement metrics, underperforming guest participation levels and a misalignment between consumer interest and the operational footprint.
Or, as our fellow youths say, lack of demand.
Personally, we blame the closure on the fact that parking at Planet Hollywood is a nightmare. There’s no way to get from the self-parking garage (no longer free, by the way) to the casino without a sherpa. You literally have to walk through a mall called the Miracle Mile Shops. They don’t mean “mile” as some whimsical marketing hook. It’s a mile of walking to get anywhere.
Poker players love poker, but nobody’s doing all that.
Before this location of the poker room, it was on the main casino floor at Planet Hollywood, where it also didn’t make money. One slot machine can earn $300 to $400 a day for a casino, and slots don’t call in sick or complain about asshats stiffing them after hours of play. Which dealers should complain about, by the way. Casinos sometimes replace sportsbooks and rent-paying restaurants with slot machines. Looking at you, Flamingo.
While the Planet Hollywood poker room isn’t going to be operating daily, they aren’t moving anything out of or into the space.
Which means it will be used as a poker room again in the future, depending upon demand, which increases at certain times, like during the World Series of Poker.
Yes, we are using the term “scoop” very loosely, but you kept reading, so mission accomplished.
If players insist upon playing poker in the Caesars Entertainment family of casino resorts, there are rooms at Horseshoe and Caesars Palace. All the staff of the Planet Hollywood poker room will be integrated into the operations at Horseshoe and Caesars Palace, so nobody’s losing their gig.
About 40 poker rooms have closed in Las Vegas since 2012.
Why have so many poker rooms closed in Las Vegas? The big three: They’re labor-heavy, space-inefficient and feature the aforementioned low margins.
Poker rooms are a guest amenity, like a spa, hair salon or sportsbook. (Even arcades make more money for a casino than a sportsbook. Looking at you, Horseshoe.) Presumably, these amenities get folks in the door who will gamble on other games and spend money on other offerings like bars and restaurants.
In the grand scheme, though, poker rooms don’t move the needle for casinos, so they aren’t a high priority.
Sorry there isn’t more scoop, but we are confident in our “scoop-light strategy,” characterized by a material increase in lease-equivalent debt somewhat offset by a reduction in traditional debt, which will dramatically reshape our shareholder base and improve per-share economics, providing financial flexibility in a stress scenario.
We will end our story here so you can look up “esoteric.”
You’re welcome.
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