To the experienced online poker player, Station Casinos’ Ultimate Poker website can feel like a trip back to the Stone Age. Players have complained about the software, interface and speed. Station officials say they are aware of the criticism and are working to improve the site. But despite the glitches, they met their goal: being the first legal, real-money poker site in the country. In fact, Station executives say some of the shortcomings may help them grow their audience.
It has been a little more than a week since Ultimate Poker launched in Nevada. Within three days, 100,000 hands had been played. The site is growing rapidly, with anywhere from 20 to 80 tables running at once. The average Las Vegas brick-and-mortar poker room has about 20 tables. But for seasoned players accustomed to more sophisticated offshore poker websites, key features are missing.
Hand histories (a record of how hands were played), for example, are available but are hard to find, a big change from the easy-to-open text files that are standard on many offshore sites. Ultimate Poker offers no Omaha or 7-card stud games, and the site doesn’t allow players to shrink tables to efficiently play more than one game at a time. Players also can’t disable card animations. Station Casinos said the features are missing by design. Ultimate Gaming wanted to be first in the market, so executives decided to release a stripped-down version of the website with only the most popular poker variant.
“What was really important to us was getting the early-mover advantage,” Ultimate Gaming Chief Marketing Officer Joe Versaci said. “We figured what we should do is prioritize the most popular game with the skinniest offering. That allows us to get through the field trial with few things that could hold us up in terms of hurdles.”
The Gaming Control Board will review its findings in regard to Ultimate Poker at a public hearing after a 30-day trial. Before the federal government’s crackdown on online poker, most online gamblers played using software that had been in development for 10 years. The offshore sites offered a polished product many players remember fondly. This story originally appeared on the Vegas Inc. website.
