The World Series of Poker will not let Coronavirus win! They have scheduled the 2020 WSOP Main Event, and this year’s tourney will be different than any in history! We also have sports betting news and a Las Vegas casino reopening and grand opening!
Hello players! Thanks so much for joining me on another edition of This Week in Gambling where we have poker and sports betting news to cover. But we begin with Las Vegas Grand Openings and re-openings!
Several weeks ago we told you that Virgin Hotels would be welcoming guests in their Vegas location where the Hard Rock Casino used to be sometime beginning in January… and now they’ve set a date: The 15th. That’s a Friday. And remember when Virgin does open up their casino will be run by Mohegan Gaming, marking the first time ever Tribal Gaming has a presence within Las Vegas.
Then there’s the Rio. Last week we told you that they plan to open before the end of the year, and now they too have set an opening date: December 22nd… just in time for Christmas and New Year’s. And more importantly just in time for the World Series of Poker! This week’s big story is that, yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus! And despite the pandemic there is going to be a $10,000 buy-in WSOP Main Event played in a first ever, live-online hybrid event!
In America the tournament will begin on December 13th online at WSOP.com. Players in New Jersey and Nevada will play down to a final table of nine. Meanwhile players in Europe will start on November 29th at the GGPoker website. They too will play down to a table of nine, and then both final tables will then play down to a winner live! The Europeans will play in the Czech republic, and the Americans will play… well you probably guessed, at the Rio in Las Vegas! And once the winners have been crowned things get even more interesting!
The American and European winners will then meet each other face to face, live… heads up in Las Vegas… for a battle royale to settle the 2020 World Series of Poker championship!!!! So, there you have it! Despite the Coronavirus… despite Las Vegas… being shut down for a little while… there will be a WSOP Main Event champion crowned this year! Hey, it takes more than a pandemic to stop a poker game!
As I mentioned at the top of the show, we do have some sports betting news to cover. But first I wanted to mention that we just released another brand new game review this time for the Arena of Gold online slot from our friends at Microgaming. It’s a five real game with 25 pay lines that features free spins and a bonus round, plus wild and scatter symbols. You can find this review and hundreds more when you visit our YouTube channel.
And finally this week, we’ve spoken a lot about the William Hill sports books in and around Las Vegas on many of our recent programs. However, William isn’t the only British bookmaker rolling into town. In fact Fred is set to arrive in January! Yes the Betfred sports book will be located inside the Mohegan casino when they open as part of Virgin Hotels. So so what you have is a British bookmaker inside of a Tribal Gaming site that’s located within a UK based hotel chain that’s actually run out of Florida but operated in Nevada…. I think there’s a joke in there somewhere, but I’ll be damned if i can find it.
