Article Summary:

Article Content:
Here’s some rather unfortunate news. Binion’s, home to one of if not the most famous poker rooms in the world, has announced that they will be closing down the hotel side of their business due to the crummy Vegas economy. Binion’s was the birthplacle of the World Series of Poker and is where many of the legendary players of today got their poker careers started.

“This is a result of this brutal economy that has affected Las Vegas,” said Lisa Robinson, a spokesperson for the hotel. “We looked at every aspect of our operations, and the hotel rooms are no longer competitive in this market.”

Thankfully, it appears that the casino and the poker room will stay open with no sign that they’ll be closing anytime soon. The entire building, complete with hotel, opened up in downtown Las Vegas all the way back in 1951 and didn’t host the first ever WSOP until 19 years later in 1970. Every subsequent WSOP was held within the storied walls until both the hotel and the rights to the WSOP were bought up by Harrah’s Entertainment in 2004, with the WSOP then moved to the Rio to accommodate larger fields.

However, Binion’s is currently owned by TLC Casino Enterprises, which it acquired for million back in January 2008. Anyone that’s booked a reservation in one of the 365 rooms at Binion’s before December 14th will still be able to stay at the hotel, however afterwards all room requests will be forwarded to another TLC property, the Four Queens.

It really is a shame to see a piece of Binion’s go under, heck, even I got my poker start there, back when the poker room looked like you’d expect a card shark’s paradise to look like before the poker boom. You can still enjoy the best parts of Binion’s though, namely the card room, and I highly recommend doing so during your next trip to Vegas.

———————