- Commissioner’s statement on Ventura, Marte
- Ronnie O’Sullivan: Masters champion ‘felt so vulnerable’ in final
- Arron Fletcher Wins 2017 WSOP International Circuit Marrakech Main Event ($140,224)
- Smith challenges Warner to go big in India
- Moncada No. 1 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 10 2B Prospects list
- Braves land 2 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 10 2B Prospects list
- Kingery makes MLB Pipeline’s Top 10 2B Prospects list
- New Zealand wrap up 2-0 after Bangladesh implosion
- Mathews, Pradeep, Gunathilaka to return to Sri Lanka
- Elliott hopes for rain for Poli
From Stud to Stars: The Past, Present and Future of Poker in Atlantic City
- Updated: October 27, 2016
History will no doubt be made when the first ever PokerStars Festival kicks off this weekend at the Resorts Casino Hotel on the Atlantic City Boardwalk in New Jersey, marking the return of PokerStars Live Events to American soil for the first time in more than five years.
When it comes to poker, Atlantic City certainly has a storied history already, but it’s worth noting it isn’t exactly a long one.
While there were underground gambling operations running in what was then called “The World’s Playground” under colorful political boss Nucky Johnson in the 1920’s, legalized casino gaming didn’t come to Atlantic City until 1976, and even then, poker games were not widespread.
The New Jersey State Legislature actually made live poker legal in the summer of 1993.
According to veteran World Series of Poker Media Director Nolan Dalla, who lived in the nearby Washington, D.C. area at the time and was a regular in the many local underground games run before Atlantic City Casinos got the green light to run live poker games, there is some debate as to where the first legal hand of poker was dealt.
“Most agree it was at the Atlantic City Sands, which has since been demolished,” Dalla wrote in a 2015 blog post about the early years of poker in Atlantic City. “However, management at the old Showboat Casino once insisted they were the first to offer poker by one day, the old poker manager told me. Whatever the truth is, the epicenter of the East Coast poker universe instantly became the Trump Taj Mahal, which opened a sparkling 50-table room in the summer of 1993.”
Several other Atlantic City casinos started offering poker later that year, but the Taj Mahal remained by far the biggest and, by most accounts, the best room in town.
Dalla, who would ride the train up from DC on weekends to play, said the game was seven-card stud, and limit hold’em was widespread, but only played sparingly in a few local poker rooms.
For the first two years, Atlantic City enjoyed a market without competition for poker in the Northeast, until Foxwoods opened a 35-table poker room in the wilds of Massachusetts in 1995. Nearby Mohegan Sun soon followed suit.
Three years into poker in Atlantic City, Dalla said he started playing in a regular pot-limit hold’em game first organized by a mathematician for the United States Army. Recognizable names like Greg Raymer, Andy Bloch, Bill Chen and Matt Matros were among those who also played in that one.
“For a while, that was the only pot-limit game going in the United States,” Dalla said. “And we were sitting in it. Lucky us. Life was good.”
Interest in the game eventually died, but Dalla kicked it back up again through the Internet newsgroup rec.gambling.poker in 1998, and they started playing again at the Sands. That’s when a contender to the Taj Mahal crown emerged in the 40-table poker room at the Tropicana and a lot of …
