Can you imagine walking into a well known Sin City casino hotel and seeing no dealers, chips, or cards? Well if this seems not easy to believe, you may be in for a big shock. The Las Vegas, Nevada based hotel Excalibur is now testing with this new radical idea of automating everything from the dealers, to the actual poker tables. Executives from the hotel are going to equip the areas with 12 digital machines for a six-month trial period.
The North-Carolina based company PokerTek is in charge of the automated machines, which are redoing the way poker will be played in Vegas. The business already has 230 computers around the world, with the biggest located in Casino du Montreal (a total of 25 computers were installed in this Canadian hotel).
So what are the downsides of this change? For starters, about 40 Excalibur poker dealers will be searching for new jobs. Some of these dealers have been working at the hotel since its opening in 1990. Todd DeRemer, Excalibur’s Vice President of Casino Operations, says that the poker dealers will be offered other dealer jobs in the same casino hotel.
According to DeRemer, the renovation is being made to give rookie players a chance to play this popular game without feeling intimidated. He had already played these new machines before deciding upon the modification. “It’s not overwhelming”, he says, “We think that portion will bring back the business”.
The new machines will allow the gamblers to play Texas hold’em, seven card stud and Omaha. 40-inch flat screen televisions, which are located in the middle of the table, will illustrate each table’s community cards, player’s stakes and the pot.

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