By Chuck Darrow
This year is a big one for milestones in Atlantic City’s casino realm.
Last month, Resorts Casino-Hotel marked its 45th anniversary as the nation’s first legal gambling den outside of Nevada. On June 28, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City and Ocean Casino-Resort celebrates their fifth birthdays. And on July 3, Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa blows out 20 candles on its cake.
Flashy billboards and celebrations have and will abound for these important dates. But there’s another that will likely go unobserved: The 30th anniversary of the legalization of poker.
It was on June 25, 1993 that, for the first time in Atlantic City history, a legal hand of the classic American card game was dealt. That landmark round won by Phil Roura, who back then covered the casino beat for the New York Daily News.
My memory of Roura’s historic moment is vivid and indelibly etched on my mind because I was the guy Roura beat to win the hand. But let’s start at the beginning.
Contrary to what many (especially younger casino patrons) may believe, poker was not always on the local gambling menu. There were two reasons why, for the first 15 years of legal casinos, the game was banned by state law.
First, 1977’s Casino Control Act–the state legislation that spelled out the whys, wherefores and thou-shalt-nots of New Jersey’s then-fledgling gambling industry—exclusively sanctioned what were considered “games of chance.” That is, only blackjack, craps, roulette, baccarat the Big Six (“money”) Wheel and slot machines were allowed because their outcomes are, without exception, determined by the laws of mathematical probability and random chance. Poker on the other hand, was and is considered a game of skill.
Poker was also banned because another provision of the Casino Control Act prohibited players from touching cards (to this day, blackjack players in Atlantic City use hand signals to communicate with dealers, as opposed to some places, including Las Vegas, where “21” devotees use an inward sweeping motion of their first two cards to request a “hit” from the dealer).
But in 1992, state regulators began to moderate the rules, including the one that did away with players not being allowed to touch cards (poker demands players be able to handle them; otherwise, they couldn’t see their “hole”—that is, face-down–cards).
So it was that by the first weekend of the summer of ’93, four casinos–Sands, Resorts, Trump’s Castle (now Golden Nugget) and Trump Taj Mahal (now Hard Rock)–were ready to put the cards in the air, as they say in the poker world. The Sands somehow got there first, opening its card room just an hour or two before the others.
That Friday began with a celebrity tournament; the participants each played for a charity of their choice. It was quite a group that gathered around the table: Included were football legends Tony Dorsett and Art Donovan, and pro basketballers Rick Mahorn (a former 76er) and Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, a Philly-born Hall of Famer from the short-shorts era. Also from the sports universe was Michael “Let’s get ready to RUMMMMMMMMMBLE!” Buffer, then at the zenith of his fame as the public-address voice of big-time, professional boxing.
The other nationally (and in this case, internationally) recognizable name belonged to the late, great Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, who that weekend was booked at the Sands for a rare gig with his own band.
The Limit Texas Hold’Em field was rounded out by those whom the following day’s New York Times identified as “three nobodies from the press.” That would be Roura, Jim Hopson, the then-publisher of the Press of Atlantic City and Yours Truly.
Mahorn wound up winning the charity scrum’s $5,000 top prize. I came in second, winning a $2,500 donation from the Sands to the American Diabetes Association. Everyone was awarded something, with finishers 4-9 getting $500 a piece for their efforts. We were each presented with giant ceremonial checks, which we all autographed for our fellow players. Mahorn’s inscription to me: “Dear Chuck, Thanks for losing!”
Then, our group moved to the actual poker room where we all bought chips (with our own cash) and played the first official hand ever dealt.
The game was $5-$10 Limit Hold’Em. I was dealt 10-8 of different suits, while Roura had two clubs. Two more clubs came on the “flop” (the first three community cards to be exposed) and I made a pair of 10s. The fourth (or “turn”) card was a red 8, giving me two pair, 10s and 8s. The final (or “river”)card was the queen of clubs, giving Roura a flush (that I lost on the last card a hand).
Later that day, the other three poker rooms opened; the coolest of all was at Resorts, whose space, with its wood paneling, tartan wallpapering and leather armchairs for those not in the games, resembled a British men’s club of bygone days.
However, on that first weekend (and for sometime beyond that), chaos reigned. Players waited for hours for seats, and it seemed like each hand dealt included a five-minute argument (players, dealers and floor people alike were pretty much learning as they went along).
While all but one of the 12 casinos open at the time introduced poker that summer (Trump Plaza, never offered the game), only a few casinos maintained their operations in the ensuing decades. Today, Atlantic City has but three poker dens(at Borgata, Tropicana and Harrah’s).
The other six gaming dens doing business today have passed on the game, mainly because poker is more of a loss-leader than a profit center: Unlike all the other games, customers don’t play against the house, which instead simply takes a cut of each pot. This means a casino’s poker revenue is severely limited, especially when measured against that of the other games. And, at least in the case of Hard Rock, there is simply no available space for a poker room (what had been the Taj Mahal’s is now part of Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena).
Nonetheless, poker remains a part of the local gaming landscape, and as such, its 30th anniversary certainly merits noting.
Chuck Darrow has spent more than 40 years writing about Atlantic City casinos.
