Area's casinos seek to cash in on poker craze

Area's casinos seek to cash in on poker craze By BRUCE CAMENGA / Special to The Press-Enterprise Local casinos are cashing in on the poker craze with new or expanded poker rooms. The poker room at Soboba Casino in San Jacinto opened earlier this month. There are also new poker rooms at Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, Harrah's Rincon Casino & Resort in Valley Center and Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage. Soboba's 2,000-square-foot room features a lounge atmosphere and offers an assortment of games on 15 tables. It is open around the clock. A.C. Chapman, poker room director, attributed the new room to customer demand. Games offered include Hold 'em, Omaha, Omaha Hi-Low, 7-Card Stud, 7-Card Hi Low and Crazy Pineapple. The poker room offers 24-hour food service. Like most other poker rooms, it is nonsmoking. Tournaments are scheduled daily. Tournaments are also scheduled daily at Pechanga's upstairs and upscale poker room. A "free-roll" poker tournament is held monthly at the expanded poker room at Agua Caliente. The tournament is limited to the first 90 qualified players who sign up. The tournament is held on the first Saturday of the month. To qualify, a player must log a minimum of 50 hours of play in the casino's poker room in the month preceding the tournament. Harrah's Rincon has abandoned its effort to send a player to a $10,000 seat at the World Series of Poker final in Las Vegas after having trouble getting enough players for satellite table play. The May 1 Super Sunday Tournament had to be canceled and the casino decided to drop the May 29 Super Sunday event.