Great American Casino has gotten rid of their poker tables. There's only three poker rooms in Lakewood now: 8 tables at Palace, 4 at Macau, and 3 at Happy Days. Great American replaced them with a Let It Ride table and another blackjack table.This isn't much of a surprise, since I never saw all three tables running, and they replaced one of the three with a blackjack table last month. The last three times I've tried to play poker there, there hasn't been a game going, and the dealers were just sitting around watching the clock. I think we have a good sense of how many tables the economy in Lakewood will support.
I might as well update y'all on the local poker room status: There are other poker rooms nearby at Freddie's in Fife, at Hawk's Prairie in Lacey, and I think there's still Omaha being spread at the Point Defiance Casino near the entrance to Pt. Defiance Park, in Ruston. There are no poker tables at either Emerald Queen location. The next nearest, as far as I know, are Red Wind near Yelm, and Muckleshoot, the largest poker room in the state. PJ Pockets in Federal Way is currently "closed for remodeling" according to the sign out front, but the reasons were really economic. Federal Way recently cut its gambling tax from 20 percent to 10 percent in order to help the casino return to profitability, and so the city won't lose 100% of the casino's gambling revenue.
