Orleans Poker Room in Las Vegas lowers main event buyin and slashes 500k guarantee a week before the event because of the Venetian

Just wanted to let everyone know, a few of my friends told me and I checked it out myself.

Orleans Poker Room is currently having a tournament series that was supposed to last through early April. They have missed on a few of their guarantees. So they had scheduled an $800 main event $500,000 guarantee starting on Thursday March 31. 4 starting flights and day 2 was Sunday April 3rd.

Because of the Orleans missing out on their guarantees from earlier events, they have now less than 1 week away no less, cut the guarantee to $250,000 and lowered the buyin to $300. I called the poker tournament director who tried to blame Venetian for them doing this. He claimed Venetian hadn't put out its schedule yet and once it came out, they had a similar $800 tournament scheduled for the same days as Orleans. So the director told me that they can't compete against the Venetian and they decided to change their whole main event and slash the guarantee along with it.

Look I'm sorry but that is about as unethical as it gets. 2 of my friends had already bought plane tickets to fly and play their main. For them to do this within a week of their main, to only put it on their twitter(as of 2 days ago I never saw anything mentioned on their twitter about a change) is so fucking awful and shady.

Todd I hope you can call them out because I know my friends told me they will never play at the Orleans poker room again and neither will I. It's obvious they are not happy they had overlays already and when they realized Venetian is having a similar event they decided to change everything to avoid more overlays smh. Just terrible.

Shame on you Orleans. You suck!

While this is indeed frustrating, and I feel bad for your friends, I don't think this is so terrible.

Had they lowered the guarantee AFTER the event started, that would be super unethical, and illegal, as well. If you remember, the Westgate had a controversy where they discounted buyins near the end of Day 1 (and advertised it), in order to reach the guarantee -- something which was unfortunately legal, albeit highly unethical.

In this case, it sounds like Orleans just realized the guarantee was set way too high, and decided to modify the event before it began. If they did this moments before the event, or even one day beforehand, I would agree this would be super unethical.

A week is a long enough time to allow the information to filter out to people that it's not the same tournament they thought it was. Furthermore, most Orleans players are locals, so the issue with flights and vacation days doesn't really apply to most players. Also, it's likely very few people were already registerd. It would be different if the WSOP lowered a guarantee a week in advance, which I agree would be a disaster, and there'd be major outrage over it.

I agree this doesn't look great, but these poker rooms don't make much money, and sometimes they have to make adjustments. As long as nobody is getting cheated, I'm okay with it.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

While this is indeed frustrating, and I feel bad for your friends, I don't think this is so terrible.

Had they lowered the guarantee AFTER the event started, that would be super unethical, and illegal, as well. If you remember, the Westgate had a controversy where they discounted buyins near the end of Day 1 (and advertised it), in order to reach the guarantee -- something which was unfortunately legal, albeit highly unethical.

In this case, it sounds like Orleans just realized the guarantee was set way too high, and decided to modify the event before it began. If they did this moments before the event, or even one day beforehand, I would agree this would be super unethical.

A week is a long enough time to allow the information to filter out to people that it's not the same tournament they thought it was. Furthermore, most Orleans players are locals, so the issue with flights and vacation days doesn't really apply to most players. Also, it's likely very few people were already registerd. It would be different if the WSOP lowered a guarantee a week in advance, which I agree would be a disaster, and there'd be major outrage over it.

I agree this doesn't look great, but these poker rooms don't make much money, and sometimes they have to make adjustments. As long as nobody is getting cheated, I'm okay with it.

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My friends told me there were a few people who confronted the TD this weekend about this. My feeling is, you have a series put out months in advance and you advertise such series on social media and word of mouth. And this wasn't some random small buyin type tournament. This was their main event. A main event with a $500,000 guarantee Todd where first place would be over 6 figures. To me and my friends and the people they have talked to that play there, there is a lot of unhappy players.

Plus this TD flat out lied to me on the phone and my friends and others until he was put in his place with evidence. He claimed the Venetian didn't put out there schedule for their upcoming Deep Stack Extravaganza until a few days ago. That is complete bullshit. Venetian confirmed their schedule for their upcoming series was out well over a month ago. It's obvious to anyone with a brain that Orleans thought they would be getting more people for their other tournaments and beating all the guarantees. That hasn't been the case as there have been some decent overlays. Once that happened the mgmt decided that they weren't going to honor the 500k guarantee coming up because attendance has been down for them and they didn't want to pay anymore overlays. So they without warning changed their MAIN EVENT to a cheap $300 buyin and halving the original guarantee!

I'm sorry but I am shocked you are okay with this. You don't advertise for months about this series and this main event with a $500,000 guarantee and then capriciously change the damn thing a week before. I think it's completely unethical.

Well, I'm not completely okay with it. I see your point. I see why it's a bad look.

However, as I said, it's a locals casino, and they lowered it with a week's notice, so there really wasn't any fraud here.

Yes, it would be great if they could just eat the big overlay, but these rooms operate on their own budget, and heads roll if they are losing money for the casino. This is why I give them a little leeway, as long as it's not that bad.

It's not like the Westgate situation I described, which was horrendous, and was literally cheating the concept of a guarantee.

While it's a bad look for the Orleans, I praise them for trying.

Normally the Orleans will only run a series during the summer (WSOP TIME). This last fall they ran a series while the WSOP was going on and it was hugely successful. Lots of players were pressuring them to run more series and they stepped up and put one on.

Unfortunately it didn't go as planned. I'd rather see them lower the buy-in/GTD and run future series (likely with smaller GTDs) than to have to cover huge overlays and not run series in the future.

For unethical scumminess, this is nowhere close to the 2017 Gardens Casino aka Hawaiian Gardens aka The HG standard, when 3/4 of the way through a mutli-day 1 flight $1,000,000 guarantee tournament, they added multiple additional starting flights and postponed Day 2 into the mid-workweek.

This has to be the absolute gold standard for bad practices.

https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...hlight=Gardens

You cannot hold a lottery for a guaranteed amount - sell tickets - then change the amount.

Did you reach out to the gaming commission? Cause that always results in comedy that should be shared

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Well, I'm not completely okay with it. I see your point. I see why it's a bad look.

However, as I said, it's a locals casino, and they lowered it with a week's notice, so there really wasn't any fraud here.

Yes, it would be great if they could just eat the big overlay, but these rooms operate on their own budget, and heads roll if they are losing money for the casino. This is why I give them a little leeway, as long as it's not that bad.

It's not like the Westgate situation I described, which was horrendous, and was literally cheating the concept of a guarantee.

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As long as you can get a refund for your buy-in, no harm no foul. I like the Orleans tourneys. I occasionally play the weeknight HORSE and Omaha/Stud 8 events. Hard to find limit events these days.

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Originally Posted by Jayjami

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Well, I'm not completely okay with it. I see your point. I see why it's a bad look.

However, as I said, it's a locals casino, and they lowered it with a week's notice, so there really wasn't any fraud here.

Yes, it would be great if they could just eat the big overlay, but these rooms operate on their own budget, and heads roll if they are losing money for the casino. This is why I give them a little leeway, as long as it's not that bad.

It's not like the Westgate situation I described, which was horrendous, and was literally cheating the concept of a guarantee.

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As long as you can get a refund for your buy-in, no harm no foul. I like the Orleans tourneys. I occasionally play the weeknight HORSE and Omaha/Stud 8 events. Hard to find limit events these days.

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Your take is why these venues can get away with doing this shit. My friend told me he knows at least 4 people that had already bought plane tickets and made hotel reservations. An under $1000 main event with a good structure and big guarantee($500,000) are hard to find. And this was publicized. So to just change it completely and slice the guarantee as well a week prior is fucking awful and shameful.

Plus the TD blatantly lied to me when I called by blaming the Venetian for just putting out their schedule when it has been out for well over a month.

The whole thing reeks of shadiness and sure, it's not as bad as Westgate or Gardens but it's still horrible.

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Originally Posted by Jayjami

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Well, I'm not completely okay with it. I see your point. I see why it's a bad look.

However, as I said, it's a locals casino, and they lowered it with a week's notice, so there really wasn't any fraud here.

Yes, it would be great if they could just eat the big overlay, but these rooms operate on their own budget, and heads roll if they are losing money for the casino. This is why I give them a little leeway, as long as it's not that bad.

It's not like the Westgate situation I described, which was horrendous, and was literally cheating the concept of a guarantee.

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As long as you can get a refund for your buy-in, no harm no foul. I like the Orleans tourneys. I occasionally play the weeknight HORSE and Omaha/Stud 8 events. Hard to find limit events these days.

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I wouldn't go that far. If it's simply a matter of, "We'll give you the buyin back if you catch us being shady", that is exactly what allows negative check-off scams (where only those who complain are made whole) to flourish.

I think timing is everything here.

If you announce a $500k guarantee event for a year from now, and then slash it to $250k the next day (but still a year away), is that okay? Almost everyone would say yes.

What about 6 months? Most would probably still say okay.

What about one month? Some would balk at this, but most would likely still be okay.

What about one day? No, that's unethical. Not enough notice.

What about one minute? Obviously not.


One week is kind of in the zone right in between acceptable and unethical, given that this is a locals casino. I've discussed the "guarantee" situation on radio a few times. Casinos have to understand that, if they derive the benefits of a guarantee tournament (more show up from it), they need to eat whatever overlay they get, and not pull shenanigans to avoid it. I always said, "If you can't deal with the ramifications of a guarantee, don't have one."

However, this is a bit of a different situation. I have to imagine that very few register for the Orleans events more than a week in advance, so this doesn't look like a case where they failed to reach the guarantee, and then lowered it in order to avoid an overlay. Here registration basically hasn't gotten going yet, and they realized the market for these wasn't what they thought, so they lowered it. Not good, but not horrible.

Hard to claim anyone lost money since airlines now allow you to cancel a flight and receive full credit for a future flight. Assuming you plan on flying again, you didn’t really “lose” anything. And rooms should have been able to have been canceled with no fee.

I get that it sucks because it was a potential great opportunity but I’m with the others that say a week was probably enough time to change plans at no expense and doesn’t rise to the level of a scam.

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Originally Posted by The Boz

Hard to claim anyone lost money since airlines now allow you to cancel a flight and receive full credit for a future flight. Assuming you plan on flying again, you didn’t really “lose” anything. And rooms should have been able to have been canceled with no fee.

I get that it sucks because it was a potential great opportunity but I’m with the others that say a week was probably enough time to change plans at no expense and doesn’t rise to the level of a scam.

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Do you not understand that there are fares called NON-REFUNDABLE that people buy weeks in advance? It's amazing to me how a few on here(not all)keep trying to justifying this. I mean your defense is now that the airlines will give credits? Unbelievable.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

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Originally Posted by Jayjami

As long as you can get a refund for your buy-in, no harm no foul. I like the Orleans tourneys. I occasionally play the weeknight HORSE and Omaha/Stud 8 events. Hard to find limit events these days.

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I wouldn't go that far. If it's simply a matter of, "We'll give you the buyin back if you catch us being shady", that is exactly what allows negative check-off scams (where only those who complain are made whole) to flourish.

I think timing is everything here.

If you announce a $500k guarantee event for a year from now, and then slash it to $250k the next day (but still a year away), is that okay? Almost everyone would say yes.

What about 6 months? Most would probably still say okay.

What about one month? Some would balk at this, but most would likely still be okay.

What about one day? No, that's unethical. Not enough notice.

What about one minute? Obviously not.


One week is kind of in the zone right in between acceptable and unethical, given that this is a locals casino. I've discussed the "guarantee" situation on radio a few times. Casinos have to understand that, if they derive the benefits of a guarantee tournament (more show up from it), they need to eat whatever overlay they get, and not pull shenanigans to avoid it. I always said, "If you can't deal with the ramifications of a guarantee, don't have one."

However, this is a bit of a different situation. I have to imagine that very few register for the Orleans events more than a week in advance, so this doesn't look like a case where they failed to reach the guarantee, and then lowered it in order to avoid an overlay. Here registration basically hasn't gotten going yet, and they realized the market for these wasn't what they thought, so they lowered it. Not good, but not horrible.

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Pretty fair post here Druff. I think doing this though a week before the tournament, especially a "main event" is way too close and completely unacceptable. Obv there is a fine line here. But a week prior to a 500k main and then changing and lowering everything that close to the event does affect a fair amt of people imo.

But you haven't addressed what the TD told me on the phone, that the Venetian "recently" put out its schedule and the Orleans just realized they also have an $800 tournament at the same time. Which is total bullshit, the schedule was out in late January, early February. Just his lies to me infuriated me even more.

So guess what? The Orleans is having a summer series and they had a main event $1000 buyin $750,000 guarantee scheduled for this Thursday June 16th day 1A.

Well they just NOW canceled the tournament!!! 2 days before it was supposed to run. And they changed their remaining schedule to all 1 day tournaments moving forward.

Hey Druff what do you say about this? I mean the Orleans poker room in my opinion should be boycotted, especially any tournament there. It's absolutely disgraceful.

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Originally Posted by ReformDorm

So guess what? The Orleans is having a summer series and they had a main event $1000 buyin $750,000 guarantee scheduled for this Thursday June 16th day 1A.

Well they just NOW canceled the tournament!!! 2 days before it was supposed to run. And they changed their remaining schedule to all 1 day tournaments moving forward.

Hey Druff what do you say about this? I mean the Orleans poker room in my opinion should be boycotted, especially any tournament there. It's absolutely disgraceful.

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I defended them before, however 2 consecutive series they were over ambitious with their GTDs and now decided to pull the rug once again. Bad look.

I live in Vegas so it's not a big hassle for me (as I planned to play this) however I will never "plan" another large GTD event in my schedule from the Orleans ever again because of this debacle.

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Originally Posted by AhoosierA

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Originally Posted by ReformDorm

So guess what? The Orleans is having a summer series and they had a main event $1000 buyin $750,000 guarantee scheduled for this Thursday June 16th day 1A.

Well they just NOW canceled the tournament!!! 2 days before it was supposed to run. And they changed their remaining schedule to all 1 day tournaments moving forward.

Hey Druff what do you say about this? I mean the Orleans poker room in my opinion should be boycotted, especially any tournament there. It's absolutely disgraceful.

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I defended them before, however 2 consecutive series they were over ambitious with their GTDs and now decided to pull the rug once again. Bad look.

I live in Vegas so it's not a big hassle for me (as I planned to play this) however I will never "plan" another large GTD event in my schedule from the Orleans ever again because of this debacle.

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2 of my friends planned on playing it and 1 of them was actually flying out to Vegas for 4 days mainly to play it. I warned them if the Orleans canceled a tournament before they could easily do it again but both my friends blew me off telling me there was no way the Orleans would do it again lol.

That place should be boycotted by the poker community. It's terrible what they did. My friend today told me he is sick he didn't listen to me, he got plane tickets and hotel reservations and everything. Pretty awful.