Harrah's AC Poker Room Review 2024: Games, Promos, Traffic, and More

There's a lot to be said for online poker sites, which are our bread and butter here at Professional Rakeback. However, live poker has its thrills too: You can stare into the fish's eyes and think, “Why the hell did you call off 50 big blinds with bottom pair on the river?" It was with such thoughts going through our heads that we went down to the Harrah's AC poker room for a couple of sessions of brick-and-mortar poker.

Atlantic City, New Jersey used to boast a thriving live poker scene, but the closure of several venues meant that there were only five cardrooms remaining by the time COVID hit the scene. This number has been reduced to three as a couple of them never reopened. Harrah's, the Borgata, and the Tropicana and now the only places to go for physical poker games in AC.

With all that in mind, we hit the road and went to Atlantic City to compose this Harrah's AC poker room review. Read on to learn all about the games currently being spread, the number of active tables you can expect to find, promotions, amenities of the resort, and much more!

Harrah's Atlantic City Poker Room: Where Is It?

The Harrah's Atlantic City Casino is part of the Marina District along with its neighbors, the Borgata and the Golden Nugget. These three properties are within walking distance of each other, but they are further away from the other Atlantic City gambling halls, which are located on the boardwalk.

To get from Harrah's to any of the boardwalk venues takes about 10 to 15 minutes by car. There's also the Jitney bus system, which has stops all around town and at all the casinos, and, of course, Uber and taxis. Fridays through Sundays, a Caesar Rewards shuttle transports players between Harrah's, Tropicana, and Caesars AC. It's free for higher-level cardholders in the Caesar Rewards program, but any member can ride the shuttle after accumulating a minimal level of play (10 tier credits during a day).

Harrah's is on the larger side of AC resorts with five hotel towers, an indoor pool, several bars and restaurants, a sportsbook, and a capacious casino gaming floor. The poker room can be hard to find amidst such a large space especially because it's tucked away into its own little nook of the establishment.

The Harrah's AC poker room is on the main casino floor near the Caesar Rewards desk and McCormick & Schmick's seafood restaurant. It's just off the pathway that runs the length of the gaming floor, roughly equidistant between the Grand Lobby and the Brigantine exit.

Harrah's Atlantic City, in the Marina District

Harrah's Atlantic City Poker Cash Games

$1/$2 No Limit Texas Hold'em with a maximum buyin of $300 is the mainstay of the Harrah's poker room in Atlantic City. There are generally at least two such tables active whenever the room is open, and sometimes as many as five run. There's usually also a $1/$3 game running too, and the maximum buyin for this one is $500. During busier periods, you may encounter a $2/$5 NLHE game as well.

NLHE cash games tend to be loose with between three and five players seeing a flop. This is not to say that they're particularly passive. You'll usually encounter a raise preflop followed by bets on multiple streets postflop.

The rake is 10% up to $5 with a $2 promotional drop. The first dollar of promo rake is taken when the pot reaches $10 and the second when it hits $30. Unfortunately, chopping the blinds is disallowed: likely a way of increasing the rake. Straddling for 2x the big blind is permitted in the under-the-gun position.

Mixed games and limit games can sometimes be found: a rarity in today's live poker scene. This isn't due to any big demand for such games on the part of customers; rather, management has decided upon a weekly rotating schedule of variants that are spread on the following days and times:

• Mondays + Tuesdays, 11 a.m., $10/$20 LO8 + Stud8 mix
• Thursdays, 11 a.m., $20/$40 Stud
• Saturdays, 8 p.m., $2/$5 NL Holdem + $2/$2 PLO mix

Even when the above games start, they don't typically run for more than a few hours before breaking. Nevertheless, they represent a credible effort on the part of poker room staff to broaden the horizons of what the room has to offer. The only other cash games to see much participation are low-stakes limit Hold'em ($3/$6 and below), which can often be found at a table or two.

Harrah's Atlantic City Poker Tournament Schedule

Although Harrah's AC cardroom used to have a regular schedule of low-buyin tourneys every week, these stopped with the advent of COVID and have not since been resumed. This is also true of the annual WSOP Circuit festivals that it used to host.

Right now, management probably feels that traffic levels in the poker room are not sufficient to support much tournament action. Perhaps this will change in the future, but for right now, the only place to go in Atlantic City for tournaments is the competing Borgata poker room.

It's a bit disconcerting to see the walls decorated with the names and faces of past winners and WSOP qualifiers and realize that all such Harrah's Atlantic City poker tournaments have been put on hold for the present. Yet, time alters all things, and we may yet see the accomplishments of the Harrah's AC player base grow in future should tournaments resume.

Poker Room in Harrah's AC With a Few Games Going

Harrah's Poker Room Promotions

As we've already mentioned, Harrah's removes up to $2 from the pot to fund poker promotions. These promos are designed for No Limit Texas Hold'em games alone, so Omaha and other variants do not qualify, but on the other hand, players in those excluded games don't have to pay the promo drop either. Limit Hold'em is included within the ambit of the poker promos, so fans of this form of poker can fully partake of them.

The only hands that qualify for most promotions are those that are designated “Bad Beat Jackpot eligible.” This refers to NL hands below $5/$10 and Limit below $15/$30 with at least $20 in the pot and four players dealt into the hand together with higher-stakes hands with at least $100 in the pot and seven players dealt in.

Bad Beat Jackpot

To trigger the Bad Beat Jackpot in any qualifying game requires four of a kind tens or better to go to showdown and lose. If either the winning or losing hand or both are four of a kind, then such four of a kind must be made using a pocket pair. Both players must use both hole cards in the composition of their final five-card hands.

When the Bad Beat Jackpot is hit, the prize amount is distributed as follows:

• 40% to the holder of the losing hand
• 20% to the holder of the winning hand
• 40% to the remaining players at the table, including the winner and loser of the jackpot

Whenever the bad beat pays out, a new jackpot is reseeded with $10,000. The jackpot total stood at more than $12,000 during the month of March 2024.

High Hand

There's a high hand promo running at the Atlantic City Harrah's poker room seven days a week. Each high hand must be at least aces full of kings, and there has to be at least $30 in the pot to qualify.

The schedule and amounts paid per high hand vary depending on the day of the week. If no high hand is hit during the last relevant period of a day, then the high hand remains open that day until a hand qualifies or the room closes:

• Monday: $250 every half hour with one rollover max. Noon to midnight.
• Tuesday: $200 every 20 minutes with no rollover. Noon to midnight.
• Wednesday: $250 every half hour with one rollover max. Noon to midnight.
• Thursday: $250 every hour with one rollover max. Noon to midnight.
• Friday: $250 every hour with one rollover max. Noon to 2 a.m.
• Saturday: $250 Instant High Hand from 9 a.m. to noon. The first 10 High Hands qualify. Then $500 every hour from noon to midnight with no rollover.
• Sunday: $250 Instant High Hand from 9 a.m. to noon. The first 10 High Hands qualify. Then $250 every hour from noon to midnight with one rollover max.

Independently of these High Hand awards, there's also a special bonus for those who make a Royal Flush with both hole cards. This is worth $100 on top of whatever High Hand it qualifies for if any.

Monthly Rakeback

Those who put in a minimum number of hours at the Harrah's AC poker room during a given month will be able to collect a rakeback payout the next month. This rakeback payment is made on the second Friday of the month, for the previous month's play, and is available until the end of the month.

The amount of this rakeback increases the more hours you play per month:

• 50 – 79 hours: $50
• 80 – 99 hours: $100
• 100 – 149 hours: $150
• 150 – 199 hours: $250
• 200+ hours: $300

Caesars Rewards

Harrah's is part of casino giant Caesars Entertainment, which owns and manages dozens of resorts across the country. When you play poker at Harrah's AC, you'll earn Reward Credits that can be used to pay for dining, hotel rooms, merchandise, and other goods and services at any property that's part of the Caesars empire. You will earn about $1 or $2 per hour in comps while at the poker tables.

Not only that, but your play may qualify you for marketing offers, like free or discounted rooms, slot freeplay, complimentary gifts, and more. These offers may be good at only Harrah's Atlantic City, but on the other hand, you might receive deals across the Caesars network of casinos, including Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Harrah's New Orleans, and many others.

Harrah's Poker Atlantic City Ambiance

It appears that Harrah's is going for a homey, comfortable feel in its poker room. The space, while certainly adequate for the amount of tables it contains, is by no means expansive or luxurious. The sky-high ceilings that we find in some more opulent and upscale rooms are absent here as are any expensive decorative touches, like chandeliers or marble columns.

At the same time, it is a well-appointed room. The carpets have an interesting blue-and-pink theme. The lights are recessed within the ceiling, leading to uneven lighting: Some parts of the room are brightly lit while spots mere feet away are darker. This gives the room the feel of a renovated basement or an underground club. The walls are covered with photographs of past poker action at Harrah's AC poker room, including images of the winners of major events that have been hosted here.

The tables themselves feature green felt and a yellow betting line. The tables have words and logos related both to Harrah's and the World Series of Poker (both brands are owned by Caesars Entertainment, and the casino itself is operated by this entity). The rails are maroon and contain cup holders. USB charging ports can be found next to each seat.

The seats are nothing special. They don't even roll forward or backward. These are old-school chairs with four legs that you have to pick up manually if you wish to reposition them.

Empty Poker Room at Harrah's Atlantic City

The patrons – at least during the time we visited – were animated and talkative. This wasn't the verbal mudslinging or aggressive needling generally engaged in by the low-stakes hoodie-and-sunglasses crew either. It was genuinely friendly banter about hands that just occurred, the game in general, cardroom promotions, and other topics, like sports and employment.

We could hear cheers and groans from the other tables after unexpected and/or fortuitous turns of the cards. Certainly, the Harrahs Atlantic City poker room is populated by individuals who seriously enjoy the game.

Though there are no doors or physical separations between the cardroom and the rest of the casino, there are short and windy passageways that serves much the same purpose. Very few people will wander inadvertently into the poker room because of the way the surrounding area is designed, and so the usual noise from casino entertainments – slot reels spinning, loud yelling over jackpot wins, celebratory exclamations from the craps pit, et cetera – is severely muted. This is a poker-only area of the property, and it definitely feels like a poker-exclusive section.

Food and Drink

Drink service is provided by cocktail waitresses who come around two or three times per hour. You can order all kinds of standard and alcoholic drinks free of charge although you should, of course, tip the waitress.

The food situation is less optimistic though. You can't order food or even bring it in with you to the poker room, which means you'll need to take breaks from the table to eat.

Unfortunately, for a four-star resort, the roster of dining establishments on-property is a bit underwhelming. In all, there are 11 venues representing the gamut from cheap eats to gourmet cuisine, but many of them are only open on certain days of the week or during restricted hours.

McCormick & Schmick's is a pretty well-rated seafood eatery that's just around the corner from the poker room, but it's not open till almost noon on weekends and 3:30 weekdays. The Gordon Ramsey steakhouse, meanwhile, is only open for dinner five days a week as is Italian restaurant La Strada although they are closed on different days of the week.

For cuisine that's available every day, you're perhaps best served by the food court, which is several minutes' walk from the poker room. Here you can sample the fare offered at Starbucks, Bobby's Burgers by Bobby Flay, Coastal Craft Kitchen and Bar, and several other options. Even here, though, a few of the outlets are open for only restrictive hours or on certain days.

The only place to grab a quick bite at any time, day or night, weekdays and weekends, is the Tazza Cafe. Unfortunately, the cafe was closed for renovations during our stay in March 2024, and there's no word on when it will reopen.

Additional Info

The Harrah's AC poker room has its own dedicated cashier, but it is frequently closed. When this is the case, you have to buy in at the table and redeem your chips at the main casino cage.

There's no smoking within the Harrah's poker room in Atlantic City. In order to have a cigarette, one must walk to the smoking section of the casino, which takes a couple of minutes, or step outside by the ocean.

Fortunately, those who need to heed the call of nature have a shorter walk as the poker room has its own dedicated restrooms. Because they're so isolated from the rest of the property, they're relatively clean and well-maintained.

A lounge with four tables and numerous seats abuts the poker room. Players who are on the waitlist and waiting for their names to be called can sit and wait here.

History of Harrah's Poker in Atlantic City

The history of Harrah's Atlantic City goes back more than 40 years, making it one of the longest-lasting venues in the often-tumultuous Atlantic City gaming environment. In 1976, voters in the Garden State approved of the legalization of casinos, and Harrah's was among the first half dozen to open its doors and the first in the Marina District as opposed to the Boardwalk.

The Harrah's brand had been bought over by Holiday Inns after the death of Bill Harrah and while the buildings were still being constructed. The new owners decided to keep the Harrah's name for their new casino development. Harrah's Marina Hotel Casino opened for business on Nov. 22, 1980. At that time, poker was not a game approved by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, and so it was absent from the gaming menu at Harrah's.

Harrah's Marina Hotel Casino, c. 1980

It wasn't until 1993 that the New Jersey powers-that-be got around to approving casino poker, and when they did, there was a rush to open new poker rooms. By this time, the Harrah's AC resort was owned by Holiday Inn spinoff The Promus Companies, which wound up changing its name in 1995 to Harrah's Entertainment. Before the end of 1993, Harrah's boasted a new poker room although it failed to compete seriously with the AC poker titans of that era, the Trump Taj Mahal and the Tropicana.

Indeed, the poker action at Harrah's seemed to be sorely lacking as the years passed by as evidenced by the fact that the resort boasted eight poker tables in October 2001, which was reduced to seven by February 2002 and just five by August 2002.

Harrah's aimed to change this in July 2005 by opening a new poker room with 28 tables although this number was reduced to 24 about a year later. This cardroom was located at the far end of the property near the concert arena.

Also in mid-2005, Harrah's announced that it was purchasing rival Caesars Entertainment. Harrah's eventually changed its name to Caesars, but the Harrah's brand name was retained, and this had little impact on the way Harrah's AC was run.

The final important change to the Harrah's poker room in Atlantic City came in July 2008 when a new 40-table venue debuted to replace the old 24-table one. It's the same space currently occupied by the Harrah's Atlantic City poker room.

In June 2019, Eldorado Resorts announced that it was purchasing Caesars Entertainment for the princely sum of $17.3 billion. The combined company retained the Caesars name and began transferring customers to the Caesars Rewards program from Eldorado's existing ONEClub membership program. This means that the only thing different for Harrah's AC players is that they now have even more destinations nationwide where they can use their comps and receive offers for free or discounted stays.

Harrah's, along with the other AC casinos, had to close in obedience to COVID mandates from the governor on March 16, 2020. The casino reopened on July 3, but the poker room remained shuttered for a while longer until Dec. 26.

The reopened poker room only had six tables available, but this has slowly been increased to the present number of 28.

Harrah's Atlantic City Poker Bottom Line

The Harrah's poker room is a welcome feature of the Atlantic City poker scene, which has experienced a steady decline since its heyday in the mid-2000s. As one of only three venues for the game in town, Harrah's certainly helps keep brick-and-mortar poker alive on the East Coast.

That said, it's not the only game in town, and it's not the best game in town either. That accolade rests with the nearby Borgata, which offers more cash games running at any given time as well as greater variety in the formats spread. Harrah's doesn't have tournaments either, another area in which it falls behind its Marina District competitor.

We would place the Harrah's AC poker room in the middle of the pack. There are only three poker rooms in the city currently operating (Harrah's, Borgata, and Tropicana), so this gives a pretty good idea of where we think it stands vis-à-vis its competitors.

Other Players' Opinions

We always like to look around the internet for different opinions on a given subject before publishing our own. This lets us consider what others are thinking and prevents us from ignoring anything important that we may have not discovered while doing our own research.

Therefore, we've compiled a selection of posts about the Harrah's AC poker room from sources far and wide. Read them below:

More Poker Opportunities Online

The major issues we had with the Harrah's AC cardroom were the relatively small number of games running and the fact that the room is not open around-the-clock. Both of these hindrances disappear when we talk about online poker.

Almost every single site for poker over the internet generates more traffic than the handful of games spread by Harrah's AC Casino. They're available 24 hours a day too.

Harrah's does have an online casino site, but it does not offer online poker. The regulated internet poker sites offered by other New Jersey operators are pretty small and lackluster anyway.

Your best bet is to join up at an offshore poker site. These organizations are able to legally serve the Garden State because they're based in foreign jurisdictions that are not subject to U.S. law enforcement. You too are not at risk of getting into legal trouble because the laws that might come into play penalize only those who manage and run the games, not ordinary players. You can learn more about this topic with this USA online poker legal overview.

For a list of international online poker sites that serve New Jersey, take a look at this NJ internet poker guide. For a broader look at the game throughout the whole country, check out this informative USA online poker page.

Other Live Poker Room Reviews:

• The Lodge (Round Rock, TX)
• Texas Card House (North Austin, TX)
• Shuffle512 (Austin, TX)
• Action's Card House (Ontario, OR)
• Ontario Poker Room and Social Club (Downtown Ontario, OR)
• Golden Nugget (Downtown Las Vegas, NV)
• Horseshoe (Las Vegas, NV)
• Mandalay Bay (Paradise, NV)
• Harrah's Laughlin (Laughlin, NV)
• Wendover Peppermill (West Wendover, NV)
• Canterbury Park (Shakopee, MN)
• MGM Grand (Detroit, MI)
• Beau Rivage (Biloxi, MS)
• Borgata (Atlantic City, NJ)
• Tropicana (Atlantic City, NJ)
• Turning Stone (Verona, NY)
• Tioga Downs (Nichols, NY)

Jake Rake is the head poker writer at ProfessionalRakeback.com.

He eats, sleeps and breathes poker and online gaming. This is a man who reads every online poker forum morning, noon, and night, for the last 17 years, trying to find fun and interesting information to share with our readers.

Jake has become an ardent student of crypto-currency since it was first introduced in the online poker world in 2013 and he thus has more than a decade of experience covering this field!