Horseshoe Las Vegas: 2023 Review of Poker Games, Promos & more

While online poker sites provide an accessible product that you can play from virtually anywhere for a broader range of stakes than is typically available live, we nevertheless have a place in our hearts for brick-and-mortal cardrooms. Perhaps nowhere in the world has a greater concentration of live poker rooms in such close proximity as the Las Vegas Strip.

We were recently in Vegas and elected to check out the new Hall of Fame poker room at the Horseshoe Casino. This poker space was renovated in late 2022 as part of the old Bally's Casino's rebranding to the Horseshoe.

We were curious what the action was like at this gaming hall, one of the hosts of the yearly World Series of Poker. Therefore, we decided to play a few sessions and compose this Horseshoe Las Vegas live poker review, which is chock-full of information about the games available, promotions, the physical layout of the room, and more.

Horseshoe Poker Room Location

The Horseshoe Las Vegas is in the heart of the Strip with other casino establishments surrounding it in all directions. Its immediate neighbors are Paris (to which it is connected) to the south, The Cromwell to the north, and the Bellagio to the west across the Strip.

The Deuce bus has a stop on its northbound route close by at the Paris Casino. Also, the Horseshoe and Paris share a stop on the Las Vegas Monorail.

This central location has its benefits and drawbacks. The cardroom is easy to get to for many visitors whose hotels are nearby. On the other hand, there are plenty of competing cardrooms in the vicinity attracting players away from the Horseshoe.

The Horseshoe Casino (Formerly Bally's)

Getting to the Hall of Fame Poker Room from inside the Horseshoe is easy. From the main entrance, turn right, and you will see it in front of you.

Horseshoe Las Vegas Poker Games

The Horseshoe spreads both cash games and tournaments. While the cash games are mostly ordinary and about what you would expect from a Las Vegas poker room, the tournaments here are what really distinguish this room.

Cash Games

The most common ring game at the Horseshoe is $1/$3 No Limit Hold'em with a buyin of up to $300. During busy periods, there can be up to seven or eight of these tables running, and there's usually a game or two active even at slower times. The next-most popular game is $2/$3 NLHE with a buyin of up to $500. This game generally sees between one and three tables simultaneously active.

Another format that tends to get going more often than not is Limit Hold'em. This is represented by $3/$6 and $4/$8 tables, and there's generally at least a couple of games going. $1/$2 and $5/$5 Pot Limit Omaha sometimes starts up too.

While there might only be a couple of games running during early mornings and afternoons, traffic really picks up during evenings and weekends. Waiting lists sometimes get long with more than a dozen people waiting for a seat at one of more than 10 running games.

The rake here is the standard 10% up to $5 plus up to $2 for the promotional drop. Cash game tables each seat up to eight players.

Tournaments

For a room of its size, the daily tournament offerings at the Horseshoe are excellent. There are six tourneys every day, which cost $75 to enter and begin roughly every three hours starting at 9 a.m. On Saturdays, the 2 p.m. tournament is replaced by a $160-buyin event. Unlike with ring games, tournaments seat nine individuals per table.

The 18 tables in the poker room often do not suffice for the number of players who sign up for tournaments. There are multiple sections of additional tables outside of and adjacent to the poker room that the house uses in these cases to seat all the competitors.

The Poker Room at the Horseshoe Las Vegas

In 2022, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) moved from its longtime home of the Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino to Bally's (the predecessor of the Horseshoe) and Paris casinos. The Horseshoe inherited this status from Bally's and is one of the official homes of the WSOP. However, the WSOP tournaments don't occur in the regular poker room but rather in the Horseshoe Grand Ballroom and Events Center.

Needless to say, the Series is the premier annual event in the poker world. For about two months in the summer, the Horseshoe and the Paris are the unquestioned epicenter of the world of poker.

Event apart from the main WSOP series, Horseshoe sometimes hosts WSOP Circuit events. These are like miniature versions of the big WSOP with smaller buyins, fewer events, and more modest prize pools. The winner of a WSOP-C main event usually receives a special ring to commemorate his or her victory.

Poker Promos

There are only a few promotions at the Horseshoe poker room, but they are fairly lucrative, and ordinary players have a fair shot at getting their share of the proceeds.

High Hand

Every day from noon to midnight, the highest hand every 20 minutes collects a $200 prize. The minimum hand strength required is any full house.

Should there be no qualifying hand during a 20-minute period, then the $200 prize rolls over to the next high hand.

However, the rules of the high hand promo are very liberal, resulting in many winning hands and thus few prize rollovers. The hand doesn't need to go to showdown, and you don't even need to use both hole cards. As long as at least one hole card interacts with the board in such a way as to create a full house or better, the hand qualifies for the high hand award.

Caesars Rewards

The Horseshoe Casino is part of the Caesars gambling empire. Therefore, all poker players are eligible for Caesars Rewards as long as they sign up for membership in the program and present their player cards upon starting a poker session.

At $1/$3 NL and $3/$6 Limit games, the rate of tier credit accrual is 17 points per hour. At $2/$3 NL, $4/$8 LHE and higher, this doubles to 34. It takes 5,000 tier credits to advance to Platinum level in Caesars Rewards and start to gain extra benefits from this, so only truly dedicated grinders will see much benefit from earning tier points.

More relevant to casual players are the reward credits that are earned along with the tier credits. At $1/$3 NL and $3/$6 limit, everyone gets $1/hr in comps. This doubles to $2/hr in bigger games. You can redeem reward credits for dining, hotel room charges, slot freeplay, shopping, spa services, and even entry into WSOP events.

Caesars Marketing Offers

Besides earning comps, your poker play may qualify you for exclusive marketing promotions at Caesars properties not just in Las Vegas but across the country. Depending on your playing and spending history, you could qualify for free hotel rooms, food & beverage credit, freeplay, or even reduced cost junkets, which include flights and accommodations.

It is true that most of these offers are intended for casino pit gamblers and slot machine fanatics. Still, your poker play will count towards your total gaming history and may be enough to receive at least reduced room rates and the occasional mid-week comped stay.

Horseshoe Poker Room Ambiance

The Horseshoe Las Vegas poker room is a roughly square area enclosed by railings on two sides, a solid wall on another, and the front open to the public. The additional tables that are used for tournament overflow are positioned outside this fenced-off area and are separated from the rest of the casino floor by makeshift poles and dividers.

The interior of the poker room is clean and functional without anything really lacking but absent those opulent touches that accentuate such upscale competitors as, for example, the Wynn and Bellagio. This is basically your workaday poker room that's functional and comfortable without being luxurious.

Alternate View of the Horseshoe Poker Room

The tables are large enough that you won't feel crowded especially because there are only eight seats in cash games. The overall table theme is a pleasant combination of brown, tan, and gold although the presence of multiple corporate logos, for such entities as the Horseshoe itself, WSOP, and Gorilla Gaming (the manufacturer of the tables), make it seem a bit busy. Cell phone charging ports are present at each seat, and cupholders are built right into the tables.

The games that we sat in seemed a tad bit aggressive for low-stakes NLHE. There were few limped-around family pots; most hands featured a preflop raise. However, there was plenty of loose, multiway action when the initial raise was called in multiple spots and four or five people saw a flop. Three-bet pots, of course, had fewer participants in them, but three-bets were overall pretty rare in our experience. Overall, we would say these games are beatable by any solid grinder although a tad bit tougher than the average Las Vegas fare.

Beverages and Dining

Although you cannot order food and have it delivered to the table, complimentary beverages are provided by Horseshoe staff. Cocktail waitresses circulate throughout the casino, ready to take your order for alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Just as with almost every Vegas casino, these drinks are free apart from the dollar or two that you should tip the waitress.

If you do require a quick bite in between hands, there's a deli called “Nosh” right next to the cardroom. It serves sandwiches, pastries, salads, and similar dishes although it does close at 3:30 p.m. on weekdays and 9 p.m. on weekends.

For more options, you can check out the food court, which contains a Nathan's Famous, Sbarro, Subway, Johnny Rockets, and Pan Asian Express. Unfortunately, the escalator to the food court is clear across the casino floor from the poker room.

For more substantial cuisine, you can try Jack Binion's Steakhouse in the Horseshoe or any number of high-end restaurants in the attached Paris Casino, including The Bedford by Martha Stewart, Vanderpump à Paris, Nobu, Mon Ami Gabi, and Gordon Ramsay Steak. There are also a few moderately priced eateries available in the Paris Casino although “moderately priced” has a different definition on the Las Vegas Strip than it does in most parts of the country.

Miscellaneous Facts

Buying chips and redeeming them are both handled at the podium in the front of the poker room. There's also a card reader there where you can see how many comps you have earned and your progress toward any other promotions or rewards associated with the poker room. Your comps will update on this kiosk in real time; however, they may take a while to be automatically transferred over to your Caesar Rewards account.

It's possible to straddle both under the gun and on the button. In the case of button straddles, the action starts as normal under the gun. If there is any raise before the action gets to the button, then the button acts in the usual order before the blinds do. However, if there are only limps and folds before the button acts, then the action passes on to the blinds before the button has to act.

There are perhaps a dozen TV screens scattered around the cardroom. They're mostly dedicated to showing tournament status and information pertaining to the high hand promo.

One drawback to the Horseshoe poker room is the fact that chopping the blinds is not permitted. This leads to more flops being seen and thus higher rake.

There's no smoking allowed in the cardroom. However, you can step away just a few feet to where the slot machines are and have a smoke. Restrooms are similarly just outside the poker room.

Horseshoe Poker History

The Horseshoe name has a long and storied history starting with Binion's Horseshoe, the downtown venue that inaugurated the World Series of Poker. However, the current Horseshoe Casino has nothing to do with the Binion's downtown gambling establishment, which incidentally is today known as Binion's Gambling Hall.

What happened is that Benny Binion's son, Jack Binion, obtained the rights to the Horseshoe name, which he sold to Harrah's in 2004. Harrah's in turn acquired Caesars Entertainment in 2005, and the combined company was purchased by Eldorado Resorts in 2019, which elected to continue operations as Caesars. This is how Caesars has come to be associated with the Horseshoe brand.

The casino now known as the Horseshoe originally opened on the Las Vegas Strip as the MGM Grand in 1973. In 1986, it was purchased by Bally and renamed “Bally's.” It eventually became part of the Caesars portfolio of gaming establishments.

In 2019, Caesars sold the Rio Casino, the then-host of the World Series of Poker. It then moved the Series to Bally's and the Paris casinos in 2022.

At the end of 2022, Bally's Casino rebranded to the Horseshoe Casino. Part of that rebranding included a renovation of the poker room. Most players appreciated the new chairs, tables, and layout of the space, and anecdotal reports suggest that traffic is up quite a bit since the renovations.

Horseshoe Las Vegas Poker Conclusion

The Horseshoe Casino is a middle-of-the-road cardroom that doesn't really have much to distinguish itself. It's probably worth a visit if you happen to be nearby but not otherwise.

The exception – and it's a big one – is during the annual World Series of Poker. When it's WSOP time, the Horseshoe (along with sister property Paris Casino) is the place to be for any serious poker fan.

During the rest of the year, however, there are larger poker venues available in Las Vegas, and there are arguably softer games around town too. The Horseshoe Casino is a fine place for poker, but there's very little to distinguish it from the other Las Vegas cardrooms.

Other Opinions of the Horseshoe Poker Room

Before publishing any live cardroom review, we like to scour the internet for other comments, good and bad, about the room. This acts as a kind of reality check and lets us consider details that we may have overlooked during our own gameplay experiences.

Therefore you will find below a selection of actual posts made by real visitors to the Horseshoe Las Vegas live poker room:

Play Online Poker From Anywhere

Though the Horseshoe Las Vegas has put together a credible poker offering – and one that appears to be growing steadily more popular – it simply can't compete with poker over the internet for traffic volume, breadth of games available, and the sheer convenience of playing whenever you want from your own home.

For more information about trustworthy online poker sites that you can play at today, check out this guide to USA online poker. Rest assured that this activity is fully legal as you will no doubt conclude after reading a thorough summary of the legalities of online poker in the United States.

Other Live Poker Room Reviews:

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

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 eight years experience covering this field!