End Of An Era: World Series of Poker Has A New Home

WSOP Ballys Paris 2022

After a 35-year run at Binion’s Horseshoe, the World Series of Poker called the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino home since 2005. The storied poker tournament will have a new home in 2022. Actually, it will have two new homes, as Caesars Entertainment announced the 2022 series would take place at two of its Strip properties, Bally’s and Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino.

“As we approach the Final Table, we look back on yet another successful Main Event that exceeded expectations,” said World Series of Poker Senior Vice President Ty Stewart. “We are absolutely thrilled with this year’s turnout, both domestically and internationally. As we close out this chapter at the Rio, we are excited to have the iconic Vince Vaughn usher in a new era of WSOP at Bally’s and Paris next summer.”

A New WSOP Location for a New Era of Poker

The venue change signals not only the end of the Rio era, but in a sense, it marks the official end of the Poker Boom. The beginning and end of the Poker Boom era are hard to pin down, but two pivotal moments that adequately bookend the period are Chris Moneymaker’s historic WSOP Main Event win in 2003 and Black Friday in 2011.

The WSOP at the Rio is the last remaining vestige of that era, as the WSOP outgrew its previous home, Binion’s, following the explosion in interest spurred by Moneymaker’s win and several other factors, from the rise of online poker to hole-card camera technology to the launch of the World Poker Tour.

The new post-boom era is still nameless (sorry, I don’t have a catchy term to coin), but the poker world is undoubtedly entering a new era.

A Look at What Paris and Bally’s Offer

The two host casinos are located on the Strip, which means the WSOP will be held in the heart of Las Vegas – Binion’s is in Downtown Vegas while the Rio is an off-Strip property – for the first time in its history. That could help increase the tournament series’ presence and interest from participants and spectators.

And while neither Bally’s nor Paris are top-tier properties, they’re a vast improvement over The Rio, a property in desperate need of a makeover. But The Rio had two things going for it that made it an ideal home for the WSOP, an abundance of lower-demand convention space and plenty of parking.

That explains why it will take two properties to handle the sea of humanity that shows up for the WSOP every year.

The Rio possesses three function spaces:

  • The 55,000 square foot Pavilion Ballroom
  • The 39,060 square-foot Amazon Ballroom
  • The 20,306 square-foot Brasilia Ballroom

Bally’s boasts 175,000 square feet of dividable convention space, and Paris possesses another 140,000 square feet, with both properties connected. Even though each property has more meeting space than The Rio, the convention space at the Strip properties is in higher demand and parking is harder to come by.

Comfort and convenience will also be vastly improved when the series moves to Paris and Bally’s. Players and spectators will have plenty of hotel options nearby and will have more dining choices and more bathrooms, the latter being one of the biggest complaints of the WSOP every year.  

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