Atlantic City casino gambling revenue suffered only a modest year-on-year dip in October, although the prospect of a return to double-digit declines looms large.

Figures released Friday by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) show AC’s nine casinos generated brick-and-mortar slots and table game revenue of $186.1m in October, an 8% decline from the same month last year and $3.9m below September 2020’s result.

October’s decline was largely due to decreased slots activity, which slid nearly 10% to $132.85m, while table games fell only 2.8% to $53.25m. For the year-to-date, slots revenue is down 45% to $887.9m, while tables are off 48.2% to $331m, for an overall 46% decline to $1.21b.

October’s picture was far less grim after you add the $118m generated by the casinos’ online gambling and sports betting operations. Thanks to those contributions, October’s result was up 14.2% to $304.1m, although the year-to-date figure remains down 22.7% at $2.11b.

Live poker events have been few and far between in 2020 for obvious, COVID-19 related reasons. So it will come as both as a surprise and a relief to many poker fans that three one-day events will take place at the world-famous ARIA Casino venue in early December.

The high roller scene has moved online from live venues in the past six months, and has been a huge success, with tournaments such as the GGPoker Super Million and EPT Online Series giving the elite players in the mindsport opportunities to prove themselves against the best in the business.

The three forthcoming events will take place live at ARIA casino in Las Vegas on December 3rd, 4th and 5th, with each tournament costing $10,000 to enter. Each of the events are single-day format, with a winner on each night come what may.

If you thought it might be like the recent Phil Hellmuth vs. Antonio Esfandiari ‘High Stakes Duel’, where both players played without masks for their third and final bout – which Hellmuth won to take the $400,000 and run – then you’d be wrong. All players and staff present at the venue will be ‘masked up’ throughout the events, to minimize the potential spread of COVID-19.

After what must have been a tricky few starting sessions for Daniel Negreanu to take, Kid Poker bounced back in spectacular fashion this weekend to move into a slight lead in his grudge heads-up match with Doug Polk.

There was no love lost between the two poker legends in the beginning. Polk was going to back up the truck, load up with Daniel’s millions and cruise off into the sunset, saying ‘Sayonara’ to poker for possibly the last time.

Instead, and the to the delight of poker fans who want to see a real match between two players who both have a chance of winning, Negreanu has battled back and will have given his supporters real heart that this could remain a close match right up to the latter stages of the match.

The story so far is summarized fairly simply, with around 7% of the total hands played so far. That is to say 1,737 hands of the 25,000 that are the maximum, as there is a clause in place for either man to walk away after 12,500 hands.

The World Series of Poker looked like it might have downed guarantees for the winter and was building a run-up to next summer’s potential live return to the felt. Instead, the surprise news from Las Vegas – via the Czech Republic – came this weekend when the WSOP Main Event Hybrid version was announced.

As the WSOP revealed on their official website, the World Series Main Event is back, only this time in a very different way than ever before.

In the summer of 2019, Hossein Ensan won the WSOP Main Event. In the summer of 2020, Stoyan Madanzhiev took the top prize online. But what will take place later this year in December is a ‘hybrid’ – a mix of live and online poker that will test the mettle of players from around the world.

Costing $10,000 to enter, the World Series of Poker promise that this event will crown the 51st poker world champion, and in doing so, they are telling up that Madanzhiev’s title doesn’t count as the World Championship – a source of debate for many on social media since this hybrid tournament was proclaimed.