Poker in Nevada: Las Vegas rooms, the WSOP and what's legal online

No state matters more to poker than Nevada. Las Vegas hosts the World Series of Poker every summer, the WPT World Championship at the Wynn every December and the biggest cash games in the country year-round, and Nevada was the first state to regulate online poker, in 2013.

What this page tries to add to that familiar story is accuracy about where the games actually are. Las Vegas has a Strip poker scene and a separate locals' scene in Henderson, North Las Vegas and the western suburbs, and it also has several large, recently built casinos with no poker room at all. We check the venue's own pages before we list a room, and we publish the ones that turned out not to have one.

Is online poker legal in Nevada?

Yes. Nevada legalised and regulated real-money online poker in 2013 under the Nevada Gaming Control Board, and WSOP.com is the licensed room; it shares player pools with New Jersey and Michigan under the multi-state agreement, and offers online bracelet events during the WSOP. You must be physically in Nevada and at least 21 to play. Alongside it, sweepstakes poker such as ClubWPT Gold is available to Nevada residents from 18. Offshore sites are not licensed and we do not list them. This is general information, not legal advice.

The Strip rooms

The flagships are the Bellagio, home of Bobby's Room and the WPT Five Diamond; Aria, which hosts the highest-stakes tournament series in the world; the Wynn, which runs the biggest guaranteed tournaments outside the WSOP and hosts the WPT World Championship; and the Venetian, whose DeepStack series runs more or less continuously through the autumn and winter. Each has its own page here with the table count and games we read off the room's own listing.

The locals' circuit

This is the half of Las Vegas poker that visitors miss, and on table count it is not a small half. The Orleans runs the largest room off the Strip at 35 tables, with Red Rock Resort at 20, Green Valley Ranch in Henderson at 15, Santa Fe Station in North Las Vegas at 14, Boulder Station at 10 and Westgate at 7. South Point and the Golden Nugget downtown round out the list. Lower rake, smaller games, and a regular crowd rather than a tourist one — if you are in town for a week rather than a weekend, this is where the week goes.

Outside the Las Vegas valley, Stateline on the south shore of Lake Tahoe takes a WSOP Circuit stop in the autumn.

Where there is no poker room

Three large Las Vegas casinos are on this site specifically because they do not have one. Resorts World Las Vegas advertises no poker room on its gaming pages. Durango Casino & Resort, one of the newest properties in the valley, lists table games without poker. Gold Coast, long associated with poker in older guides, no longer advertises a room either. Each is published as a verified negative with the page we read it on, because a wasted trip across town is exactly the sort of thing a poker guide ought to prevent.

Events

The WSOP runs from late May to mid-July at Paris and Horseshoe Las Vegas, with the Wynn Summer Classic and Aria's Poker Masters and US Poker Open alongside it. The autumn and winter belong to the Venetian's DeepStack Showdown and DeepStack Extravaganza blocks, the Wynn Fall Classic, the WPT Venetian Fall Championship in November, and then December: the WPT World Championship, WPT Prime Championship and WPT Ladies Championship at the Wynn, the Bellagio Five Diamond, and a DeepStack Extravaganza that runs across New Year. The Golden Nugget and Wynn both run daily tournaments year-round. Our Nevada tournament pages carry the dates and the source for each.