The Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) is continuing its gentle push toward the Encore Boston Harbor and MGM Springfield casinos to return its available poker tables closer to pre-pandemic levels in the wake of continuing complaints about long waits and lack of opportunities to play. According to a report at MassLive.com, the two casinos continue to lag on efforts to re-staff the poker rooms in accordance to the promises made to regulators about the games that would be offered to players in New England.
Returning live-poker opportunities to the region's players has been an ongoing struggle. The Encore Boston Harbor and MGM Springfield rooms were first shuttered in March 2020 along with the rest of the two properties' gaming services. When the casinos re-opened, they did so without re-opening the poker rooms, citing both health concerns about extended contact between players and staff and a shortage of trained dealers, as some of the prior staff had moved on to other employment opportunities during the pandemic-caused closure.
Continuing complaints about the lack of poker offerings, however, generated a wave of consumer complaints to the MGC, to the point that the regulatory agency held a special "poker summit" on the topic. Eventually the casinos re-opened the poker rooms on a limited basis.
Returning the rooms to full operational status has been a far longer challenge. More recently, MassLive reporters verified that the two casinos have still fallen far short of a full re-staffing, which is important to the MGC in a different way, because of the initially promised jobs that were lost and have yet to be restored.
