The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is considered to be the biggest and most prestigious live poker tournament in the world. The 2015 WSOP is scheduled to take place in May and will be held once again at the Rio in Las Vegas.
The WSOP recently announced that it would no longer permit the use of $100 bills in cash games as the WSOP wants to follow the cashless trend set by some of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas such as the Las Vegas Sands, Station Casinos, MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts.
The WSOP believes that the game has evolved and the 2015 WSOP version will be the first tournament that does not permit $100 cash bills.
WSOP director Jack Effel assured players that the elimination of $100 cash bills will in no way influence any poker event and can be assured that their playing experience will only get better. This new rule will make it mandatory for players to buy their chips through a chip runner or directly at the cage as dealers will no longer be permitted to sell chips for hard cash at the table.
Speaking about this new change, Seth Palansky a spokesman for the WSOP said
A lot of Caesars properties around the country/world already were cashless in their poker rooms, either by local/state regulatory standards or their own policies/procedures. In light of the rest of Las Vegas moving in this direction, we took a closer look at the issue and decided to be consistent company-wide and move in the direction we did.
Most casinos in Las Vegas decided to go adopt a cashless policy at the table from the 1st of April 2015 in order to eliminate chances of fraud and prevent unnecessary delays at the game table.
Other casino operators in Las Vegas that recently stopped allowing cash to play in their poker rooms include MGM Resorts, Station Casinos, Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands. MGM seems to have started the domino effect this year by changing its policy effective April 1. Casinos in Las Vegas have experienced a dip in revenue during 2014 as player traffic declined and the size of each bet dropped.
The 2015 WSOP will start in May and wind up in the middle of July. The tournament is expected to attract poker players and enthusiasts from around the world and casinos in Las Vegas are looking to capitalize on the influx of new business.
