Station Casinos Bars Phones From Las Vegas Poker Tables
Boulder Station’s posted rule also bans card protectors and other electronics.
Station Casinos has started keeping phones off the poker table at its Las Vegas rooms, and at Boulder Station the posted rule also bars card protectors and other electronics. Players can still use their phones, but they cannot leave them sitting on the table.
According to Card Player, the rule applies across the company’s Las Vegas poker rooms, including Red Rock Resort, Boulder Station, Santa Fe Station and Green Valley Ranch. Station Casinos has 17 properties in Southern Nevada, and Green Valley Ranch reopened its poker room at the end of last year. PokerNews reported last month that Red Rock had already adopted a partial phone ban, with calls forbidden while seated and phones barred during a hand.
The move comes as poker rooms in Las Vegas have been tightening security around possible hidden-camera cheating. Card Player pointed to a 2024 Europe case in which authorities arrested a duo after a player used a microscopic camera on the side of his phone to look beneath the dealer’s pitch, while an accomplice watched a video feed and relayed card information through an earpiece. The article said that kind of setup had crossed into the U.S., and that removing electronics from the rail or the felt would help protect players from a similar ring.
Card Player said there have been no confirmed reports of recent cheating in Las Vegas. As reported in August, South Point switched its poker room to slide dealing, where dealers slide cards instead of pitching them, as another way to make exposed-card cheating harder.
