Hard Rock Casino Rockford won't offer live poker

Hard Rock Casino Rockford, in Illinois, will not have a live poker room with tables.

Hard Rock International plans to apply for the only available Rockford casino license from the Illinois Gaming Board by the end of the month. If it does get approved by the Board, they plan on building a $310 million development that includes 65,000 square feet of casino space, a Hard Rock Café, and a 1,600-seat Hard Rock Live venue at the location of the former Clock Tower Resort on East State Street near the entrance to Interstate 90. Plans call for 1,500 slot machines and 55 table games including standard games like blackjack, roulette and craps.

HRI, in partnership with a group of investors under the banner of Delaware-registered Rockford Casino Development LLC., has been certified by the Rockford City Council to move forward in the casino license approval process. 

James Kasputis of the Rockford Charitable Games Association says one of the biggest reasons that casinos nowadays are not utilizing live poker rooms is because they take up space. "In Illinois, you're limited to 2000 positions and that's new, currently it's 1200 positions. So a poker table is 10 positions a slot machine is one position. So they have to give up 10 slot machines to replace one poker table, so the math is not very good," he said, as reported by WIFR.

Poker also doesn't bring in as much money when compared to slow machines or other table games. Kasputis said: "At 200 slot machines, you can make $15 million a year. If you have 200 poker tables, you might make $3 million a year, based on average revenue from those tables."