Poker Rooms Around Washington DC

The greater Washington DC area, which includes Baltimore, southern Maryland, and northern Virginia, has become a genuine poker destination. Before 2010, there were no public poker rooms in the region. Players who wanted a legal public game had to travel to Atlantic City. Older players recall regular underground games in some of the area's fancy hotels, which attracted occasional celebrity players, and quasi-legal charity games ran sporadically in venues such as Boys and Girls Clubs and VFW halls in Prince George's County, Maryland, until they were shut down in 1997. Rick Bennett's poker novel King of a Small World offers a fictionalized account of that era.

Maryland legalized casino gambling, and the poker scene has since caught up with the area's other attractions. Hollywood Casino in Perryville, Maryland, about 30 minutes north of Baltimore and an hour from DC, opened in 2010. Around the same time, the historic Charles Town Racetrack in West Virginia became Hollywood Casino Charles Town and added 27 poker tables. Maryland Live! Casino opened in 2012 at Arundel Mills Mall in Hanover, Maryland. Horseshoe Casino Baltimore opened in 2014, and MGM National Harbor opened at the end of 2016 in Oxon Hill, Maryland, just outside the DC city limits.

The Five Main Rooms

Hollywood Casino Charles Town

Located roughly 60 miles and about a 75-minute drive from downtown Washington, DC, this is a relatively sedate room populated chiefly by locals. A $1/2 no-limit Hold'em game is always running. On Saturday mornings there is a $5/10 game that can get very large; it plays like a private game with mostly the same players. When that game is not running, a $2/5 game sometimes appears for those who want more than $1/2. The rake and promotional drop is $6 + $2. Players earn $0.50 an hour in comps, which works out to $1.00 an hour for food and drink. Free soft drink dispensers are scattered around the casino.

Hollywood Casino Perryville

This room is similar in style and action to Charles Town. A $1/3 game runs daily, opening right at 10 AM, and a $2/5 game sometimes appears. The rake and promotional drop is $6 + $2. Players earn $0.50 an hour in comps and get free soft drinks from dispensers or servers at the table. Regular player and poker coach Al Spath describes his home room this way: the table makeup is usually older men, a sprinkling of young players, a woman or two, and the occasional fish. Regulars tend to be relatively tight and timid, with few tourists to feed on. Between 2010 and 2012 the room was known for wild, loose play, but much of that action moved to Maryland Live! and MGM National Harbor when they opened. If you want a seat at opening, call well in advance; the list opens at 7:00 AM, and it can already hold more than a dozen names two hours before the room opens.

Maryland Live! Casino

Open 24/7, Maryland Live! is one of the two major poker rooms in the capital district, and you can count on a game at any day or hour. On a Monday morning, for example, the room might spread 11 $1/3 no-limit Hold'em games, six $2/2 five-card PLO games, and a couple of $2/5 no-limit games. On a Saturday night, expect 20 or more $1/3 games, a dozen PLO games, four $2/5 games, and a $4/8 limit Hold'em game. Featured games include $6/12 Omaha/Eight or Better on Monday and Wednesday nights, $8/16 Big O and Stud Eight or Better on Tuesday nights and Sunday afternoons, $5/10 limit Omaha Eight or Better on Thursdays at noon, and $5/5 double-board bomb pot five-card PLO on Mondays and Wednesdays at 7:00 PM and Saturdays at 5:00 PM. Players are advised to sign up as early as 11:00 AM the day of these games. The rake and promotional drop is $6 + $3, and players earn $1.50 an hour in comps.

Horseshoe Casino Baltimore

The poker room is listed as 24/7, but there are sometimes morning hours with no game, so check online or call ahead. There is typically more action here than at Perryville, about 20 minutes north, but less than at Maryland Live! to the south or MGM National Harbor, the biggest room in the area, about an hour south. A Saturday night $1/3 no-limit game might feature solid but not great locals and a few students from nearby Towson University. The room sometimes spreads a limit Hold'em game in the morning and afternoon during the week. The casino has an excellent Chinese noodle bar, and the poker room allows tableside dining, though you must fetch the food yourself. The rake and promotional drop is $5 + $3, and players earn $2 an hour in comps.

MGM National Harbor

Open 24/7, this is the major player in the area, a title Maryland Live! ceded to it when the MGM opened in 2016. On a Saturday night there may be 40 or more tables running, with $1/3 and $2/5 often carrying lists of 30 people or longer. That pushes impatient recreational players up to the $5/10 game, which can make it better for the serious player. Even on a Monday at noon, the room might have 14 games going, including 10 $1/3 no-limit Hold'em, one $1/2 five-card Omaha, a $2/5 game, a $5/10 no-limit game, and a $5/5 five-card PLO game. The rake and promotional drop is $6 + $3, and players earn $2 an hour in comps.

Game Selection and Practical Notes

At both MGM National Harbor and Maryland Live!, game selection matters. There can be a huge difference in game quality among no-limit Hold'em tables in the same room, so move around until you find weaker opponents.

For out-of-town visitors, Maryland Live! has a number of good and relatively inexpensive hotels nearby, some inside the same Arundel Mills shopping complex. MGM National Harbor is less inviting in this respect, as its hotel and nearby options are much more expensive.

Al Spath summarizes the region this way: Perryville is sleepy in the mornings, with regulars vying for the daily high-hand promotion and seldom anything beyond $1/3 no-limit Hold'em daily plus pot-limit Omaha three days a week, playing more like a home game with the same players. The Horseshoe has better-than-average players and decent promotions, with $2/5 no-limit games as well. Maryland Live! is a thriving casino with many games and tables, known for its tournaments and WSOP Circuit events. MGM National Harbor is the biggest, drawing money from the city and Northern Virginia, with long waiting times in the afternoon and night; impatient players with money jump into games that are often above their skill level, though not their wallet size.