“Excuse me,” said the 40-year-old, who was sitting at the table opposite me, politely, waving at the owner of the Excalibur poker room in Las Vegas. “Can you get me a Windex? The table is smudged.” At that moment, I officially realized that I was playing poker like never before.

Last August, Excalibur became the first casino in Las Vegas to begin using e-tables exclusively in poker rooms. The unexpected move drew a wild response from “poker purists,” who laughed at the idea of playing poker without dealers or real chips and cards. Meanwhile, MGM Mirage, which operates 11 casinos in Las Vegas, including Excalibur, made a strong case that the idea makes sense from an economic point of view, while at the same time being good for players because e-tables are faster and rakes per hand are lower.

So when I visited Las Vegas earlier this month, I traveled to the southern end of the strip and visited Excalibur so I could try out a new table myself. The poker room in Excalibur isn’t really a “room.” It’s a compartmented area with a little tap in the middle of the casino floor. From a distance, it doesn’t seem to change much. But when you get closer, you quickly realize that this is no longer a typical poker room. There’s usually no sound of a finger rolling a chip. Silence makes your ears perk up.

There are 12 poker-pro electronic tables spread across the region. They are from Falkirk, which has set up 230 poker-pro tables around the world, including Montreal, Michigan, Indiana, Connecticut, and Atlantic City, as well as cruise ships. 온라인카지노사이트

Before I could sit down and actually play, I decided to walk around and adjust to the game. I was thrilled to find that there was a designated table in the corner of the room for demo play. An elderly gentleman who worked in the room came up to me and asked if I wanted to sit down and play the game. I found it ironic that this man, apparently in his late 60s or early 70s, was the one who introduced me to the game. This was because most opposed to the electronics room, which was centered on the fact that “old school” poker players would never play.