Slide Dealing Debuts in the US at WPT Venetian

The WPT Venetian Las Vegas Fall Championship, a $5,000 tournament played at the Venetian in Las Vegas, has a guaranteed prize pool of $2 million. The tournament runs from November 5 to 10, and the final table will be broadcast live on PokerGO. At the tournament, dealers are using the slide dealing technique for the first time at a WPT event held in the United States.

Venetian dealers had to abandon the traditional throwing method and switch to this technique last month. No other gaming room in the city had used the method before. South Point had begun applying slide dealing earlier this year as the first poker room in the city. The method is already used in some casinos elsewhere in the world.

The purpose of sliding cards to players instead of throwing them across the table is to reduce the risk of cheating. If cards are thrown carelessly, an attentive player may see their undersides during the deal. When cards are slid across the table, the undersides are not visible. A recent WPT event in Sydney also dealt cards this way. It was reported that the dealing went smoothly and that no complaints were received from players.

The first day of the tournament began on Thursday. On Day 1a, 103 players competed, and Cherish Andrews became the chip leader. Andrews, along with 31 other players, has already guaranteed a spot in Day 2. Day 1b will begin on Friday at 11:15 a.m. local time. The last starting group will play on Saturday.