The poker room at the South Point Hotel Casino & Spa occupies a unique space in the Las Vegas poker ecosystem — both in terms of location, and the action in the room.
Well removed from the density of the Las Vegas Strip, the South Point poker room features 30 tables and prides itself on being a space that focuses on a loyal, local clientele while providing ample reasons for players who are visiting the city to make the trek south on Las Vegas Boulevard.
Opened in 2005 as the South Coast — part of the Coast Casinos collection of local operators that once included the Barbary Coast (now The Cromwell), Gold Coast, The Orleans and Suncoast — the name stuck for less than a year. Following a merger with Boyd Gaming, Coast Casinos founder Michael Gaughan stepped out on his own and reacquired the casino, rebranding it as the South Point.
From the day the casino opened, poker has been a consistent presence at the South Point. In its earliest days, the casino hosted two of the most important programs in poker history — Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker — from 2006-07.
As it exists today, the South Point poker room is arguably the most locals-friendly establishment in Las Vegas. Whether it’s four daily tournaments with prize pool guarantees as high as $15,000, or cash games with a multitude of promotions highlighted by a $500,000 Summer Freeroll in August.
Regular games and tournaments
Cash games
- $4/8 limit hold'em
- $4/8 Omaha hi/lo
- $1/2 no-limit hold'em
- $2/3 no-limit hold'em
- $8/16 Omaha hi/lo
- $8/16 limit hold'em (occasionally)
Daily Tournaments
There are four tournaments on tap daily at 10 am, 2 pm, 6 pm and 10 pm. The rotation includes NLH, bounties, nightly turbos, and a Chip Chop Survivor with buy-ins that range from $100 to $200 with the $200 Deeper Stack events on Wednesday and Saturday at 6pm carrying $15,000 guarantees. Every Tuesday features an Omaha 8/B tournament at 2 pm with a $100 buy-in and $3,000 guarantee.
The cash games
Jason Sanborn has overseen an ever-evolving approach as South Point’s Poker Room Manager for the better part of a decade
The backbone of the South Point poker operation lies with the games that run 24/7, year-round.
“Our mainstays are $4/8 limit hold’em, $4/8 Omaha hi/lo, $1/2 no-limit hold’em and $2/3 no limit hold’em,” said Sanborn. “Games are pretty much always going; obviously, when it’s graveyard, the locals go home and [it’s limited] overnight, but we haven't gone dark in a long time. $8/16 Omaha hi/lo will run fairly regularly, and then the occasional $8/16 [limit] hold’em.”
While the major focus for South Point is offering affordable stakes and big promotions (and more on that in a moment), there are also a couple of big games that consistently find their way onto the board.
“We've been running a $5/10 pot-limit Omaha — there's a group that has kind of organized themselves, and they come in on Tuesday and Friday,” said Sanborn. “Then there's an Omaha hi/lo group playing $50/100 that has been playing multiple days, usually Tuesday and Saturday, but they've been sprinkling in other days, too. They hit us up last World Series of Poker looking for somewhere to play regularly. And a lot of the guys live in the neighborhoods down here [near South Point].”
Comps and promos
Giving locals a place to play can be a delicate balancing act. Setting the rake and promotional drop numbers can be the difference between a consistently full room, like the South Point tends to be, or a ghost town.
“We rake $5 for the house and we do take a $3 promo drop, but all that promo money goes straight back to the players,” said Sanborn. “So the $500,000 freeroll, high hands, bad beat. And then we sporadically run a bunch of other promotions.”
Baseline player comps recently went up from $1 to $1.50 an hour, but the spectrum of promotional payouts is where the biggest value lies. The headliner promotion, the seasonal freeroll taking place on August 14, awards a first-place prize of $60,000 among four different five-figure prizes. To qualify for one of the six freeroll feeder tournaments between August 11-13, a player has to log at least 150 hours of play in South Point cash games between April 1 and July 31.
There are multiple bonuses in play for players who go over 150 hours, first in terms of escalating cash bonus payouts — $2/hour for 151-300 hours, $4/hour for 301-400 hours, $6/hour for 401-500 hours and $8/hour for every hour over 500 hours. There are also additional bonus chips available to players in excess of 150 hours of cash games played.
Sanborn has heard some negative feedback about the size of the promotional drop, but he points to the ways that fundamentally stronger players benefit beyond the promotions themselves. The more that less experienced players show up to play and chase high hands, bad beats and other promotions, the more value can be found in playing strong poker.
Women in Poker festivals
There are plans for a handful of multi-flight events during the summer of 2025, but the major focus for South Point beyond their regularly scheduled offerings is centered around women in poker. From April 23-27, the Women in Poker Spring Festival will include a $360 NV State Ladies Championship and a $200 US Team Poker Championship that’s expected to draw at least 70 teams. There are also major LIPS events at South Point on June 20–21 and 27–29 as part of the Women in Poker Summer Festival.
