Is Team Gambling The Next Big Thing?

Remember the classic bowling teams from the 1990s, well they could be making a comeback in the form of a local poker team. Atleast this is concept being developed by some casinos around the country.

Poker Teams would assemble in one part of the casino complete with uniforms, and special tables, and compete head on head against other teams. While this could be appealing the point would be to increase local casino revenues while drawing bigger crowds to the casinos.

I personally can´t see myself joining a local poker team.

Casinos could look a lot like a neighborhood bowling alley if the forward thinkers at Beverly Hills, Cal.,-based Dream Team Poker have their way.

Brace yourself for team gambling that just might be the next Big Thing for the U.S. casino industry.

The company’s team-poker concept will be unveiled next month at a weekend-long trial for industry insiders at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas.

If it works the game could roll out quickly to the rest of the gambling nation, said Dream Team chief executive and co-founder Dan Delshad.

Team Poker?

“Poker is inherently an individual game,” he said. “But team poker is not a new concept. A lot of the difficulty in introducing it is in structuring it both for the general public and for the casinos to be able to manage the game.

“We’ve put together a patent-pending scoring system without changing how normal tournaments are run.”

Players win cash prizes based on their own play, but even when eliminated still have a prize stake in how their team performs.

The game format is sociable and friendly, with team names and team jerseys or uniforms _ just like league night at a neighborhood bowling alley.

“This is new. I like it,” said Rick Bartlett, table games manager at the Argosy Casino Hotel & Spa in Riverside, Mo.

Delshad said team play would typically consume some of a casino poker room’s alleys_er, tables_while regular walk-in business could still find a seat at a casino game.

The game might be immediately appealing to casinos in today’s wobbly economy.

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