Electronic Poker Tables Are Big in Mexico

Salma Hayek is from Mexico, where electronic poker tables appear to be popular.

A few years back it wasn’t uncommon to hear that electronic poker tables, which remove the dealer (and thus human error) from the equation, were the future of live poker. Companies like PokerTek began installing the tables in American gambling meccas like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Some casinos like the Excalibur switched completely over to the electronic machines, while others made them an option alongside traditional tables. But in the end, players in those markets preferred the present to the future and stuck with live poker dealers. 

While PokerTek’s failed efforts at cracking the top gambling markets in the U.S. were ending, Mexico was changing its previously strict gambling laws in a way that became favorable to electronic poker tables. Suddenly an entire market of people unaccustomed to having a professional card dealer in their poker games was ripe for the picking, and PokerTek swooped in. The company has shipped 55 tables of its 220 tables to Mexico in the last year and has no plans to continue pursuing American gambling dollars with its machines.

PokerTek is betting that markets like Mexico are the future of its electronic poker table business, and its investors will probably be glad for the turn away from the U.S., since the company has yet to show a profit in seven years of business. The move should be a good one, since Americans who play live poker are loathe to switch away from their tradition of having a person on hand to spit food at when it’s time to throw a tantrum.