Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa (Atlantic City, NJ) -- FAQ in OP, updated 2021.08.16

Can gold members still get any buffet comp for 12.50pts just like the lounge?

I can only guess no rooms caused fewer people to come, plus the continuing decline in limit hold em.

You obviously have never owned a business, or worked in upper management if this is your view.

Declining player pool, look at the games, it’s the same faces day in and day out. I miss the days of playing 10/20 all weekend at taj and borgata

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Yes

lol, I am a small business owner, but if you say so!

Hhahah good one. It's embarrassingly bad.

I'm not sure which is funnier - you saying these employees overall aren't terrible or that a shitty experiences because of it doesn't drive away business.

As for the covid reopening- i didn't say it's the only factor or even the biggest factor. But when you reopen before your competition, and have some people playing there who never played there before and turn it into a total **** show you're shooting yourself in the foot which is what the borgata poker room does at an expert level. Tons of little things that add up to a bad experience.

Additionally short staffed is yet another excuse. They could only have 30 tables at first. They didn't need a full staff. You're amazing at making excuses for them without looking at the reality of what was once a great room and is now a joke.

Somehow you think blowing a good opportunity 3 years ago doesn't matter at all but you LOVE bringing up other casinos opening over a decade ago in Maryland, PA and Delaware as a reason they lost business in the last 5 years.

And yes everyone knows the lack of free/comped rooms are a big factor but not the only one. Nobody is blaming the poker room staff for that.

Sounds like you'll never pass up a chance to disparate the Borgata. We get it, you think they're the worst ever and can't do anything right. But if so, why do you play there?

For a long time prior to 2020 I would put in about 750 hours per year at Borgata. After it reopened in 2020 and I lost my comped rooms I went looking elsewhere and found that the grass is most definitely greener on the other side. So there’s some truth to both sides of the argument in my case; it was the loss of comped rooms that first caused me to play less at Borg, but the reason I play only about 25 hours a year there now is because I’ve seen how badly the room is run compared to some of its competitors. Both MGM management and poker room management and staff share the blame.

I'm regretting this question as I still have the runs 48 hours after eating there. It was pretty good at the time tho other than the deserts be mostly gone on a busy night.

I'm guessing he was original a Borgata fan since his screen is "Borg23". Borgata has fallen far down from its glory days. They can keep blaming Covid, but I think the MGM ownership has had a bigger impact on their fall from grace.

Example A:
They doubled the parking fee and screwed me out $10 when the Kiosk wouldn't take my Gold card that is supposed to have free parking. I called to complain, and they just directed me to someone's voicemail who never return calls. At least setup a parking department with more than one rep with e-mail account to handle this kind of problem. But no, that would cost MGM more $ so why bother?

I've played 160 hours there TOTAL since Parx reopened about 3.5 years ago.
I used to play 500-1000 hours a year there.

It seems like you never miss a chance to make an excuse for their buffoonery.

Just ask the dealers how MGM has treated them. They took away their food and let go of the dealers during the pandemic and rehired them again at entry level salary and benefits. This is a corporation with a hyper efficiency business model.

Recognizing that MGM is making +ev decisions for their business is not the same as making excuses for them. I don't like the cage, comps and room situation either. And I haven't experienced the dealer problems you have. But I just realized that part of that is that you're primarily a PLO player and I play only hold'em. I'd expect that dealers would be a lot slower and make more errors reading hands and splitting pots in PLO. But they're a lot better dealing hold'em than they were a few years ago. So our perspectives are probably different.

I'm not buying that you only played 160 hours at Borgata in the past 3.5 years, unless you rarely played there at all for three years. If so, what brought you back to such a horrible place this year?

I don't know what they're blaming, if they even think there's a problem. I pointed to COVID as the catalyst for their cage and room policies because it was a forced decision at first, and then they realized the money they were saving more than made up for any business they lost, and are slow to return to business as usual (and may never).

MGM is a problem. They're too big to care about the little guy. The only casino operator worse than them is Caesars. And guess who operates the only poker rooms in AC? If Ocean, Hard Rock or Bally's wanted to open a serious poker room (with generous room offers and comps), they could probably have the best room in town. They could draw the best personnel away from the other rooms, like Borgata did to Taj back in 2003, and most the players would follow. The only thing that might keep some players at a MGM or Caesars room is their ubiquitous comp programs which earn and can be used at many locations around the country.

When I was there last in May, there was no automated kiosks for the surface lot. Are the kiosks only for the garage, or both garage and surface lot? And are humans there at least part of the day? If you have a 4x4 you can drive up on the curb around the gates in the surface lot if the gates don't work. But I don't know how they would react to that if they noticed. Get extra cards when you have a chance as backup in case one doesn't work.

The January series which had 5/5 plo running. And even then I only lasted a few days since the place is so infuriating.

And you're right I double checked my records and its 178 hours not 160!
Ya obviously rarely played there over these 3 years.

I was also at Borgata 4-5 times in these 3 years with friends over a weekend where I never even set foot in the poker room.

Many of these decisions are not +ev they're penny wise pound foolish such as the cage situation.

Plo is definitely a factor with exposing how bad a lot of these dealers are.

It was the parking garage. I didn't park on the surface side at all. I thought I read that this changed happen in April, so would assume it was the same on surface side by now. I didn't see any attendees outside garage until there was traffic and one was just opening the middle gate to let us all clear out the night before my checkout date.

The Kiosk took my MGM card fine but said something about 10 hours on my checkout date. I stupidly paid it not wanting to cause more traffic behind me and now can't get any returns calls on my voicemails to the parking guy when I called Borgata's main number.

Guess I'm going to kiss this $10 goodbye just like Resort did to me. At least I got e-mail from a Resort VP telling me to go "F"ed myself when I forgot my card on the way-out on my last AC trip.

Personally, I’ve had no issues with my card at the parking kiosks, and on the surface lot probably half the time the gate is just up.

I did almost run into horror situation leaving the garage one time, line of maybe 15 cars at one of the booths, but there was two open and working and for whatever reason nobody was using the second. Swerved around and headed right on out.

The issue with the automated parking situation is two fold, a ton of their customers are elderly or disabled or both and they’re gonna have trouble working it, which means high potential for insane waits during common leaving times. And that’s on top of it being pretty chintzy so charge for parking to begin with.

I'm convinced that most people in this thread complaining have nothing better to do.

Yes the Borg has gone downhill since PA/Philly but its still solid. I get Sunday-Thursday comp'd (I play some table games and not only poker). It is literally the only casino on the east coast that you can play poker at and stay. Parx does not have this unless you want to stay at the shitty Holiday Inn across the parking lot. In fact the main reason I come to Borg from NY is that I can stay here for a few nights and play poker everyday without having to drive back and forth.

The food is ****, but so is the food in other places. Parx has garbage food aside from C&P.

Anyway, I'm here to report bomb pots are a thing and I have yet to play a table where they are not played. You sometimes have regs who sit out and thats fine. Our PLO game was doing bomb pots every other hand and it was nutty. The action is great at PLO as most of the nits stick to 1/3 - 2/5 NL.

Posting this from my Borgata room.

You are literally wrong as you need only look next door to find a room you can play and sleep at. And I bet I could name a dozen more in total up and down the east coast.

Can anyone report on the "100 Days Of Summer" poker tournaments?
Has it been crowded?
Are they making the guarantees?

https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/festiva...

Thanks!

I heard from someone who recently played 1/3 NL at Borgata told me that the bomb pots are not double raked, it's just raked at $5 +2. Can someone here who has played them also confirm? As long as they aren't double raked, I don't think bomb pots are a bad thing as I believe most players don't know how to play them correctly.

I enjoy double board bomb pots.
People are really bad at them.
In Vegas I noticed people had gotten a lot better compared to 2 years ago so I imagine borgata players will be atrocious at first.

My only concern is them taking forever with a lot of the dealers and there being a ton of mistakes in the process.

For anyone thinking of heading to Borgata, seems like someone has barricaded themselves in a bathroom with a gun. No one allowed to leave or enter the casino. Tons of cop cars outside, and cops with rifles drawn. I would avoid the area FWIW