I have played poker tournaments at every poker room in Las Vegas, but I have only played one poker tournament at the Rio Poker Room. And the reason I even played a poker tournament at the Rio Poker Room was because I arrived in Las Vegas one day last summer with the intention of hitting every poker room in Sin City for Felt Hopper: Vegas. Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino 3700 West Flamingo Road Las Vegas, NV US 800-752-9746. It's all the action and prestige of the World Series of Poker, from the comfort of your home or locale of choice.
This summer, when playing in a World Series of Poker Daily Deepstack event, we got a chance to experience the Rio poker room. While the WSOP is certainly not the time to get a perfect read on the day-to-day operations of the Rio poker room, it did give us some sense of the atmosphere. To round out our review, we did a bit of research to determine the flow of cash and tournament action.
Casino Setting
The Rio is about a mile west of the Strip on Flamingo Road. It is part of a small constellation of casinos in the immediate area. The Flamingo is slightly west of the Rio, as is the Palms. The Gold Coast lies right across South Valley View Boulevard. So there are a couple of options within easy walking distance if you want to check out other casinos. The Strip is also theoretically walkable in 20-25 minutes, but beware, it’s a lot longer than it looks.
Parking is free at the Rio. A garage and multiple outdoor lots lie around back near the Conference Center (where most of the WSOP events are held).
Non-Poker Amenities
The Rio is one of Vegas’s largest casinos off the main Strip. It is part of the massive Caesars Entertainment empire which owns several properties in Vegas, including Planet Hollywood, and many other properties across the United States. It is, of course, a full-service casino (hotel, slots, table games, race & sportsbook, etc.).
The Rio has a buffet of course, but are a bit lean on the high-end restaurants. There are, however, a lot of quick eating and casual options. We recommend the take-out window at Guy Fieri’s El Burro Borracho Restaurant. They also have sit down service, but the reduced menu at the takeout window represents a great value with excellent quality food.
It is actually kind of ironic: the host site of the WSOP has a standing poker room that appears to be an afterthought to the rest of the casino.Click To TweetThe Rio Poker Room Comfort
The 14 table Rio poker room is separated from the casino floor with a glass wall on one side and half walls on the other two sides. There is some space between the room and the gaming floor, so you are not too close to the noise or smoke. Large TVs ring the room.
The ceiling is high and the air quality is good. The tables are pretty tightly packed in this small room and the lighting is dim throughout the room. The felts are in good shape, but had they not been swept recently the day we played. Chips were clean and very new looking. Chairs were comfortable, being adjustable, wheeled, and well padded.
During the WSOP event, several tables sat outside the walls of the poker room. It is not clear how many remain throughout the year. If the claim of 14 tables is accurate, some must remain. Unsurprisingly, it is smokier and louder at those tables, and it feels like you are playing in the aisle of the casino gaming room. Because pretty much, you are.
Poker Room Staff
As we played in a Daily Deepstack that ran in conjunction with the WSOP, the dealers were mostly not regulars. That said, most were solid. The floors, however, ran an excellent tournament. There was a female floor who had the loudest and clearest voice I have heard in any poker room. Every level jump was clearly announced. There was no doubt about who held the authority in the room. Later, when they escorted the group from the Rio poker room to the convention hall for late tournament stages, she guided us like ducklings through the winding hallways beautifully.
Wait staff circulated immediately when the tournament started and seemed very attentive throughout.
Players at the Rio Poker Room
Grade: incomplete. This was a not a normal Rio tournament so not the normal Rio poker population.
Tournament Structure
The Rio poker room’s standing tournament has a $65 entry fee (with $22 rake -yes, Virginia, an abysmal 34% rate) for 5,000 chips and 20-minute blinds. It offers a $5 staff bonus for another 5,000 chips, so most people likely buy-in for $70, with the functional rake at a potentially record-setting 39%! The tournament guarantee is a whopping $500. This tournament runs four times per day (10am, 1pm, 4pm, and 9pm). This gives the savvy poker tournament player four opportunities to say “No freakin’ way” and find any number of better structures in town. In previous years, we have stopped into the Rio to ask about the tournaments and got the feeling that they rarely go off. Bravo Poker also indicates that tournaments do not run often, and are small when they do.
Cash Game Activity
Bravo reporting indicates that the Rio poker room runs one to two cash tables on a weekday, at best (there were zero some nights), and not too many more on weekends.
Overall Assessment of the Rio Poker Room
The Rio’s claim to fame in the poker world lies in its role as the host of the WSOP. They do a great job with the WSOP, which has become a much anticipated annual pilgrimage for us. The rest of the year, the Rio plays a minor role in the Vegas poker scene. The small room is a bit cramped but otherwise is fairly comfortable. Their volume of cash and tournament play is low to non-existent. The tournament rake is about the worst we’ve ever seen. It is actually kind of ironic: the host site of the WSOP has a standing poker room that appears to be an afterthought to the rest of the casino.
- Comfort
- Tournament Structures
- Personnel
Summary
The Rio’s claim to fame in the poker world lies in its role as the host of the WSOP. The rest of the year, the Rio plays a minor role in the Vegas poker scene. The small room is a bit cramped, but otherwise is fairly comfortable. Their volume of cash and tournament play is low to non-existent. The tournament rake is about the worst we’ve ever seen. It is actually kind of ironic: the host site of the WSOP has a standing poker room that appears to be an afterthought to the rest of the casino.
Run It Once Poker, an offshoot of Phil Galfond’s Run It Once training site, launched in February 2019.
The room immediately succeeded in generating a significant level of buzz thanks to its various innovative and unique features which sets it apart from other online poker rooms including:
- Dynamic Avatars – You can select the avatar you want from the 11 available character, but your opponents at the table will see you as a random avatar. Additionally, each player’s avatar changes based on their recent play history.
- Splash the Pot – Money randomly added directly to the pot so you get rewarded faster.
- Legends – Further rewards with a traditional weekly cashback program.
- StreamR – This innovative rewards program pays players for live-streaming their action at RIO Poker tables.
- HeroIQ – Built-in HUD.
- SNG Select – Classic and “Lottery” sit and gos.
Run It Once Poker also has an AutoSeat blind lobby with fixed buy-ins that makes it fast and simple to get to the tables
And as a way of protecting its players from all of the sharks out there RIO Poker:
- Prohibits all third-party tools including HUDs
- Limits the number of tables a player can play at one time (this speeds up the games too!)
The project was first revealed two years ago as Galfond felt that the online poker sites at that time lacked “transparency” and he was looking for a “fair, honest, transparent” poker site.
Initially, the site was supposed to launch in Q1 2017. However, the project was delayed for various reasons.
The online poker room is licensed in Malta and regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority. The company also holds a license from the UK Gambling Commission in the United Kingdom.
Welcome Bonus
Like most online poker rooms, Run It Once too has a welcome bonus for all new players.
RIO matches 100% of deposits up to €600 for 30 days. The bonus is released incrementally as indicated in the following table. For example, if a player deposits €250, he/she will be credited €5 for every €25 rake they contribute. Once the €100 bonus is cleared, they will receive €10 for every €57.10 for the next €100 batch and so on.
Run It Once Welcome Bonus Structure
| Bonus Progress | Rake | Bonus |
|---|---|---|
| €0 – €100 | €25.00 | €5 |
| €100 – €200 | €57.10 | €10 |
| €200 – €300 | €66.50 | €10 |
| €300 – €500 | €100.00 | €10 |
| €500 – €600 | €200.00 | €10 |
What makes RIO’s Welcome Bonus more appealing is that there is no expiration date to clear the bonus as long as players play at least 1 hand every 30 days. Additionally, all deposits in the first 30 days count towards the bonus and not just the first deposit.
The site initially launched with a standard bonus in the industry i.e., RIO matched first deposit bonus up to €600 with 100% but only the first deposit counted towards the bonus. However, this was later changed to an unlimited number of deposits following the players’ feedback.
No deposit code is required for the Welcome Bonus.
Run It Once Welcome Bonus
| Bonus Code | No Code Required |
|---|---|
| 100% Match Up to | €600 |
| Bonus Clear Period | Unlimited (as long as players play a hand every 30 days) |
| Last Verified | February 2021 |
Rake Structure
Run It Once Poker charges 4 – 5.75% rake for cash games, with rake cap from 0.50 up to 3.75, depending on the stakes and the number of players playing at the tables.
At No Limit Hold’em, rake is 5.75% at the micro stakes 5.5% at the low to mid-stakes, and it drops to 4% at the NL2000 tables, the highest stakes available. At PLO, it is fractionally lower—4.5% at micros, going up to 5% at PLO50 to PLO5000, then back down to 4% at high stakes.
Run It Once Poker Rake Structure
| Stakes (100bb buy-in) | NLHE | PLO |
|---|---|---|
| €4 | 5.75% | 4.50% |
| €10 | 5.75% | 4.50% |
| €20 | 5.75% | 4.50% |
| €50 | 5.75% | 5.00% |
| €100 | 5.50% | 5.00% |
| €200 | 5.50% | 5.00% |
| €500 | 5.50% | 5.00% |
| €1,000 | 5.00% | 4.00% |
| €2,000 | 4.00% | 4.00% |
In general, when compared with other sites, the rake on RIO is notably higher at similar game and stakes. However, with its generous rewards scheme, the “net rake” is much lower than its competitors.
Splash the Pot
Run It Once Poker offers two types of rewards—Legends (see below) and its unique Splash the Pot.
Splash the Pot (STP), as the name implies, returns 51% of all rake taken at the table in the form of extra money dropped randomly to pots. This “splashed” pot is based on the size of the pot on the previous hand. This additional money can vary from 1 big blind up to, on very rare occasions, 1000 big blinds. The winner of the hand takes the extra money.
This innovative way to distribute the rewards has been very well received in general and has been appreciated by all types of players for its innovative take on rewards. According to the company, STP helps it to achieve some of its objectives around rake including rewarding all types of players equally and eliminating unclaimed rewards.
Rio Poker Satellites
In addition to the RIO’s primary rewards program STP, the room also offers a secondary rewards program called StreamR that encourages players to stream their play on Twitch in exchange for 50% to 110% in additional rakeback based on the number of viewer hours accumulated in a month.
StreamR has a four-level program where players on Level 1 which has been designed to be fairly easy to achieve will need 200 hours of “watch time” for 50% net rakeback. Similarly, Level 4 will require 20,000 hours of watch time and players will be rewarded 110% rakeback.
Legends
On top of Splash the Pot, there is also the Legends rewards program. The more you play, the more you get in cashback, as you move through five tiers: Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades and Legends.
Each of these tiers consists of five levels except for Legends, which has unlimited levels. As you complete every level, you are rewarded cash direct into your account, plus a level-up boost (free points towards unlocking higher levels).
You earn one point for every €0.05 in rake paid.
The entry-level “Clubs” tier starts at 10% rakeback, achievable for anyone who earns at least 60 points, equivalent to paying just €3 in rake.
These cash rewards increase as players generate more and more points, thus incentivizing players to put in higher volume—something that stands in stark contrast to the overall industry.
The final tier “Legends” guarantees €900 in cash rewards for every 90,000 points (€4500 in contributed rake) you accrue during a week.
Legends Rewards Program
| Tier | Cashback | Streak Reward | Max Cash Reward | Splash the Pot | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clubs | 10% | 0.50% | 11% | 30% | 41% |
| Diamonds | 12.50% | 1.25% | 14% | 30% | 44% |
| Hearts | 15% | 3% | 18% | 30% | 48% |
| Spades | 20% | 6% | 26% | 30% | 56% |
| Legends | 30% | 15% | 45% | 30% | 75% |
Promotions
Besides offering a generous rewards program, Run It Once Poker also runs promotions on a daily basis, effectively increasing the value of the rewards up to the equivalent of 80% rakeback and sometimes even higher. There have been direct rakeback promotions, bigger pot “splashes”, rake races and more.
As of February 2021, the operator runs leaderboards across all its games every week. Many of these do not have much competition so can offer some great extra value for players.
The company also plans to run a table starter cashback program, encouraging players to start the table and keep them running.
Cash Games
The site offers a limited range of game offerings, with No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha 6-max cash games starting at €4 buy-in (2c/4c) and going up to €1000 (€5/€10).
The room does not yet offer other game types and formats including tournaments and sit & gos. However, the company recently posted an update on the site’s progress suggesting that the development process for sit & go’s is “well underway” but the company has not provided a timeline yet. The addition of sit & go’s will be the room’s first major post-launch addition.
Tournaments
In November 2020, the operator launched SNG Select. This offers both standard sit and gos, called Classic, and lottery sit and gos, called Cub3d. Cleverly, it uses the same player pool for both games. This means that games go off quite fast, even during quiet times.
Regardless of which you choose, the games are three handed and winner takes all, although if you are playing Cub3d there are special “Glitch” random prizes that can be triggered, rewarding you a prize even if you lose.
| Classic Buy-in | Classic Prize | Classic Rake | Cub3d Buy-in | Cub3d Prize | Cub3d Rake | Cub3d Glitch % | Glitch Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | - | - | €0.25 | 2-1500x | 4% | 7.23% | €0.25-€12.50 |
| €0.90 | €2.49 | 7.78% | €1 | 2-1500x | 7% | 9.24% | €0.25-€50 |
| €1.80 | €4.98 | 7.78% | €2 | 2-1500x | 7% | 10.11% | €0.60-€100 |
| €4.50 | €12.57 | 6.89% | €5 | 2-1500x | 6.20% | 9.76% | €2-€250 |
| €9 | €25.38 | 6% | €10 | 2-1500x | 5.40% | 9.77% | €2.50-€500 |
| €16.50 | €46.65 | 5.76% | €25 | 1.5-1500x | 3.80% | 24.23% | €12.50-€2500 |
Software
Run It Once has its own in-house software offering many of the unique features designed for both the recreational and professional players. Most notably the Dynamic Avatars system, where each opponent has a random avatar that takes on a unique expression based on the player’s recently observed play style.
The cash game lobby is blind with fixed buy-ins, a common trend now in the online poker industry. Play is entirely anonymous, there is no chat box, though a canned chat system is available allowing players to express themselves with a shortlist of emoticons and phrases. Also unique is the player color-coding system, which accents each avatar’s shirt with the chosen color.
There is also a prohibition of all third-party tools including HUDs, cap on multi-tables to up to 6 tables, unique sit out policy.
The client is still in beta mode and will remain in this phase until the platform is “nearly flawless,” according to Phil Galfond, the founder of RIO. The room has been releasing frequent updates adding new features on a monthly basis including resizeable tables, ability to download hand histories, improvements to hotkeys, new table backgrounds and new table layouts, new card options, visual tweaks, etc.
Run It Once Poker is available to both Windows and Mac users.
Mobile App
At the time of writing, Run It Once Poker has not yet revealed a mobile app yet. But it is expected, RIO will an app for Android and iOS users in the near future. There is no word on whether there will be a browser-based client.
Banking Options
Players can deposit on Run It Once Poker through a variety of options including VISA and MasterCard, Neteller, Skrill, ecoPayz, Paysafecard, MuchBetter, AstroPay Card, bank transfer powered by Trustly. However, depending on the player’s location, these payment methods may vary.
RIO is also expecting to accept cryptocurrencies including Bitcoins soon but it is still waiting for the regulators to add those options.
RIO Site Availability
RIO operates internationally under a Malta license and accepts players from dozens of countries. This includes Canada, South America much of Europe including Finland, Netherlands, Russia and Germany. It is available in the UK too, thanks to RIO’s UKGC license.
However, the site is not available in certain key jurisdictions including the US, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Czech Republic, Romania, Estonia, Greece, and the European segregated market made up of the shared player pools in France, Spain, and Portugal.
The operator is understood to have applied for a license in some of these countries including Denmark and Sweden.
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