Hard Rock Casino Rockford is days from opening its first dedicated poker room.
A temporary casino, aka Hard Rock Opening Act, first opened in Rockford in November 2021, but it didn’t include a poker room. The temporary facility was built inside a former restaurant, so floor space was at a premium. As a consequence, there were no table games.
The permanent casino is scheduled to open at month’s end, so Hard Rock closed its temporary digs on Monday. When it opens the new facility, it will have a poker room for the first time.
“I’m there [at the new casino] every day,” Geno Iafrate, president of Hard Rock Casino Rockford, told WIFR-TV in Rockford on Monday. “I think every day I go, I’m amazed at how beautiful it is and all the amenities that are in the building. I can’t wait for everybody to see it.”
One of those amenities will be a dedicated poker room.
Hard Rock said the new casino will open at 3:00 p.m. EDT on August 29, pending regulatory approval.
New Poker Room Will Be Small
Hard Rock Casino Rockford will soon be able to boast that it has the newest dedicated poker room of any casino in Illinois.
At six tables, it will also be one of the smallest.
There are currently 15 land-based casinos in Illinois, nine of which have poker rooms. The largest room in the state can be found one hour due east of Rockford, at Rivers Casino Des Plaines — it has a poker room with 22 tables.
Grand Victoria Casino, which is 45 minutes east of Rockford along mostly the same route as Rivers Casino, is a close second with 20 tables in a room dedicated to poker.
No other casinos that spread poker in Illinois have tables in the double digits. The six poker tables at Hard Rock Casino Rockford puts it in a tie with Bally’s Quad Cities Casino & Hotel for fifth place. Three casinos have five tables, one less than Hard Rock.
Poker Rooms at Illinois Casinos
| Casino | Tables |
|---|---|
| Bally’s Quad Cities Casino & Hotel | 6 |
| Grand Victoria Casino | 20 |
| Hard Rock Casino Rockford | 6 |
| Harrah’s Joliet Casino & Hotel | 8 |
| Harrah’s Metropolis Casino & Hotel | 5 |
| Hollywood Casino Aurora | 7 |
| Hollywood Casino Joliet | 5 |
| Par-A-Dice Hotel Casino | 5 |
| Rivers Casino Des Plaines | 22 |
Sources: Poker Atlas, World Casino Directory, phone calls to casinos.
Plans to Host Tournaments
The new poker room may be small, but Hard Rock has big plans for poker. The new casino is adjacent to an entertainment venue measuring 23,000 square feet — a space large enough to accommodate up to 2,000 people for a concert.
“We do have plans in the future to do large-scale poker tournaments in that venue,” Iafrate told the online media outlet Rock River Current earlier this year.
Rockford is an ideal location to host a poker tournament because it is near three major interstates and is about the same distance from Chicago, Madison, and Milwaukee.
Online Poker Not Available Yet
Hard Rock will open its poker room about three months after a bill to legalize real money online poker in Illinois failed to win passage before lawmakers in the General Assembly entered a recess that lasts until fall.
Rep. Edgar Gonzalez Jr. (D-Chicago) introduced HB 2239 in February 2023. The bill was assigned to two House committees but didn’t advance any farther. Gonzalez told Poker Industry PRO in an exclusive interview in June that he plans to file a new bill in 2025.
Lawmakers tried to legalize online poker and casino games during the 2021-2022 session, but they were also unsuccessful.