Poker - Rules, Tables, & Tournaments - MGM Resorts

Before the pandemic I was a regular poker room patron at MGM National Harbor. They shut down for months but just recently reopened, and more recently opened their poker room back up to the general public.
Now before the pandemic, MGM National Harbor was always packed pretty much 24/7. It’s one of their newer properties and definitely the nicest casino in the DMV area (only other options locally are shitty and older Maryland LIVE and some places in West Virginia you don’t want to go to).
I arrived there last night at 9 PM, which normally would be prime time. Definitely not hoppin’ like it used to be. High roller table games were mostly empty. The slots were operating at maybe 50% max capacity because every other one was turned off to allow distance between the players, but it was very noticeable that even with the reduced number operating most were not being used.
They installed hand washing stations throughout the property around all the games but honestly I barely saw anyone using them which was not good. Face masks are mandatory, but they make you pull down your mask when you enter the casino area and take a picture of your face. All dealers for table games and poker wear plastic face shields. There are plexiglass dividers between dealers and players on most table games, but the side effect of that is definitely less players per table than normal. Spectators are no longer allowed to hang around, you’re only allowed to be at the table if you’re playing. The lack of spectators will have a dampening effect on the enthusiasm of players at certain table games. In fact, the whole energy of the casino was low. Imagine playing craps with no spectators.
Didn’t seem like they could be selling as much alcohol, the lobby and casino bars had earlier closing hours and at 9 PM on a Saturday I was able to walk up to any of the open bars and get a drink immediately, no long lines like the good old days.
The only section of the casino that was more active than usual was the race book which was odd because usually that’s only at half capacity at best when I’ve been in the past.
As for my poker experience, it was interesting. They removed about 25% of the tables they used to have on the floor to allow for distancing, and it’s now maximum 7 players to a table instead of 9. You do the math, they are definitely not making nearly as much off the poker room as they used to be able to. Plus, with 7 players instead of 9 and the lengthy swap out process for players who get knocked out (an attendant has to come and sanitize the seat for you and it took a long time) there were more hands than usual that were played with a reduced rake because there were less than 5 players active.
On top of that, because of the reduced seat capacity the wait list for the 1-3 tables (the most popular) took hella long and people were giving up on the wait and leaving. Also it was very apparent that the higher blind tables were much less in demand, they barely had any waits and that would be unheard of pre-pandemic. That means that the poker players showing up there intend to put less money on the table now.
The poker playing experience is still good if it’s what you like, I was able to enjoy myself despite all the plexiglass alienation. However I don’t know how long they can run this poker room without a COVID-19 case eventually being traced to it, because despite all the effort of distancing and sanitization, they still don’t have a good solution for keeping the chips themselves clean. Unless you neurotically sanitize your hands every time you rake chips, which I guess you could but most people weren’t/won’t, you’re at risk. I played for at least three hours and never saw any type of sanitation of the chips. The only solution I can think for this would be if you had contactless betting where you are separated from your stack, you verbalize your bets and the dealer moves everybody’s chips for them. That would be a big hassle for the dealer and I don’t think players would like it at all but I don’t know how else you could otherwise reduce that risk.
TL;DR - I have no MGM position and don’t intend to open one but I think there’s going to be a rude awakening when ER comes around because people have been piling back into MGM like everything is back to normal. Just because MGM has reopened its properties does not mean it’s anything like it was before. They are operating with many handicaps that will make it literally impossible to achieve anything near pre-pandemic earnings, and this is not going to change any time soon. I also think it’s highly likely they will run into trouble when a COVID-19 case is officially traced to their properties from a gamer that handled chips.