Frankly, many people play poker here almost every day and are locals who commute from home. Casinos elsewhere in the US and Canada are extremely smokey (Foxwoods,Seneca, Niagara Falls, etc). There is no smoking allowed in the casino, so it makes things very nice. The Commerce Hotel and Casino just happens to be the largest poker casino in the entire world-meaning that it has the greatest number of poker tables and most of them are going 24/7, 365 days a year! The hotel is also reasonable at between $117 and $134 per night, generally and very clean. From Union Station, downtown, Metro rail service will take you literally to every corner of LA for about $1.50 per person, per trip or better yet spend $5 on a day pass and travel unlimited in LA. So even without a car, the family could easily get around LA to see the sites. It is about 10 minutes south of LA and they have free shuttles to Union Station and other locations in LA (call concierge desk for schedule). It's great for the rest of the family if one person wants to play poker and the others will be comfortable. Understandably, people end up staying at the hotel without even considering that there is a casino there, because it is large and beautiful, and offers a lot of amenities (pool, spa, fine dining, casino games, etc). This review is meant for people that either want to go there to play poker or want to know about the scene from a poker player's perspective.
