The Lumen HD Poker Table. The Elite Poker Table. BBO POKER TABLE DIFFERENT. Breathtaking, personalized to perfections. Legs and bases to suit your needs for. Other Info Our custom dining table top pairs with the 60' round, 72' oval or 96' oval professional style poker tables. This solid hardwood game table top is made-to-order in the US by a family-owned.
I recently wrote an article for the on-line poker magazine I write for, http://www.pokernews.com. In it, I wrote about getting the best poker table for your poker game. I wrote about purchasing poker tables and then added a paragraph about building ones‘s own. I received a response to the post from the great company that manufactured my awesome poker table. The response corrected the information I posted about the costs of making your own table. I print their email in its entirety here for your review. — Ashley
Hi Ashley,
I came across your poker table article and felt the need to send you an email on some statements on there that are really inaccurate. As a builder and expert in this area, I really felt compelled to give you an email on this. I do agree with you that you definitely get what you pay for, but you really misrepresented quite a few areas here and falsely cheapened the costs and craft of table building for all builders or people looking to build their own tables.
Also.. No plug for Eastern Poker Tour or GorillaGaming.net there 😦
Comments and info:
– We actually build more for casinos than home-use, so your table is by no means a “home-use” table. We do build for people of course, but many more of our customers are casinos and poker rooms. In fact that is what keeps my employees paid, not the home games. Off the top of my head, we have built for Harrah’s Properties, Planet Hollywood, Twin River, Running Aces, Borgata, NH Poker Rooms, ect… and a few others I actually signed confidentiality agreements on.
– Also on your list of things to make a table… the plywood alone costs more than $85… Even the cheapest straight ply-woods with bad voids in the layers and bad glues that tend to break down, can be found at home depot for $42/sheet. It can work for a DIY table, but your table came with a true cabinet grade cost of that is $55 – 65 / sheet… and each table takes 2 sheets minimum. So you can see DIY kits are going to quickly go north of $85.
– Vinyls, HD Foams, Glues, Other woods, accessories, and just folding table legs are going to add another $250 – $400+ at retail. This is another area where you get what you pay for… Example: For the playing surface, you can get headliner foam at Joan Fabric cheap with a very little cushion … or buy a decent foam for $60-$80 for the playing surface. Then the premium foams can go over $80/sheet and a table takes two sheets. We buy in bulk and not retail, and to be honest that is the only reason you can buy a table at $700 and not $1200 as some builders would charge for the same table. It really doesn’t make economical sense to build your own table.
– Time. 4 Hours? I have never seen a DIY builder with all the tools build this first time in less than 8 hours. 16+ hours or more if you include the planning, shopping, learning, and sourcing of materials. The first time a builder wraps straight vinyl around a curved poker rail is always terrible, lumpy, crinkled, and very time consuming… i know because I have trained 5-6 builders. As a hobbyist with a ton of free time that sees no value in their time.. this is not a cost, but if it takes 16+ hours away from your live, what is that implied cost? I’d usually tell people, their hourly wage at their work is how they value their time. That is them minimum amount of $ per hour you are willing to be away from your family or hobbies.
– Tools. Does everyone have an upholstery gun, air compressor, router, jig-saw, clamps, ect at home? If not that is going to add hundreds to the budget. Are they also skilled with them?
– Pedestals $100-$200?? Any decent pedestal base is going to cost you $400+… and they still need to be finished/stained … not $100-200. Even from China… there are some really bad options in the $250 range but they are terrible and would not be more impressive upgrade.
– Taping a TV Show? This is not somethign to be taken lightly at al… as it is muuThe table is not going to be less than $5K… $10K plus with pocket cams. Then there is all the other equipment necessary to even do this. A really scrappy production and poor quality would be hard to get under $20K. It is not hard to break $50K in one budget taping a low budget poker tournament.
– We lead the industry in Live-streaming RFID tables. This technology has gotten the graphics online for much less than the old days of motion graphics programs and cutting through hundreds of hours of pocket cam footage… they have saved us or our customers $10’s of Thousands in production costs per TV show. A full USB live-stream set-up with no lighting, no editing, and really grainy footage could be done for $10 – 15K investment for cameras, software, table, and hardware and a few weeks of training.
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Glenn McCrory
President
Eastern Poker Tour
http://www.easternpokertour.com
☎ (401) 427-1240 ☎ (888) 378-6284
✉ glenn@easternpokertour.com