Hold'em first for Prince Edward Island

A Prince Edward Island racino is ready to shuffle up and deal after taking the necessary steps to run Texas Hold'em games six days a week in Charlottetown.

The site - the Charlottetown Driving Park Entertainment Centre - has hired six local residents as dealers to staff the racino's four new poker tables.

Texas Hold'em is the first card game approved by provincial regulator, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, at the racino. The venue will also offer local horse races and simulcast races, video lottery terminals and slot machines.

"This is the first time we've offered live table poker in any of our facilities or any of our products across Atlantic Canada, and we wanted to make sure we could do it certainly in a fun, but more importantly regulated, in a social responsible way," a lottery corporation spokesman told CBC news Monday.

The racino has also implemented a rule that none of its 600 employees will be able to play poker on site as a precautionary measure.

Related Article:Province Approves Racino Poker Tables