23 Players, Zero Tables: Hollywood Penn National's Phantom Waitlist

The Deepest Waitlist With Nothing Behind It

Twenty-three names are stacked on the $1/$3 no-limit hold'em waitlist at Hollywood Casino at Penn National in Grantville, Pennsylvania — and the poker room hasn't opened a single table.

Zero. Not one.

As of 4:15 p.m. ET on May 22, Bravo showed Hollywood Penn National carrying the most lopsided waitlist-to-table ratio on the East Coast: 23 players waiting, zero tables spread. The room's median waitlist for $1/$3 NLH sits at three names. That means the May 22 number is nearly eight times normal volume — with nothing to show for it.

The room's median waitlist for $1/$3 NLH sits at three names — the May 22 number is nearly eight times that, with zero tables open.

What a Phantom Waitlist Looks Like

Grantville is a town of roughly 1,500 people along I-81 in central Pennsylvania. Hollywood Casino is its only poker room. When 23 players put their names on a list for the most common cash game in American poker and the room can't — or won't — seat a single one, something structural is happening.

A few possible explanations: staffing gaps, delayed opening for a later shift, or a system quirk that logs interest before dealers clock in. Bravo doesn't distinguish between these scenarios. It only shows the numbers. And the numbers say 23:0.

Putting It in Context

A 23-player waitlist with zero tables is unusual anywhere, but it stands out more at a regional room than it would on the Las Vegas Strip. Rooms in Vegas routinely absorb double-digit waitlists by spinning up new tables within minutes. A property like Hollywood Penn National, with a smaller dealer pool and fewer physical tables, doesn't have that flexibility.

The median of three on the waitlist tells you what a normal session looks like at this room: a handful of names, a table or two running, modest action. A spike to 23 is a seven-to-eight-times multiplier over baseline — the kind of surge that overwhelms a room built for steady, low-volume play.

The Broader Question

Phantom waitlists — names piling up with no game to absorb them — are one of the quieter pain points in regional poker. Players sign up, wait, check their phones, and eventually leave. The demand was real. The supply wasn't.

Hollywood Penn National's 23:0 snapshot is the starkest version of that gap captured on Bravo on May 22. Whether the room eventually opened tables later in the evening, Bravo's frozen frame doesn't say. The waitlist said everything.