Three Phantom Waitlists, One Poker Room in Scottsdale

Three different games, three phantom waitlists, one poker room in Scottsdale — and not a single table running for any of them.

Between 1:45 and 2:30 p.m. PT on May 24, Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale, AZ, showed six names waiting for $3/$5 No-Limit Hold'em, six names waiting for 8-16 Mix, and six names waiting for 20-40 4-Game Mix — all with zero tables open. Three simultaneous phantom lists across three distinct game types and stake levels, at the same property, at the same time.

The median waitlist for each of those games is one. Every list was running at six times that.

Between 1:45 and 2:30 p.m. PT on May 24, Talking Stick Resort showed six names waiting for three different games — with zero tables open for any of them.

What Makes This Unusual

Phantom waitlists — names stacking up with no table in sight — pop up at rooms across the country. Usually it's a single game at a single stake. A $1/$3 list eight deep at a regional room on a holiday weekend. Annoying, but ordinary.

What Talking Stick posted is different. The demand isn't clustered in one game. It's spread across a $3/$5 NLH game, a limit mixed game, and a mid-stakes 4-Game Mix. That's three separate player pools — NLH grinders, limit mixed regulars, and mid-stakes mixed-game specialists — all showing up, all registering on Bravo, and all getting told to wait.

No other single room in the Bravo data showed this breadth of unmet demand at the same time.

The Numbers

| Game | Waitlist | Tables Running | Median Waitlist | Ratio | |---|---|---|---|---| | 3-5 NL Holdem | 6 | 0 | 1 | 6× | | 8-16 Mix (7-game) | 6 | 0 | 1 | 6× | | 20-40 4-Game Mix | 6 | 0 | 1 | 6× |

Every game at 6× its median. Every game at zero tables. Eighteen players registered across three lists with nowhere to sit.

Why It Matters for the Drive-In Crowd

Talking Stick is one of the busiest rooms in the Phoenix metro, and the mixed-game demand is the detail worth watching. Rooms that can fill a 20-40 4-Game Mix list six deep have a player base most properties would kill for. That's not tourist traffic. That's a local mixed-game scene large enough to support mid-stakes action — if the tables materialize.

For anyone checking Bravo before heading out in the Scottsdale area: the demand is real, but the seats aren't. Three lists, zero tables, eighteen names deep in aggregate. Call the room before you drive.