SAN JOSE -- Eric Swallow wanted customers to think Las Vegas when he reinvented San Jose's old Garden City card room as Casino M8trix. And after it opened officially for its first full day of operations Wednesday, players such as Ward Burton, who flocked to the new $50 million attraction, said that's just what came to mind.
"As soon as I walked in the front door, it looked like a Vegas casino," said Burton, 32, a San Jose special education teacher who had been waiting for months to check out the city's latest gambling attraction.
Garden City regular Mele Itlo, a 41-year-old San Mateo caregiver, was impressed by the roomy gaming floor where silky overhead LED lighting fixtures changed from red to blue while upbeat dance music and a custom floral fragrance filled the room.
"This is way better," Itlo said. "It's beautiful."
Swallow and his wife, Debbie, and co-owners Pete and Jeanine Lunardi joined Mayor Chuck Reed for an 8 a.m. ribbon-cutting to officially celebrate the long-awaited Casino M8trix opening. They had originally planned to open in April, but it took another four months to satisfy a police review and background checks before they got the OK.
They also had to orchestrate the tightly monitored and choreographed transfer of gaming operations from Garden City, a fixture on Saratoga Avenue since the 1970s that they bought out of bankruptcy five years ago, to M8trix off Airport Parkway. They shut Garden City early Tuesday
morning to begin the move.
But by the time they cut the ribbon Wednesday at M8trix, the place had already filled up with card players who began arriving the day before after finding Garden City closed and the M8trix staff welcoming them inside.
"People started tweeting and facebooking and all of a sudden, boom!" said M8trix consultant Sean Kali-rai.
A more celebratory grand opening is planned for Aug. 17 and 18.
The M8trix represents the first big shake-up of San Jose's card-room businesses in nearly two decades. The city's only other allowed card room, Bay 101, located just across Highway 101 from the M8trix site, opened in 1994, itself a reinvention of an older card room in San Jose's Alviso neighborhood called Sutter's Place.
While the M8trix buzzed with excitement -- cars circling the parking lot, news crews set up outside and card players coming and going throughout the morning -- it was a quieter scene at Bay 101 on Wednesday morning. But there were still plenty of cars in the Bay 101 lot, and players there said it seemed to get a spillover boost from the new competition down the road.
Bay 101 spokesman Ed McGovern said simply: "We wish them well, and we're hoping both card rooms do well."
Pat Lyons, a 48-year-old professional player from Hillsborough, was at Bay 101 to play a poker tournament Wednesday, something Bay 101 has specialized in and where he had won $100,000 in a no-limit hold'em tournament last year. But he stopped to check out M8trix beforehand.
"I love it -- it's beautiful!" Lyons said. "You walk in M8trix, and it feels like you're in Las Vegas or L.A."
He added that the two card rooms will boost each other's business and benefit the city, which reaps about $15 million a year from a 15-percent card room tax.
"They're going to help each other," Lyons said. "It's going to be a very positive experience."
Though M8trix got high marks from players who checked it out Wednesday, some online reviewers found fault. A few found the custom aroma, which Swallow named "Bamboo," overpowering. One described it as a "lotus bomb" and another likened it to bug spray. There was also some grousing from those who thought M8trix was less oriented toward poker than the so-called "California games" like Pai Gow or variations on blackjack.
For now, M8trix' most distinguishing feature, its eight-story tower, remains empty. Owners hope to secure city permission soon for karaoke and a top-floor gaming room that would be open to all players and offer a view. Bay 101 opposes the upper-level gaming and entertainment proposed by the competition, arguing it could hurt efforts to monitor card rooms and improve their public image.
Bay 101 meanwhile has qualified a November ballot measure that would allow a 61 percent increase in gaming tables at the two card rooms and allow them to offer any game legal under state law.
The city's two card rooms say they are struggling to compete not only with more than 90 other California card rooms, but with tribal casinos, Internet poker and of course, Las Vegas.
City officials acknowledged the card rooms generate more tax revenue than gas stations, restaurants, department stores or auto dealers, but cited concerns about the ballot measure, arguing any increase in tax revenues might be offset by more police calls and crime associated with gambling.
"When we see dollar signs, we get shortsighted and don't see the downsides," said Councilman Sam Liccardo, who opposes the ballot measure.
But poker player Lyons argued people are still going to gamble, so the city should get a cut of the action.
"All your money's going to the Indian casinos and the Internet," Lyons said.