The fallout from Maverick Gaming’s 2025 bankruptcy filing continues as the company prepares to shutter two Tukwila casinos, cutting 238 jobs and signaling a grim outlook for its poker‑centric empire.
The poker community knows Eric Persson not just as a high‑stakes cash‑game presence, but also as the co‑founder and CEO of Maverick Gaming—a company now in free‑fall. After its Chapter 11 filing in mid‑2025, Maverick announced it would close the Great American Casino and Riverside Casino in Tukwila on November 1, 2026, laying off a combined 238 employees in the process, according to PokerNews reports, and confirmed by TheStreet.
Warnings Filed, Closures Confirmed
The catalyst for these closures came via a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filed with Washington state. The document spells out that Maverick Washington LLC will shutter both Tukwila locations by November 1, resulting in 142 layoffs at Riverside and 96 at the Great American, totaling 238 affected staff members, as detailed by multiple outlets including NEXT.io and TheStreet.
Bankruptcy and Broader Fallout
Maverick’s descent began in July 2025 when RunItOnTime LLC, Maverick’s parent company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing both assets and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million, as recounted in court filings and summarized by PokerNews and Wikipedia.
The turbulence didn’t stop at Tukwila. Earlier this year, Maverick shuttered several Seattle-area venues—including the Silver Diamond Mill Creek, Crazy Moose Mountlake Terrace, Silver Dollar SeaTac, Palace Casino, Dragon Tiger Casino, and Roman Casino. These closures, affecting more than a hundred jobs, were driven by competition from tribal casinos, mounting regulation, and rising labor and operational costs. These dynamics have been cited across outlets like Gambling911 and Yahoo Finance.
A Poker Pro in a Casino Crisis
The irony is sharper for Persson, a figure once celebrated for his poker table presence. Noted for playing one of the largest televised cash‑game pots in U.S. history, Persson is also famous in the streaming sphere—once regularly seen on High Stakes Poker, Hustler Casino Live, and Bally Live Poker. But since the bankruptcy, he has all but vanished from streams, as tracked by HighRollPoker and reported by PokerNews and PokerScout. His absence echoes the company’s broader hemorrhage of revenue and influence.
Industry Still Watched Washington Closely
This story is more than corporate collapse—it speaks to the wider discord in Washington’s gaming landscape. Maverick has long decried regulatory constraints that favor tribal casinos, and Persson has publicly accused state regulators of bias and inconsistent enforcement of rules and self‑exclusion programs, as previously reported by CardPlayer.
With these closures, Maverick’s presence in Washington shrinks further. It now retains approximately 15 remaining card‑room properties in the state—down from thirty‑odd at its peak—and a handful of full‑service casinos in Nevada and Colorado remain operational, per PokerScout.
Looking Ahead
By November 1, two more pillars of Maverick’s footprint will fall, and nearly 250 families will face job insecurity. Persson’s retreat from public poker life seems to underscore the personal toll of corporate decline. Meanwhile, non‑tribal operators watch warily: this is a cautionary tale of regulation, market dynamics, and the razor‑thin margins in Washington’s card‑room game. And for the poker community, the end of these venues marks yet another loss of local live action—and one more testament to how quickly the tables can turn.
Sources
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