With the recent poker boom it seems like everyone is getting into the game. You can’t turn on your TV without seeing poker somewhere on some channel. The next logical step is home poker games. It’s easy to set up and nearly everyone knows how to play now. The only thing you need is a few poker buddies, some poker chips, and a deck of cards. But what if you wanted to take it a bit further? What if you could have a casino quality poker table right in your own home? Believe it or not, you can.

What if I told you that you could build your own casino quality poker table top for under $200? I’m not talking about those cheap flimsy folding table tops that you see online. I’m talking about a durable all wood table top with a real casino style padded rail and a nice padded playing surface. The nice thing is that anyone who knows how to use a saw can build one.

The supplies you need are as follows: 2 Sheets of ½” plywood 2 Sheets of closed cell foam (1” for the rail and ¼” for the playing surface) 1 Sheet of vinyl to upholster the rail 1 Sheet of fabric to upholster the playing surface Wood nails, Staples, and Adhesive

The first thing you need to do is decide the table that you will be placing your table top on when you play poker. You need to measure and cut both sheets of plywood to the size of that table’s top. This should give you 2 identical pieces of plywood that also match the size and shape of the table that will be supporting your finished product. Once this is done you need to cut a 4.5” ring off of one piece and a 2” ring off of the other piece of plywood. These two rings of wood will later form the padded rail.

The next step is to upholster the playing surface. To do this all you need to do is fix the sheet of ¼” foam to the smaller of your 2 pieces of plywood, cut off the excess, and add felt. Once the foam is trimmed down to size just lay the wood (foam side down) on top of the felt and staple it around the edges after pulling it tight. You may want to have a friend help out with this part to make sure that you get the felt tight on the surface of the table.

The place where most people struggle with this project is when they are trying to build and upholster the padded rail. To start you need to place the 2” ring of wood on top of the 4.5” ring and screw them together. Then you will use the 1” sheet of foam to cover the rail but don’t cut off all of the excess like you did with the playing surface. You want to leave enough foam on the inside and outside of the rail so that it can wrap around and pad the sides of the railing as well as the top. Once the rail is padded and trimmed you need to cover it with vinyl just like you covered the playing surface with felt. When you are stapling the inside you will find that you need to cut the vinyl to make it fit properly without any wrinkles. This isn’t a problem; just make sure you don’t cut too much away.

With both the playing surface and the padded rail complete all you need to do is place the rail over the playing surface and screw them together from below. The finished product is a durable poker table top that has the same look and feel of any casino table in the world. If you like you can also build legs and have the table be a permanent fixture in your game room. Now… Shuffle up and deal!!!