The Gardens (Hawaiian Gardens)

The Gardens casino in Hawaiian Gardens began as a card club in a very small incorporated city in southern Los Angeles County, just a few miles due west of Knott's Berry Farm. Remodeling has been going on for a long time, and they recently closed the "tents" they were operating in, and opened the new permanent interior, while some exterior work continues.

Before:



After:



The new interior is huge, and quite beautifully done. It has a contemporary large timber "lodge" appearance, with very high ceilings, lots of ambient light, and brand new 50" monitors suspended from the ceiling all over the place. There must be at least 150 poker tables and what appears to be 100 other table games. Perhaps this number is unchanged from before, but because the room is so much bigger and nicer, it feels less crowded. A VIP high-limit area has a walled off area instead of just a partition, and among other amenities, has it's own cashier.

Here is the list of game offerings from their website:

Limit and No Limit Hold 'em
Blackjack
Pan 9
Seven Card Stud
Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Split
3 Card Poker
EZ Baccarat
Pai Gow Tiles
Joker's Wild Pai Gow Poker
Texas Hold' em
Pai Gow Poker
Omaha Hi-Lo Split
Omaha
Ultimate Texas Hold’em

The times I have been there, the staff was always friendly, and with a joint that big, wait times have typically been short, which I appreciate.

The only thing that hasn't changed is the patrons. The club is just off the freeway, and close to several cultural neighborhoods (e.g., "Little Saigon", "Little Manila". "Little Armenia", "Thai Town") and actually located in an area heavily populated by large populations of Hispanic and ethnic Chinese. The mix makes playing poker quite interesting, as groups of regulars chatter away with their friends, and staff members in their native languages. For the most part, English is spoken during play, but I would caution any newcomers to be wary of team play.

With an NFL team coming to town, and the Super Bowl coming in 2021, other card clubs in the area have invested in their properties. The Bicycle Club up the freeway in Bell, and the largest poker room in the country in Commerce have remodeled and expanded, even adding hotel rooms. Hawaiian Gardens plans to open a hotel as well, so things are looking up for poker in Los Angeles.

That is the closest casino to where I grew up in Seal Beach. I went to high school just next door to Hawaiian Gardens in Los Alamitos.

I still say anybody is a fool to pay a commission to gamble, unless you also invoke your option to bank as well. I've heard one of the LA casinos doesn't charge commission, which I've been meaning to verify and write about.

Quote: Wizard

... I've heard one of the LA casinos doesn't charge commission, which I've been meaning to verify and write about.

Yes, Crystal Casino (in Compton) advertises no commission (it is actually paid by the corporate banker). I advise caution. While it may not be "Straight Outta Compton", you can see it from there. The place is very small, like 2 poker and 12 blackjack tables (they did have Free Bet last time I was there) but it is right next to the freeway. Unfortunately, the parking lot is pretty sketchy, so please plan on a daytime visit.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Yes, Crystal Casino (in Compton) advertises no commission (it is actually paid by the corporate banker). I advise caution. While it may not be "Straight Outta Compton", you can see it from there. The place is very small, like 2 poker and 12 blackjack tables (they did have Free Bet last time I was there) but it is right next to the freeway. Unfortunately, the parking lot is pretty sketchy, so please plan on a daytime visit.

Thanks! Do the women in the casino look like the ones on their web site?

Quote: Wizard

Thanks! Do the women in the casino look like the ones on their web site?

Somehow, I seriously doubt that picture was taken at a casino in Compton.

Do they have regular mini-Baccarat, or just all proprietary EZ Baccarat?

Also, i bet that for uth, the blind bet psys flush 6 to 5, like in northern CA.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Yes, Crystal Casino (in Compton) advertises no commission (it is actually paid by the corporate banker). I advise caution. While it may not be "Straight Outta Compton", you can see it from there. The place is very small, like 2 poker and 12 blackjack tables (they did have Free Bet last time I was there) but it is right next to the freeway. Unfortunately, the parking lot is pretty sketchy, so please plan on a daytime visit.

I went at night, bad idea! I was so sketched out walking to the casino from the parking lot. Terrible idea on my part but I was younger and stupider. Oh well I also went to a casino in East St Louis, IL in the middle of the night. Not sure which was a worse idea.

Quote: PokerGrinder

I went at night, bad idea! I was so sketched out walking to the casino from the parking lot. Terrible idea on my part but I was younger and stupider. Oh well I also went to a casino in East St Louis, IL in the middle of the night. Not sure which was a worse idea.

And people think walking between the Detroit casinos at night is bad.

Quote: Wizard

Quote: Ayecarumba

Yes, Crystal Casino (in Compton) advertises no commission (it is actually paid by the corporate banker). I advise caution. While it may not be "Straight Outta Compton", you can see it from there. The place is very small, like 2 poker and 12 blackjack tables (they did have Free Bet last time I was there) but it is right next to the freeway. Unfortunately, the parking lot is pretty sketchy, so please plan on a daytime visit.

Thanks! Do the women in the casino look like the ones on their web site?

Hehe... Depends on the number of C&C's you've put down...

Quote: RoyalBJ

Do they have regular mini-Baccarat, or just all proprietary EZ Baccarat?

Also, i bet that for uth, the blind bet psys flush 6 to 5, like in northern CA.

I didn't cover the whole floor, but I only recall seeing EZ tables, and I didn't walk through the VIP room. Sorry, but I didn't get any pay tables, even for the BJ tables. I'll make a mental note to collect more details next time I stop by. If anyone else has details, please feel free to comment.

Quote: PokerGrinder

Quote: Ayecarumba

Yes, Crystal Casino (in Compton) advertises no commission (it is actually paid by the corporate banker). I advise caution. While it may not be "Straight Outta Compton", you can see it from there. The place is very small, like 2 poker and 12 blackjack tables (they did have Free Bet last time I was there) but it is right next to the freeway. Unfortunately, the parking lot is pretty sketchy, so please plan on a daytime visit.

I went at night, bad idea! I was so sketched out walking to the casino from the parking lot. Terrible idea on my part but I was younger and stupider. Oh well I also went to a casino in East St Louis, IL in the middle of the night. Not sure which was a worse idea.

The parking lot is in "tiers" with the VIP parking next to the doors, while the spaces for the unwashed masses are further downhill. The lot is actually across the way from the backside of a shopping mall. There isn't a lot of cross traffic, and I didn't see any security when I was there, so it would still be pretty easy to dump more bodies.

Hawaiian Gardens casino is supposed to fund improvements in that city, it rarely does. It is owned and controlled by a ultra orthodox Jew who funds Jewish settlements on the West Bank even those opposed by the Jewish Government. All the casino's charities appear to be passthrough entities for similarly named charities in Israel.

Bingo is a mile a minute and cards are dealt at an equally rapid rate. It does draw mostly 'locals' but many of them are inveterate gamblers and of course its a cash cow and was even before the Bicycle Cafe expanded.

As to the house edge... I think of the line in a movie Paint Your Wagon wherein Clint Eastwood comments about a casino owner: He doesn't gamble.

The little fake "City" of Hawaiian Gardens is about one square mile (or maybe a bit less), is only slightly larger than the cemetery next door to it, and has a tiny resident population that's probably less than the aforementioned graveyard & definitely smaller than some of the South LA area public housing projects I know of, and all the major municipal services such as police & fire that a "city" is supposedly for are provided by Los Angeles County. If a janitor empties a wastebasket, picks up some litter in the parking lot, and cleans a toilet in the casino, I think they have just done major improvement of the hilarious supposed "City."

When I've chatted with LA area folks about this place they often say it has really good food. I guess they might be making up for not having Las Vegas style complimentary cocktail service.

Despite having grown up just south of Hawaiian Gardens, and gone to high school very close to the border, I rarely went there. Only two reasons come to mind:

1. There was a Honda dealership there and I drove a Honda moped for about four years. When I needed a part, I would go there, sometimes on foot.
2. Word got around that a liquor store was very liberal about selling beer to minors. They must have done great business from me and my fellow Los Alamitos High School students for a while. However, one day it all stopped.

As for great food, ha! I never once ate anything there. It is as known for good food as for anything Hawaiian.

Quote: Wizard

2. Word got around that a liquor store was very liberal about selling beer to minors. They must have done great business from me and my fellow Los Alamitos High School students for a while. However, one day it all stopped.

Wow, sometimes you just hear something that totally catches you off guard. An underage Wizard buying liquor just blew my mind. I can't picture you and the rest of the chess club chugging Mad Dog 20/20.

Wizards more of an Olde English guy or maybe Steel Reserve.

Quote: RogerKint

Wizards more of an Olde English guy or maybe Steel Reserve.

Zima, the Mazda Miata of beverages.

Quote: RogerKint

Zima, the Mazda Miata of beverages.

Alcoholic Sprite.

Quote: DRich

Wow, sometimes you just hear something that totally catches you off guard. An underage Wizard buying liquor just blew my mind. I can't picture you and the rest of the chess club chugging Mad Dog 20/20.

Oh, I'm not that good at chess. Love the game but just wasn't born gifted at it, much like golf. I weent through an experimental phase between the ages of about 17-19 but nothing that interesting. The beverages of choice were Burgie beer, cheap wine coolers, and Southern Comfort.

Hey now, there's something to be said for using some of the less heavy & syrupy social lubricants in the adolescent crankshaft. Maybe especially for some of us who weren't quite built for being a big football hero, and had to try to be clever or devious instead. On a planet long ago and far away, after getting well into a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill with the object of my throbbing teenage affection, I was about a 2/5 favorite to go places I'd never been and to have the very first really interesting time of my life. Until I slightly miscalculated the dosage of that combination of molten sticky sugary glorified bathtub booze, and puked it all over the upholstery in her Dad's car.

ADDEMDUM: I wonder if I might have confused some of the chatter about Poker/Casino tableside food service between H.G. & Commerce? I still haven't ever gotten around to sampling either. The food that gets talked about, at least among some of the poker playing visitors to LV that I've chatted with about their home "casinos," is fairly inexpensive (by LA standards) Thai food, served while you play. Or so I'm told. Not some sit down restaurant, unless a table with cards and poker chips qualifies as a "restaurant."

Quote: teddys

I believe the Wizard would have graduated high school somewhere around 1983 while Zima didn't come out until the 1990's. The non beer and liquor choice back then was Bartle's & Jame's wine coolers. I only know this because the Wizard and I are aobut the same age.

Quote: DRich

Quote: teddys

I believe the Wizard would have graduated high school somewhere around 1983 while Zima didn't come out until the 1990's. The non beer and liquor choice back then was Bartle's & Jame's wine coolers. I only know this because the Wizard and I are aobut the same age.

Yeah, I was gonna say...Zima? No. Not for our teen generation.

Boones Farm
Annie Green Springs
Mad Dog 2020 (Mogen David)
Miller
Budweiser
Pabst Blue Ribbon
If needing a serious blast, Colt 40 malt liquor

No light beers. No sweet coolers or fruit flavored stuff. Tequila Sunrise and Tom Collins were ladies (girlie) drinks, as close to alcohol that didn't taste like it as was available.

We had lots of 'shine in the area, but there was some code among the men that kept it out of our hands. Unless you found your dad's stash ;-)
We still got our hands on alcohol, other things were even easier. 70's

Quote: beachbumbabs

If needing a serious blast, Colt 40 malt liquor.

I thought it was Colt 45? (and two zig zags, baby that's all we need...)

Quote: beachbumbabs

I believe the Wizard would have graduated high school somewhere around 1983 while Zima didn't come out until the 1990's. The non beer and liquor choice back then was Bartle's & Jame's wine coolers. I only know this because the Wizard and I are aobut the same age.

83 exactly! Wine coolers were big at the time. Bartles & James were seen as rather pricey by us poor high school students. There were some economy brands we preferred. One of them was Sun Country that had wine coolers in a two-liter bottle. Man, I drank a lot of those.

Quote:

Boones Farm

I recall hearing about Boones in the movie Juno but still have never had one, or even seen one.

Quote: Wizard

83 exactly! Wine coolers were big at the time. Bartles & James were seen as rather pricey by us poor high school students. There were some economy brands we preferred. One of them was Sun Country that had wine coolers in a two-liter bottle. Man, I drank a lot of those.



I recall hearing about Boones in the movie Juno but still have never had one, or even seen one.

Fwiw you're quoting drich, not me in the first paragraph. But very similar sentiments.

Quote: FleaStiff

Hawaiian Gardens casino is supposed to fund improvements in that city, it rarely does. It is owned and controlled by a ultra orthodox Jew who funds Jewish settlements on the West Bank even those opposed by the Jewish Government. All the casino's charities appear to be passthrough entities for similarly named charities in Israel.

True. I'd avoid playing there for this reason.

How an impoverished Southern California town became a cash machine for controversial Jewish settlements in the Middle East

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/09/bingo-connection

The operator of the club, a retired Miami Beach physician named Irving Moskowitz, has made international headlines for inflaming tensions in the Middle East. In 1996, Moskowitz helped finance a tunnel in Jerusalem next to land considered sacred by Muslims; the opening sparked days of riots that resulted in the deaths of 60 Palestinians and 15 Israelis.