Canadian Casinos

Quote: pocketaces

I'm very familiar with Ontario Casinos as well. In general, they follow atlantic city rules almost exactly. ALL blackjack tables in Ontario are S17 DAS 6 or 8-deckers. Windsor adds re-split of aces. Other than that there are no poor variations like H17 or 6:5 games.

PA, Windsor is H17 now. This change happened about four months ago. The encroaching Harrah's influence. S21 is unchanged. BTW, Windsor profits are way down because of the remodeled Detroit casinos/passport restrictions/smoking ban so OLG and the Province have their panties in a bunch.

Seriously? If other Ontario casinos follow suit, I hope there will be hell to pay. But as you are saying this is probably simply the influence of Harrah's which is allowed to operate 'Caesars Windsor' as they see fit. Their rules in Vegas are pretty terrible, so why not everywhere?

No other casino in Ontario operates like this, so I think they are safe. They also know that they must compete with Atlantic city and foxwoods so they set their games accordingly. I have heard about the casino's business dropping in Ontario and a great way to boost it would be to open a decent sportsbook (which would be a HUGE draw from the US if marketed well) and come up with some innovative promotions.

What they definitely shouldn't do is butcher the good games to piss off their dwinding customer base. It seems like companies like Harrah's have no idea what they are doing.

Quote: MrPapagiorgio

... is there any info you would like included that I didn't list in my Aria mini-write-up?

The Aria mini-write-up was good, thanks. The same kind of style would be fine for any casino.

Some outdated info on BC casinos....

The Chinatown casino Wizard eluded to closed down years ago, as well as the one at the Holiday Inn on Broadway and the Blue Boy. Currently the "rule" is one casino per city (silly isn't it?). Anyways, here is the Lower Mainland lineup (in and around Vancouver).

Vancouver: Edgewater Casino, downtown
Richmond: River Rock Casino Resort
Coquitlam: Boulevard Casino
New Westminster: Starlight Casino
Burnaby: Villa Casino
Surrey: Fraser Downs Racetrack & Casino

Casino of Montreal is a nice one. It is located on an island just beside downtown, about 5 floors high op-en in the center of the building, with a magnificient view on downtown Montreal. Payout is standard and comparable with Atlantic city. The site is casinoduquebec.com/montreal
Something interesting to keep you in good shape, lol, is that the island where the casino is located is also where it is being held the F1 annual race that is back in 2010 on the F1 worldwide program. This is an event at the beginning of June to avoid if you are not a F1 fan but during the remaining time of the summer, you can roller skate on the F1 track, which is interesting and 1 activity among many. During June and July also, every wednesday and saturday, there is the fireworks international festival that can be seen from the casino, on which 1 country gives a 20-30 minutes tremendous fireworks show.

Thought I would resurrect this thread,

Just got back from Casino du Montreal. What a strange place! It seems like the land that time forgot-its multi-floor gaming area is unique, but the decor is strictly 80's vegas.

I was there at 8:30 AM EST this morning and was surprised about a few things:

1. The Royal Ascot digital horse race tracks (with actual moving horses) was a blast for a quarter (.25), reading the odds beforehand was hilarious.

2. No craps tables open before 10 AM, not popular enough.

3. 10 blackjack tables or so open, with a $25 minimum (all), even though they were half empty! My poor (tiny) bankroll! One of the floor-people told me it is a rare occurrence to see BJ less than $25.

4. Around 6 mini-baccarat tables open, with a $20 minimum (all), even though they were slammed with people! I thought this was strange.

5. There were 2 carib. stud tables open at $10 antes, but Three-Card was still $25.

6. Most surprising of all: 2 roulette wheels open (European) with $5 minimums!

I can't figure out their system for table minimums, maybe this is why they are struggling?

I'm glad to see a discussion happening on the Ontario Casinos.

I'd like to know more about what people's impressions are of the differences between "charity" casinos and the licensed casinos like Windsor. Do charity casinos ever give comps? Do you get them from staff on the floor or are there players' cards?

I've heard conflicting reports about the prevailance of CSMs on blackjack tables in Ontario, some folks seem to feel that they're everywhere, but some more recent reports say that Ontario has backed off on the CSMs after complaints.

I'd be especially glad to hear about the tables at the Gan 1000 islands charity casino, near Kingston. Is it really $25.00 blackjack minumums pretty much all the time?

I've only been to the 1000 islands casino once, a long time ago, and mostly played slots. I was with a group and my gut impression from listening to people's experiences afterwards is that the slots were loose; there were certainly more winners in our group than you'd expect on a similar trip to the Vegas strip, but obviously I haven't done a big enough sample to say this for sure.