del Lago Seneca NY

Seneca County:

In two days Del Lago will hold a job faire for its new Spa and new Restaurant. Its recently opened 205 room hotel has been a profitable investment for the Resort and Casino. A few additional hotel workers may also be hired.

The casino started with 2,001 slot machines and 89 table games, the casino now has 1,980 slot machines and 98 table games. Some slots were removed for crowd flow purposes, some for being under performing.

During the week of April 17-23, del Lago reported $3,415,157 in pre-tax gaming revenue — its second-best week since it opened in February.

Through the first three months of operation, del Lago's pre-tax revenue is $39,300,272.

The casino has hit the $13 million mark in two of its first three months, March having had adverse weather conditions.

Here’s a quick review of my visit to del Lago Casino on Saturday night, May 27.

The casino is located in Waterloo, New York. The area is known for the town of Seneca Falls, which is where the first women's rights convention was held, and the casino is about a 10-minute drive away.

A self-parking garage is conveniently adjacent to the casino. It’s a non-smoking casino, so you see a lot of people smoking in the garage. Upon entry, they block anyone younger than 21 years from entry, but ignore people who clearly are older.

It was fairly lively for a Saturday night, but I wouldn’t say too crowded. There were a couple open spots at the $15 craps tables. I noticed that I was one of the few Asian players—I estimated about 1% of players were Asian. That is, until I walked over to the baccarat table, which was all Asian. I should have stuck around to discern their exact ethnicity, but I was on a tight schedule.

Video poker: 7-5 JoB at $0.25. In the High Limit Room, JoB was 9-5 at $1 and up.

Poker room: $5 rake, though it looked like $3 goes to the casino, and $2 to the Bad Beat Jackpot (quad 5s beaten), based on my observation of how the dealer separated the chips.

I was playing $2-4 limit hold’em, and hadn’t played limit hold’em in a long time so I was making stupid mistakes that I estimate cost me at least $16. Despite winning about 4 small pots, I finished down $52 in an hour of play. It was a friendly game, without too much pre-flop raising. One newbie woman who raised "all-in" with about $9 was given only good-natured teasing. She showed pocket jacks on a board that had two jacks. No bonus-hand payouts, however.

One last anecdote: when our dealer was about to switch out, he told us we’d like the next guy, saying he has a lot of energy. The new dealer did seem enthusiastic, but he made a lot of mistakes, such as not moving the button, flipping over a card that had to be made the burn card, and finally somehow dealing a card into the cup holder next to me. I noticed the card, pointed it out, and he gathered the cards for the second time in his short shift. The casino is brand new, and dealer was on the young side, so I wonder what that first dealer was doing with the compliment?

There’s free, self-serve coffee and soda near one of the entrances, but they provide only powdered non-dairy creamer.

Great casino.
Great hotel and spa (though a tad bit late to open)
Wall street loved it for being on time and under budget...
but now Moody's Rating Service is saying "head for the hills" to all investors.

It can pay its loans but they just don't see revenue ramp up materializing at all.

Market too saturated. Indian casinos too numerous.

This just hit the newswires, should be on Bloomberg soon.

Here is a link

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2018/01/12/del-lago-casino-credit-agency-warns-financial-troubles/1028047001/

Disappointing to hear. It's a nice place. I wonder how bad the non-smoking policy hurts it?

It's also not really near a highly populated area—it's between Rochester and Syracuse, and Syracuse has its own casino.

Quote: FleaStiff

Market too saturated. Indian casinos too numerous.

Here's another.

Resorts World Catskills, scheduled to open next month.

Quote: FleaStiff

Great casino.
Great hotel and spa (though a tad bit late to open)
Wall street loved it for being on time and under budget...
but now Moody's Rating Service is saying "head for the hills" to all investors.

It can pay its loans but they just don't see revenue ramp up materializing at all.

Market too saturated. Indian casinos too numerous.

This just hit the newswires, should be on Bloomberg soon.

Bolded part need state and federal oversight too.

Quote: Tanko

Here's another.

Resorts World Catskills, scheduled to open next month.

With this and mgm/Wynn Boston opening within the next two years, Mohegan and Foxwoods are gonna be converting more gambling with shopping space! Or something. Those two are gonna get squeezed.

Quote: Tanko

Quote: FleaStiff

Market too saturated. Indian casinos too numerous.

Here's another.

Resorts World Catskills, scheduled to open next month.

Also, the Point Place Casino is scheduled to open March 1, 2018, just 50 miles from del Lago, on the other side of (and closer to) Syracuse.

Hope I can make to all of these new places (and collect souvenir chips) before they start closing down. But it won't be in these weather conditions, not for me.

Quote: Doc

]Hope I can make to all of these new places (and collect souvenir chips) before they start closing down. But it won't be in these weather conditions, not for me.

Very sensible of you not to be driving at the moment but Del Lago is not going to be shuttering its doors soon or anything like it, despite Moody's none too rosy outlook.

Quote: Doc

But it won't be in these weather conditions, not for me.

Huh? Been playing in the rain in just a hoody all day. It's like 61* degrees outsi....

Oh. It's snowing now. Nvm =p

Del Lago owner going hat in hand to state legislators and complaining Seneca Nation changed the playing field.

Del Lago was turned down for a state government bailout.

Intense competition in the area continues and it appears clear that there will be no bailouts solely because a variety of ownership interests overbuilt casinos in the area or engaged in intense marketing campaigns.

Quote: FleaStiff

Del Lago was turned down for a state government bailout.

Intense competition in the area continues and it appears clear that there will be no bailouts solely because a variety of ownership interests overbuilt casinos in the area or engaged in intense marketing campaigns.

I saw this coming

The decision to allow new casinos was they had to be way upstate to help bring customers to these impoverished areas and not allow any new ones near NYC for 7 years minimum

The old adage "location location location" apparently failed to come to mind (they were probably too busy watching Field of Dreams)

Quote: darkoz

I saw this coming

The decision to allow new casinos was they had to be way upstate to help bring customers to these impoverished areas and not allow any new ones near NYC for 7 years minimum

The old adage "location location location" apparently failed to come to mind (they were probably too busy watching Field of Dreams)

Yep. Bring casinos to the impoverished areas to keep the impoverished in poverty.

Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Yep. Bring casinos to the impoverished areas to keep the impoverished in poverty.

I agree lol

Their thinking was people would travel upstate ala atlantic city

Not when there are 2 racinos operating in nyc

The attraction of hotel and live dealers isn't enough. No one in nyc cares about poor upstate hick trump supporters anyway :)))

Was there a few weeks ago on a Wednesday afternoon. Stayed for about 6 hours before heading to Rochester to catch a plane (SW doesnt fly out of Syracuse at the time)

Was senior day apparently as 95% of the patrons were 60 or older. So the place was pretty crowded with people playing penny slots and sometimes 1 penny at a time. Discount buffet for seniors (which was fairly decent) added to the crowds I am sure.

As for the gambling, table limits were high for a Wed afternoon. Only one Pai Gow table with a $20 minimum and had very few people playing at the time. Two three card poker tables operating, the $5 mb was full, the $10 mb was empty. One Criss Cross poker table with a bad paytable was off and on busy. Most BJ tables were $10 or higher. Good selection of new slots.

Overall, casino is modern and pretty good. They need a few more carnival table games and to lower the limits at slower times. We would have played PG and some others, but $25 a hand for what really wasnt a gambling trip was a bit much

Read an article when I was there that said they pay 10% table game revenue and 37% (I think) slot revenue in taxes. Not sure how that compares to other states, but seems pretty high.

The casino's problem is that there are better casinos in the area and those places are better at marketing and have enough clout to keep Del Lago away from government bail outs. Its nice, its new, its struggling .... and it will continue to struggle. Competitors will make sure of that. Yes, its had hiring fairs and buildouts but its just one of those "if we built it, they will come" places that didn't work out as well as the owners had hoped it would.

My wife and I were both very unimpressed by the place and left after 20 minutes. My 95 year-old mother was there recently with a bus load of senior citizens. Nobody, including the bus driver, thought it was worth a repeat visit. If I still lived in Rochester I would drive the extra hour to Turning Stone.

The one thing Del lago has over TS is TS may be one of the smokiest casinos on the planet.

I think its gotten much better since the remodel. They have a glass wall that separates the smoking and non-smoking sections but even in the smoking section, the HVAC seemed to do a pretty good job.

Just spent an overnight at Del Lago. In laws must donate enough on slots to each qualify for free room. So wifey and I went there. Around 1.5 hour drive. Checked in to nice room, nothing special but clean with nice shower, nice TV, easily controllable temperature, in room refrigerator.

Players club…. So I went to sign up and asked if they had any offers…. Only offer was IF you earn 200 slot points you get to ‘spin a wheel’ and win up to $250 in slot play. No food offer.

Restaurants…. For a Casino/hotel that was recently sold for 2.5 billion dollars on this weekday there were only two choices…. In the Sportsbook you could have waitress service for essentially bar food. And a cafe type place where you could order from a full menu but if it didn’t have the captive audience of the casino it would be empty. Apparently their ‘nice’ restaurant is only open weekends. And buffet hasn’t reopened since the pandemic.

Smoking policy….. NO SMOKING ANYWHERE!!!! I forgot how much better an experience it makes everything. Everything seemed cleaner.

My vulturing Ultimate X….. There were so many multipliers first time I went through the machines I made $100 and I may have even been running cold! Plus in the middle of one hand it interrupts the game and tells me I won $25. No idea what happened, but lady next to me tells me I was in one of the ‘hot seats’ and it was a random thing. When I made the 200 points I spun the wheel and won $6 in free play, possibly the minimum. Oh well. I went to a new machine and turned the $6 into a $52 cash out. Later went back to same machines and cleared another $50. Next morning before leaving another $20. Oh yeah, I got a second $25 during the vulturing.

Pai Gow poker….. The house ways were by far the WEAKEST I had ever seen! I’m not making this up. They keep low pairs together NO MATTER WHAT! I had dismal K high Pai Gow with QJ. Dealer has 6655Q42. Puts up the Q4! It happened again and dealer put up a J10. The next one might be House ways elsewhere, but just seems so weak…. 101099A54
Played two pairs (10’s, 9’s) together with A-5 up top. My 7’s with an AJ were happy. I put in many hours playing $25 and was up somewhere between $300 and $400. I truly think the bad house ways helped me over $100 worth. The rest was luck.

I love the NON SMOKING, but it’s not worth the drive for me unless there is something else, like spending time with wife’s parents. I earned $8 in comps, which paid exactly for two chocolate croissants! I’m interested to see if they send me any offers.

They've got one $15 BJ table, a few $25 - $2K BJ tables, even a $50 - $3K BJ table, not counting the HL Room (which I haven't scoped out when dealers were around).
There's $50 - $2K & $100 - $3K Baccarat tables which are usually full at night, with Asians of course.

There's other table games which are tied to a progressive. So a $1 side bet that has run the progressive up to over $116K and counting, it was much much lower many months ago.

They've got Roulette tables which were $25 - $100 and I don't know why the max is so low. The roulette machine is where it's at with $3 - $500.

They've got Bubble Craps with up to $195 PL bets and up to $400 PB's, and taxable wins for rolls that pay over $1200 including your bet back, so avoid those bets. Somebody was shooting and got a voucher because they hit over a $3K balance on the machine when they made the PL point and they lost their turn and the dice were passed around the table. You've got to make a PL bet to shoot, but this is a quirk we just learned.

They've got one or two craps tables open. Usually a $15 - $2K & a $25 - $2K table with up to 10X odds with a $6K odds max. On slower weekdays or weeknights, they might lower the $15 table to $10 - $1K. They've got more craps tables on the floor elsewhere but I've never seen them open. Both tables have the long sought-after Fire Bet.

There are many empty table games, and fewer than before the pandemic, they must have been taken out with state permission and replaced with more slot machines.

The casino is being sold but new management has yet to arrive. If you want to smoke, you've got to take it outside or to your car. I really appreciate the No Smoking. But some degens come back in after smoking weed in their car and they don't smell right. I'm unsure what the laws about pot smoking are in this state. It's being legalized, but where can you find pot to buy? Probably have to find a dispensary near Syracuse or something. Anyway, it feels like certain drug dealers are at the casino to blow their drug money hard, because they sure don't know how to play.

The Vine is a stage for name bands & acts to come play. I haven't been in there and I don't know if they have extra wide seats for the obese like you'd find in a movie theater in a few spots. I'd expect tickets to be $50- $100 or more. There's some very geriatric bands from the '70's and '80's coming through, so expect a senior crowd at many concerts.

There's free parking outside in the elements or in the garage, and the highest tier of club members can use their own portion of the parking garage, supposedly so they don't get mugged.

There's a food court that the above poster may have missed, that has a handful of restaurants selling faster food. The Sports Lounge is a new addition, but I don't bet sports and the TV channels I can see don't even tell me what time it is if I forget my watch. There's soda machines and restrooms, which are both sometimes out of service.

There's a poker room, but I don't have a bankroll to play any poker at this time so I never step foot inside of it.

Really, don't come here expecting to lose a little. The table minimums are not pre-pandemic and there's no sign they will return to $5 tables. There's plenty of slot jackpots over $10K, so win one of those to feed your gambling experience.