sands Bethlehem today

I'm at sands today signed up for a player card free 5 dollar slot play. Will report on the blackjack

Six deck at high limits. 10 15 25 eight deck. Awful casino experience. It reeks of an ashtray.
I want to edit this since I never was around a computer all weekend. I wrote this post mainly because a few people had talked up sands on this board for their BJ games. If you sign up for the player card you get 5$ free slot play, my girlfriend ended up winning 50$ from that, pretty cool, I lost all 5 spins. The casino is nice,really nice and out of place amongst the blue collar decaying sprawl of Bethlehem PA. For people that are not from Pennsylvania, Bethlehem resides in the Lehigh Valley and was once the site of Bethlehem steel , the past couple decades have not been kind to this area. It is about an hour and a half from Philadelphia, and was about a hour from my suburban home. The casino was a smoking casino, and it reeked like a blue collar dive. The blackjack tables were abundant,I counted about 11 in the 10,15,25$ range,and a few six decks in the 50$ range.The dealers were mostly asian, and the clientele struck me as being problem gambling types. I would honestly caution anyone to avoid this casino, especially on weekends and instead try parx or any of the other Philadelphia casinos.

Funny you should say that,
My friend and I drive out to PA from NYC every week.
We refer to the casinos by code names...
Track (parx), forge (valley forge),lodge (mount airy), little sun (mohegan, pa) and ashtray (sands)

Parks is next. Valley forge> sand. I only spent 100$ played mainly on one hand but yeah terrible casino.

Sands is definitely a haven of undesirables. Hundreds of China Town Bus people who loaf around the casino, peeking over your shoulder and watching you play instead of...Oh I don't know...doing something useful and non-intrusive!

However, I will say their Blackjack tables are more favorable than AC or Mount Airy. They stay on Soft 17, unlike AC and they don't play little shell games with their Up Card like Mount Airy. Plus they bust a good majority of stiff hands and offer surrender. Only problem is, it is ALWAYS full at the "low limit" tables and the "low" limit is almost always $15. Sometimes they'll drop to $10, but by the evening it's bumped up again.

Quote: Gambit55

They bust a good majority of stiff hands and offer surrender.

Another vote on a simple question on whether surrender is in Pennsylvania rules or not. Doesn't say much for the blackjack crowd.

Quote: SanchoPanza

Another vote on a simple question on whether surrender is in Pennsylvania rules or not. Doesn't say much for the blackjack crowd.

What does this even mean?

Quote: SanchoPanza

Another vote on a simple question on whether surrender is in Pennsylvania rules or not. Doesn't say much for the blackjack crowd.

Quote: WongBo

What does this even mean?

Well, we've had posters here say energetically that one of the big ways that Pennsylvania blackjack is far superior to Atlantic City black is that Pennsylvania has surrender and AC doesn't. Keeping in mind that Pennsylvania supposedly requires that blackjack have the same rules across the state, it is odd that we've seen differing reports on the offering of surrender.

Quote: SanchoPanza

Well, we've had posters here say energetically that one of the big ways that Pennsylvania blackjack is far superior to Atlantic City black is that Pennsylvania has surrender and AC doesn't. Keeping in mind that Pennsylvania supposedly requires that blackjack have the same rules across the state, it is odd that we've seen differing reports on the offering of surrender.

Blackjack is the same all across the state, allowing surrender. I think the comparison to Mt Airy was the "little shell games with their up card", but I have no idea what that means.

Sands is beautiful, and filthy in our opinion. Smells like an ash tray, yes. Also they don't go around often enough emptying the ash trays, or cleaning up empty drinks and picking up napkins and the like. We won't take the time to drive there.