Casino Chip of the Day

Here are my chips from DiamondJacks, ElDorado, and Harrah's. I'm still not home from my "weekend" trip, which is starting to get a little weird. There was mostly chip-collection success, but I might be done using my Garmin GPS for a while. I'll have a blog up for the trip soon. Given how this trip is going, I'm realizing how lucky I was on my trip to LA. I did lose about 6 hours on that trip to the I-10 closure/accident, but it didn't impact my ability to visit any of the casinos during operating hours.

I've been to DiamondJacks and ElDorado once, and to Harrah's twice. I also stayed at Harrah's on the second visit. It's a very nice hotel, about as nice as the commercial hotels in the area. I was happy to get a comped stay there, and I'd consider it as a for-pay alternative on future visits to NO.

The DiamondJacks and Harrah's chips are Paulsons, while the Eldorado chip is a Bud Jones. The Eldorado chip may have been damaged by my cleaning process. Warm water seems to have clouded the surface of the chip, and I haven't been able to reverse that issue.

Quote: rdw4potus

I also stayed at Harrah's on the second visit.

OK, so apparently I'm way out of date. When did Harrah's get a hotel in New Orleans? It used to be that you could go to their web site and make reservations at several "affiliated" hotels in the area, but they didn't have one of their own. After reading rdw's comment, I checked the site again, and it describes the place as:

Quote: Harrah's New Orleans web page

The AAA Four Diamond Award-Winning Harrah's Hotel is located in the heart of the world's most exhilarating city. This 26-story marvel, with 450 oversized luxurious rooms and suites, provides an unparalleled escape.

When did that open, or when did it get the Harrah's name?

Quote: Doc

OK, so apparently I'm way out of date. When did Harrah's get a hotel in New Orleans? It used to be that you could go to their web site and make reservations at several "affiliated" hotels in the area, but they didn't have one of their own. After reading rdw's comment, I checked the site again, and it describes the place as:
When did that open, or when did it get the Harrah's name?

I wondered the same thing when I booked. Wikipedia suggests that Harrah's built their hotel, but I can't see how the land was there to do that. It would make more sense if they bought a hotel property, but I can't find any info about that transaction.

State: Louisiana
City: Baton Rouge
Casino: Hollywood

The Hollywood Casino is a riverboat docked on the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, about a mile upstream of the Belle of Baton Rouge. When I presented my chip from the Belle and discussed the casino, I noted:

Quote: Doc

I'm not sure, but I suspect that the streets near the waterfront are often lower than the river, relying on the levee for their protection. I'll have more to say about river levels when this thread gets to the other "downtown" casino, which is positioned outside of the levee.

Well, the Hollywood is that casino outside of the levee, so it's time for me to discuss the river levels.

I didn't take any photos of the casino or the river when I was there last February, but I have borrowed a couple of photos from GoogleMaps. The images they use for the normal satellite view and for the 45° angle view were apparently taken in different seasons, when the river levels were different. I think these give good examples of what it can be like outside the levee. I don't know when either image was captured, but I suspect that such different conditions posed a bit of a design challenge for the casino facilities.


There is another interesting (in a nerdy way) feature about this facility layout. I think you can see in the photos that there is a railroad track along the right hand side of the property. If there is a train on that section of track, either stationary or moving slowly, it can block the entrance to the Hollywood Casino parking lot from the road for perhaps an extended period. Fortunately, they constructed another entrance to the north end of the parking lot, via a road that passes under the railroad track. My wife and I used that road to get into the Hollywood, otherwise I likely would not know that it existed.

The Casino opened in 1995 as Casino Rouge, and I am not sure when the name changed. There used to be another Louisiana Hollywood Casino, a riverboat located in Shreveport, but it became the Eldorado.

When I visited the Hollywood I won $40 at craps to finish the day up $335. Nice! Too bad it wasn't like that for the whole trip.

The chip shown below is a white RHC Paulson with two triangular edge inserts in maroon and mustard. The center inlay has a color scheme that almost matches the edge inserts. UV light once again reveals the array of a repeated casino name but no hat and cane logo. The "error" is rather easy to pick out this time, I think.

Thanks for the interesting post Doc. I wonder if the "high" water photo was taken on an unusual day, or if it is typical of "high tide"? I suspect it was an unusual day, because there are marked parking spaces under water (probably for employees).

Quote: Ayecarumba

Thanks for the interesting post Doc. I wonder if the "high" water photo was taken on an unusual day, or if it is typical of "high tide"? I suspect it was an unusual day, because there are marked parking spaces under water (probably for employees).

I would not think that it is a high tide level since the vegatation that is under water doesn't look like typical intertidal zone vegatation.

Here's my chip from Hollywood Baton Rouge. I visited the casino one time, during my loop of LA and MS. Those high/low water pictures are impressive! I wonder how long in the spring the "high" position lasts.

My chip is a slightly dirty Paulson RHC. It seems there are a lot of those in my collection.

Quote: rdw4potus

The Eldorado chip may have been damaged by my cleaning process. Warm water seems to have clouded the surface of the chip, and I haven't been able to reverse that issue.

I wonder if Armor All, or some other silicone based restorer would improve the condition of the plastic base material? Has anyone tried?

Quote: rdw4potus

Those high/low water pictures are impressive! I wonder how long in the spring the "high" position lasts.

I don't know, but I don't think "tide" is an appropriate word to be using. Baton Rouge is probably way too far upstream from the Gulf for there to be noticeable tidal effects. It's all a matter of how much water is coming down the river and how the dams are set upstream. There is substantial variation in the amount of spring flooding from year to year, and I know that by this past July the lower Mississippi was critically low, with water being held upstream to enable navigation there.

State: Louisiana
City: Bossier City
Casino: Horseshoe

The Horseshoe Casino has to be one of the very nicest casinos in the Shreveport/Bossier City area except for one thing – their dice did everything possible to decimate my bankroll in just the half hour I played there. It was the first of the area casinos I visited, and I required some fortuitous variance to get me back into the black by the end of the day.

This riverboat is located just north of the I-20 bridge over the Red River and about a quarter mile south of the US79/80 bridge. The land-based portion of the facility is large, with a 25-story hotel that looks quite nice, though I never went into a room. There is a nice fountain outside the entrance. The parking deck is huge, so they seem to have prepared for quite a crowd. Wiki claims that the casino boat has 1,500 slots, 200 video poker machines, 60 table games, and a 14-table poker room. That sounds like a respectable size for a casino, but the gaming boat is completely dwarfed by the land structure.

The casino opened in 1995, but my impression is that many of the facilities are much newer than that. I don't have a good source for that info. Does anyone here know the history?

I suspect that my memories of other details of the facility have been clouded by some gaming-related trauma that I experienced there.

The chip shown below is a white RHC Paulson with four edge inserts, two each in gray/silver and turquoise. Nothing out of the ordinary about the center inlay, and UV light reveals only the hidden Paulson logo.

Here's my Horseshoe Bossier chip. I've been to this property 3 times. Once on the LA/MS loop, and twice when I drove over from Dallas for an evening. I've never slept at the hotel, but I did use a room for an evening to do some work and clean up. I'd intended to stay, but I couldn't sleep so I just drove back to Dallas. It was a great room. Not as nice as Harrah's NO, but about like Harrah's NKC or Paris. The casino is big for a boat, and not as smokey as I'd feared. The non-boat part of the property is high-quality and well laid out.

My chip is a Paulson RHC. Like the Eldorado chip, black gunk was replaced by light gray smudges when I washed this chip with warm water.

With that kind of bankroll deflating experience, it is no wonder that the facility can be quite nice.

Did they have 100x odds when you were there Doc? Did you chance it?

Of course, my bankroll-deflating experience was strictly a matter of negative variance, which I understand but don't have a high regard for.

I do not remember what odds levels the casino allowed. If it had been 100x, I could only have chanced it on a nickel table. And I mean "nickel" in terms of a coin with Jefferson's face on it. I don't think I have ever played higher than 3-4-5x, and usually less than that -- typically double or triple odds. If I buy in for $200 on a $10 table, I'm not really looking for a lot of variance, just a little bit of the positive kind, because even a little bit of the negative wipes me out. Recall my description of my playing last week at Harrah's Cherokee.

Quote: Doc

I do not remember what odds levels the casino allowed. If it had been 100x, I could only have chanced it on a nickel table. And I mean "nickel" in terms of a coin with Jefferson's face on it.

Bwa ha ha... Now that was funny.

I've mentioned it many times.

I finally found it in my notes from G2E.


Chip Cleaning System

It uses an ultrasonic system along with a special cleaning solution.

The website is sketchy, but it looks like the full system includes special chip trays, which are slightly larger than standard trays, and have holes in the bottom. The size allows the chips to wiggle around in the ultrasonic bath, and the holes allow the chips to drip dry. Well, actually, they designed a vacuum system to suck the water down thru the chip tray to speed the drying process.


http://surfcitygaming.com/

Thanks for this info DJTB. I suspect the "special" solution is dish soap and distilled water.

State: Louisiana
City: Lake Charles
Casino: Isle of Capri

In previous posts, I have asked about the history that led to so many of the Louisiana casinos being on riverboats that remained docked, and Ayecarumba asked whether the boats are actually able to cruise away under their own power. I don't think I have the full story yet, but I came across a page that indicates that legalized gambling returned to Louisiana in 1993 and that, until 2001, the riverboats were required to make regularly scheduled 90-minute cruises every three hours.

I came across that info while trying to clear up some of my confusion about the Isle of Capri casino in Lake Charles. (Perhaps I should note that the Isle of Capri is literally on Lake Charles but really docked in Westlake, Louisiana, across Lake Charles from the city of Lake Charles.) I found references to Isle of Capri operating not one but two riverboat casinos in Lake Charles, one named the Crown (opened in 1995) and one named the Grand Palais (opened in 1996). The MOGH catalog even shows chips that say Grand Palais.

My guess is they had two boats so that most any time that you showed up at the dock, there would be a ship in port for you to board, with the other one perhaps out on its 90-minute cruise. If that's not the way it worked, I will appreciate better info from any of you. Anyway, I only remembered one boat being there on my only visit, so I had to do a little digging.

I learned that Isle of Capri sold the Crown to Bossier Casino Venture, which allowed that company to get a license to build their Margaritaville Casino, which is still under construction in Bossier City. Not sure, but I don't think they even plan to use the boat, just the license that it got for them. The boat went into storage and perhaps will eventually be resold.

I was in Lake Charles for a few hours on Thursday, February 9, 2012, visiting the two casinos in the area. I managed to lose $100 playing with the dice at the Isle of Capri and followed that with a fine lunch at Otis and Henry's in their shoreside facilities.

I have now found an article that states that on Tuesday, February 14, 2012, the Crown was towed from port to the storage facility, less than a week after I was there. I assume that the sale had taken place prior to my visit and that the casino was no longer operating aboard the Crown by the time I got there. I didn't even notice a second boat while I was there – guess I was on the Grand Palais, which was using chips that were just marked Isle of Capri.

As for the Isle of Capri name being used in Louisiana, there are two other examples that I know of. One was a riverboat that operated in Bossier City from 1994 until 2006. It became DiamondJacks.

The third Isle of Capri was a cruise ship sailing two and five-day cruises out of New Orleans from 1998 until 2001 on a ship chartered by Commodore Cruise Lines. The emphasis on the ship was the casino, which was operated by the owner of the land-and-river-based Isle of Capri Casinos, and the Isle of Capri emblem was prominent on the ship. There was quite a stink (deservedly so) when Commodore went bankrupt and left hundreds of international crewmembers unpaid and stranded on the ship in New Orleans. The ship is now known as the MS Enchanted Capri and is owned by a Mexican corporation that uses it as a hotel vessel for oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

The chip shown below from the Lake Charles edition of the Isle of Capri is a white RHC Paulson (Have we ever seen one of those before?) with three edge inserts in pink, light blue, and a dark turquoise. UV light reveals the hidden Paulson logo in the center and the fact that the turquoise edge insert fluoresces while the other two do not. The center inlay includes the company logo, but I'm not enough of an ornithologist to known whether that is a true parrot or some other tropical bird.

According to the MOGH catalog, there was a slightly different version of this chip that was also used. That one had a medium green edge insert in place of the turquoise one and the vertical line on the dollar sign was just two marks at top and bottom, not passing through the center. Not much difference to designate a different series of chip.

State: Louisiana
City: Lake Charles
Casino: Grand Palais

The Grand Palais was a riverboat casino that sailed from/in Lake Charles, LA. It was acquired by Isle of Capri in 1996, and sold in/around 2012. After the requirement to actually sail was abandoned, the Grand Palais and Isle of Capri boats shared one common complex on the west side of Lake Charles. I don't remember the order, but upon entering the building, a patron could either turn left and enter one boat, or continue straight and enter the other boat. I've been on both boats, and collected chips from both entities. But, at the time that we covered this part of the country in this thread, we only covered the Isle of Capri directly. I added the chip image below on 2/28/13, and I wrote this paragraph on 5/2/16.

I can't find my chip! or a photo of my chip. I guess that means I lost it before I started taking pictures. I'll drive over from Houston to replace it next week, I guess. If I do, I'll probably stay at L'Auberge and try to take some of their money as well.

Update: found my chip on 2/28/13.

Quote: rdw4potus

I can't find my chip! or a photo of my chip. I guess that means I lost it before I started taking pictures. I'll drive over from Houston to replace it next week, I guess. If I do, I'll probably stay at L'Auberge and try to take some of their money as well.

Damn... It doesn't take much arm-twisting, does it?

Sounds like time for another Focus group.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Damn... It doesn't take much arm-twisting, does it?

LOL! It took lots of arm-twisting to get me to agree to go to Houston. I'm happy to leave for an evening to visit Louisiana:)

Quote: Buzzard

Sounds like time for another Focus group.

I dunno -- to me rdw seems well-focused on this topic. He's even more of an extremist on chips than I am.

My wife and I have been considering a trip down to Biloxi in early January, with a likely side trip over to Baton Rouge to visit the new L'auberge there. I guess Biloxi to Baton Rouge isn't much different from Houston to Lake Charles, and we plan to do that side excursion as just a day trip. After that, we might head down to Florida.

State: Louisiana
City: Lake Charles
Casino: L'auberge du Lac

According to GoogleTranslate, l'auberge is French for "the hostel", so I guess L'auberge du Lac might be something like "Lakeside Inn." The name does present me once again with an alphabetizing challenge. With the exception of such oddities as the musical group that DJTB has mentioned, "The The", I try to disregard leading definite or indefinite articles when sorting these names. Following that rule, this casino should be sorted by "a" rather than "l", but every place I have found a list of Louisiana casinos, this one is listed in the "L" spot. I didn't bother trying to fight the momentum.

L'auberge du Lac opened in May 2005 and is owned by Pinnacle Entertainment. Wikipedia claims that the place was completed in 2003 but gives no history on why it didn't open then. Anybody know the story? Edit 12/16/12: The "story" was provided by member pokerface here.

The Pinnacle web site now just calls the place "L'auberge Casino Resort – Lake Charles." I guess that may be an adjustment related to their recently having opened "L'auberge Casino & Hotel – Baton Rouge," which I have not yet had the opportunity to visit. Maybe next month.

For a "riverboat" casino, the L'auberge du Lac is something special. Not only is the adjacent hotel described as the largest in Louisiana outside of New Orleans, but the casino itself is almost unrecognizable as a boat. It is one of those floating barges, and it's floating in a tub, surrounded (I think) by other structures. It's a bit like that boat-in-the-moat at French Lick, IN was, except there is a real river, a bayou, and a couple of connected lakes quite nearby. After other Lake Charles casino boats were put out of business by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, I guess this design makes much more sense while it complies with the regs.

Last February on my only visit there, I won $50 at craps at L'auberge du Lac then drove around the lake to the Isle of Capri, where I promptly lost twice that amount at the same game. C'est la vie.

The chip shown below is another white RHC Paulson, this time with three red edge inserts. The center inlay is pale blue with an ornate background figure that I can't quite recognize. The three edge inserts fluoresce in the same red shade under UV light, but nothing else shows up, so I didn't bother to take a photo of that.

I've been to l'Auberge 5 times, and it never even occurred to me that this casino was a boat. I mean, of course it is, the lake is quite obviously right there. But there are entrances on 3-if-not-4 sides of the casino floor. How does that work??

edit: replaced placeholder with spoiler & image (12/17/2012)

Quote: Doc

... but the casino itself is almost unrecognizable as a boat.

Quote: rdw4potus

I've been to l'Auberge 5 times, and it never even occurred to me that this casino was a boat. I mean, of course it is, the lake is quite obviously right there. But there are entrances on 3-if-not-4 sides of the casino floor. How does that work??

Good to see that we have the same impression. I think this "works" because it is a large, one-story barge, surrounded by walkways and other structures, while the ramps are short with almost no slope, unlike the entrance ramps to riverboats on rivers that have extreme level changes with the seasons. Walking onto this "boat" is like walking into another room at a land-based casino.

State: Louisiana
City: Marksville
Casino: Paragon

My wife and I had one quite long day as part of making our loop of Louisiana last February. We left Baton Rouge in the morning, headed west to visit the two casinos on Lake Charles, then turned north to the Cushatta in Kinder, then northeast over to Marksville to the Paragon before spending the night northwest of there in Alexandria.

I relied on my GPS to guide us around the state, and we only had one significant problem. That was getting from Kinder to Marksville. Along the way, we did learn that every property owner within five miles of Forest Hill, LA operates a nursery. I have never seen so many plants being offered for wholesale by so many people in one area in my entire life.

Once we got east of I-49 though, things started to go bad. I don't know whether it was a GPS problem or a cartography problem, but we kept being routed down roads that were closed and across bridges that didn't exist. This became particularly worrisome as the sun went down. That day's trip became quite an ordeal, and I had quite a few arguments with my little piece of electronics.

We eventually found our way to Marksville and the Paragon, a Native American casino on the south side of town, owned and operated by the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana. Their web site says it was the first land-based casino in the state. I am left with the general impression that it was a reasonably nice casino for that locale, but I was so beaten down by the drive that I didn't pay much attention to details. The casino opened in 1994 as the Grand Casino Avoyelles, changing to its current name in June 2001.

There is probably a story here, but I don't know what it is, so I'll just lay out a few elements, most of which I picked up on various Wikipedia pages. Marksville is the parish seat of Avoyelles Parish, which was named for the Avoyel Tribe of Indians. The indigenous name for the tribe is Tamoucougoula, while Avoyel is derived from French and supposedly means "flint people" or "the people of the rocks." The Avoyel people were neighbors of the Tunica people.

So why did the Tunica tribe originally name their casino for the neighboring Avoyel tribe? If it was a mistake, did it really take them seven years to figure it out?

Anyway, on my worn-down-by-the-drive visit to their place, I lost $15 in a half-hour session of craps (down $55 for the day), then we got back on the road to Alexandria where we had our reservation for the night. No casinos there, but it seemed like a reasonable stopover point before heading on to Shreveport and Bossier City.

The chip shown below is a white Bud Jones model with eight pairs of plum (?) edge inserts. The center inlay includes a bird-and-feathers emblem that may mean something to members of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe, but I don't know what it is. They use it on their web site, too.

Until starting on this write-up and checking the MOGH catalog, I didn't realize that the other side of my chip has a different center inlay. Of course, my lens is still in the shop, so I've added this one to my list of chip images that I owe this thread. That makes three. The other side of the chip is similar to the one shown, except it has the name of the tribe instead of the names of the casino and town.




Edit 12/28/12: Here is the additional image I promised, showing the other side of this chip.

Quote: Doc

State: Louisiana
City: Marksville
Casino: Paragon

That day's trip became quite an ordeal, and I had quite a few arguments with my little piece of electronics.

Is that a term of endearment you use for your wife because I'm sure that is who I would be arguing with at that point in the day. Usually along the lines of men don't know how to ask for directions. If the GPS lets you snuff that comment I guess I should invest in a GPS.

We refer to the GPS -- actually several versions we have used, all as software installed on PDA-phones -- as "Bessie", as in Bossy Bessie, because she is always telling us when and where to turn. All too frequently, it is "Turn around when possible." And it is she, Bessie, with whom I argued, not the "she who must be obeyed."

My wife no longer complains that I won't ask for directions, but she does get perturbed when I argue persistently with the voice from the box telling me to turn where there is no longer a road, or to turn onto the road that is on the bridge thirty feet above our car.

Of course, if I had electronics like the package that Richard Benjamin used in the film "Westworld" or something like he rescued in the neighboring Medievalworld later in the film....

State: Louisiana
City: Shreveport
Casino: Sam's Town

Well, we've come to the last of the Shreveport/Bossier City casino boats, at least until the Margaritaville opens. This final casino originally opened in December 1994 as Harrah's Shreveport. However, Harrah's acquired Horseshoe Gaming and the nicer Horseshoe Casino right across the river in Bossier City in 2004. They then sold the Shreveport boat and facilities to Boyd Gaming, and the name changed to Sam's Town in May of that year.

Sam's Town is upstream and right next door to the Eldorado. I'm not sure of the comparison of the boats and gaming areas, but I think that Sam's Town's shoreside facilities are more extensive. My wife and I played at Sam's Town (I won $70 at craps), had lunch at Smokey Joes's there, then walked next door for another winning session at Eldorado – a two-step recovery from the previous decimation at Horseshoe.

The chip shown below is a white RHC Paulson with two pseudo-triangular edge inserts in purple and pink. There's nothing too special about the red and gold center inlay, and only the pink edge insert fluoresces under UV light.

Well, we haven't had any chips posted by rdw4potus since December 5th (placeholder still there on his December 7th post, waiting for his photobucket image). I guess he must be on that trip to Houston and will catch up later.

For that matter, we haven't had any chips at all posted by anyone but the two of us since at least back when I returned from my cruise a month ago. Didn't any of the rest of you keep any souvenir chips from places outside of Nevada? Isn't it about time you made some more contributions to this thread?

State: Louisiana
City: Charenton
Casino: Shorty's

When I posted my chip from the Cypress Bayou casino at the end of November, I noted that I wasn't clear on the relationship between that casino and Shorty's. My sources of info seemed to be in conflict, so I'm just treating them as two separate but connected tribal casinos from the Chitimacha tribe.

I have gained no additional information on this in the past week, so I'll just post the chip from Shorty's without belaboring the point about my uncertainty.

The chip shown below is a white RHC Paulson with two wide, green edge inserts. It is identical to the Cypress Bayou chip except for the center inlay. The Shorty's inlay has a simple gray tone with black text for the name, city, and denomination, using a casual font (Anyone know whether it's custom graphics or an established, named font?) for the casino name. In contrast to the Cypress Bayou chip's center inlay, this one does not mention the name of the tribe but does have a hidden Paulson logo that is revealed by UV light.

Since the edge inserts on the Shorty's chip are identical to the Cypress Bayou's, I suspect it is a special edition insert rather than a separate casino. However, I don't think the tribe really cares how it is perceived, as long as the soft count is still in line.

Were they picky about using one in the other? I've been to some tribal casino's where they were particular about poker room chips being cashed out, and not used on the tables. Perhaps because of the odd amounts.

I've never been to the Louisiana casinos, so haven't had much more than questions and comments to contribute. I do appreciate your, "Grande Tour du Bayou" though. Please keep it coming.

During all this collecting, what was Mrs. Doc doing to bide her time? Would she accompany you at the table?

Quote: Ayecarumba

...Were they picky about using one in the other?

I think I only played craps. The chips just seemed to be mixed together in the dealers' stacks as if they were all the same chips, in both gaming rooms. The rooms are just so far apart that going between them is very much like going between Bally's and Paris on the strip, except the rooms themselves are smaller. That separation, plus the fact that their own web site and the MOGH catalog disagree about which one is open now, is my basis for treating them as separate casinos.

Quote: Ayecarumba

During all this collecting, what was Mrs. Doc doing to bide her time? Would she accompany you at the table?

I have never, ever been able to convince my wife to join me at the craps table. She has zero (or some negative number) interest. Only once have I been able to convince her to join me at a blackjack table. That was at the now-closed Casino MonteLago at Lake Las Vegas. We were the only two people at the table and perhaps the only two people in the whole table games area. The dealer looked quite bored while I wasn't playing, and I convinced my wife that her participation would not slow down the game, which seems to be something that concerns her about joining in.

She does like to play penny slots a bit while I'm at the tables, but she also spends a fair amount of her time in the casino reading her Barnes and Noble Nook (eReader) in the most comfortable chair she can find in the vicinity. (I recently replaced her old Nook with a Nook HD+, which seems to be a pretty nice 9" tablet.) She also concurrently spends that time plotting what other activity we will be engaging in that will keep me sitting around waiting for her.

Quote: Doc

I have never, ever been able to convince my wife to join me at the craps table. She has zero (or some negative number) interest...

Hehe... she is a special lady Doc. Please let her know how much we appreciate her patience with our compulsion...hobby.

State: Louisiana
City: Kenner
Casino: Treasure Chest

Today we reach the last of the Louisiana casinos represented in my current collection of chips. I have already noted that I hope soon to acquire a chip from L'auberge Baton Rouge and one from Margaritaville in Bossier City when it becomes available. Tomorrow, we will move on to the next state, but I will come back to post those chips at convenient times after I have them.

Kenner is on the northwest side of the metropolitan New Orleans area, and the Treasure Chest Casino is a "riverboat" on Lake Ponchatrain. The casino opened in November 1994, when such boats were required to make scheduled cruises. This one at least looks as if it could still pull away from the pier for a cruise around the lake.

The Treasure Chest was one of the "New Orleans" casinos that my wife and I visited when we went to that area for a couple of nights in March 2010. When we were there, there was construction going on – a bridge or something – and we had to ride a shuttle from (what I thought was) a remote parking lot to the casino. Now that I check the satellite images, it appears that there is only a small parking lot right near the boat, perhaps for VIPs or hotel guests, and everyone else must park in the main lot as we did. It looks like a quarter-mile or so trek over to the casino, so maybe they run the shuttles all the time. I don't know.

The Treasure Chest belongs to Boyd Gaming and participates in their BConnected program. Boyd had been the operator of the casino and 15% owner from the beginning, and they acquired the balance from the other investors in Treasure Chest LLC in 1997.

On my only visit to the Treasure Chest, I managed to win $175 at craps, which turned out to be my second best session from the 17 casinos I visited on that six-night trip. That single stop represented 85+% of my net $230 win for the week, and for that alone I would accept having to ride a shuttle from a remote parking lot.

The chip shown below is a white RHC Paulson with three triple edge inserts (or nine inserts, depending on your attitude) with each set consisting of purple, turquoise, and gray. The center inlay has a cartoonish appearance, with lots of starburst sparkles and a mermaid that looks like Ariel's blonde hooker cousin. Compare the image on the inlay with this one and see if you don't agree.

UV light reveals a hidden Paulson logo near the center of the inlay, with nothing else fluorescing.

The MOGH catalog notes that this chip design was "in play" as of July 1999 but does not indicate an issue date. The catalog has images showing that there are two versions of this chip, with different forms of the hidden logo, something like short-cane and long-cane logos.

Quote: Doc

State: Louisiana
City: Kenner
Casino: Treasure Chest

The center inlay has a cartoonish appearance, with lots of starburst sparkles and a mermaid that looks like Ariel's blonde hooker cousin. Compare the image on the inlay with this one and see if you don't agree.

That's too funny Doc and I totally agree. We need more people commenting on on all your hard and entertaining work so this thread gets the recognition it deserves SECOND PLACE on the count. Come on lurkers give Doc some encouragement.

Quote: Doc

State: Louisiana
City: Kenner
Casino: Treasure Chest

The center inlay has a cartoonish appearance, with lots of starburst sparkles and a mermaid that looks like Ariel's blonde hooker cousin.

Hehe, well, it is the Treasure Chest (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) after all. Stripper names and casino names are often interchangable.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Hehe, well, it is the Treasure Chest (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) after all. Stripper names and casino names are often interchangable.

I've heard it said that most anyone can create their own porn movie stage name by combining the name of their childhood pet with the name of the street they grew up on. For me, that would be "Smokey Eheart."

Yeah, Ariel does have a look of child-like innocence, where the Treasure Chest mermaid has a look of someone who has been around the blockpond a few times.

But that makes sense since Disney markets to kids, and casinos market to adults.

Quote: Doc

I've heard it said that most anyone can create their own porn movie stage name by combining the name of their childhood pet with the name of the street they grew up on. For me, that would be "Smokey Eheart."

For me it's "Button Burnett".

Quote: Doc

Quote: Ayecarumba

Hehe, well, it is the Treasure Chest (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) after all. Stripper names and casino names are often interchangable.

I've heard it said that most anyone can create their own porn movie stage name by combining the name of their childhood pet with the name of the street they grew up on. For me, that would be "Smokey Eheart."

Certainly works for me 'Jiggs Princess'.

State: Mississippi
City: Vicksburg
Casino: Ameristar

The Ameristar Casino is a riverboat on the Mississippi River in Vicksburg. In contrast to some of the Mississippi casinos, this one actually looks like a riverboat. I don't think Mississippi ever required their boat casinos to cruise as Louisiana did, but there are several which at least appear to have had that capability. Others, particularly the big ones in the Tunica area, never made any pretense of being cruise vessels.

The Ameristar opened in April 1994 as the company's first property outside of Jackpot, NV. They purchased the Delta Point Restaurant property on the bluff overlooking the river, just upstream of the I-20 bridge and the historic bridge that used to carry US80. They built the casino and related facilities, tearing down the restaurant somewhere along the way.

I played at the Ameristar in April 2006. I wasn't keeping records of my play back then, so I can't report how things went, but I'm confident that I was playing craps. Last February, in someone else's thread about Vicksburg casinos, I made this post about my experience at a restaurant in the Ameristar on that visit. I won't bother telling it again, but you can follow the link, if you care to read about it. I've been back to casinos in Vicksburg twice since then, but I haven't made it back to the Ameristar.

The chip shown below is a white Bud Jones chip with purple bars and denomination around the perimeter. The center inlay has a gold-foil outer ring and gold print for the city name. The central portion has the appearance of being a white label with cutouts for the city name and star logo, letting a gold background show through.

So has your meal still been free?

The charge from 2006 never came through.

State: Mississippi
City: Tunica
Casino: Bally's Saloon and Gambling Hall

Note: This facility/chip was originally posted here under the simple name of "Bally's." For an explanation of the change here, see the much later post in this thread about "Bally's Casino."



As I understand the history of Mississippi casinos, they were originally required to be on boats located in the Gulf of Mexico (or coastal bays) or floating "in Mississippi River waters." Early on, several of the casinos that were established in the Tunica area, not far south of Memphis, found that is was effective to set up as barges in enclosed lagoons, using Mississippi River water, though they were not on the river itself. That protected them a bit from the extreme seasonal changes in river level.

There was some objection to this letter-but-not-the-spirit of the law, and the law was changed to require any additional casinos to genuinely be on the river. After that, no new casinos opened in the Tunica area, and I don't think there were any new ones anywhere on the river.

After Hurricane Katrina washed several of the Gulf casino boats well up onto shore, on top of other buildings, there was rethinking of this floating casino policy. In October 2005, the Mississippi legislature amended its gaming laws to allow land-based casinos to operate within 800 feet of the mean high water line. I don't know what the other location restrictions might be.

The "Tunica" casinos aren't even in Tunica, either, no matter what it says on many of the chips. The limits of that little town are about four miles from the nearest point of the river, so it's a bit like strip casinos claiming to be in Las Vegas instead of Paradise, NV.

The first four casinos in the area, including three that no longer exist, were located about six miles northwest of Tunica at Mhoon Landing. That sounds like a nice pun, eh? An alternate name, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, is Mhoon's Landing, so I don't know whether there really is/was someone named Mhoon that owned the land.

Bally's was one of the original Mhoon Landing casinos, opening in December 1993. Larger casinos opened farther upstream, and the Bally's barge was relocated closer to them in 1995. That upstream region is now commonly referred to as the "Tunica Resorts area," which is centered along the river near Robinsonville, MS, about ten miles north of the town of Tunica and thirty miles or so southwest of downtown Memphis.

The Bally brand name has had a rather complex history that I can't get straight even when I dig for it. Different pages at Wikipedia are in conflict with each other (naturally), at least in terms of what happened in which years. Here are some of the parts that seem to be in agreement. A division of Bally Manufacturing known as Bally Gaming was acquired by Alliance Gaming, which later adopted the name Bally Technologies. That's the company that now makes the slot machines. The remainder of Bally Manufacturing, including casino operations, was named Bally's Entertainment and was acquired by Hilton Hotels, either before or after (depending on which source you believe) they spun off their casino business as Park Place Entertainment. All of that took place some time in the 1990s. That business, of course, went from Park Place to Caesars to Harrah's to Caesars.

Bally's Entertainment was the original owner of the riverboat that is the subject of today's Casino Chip of the Day. When Harrah's bought Caesars and acquired this boat, they already owned multiple casinos in the Tunica market. Rather than competing so extensively with themselves, they cashed in a little and sold this Bally's casino in 2005 to Colony Capital's Resorts International Holdings, but it continues to operate under the Bally's name.

I first visited Bally's Tunica in 2006, a day or two after visiting the Ameristar in Vicksburg. Again, my lack of records for my gaming back then prohibits me from reporting on the results.

I suspect that the chip shown below was produced by Paulson, but it has no apparent logo under either visible or UV light, so I'm mostly just guessing. However, other than the molded name, this chip is very similar to the Tropicana Las Vegas chip I included in this post. That Tropicana chip has a Paulson logo revealed by UV light, so this supports my suspicion.

The MOGH catalog just refers to this chip as a "house" mold, as they do many others that have the casino's name molded in. The chip is white with four edge inserts, two each in gray and red. These edge inserts have that appearance that DJTeddyBear says makes them look painted on. I mean that gray insert at the top certainly looks as if the paint has started to flake off.

State: Mississippi
City: Greenville
Casino: Bayou Caddy's Jubilee

Not much activity in this thread the last few days. Ah, well. On we go....

Greenville, Mississippi is on the Big Muddy, very roughly 2/3 of the way from the Tunica area down to Vicksburg, the two homes of the most recent Casino Chips of the Day.

On the day of my only visit ever to Greenville, in August 2010, there were three casinos in the area: (1) the land-based Harlow's about ten miles south of town and within shouting distance of the river, (2) the riverboat Bayou Caddy's Jubilee docked right across the levee from downtown Greenville on Lake Ferguson (sort of a side channel that I suspect was once the main river), and (3) the riverboat Lighthouse Point docked just a few hundred yards upstream of the Jubilee. The MOGH catalog shows some chips from Lighthouse Point, but by the time of my visit, it had become a slots-only establishment, so I didn't bother going there.

Bayou Caddy's Jubilee had belonged to Columbia Sussex, which emerged from bankruptcy as Tropicana Entertainment a few months before my visit. I was not aware of the ownership while I was there. I managed to win $90 at craps, and with my souvenir chip in hand, I had no plans to return to the town, so I didn't really care who owned the place.

I encountered a few surprises as I began today's write-up, and they all came from checking the MOGH catalog's page for this casino. First, they list this casino's name as "Bayou Caddy's Jubilation Casino" even though none of the chips they display show that name. One of them (a 25¢ chip) just says "Bayou Caddy," and all of the others include the word "Jubilee", not "Jubilation." I think maybe MOGH just got the name wrong.

Second, I learned from that chip page that at one time, the riverboat casino was located in Lakeshore, MS, which is down on the Gulf of Mexico, not far from Bay St. Louis. I don't know when it relocated to Greenville, but it could have had something to do with some hurricanes. The MOGH page says that the casino opened January 1994, but it doesn't specify whether that was in Lakeshore or Greenville. I suspect that was the Lakeshore opening, with the move coming later.

Third, I learned that there were some changes in the Greenville casino scene earlier this year. Tropicana Entertainment closed Bayou Caddy's on April 18th, consolidating its operations with the Lighthouse Point slots operation. They expanded the place and rebranded it as the Trop Casino Greenville, opening under the new name on May 4th.

That means there is another Mississippi chip added to my list of chips to get. And while trying to deal with this new discovery, I learned that the Rainbow Casino in Vicksburg (now owned by Isle of Capri) has changed its name, as of last month, to Lady Luck. My list grows longer.

I have already booked a three-night stay in Biloxi for next month, in part to get a chip from the new Margaritaville there, with a planned day trip over to Baton Rouge (2½ hours each way) to pick up a L'auberge chip. Greenville is an annoying five hours of two-lane roads each way from Biloxi, and Vicksburg would be a detour from that route. Been there, done that drive, and I don't know that I can handle that as part of the January trip. It's something to think about, though. Perhaps we could start off by driving to Tunica, then head south to Greenville, then stop by Vicksburg, then ….

Yes, my wife has to put up with quite a bit of nonsense, and she does it so well.

Anyway, as for today's Casino Chip of the Day from Bayou Caddy's Jubilee, the chip shown below is a white ceramic Chipco Pro Tech model that originally had four, blue, imitation edge inserts that are now mostly worn off. The sax player under the streetlight and banner lends a jazz flavor to the design, but it makes me feel as if it is some sort of impersonation of the French Quarter of New Orleans. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.

State: Mississippi
City: Biloxi
Casino: Beau Rivage

It certainly looks as if I'm the only one interested in this thread any more, but I'll keep it up a little longer. If I get enough feedback that I'm just using up bandwidth and storage space, I'lll probably call it off. Has anyone else even been to Mississippi?


Four Casino Chips of the Day so far from Mississippi, and they are from four different cities. Today we make our way to the Gulf of Mexico, the town of Biloxi, and what I think is RaleighCraps's favorite casino. Yes, at least HE has been to Mississippi. He and I played craps together at Beau Rivage on my first visit to Biloxi in March 2010, and I wound up winning $40 on that visit. I have returned to the facility several times for entertainment, dining, and a very limited amount of gaming.

I think I may have discovered a little glitch with GoogleTranslate. Asking for translation from French to English, I can confirm with that web app that beau means "beautiful" and that rivage means "shore." However, it just translates Beau Rivage as "Beau Rivage." Wouldn't you expect something better than that for the two-word phrase? Anyway, the name is used for hotel resorts around the globe, or at least in the U.S., Switzerland, and Lebanon.

Beau Rivage was developed by Steve Wynn for Mirage Resorts, and it opened in 1999, supposedly as the largest U.S. casino outside of Nevada. There seem to be innumerable ways to measure the size of a casino. One point of note is that the hotel tower is reportedly the tallest building in Mississippi. Two Wikipedia pages disagree as to whether it is 28 stories or 32, with the page that says 32 also claiming that the second-place building is 31 stories tall, so there is certainly a possibility for disagreements.

Beau Rivage is now part of MGM Resorts International and is their only casino in Biloxi. The casino was originally floating on a series of barges, adjacent to the hotel. Hurricane Katrina destroyed the casino and flooded several floors of the hotel, which otherwise received little damage. They refurbished it quite well, with the requirement for floating casinos removed, and reopened in August 2006 on the one-year anniversary of the storm coming ashore. I did not see the place before the storm or after it was damaged, but I have heard some tales about the event. After reconstruction, I think that Beau Rivage and the Hard Rock may be the two nicest casinos in Biloxi, and the environments they offer are so different that the preference between the two is probably largely a matter of personal taste.

I have never tried the Beau Rivage buffet, but right across the aisle, and adjacent to the casino, they have a nice little lounge called Eight75 that we have enjoyed. They have been offering live but subtle music leaning toward jazz a few times while we have been there, but the web site does not talk about a schedule or who might be appearing.

They have a 1500-seat showroom for headliners and other events, but the only show we have attended there was the Balagan Circus, a Cirque du Soleil copy-cat, that we saw while we were in town in August 2010. I was a little annoyed with their ticketing process. My impression was that all but the worst seats were shown as not-available (either sold or held for VIPs) until the last day. I didn't believe there would be a sell-out for the show we were considering, so I refused to buy in advance, and I think I would have skipped the show rather than sit in the seats they were offering me. An hour before the show, we were able to buy very good seats at a reasonable price. I suspect they lost some ticket sales by trying to force people to buy back-of-the-house seats.

The chip shown below is a white Paulson model with four edge inserts in either black or a very dark blue. I'm not sure which. The casino name is molded into the perimeter one time, going little more than ¼ the way around. I would have expected such a mold either to have the name twice or to have "Biloxi" molded in.

The slightly over-sized center inlay seems to fade from medium brown to maybe a soft pink in the middle (perhaps that's an illusion), with black text and the denomination in purple. Interesting choices, I think. There are two of the casino's script BR logos on the inlay but no manufacturer's logo apparent under visible light. However, UV light reveals both a hidden Paulson hat and cane and an array of the repeated casino name. Have fun searching once again.

I have so little to add your posts Doc since I have never been anywhere near that part of the US. It will likely have to wait until I transition from semi to full retirement since I would want several weeks to tour the area.

I hope I am not the only one reading your posts and you decide to end the thread since it is the first thread I read each day.

Quote: Doc

State: Mississippi
City: Biloxi
Casino: Beau Rivage ...They have a 1500-seat showroom for headliners and other events, but the only show we have attended there was the Balagan Circus, a Cirque du Soleil copy-cat, that we saw while we were in town in August 2010. I was a little annoyed with their ticketing process. My impression was that all but the worst seats were shown as not-available (either sold or held for VIPs) until the last day. I didn't believe there would be a sell-out for the show we were considering, so I refused to buy in advance, and I think I would have skipped the show rather than sit in the seats they were offering me. An hour before the show, we were able to buy very good seats at a reasonable price. I suspect they lost some ticket sales by trying to force people to buy back-of-the-house seats....

Hi Doc, I haven't been to Mississippi, so have very little to add. Please keep up the great work.

Was Beau Rivage one of the names considered for the Encore in Las Vegas?

When they rebuilt the casino-hotel, did they put it on stilts? Katrina was bad, but it will not be the last time the Gulf faces high water.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Was Beau Rivage one of the names considered for the Encore in Las Vegas?

When they rebuilt the casino-hotel, did they put it on stilts? Katrina was bad, but it will not be the last time the Gulf faces high water.

I think Beau Rivage was the preliminary name used in planning for the Bellagio. The re-constructed casino in Biloxi is not on stilts, but it is not floating and is a fair distance above the normal waterline. Here is a photo stolen/borrowed from GoogleMaps.



In a few days, I'll post a photo of one of the other casinos, showing how it wound up after Katrina struck.

Thanks Doc. I was thinking that the reason for selling seats in the back of the house was to allow the head usher and his crew to make some tips "upgrading" folks who tip at the door... It's an old Las Vegas tradition.