Rockingham Park Review

Visited Rockingham Park, a race track and card room in New Hampshire, first exit past the Mass border on I-93. Below is a fairly lengthy review of my experience last night, which was a Saturday night.

I visited Rockingham specifically to check out the blackjack and other casino games, but I took note of all aspects of the joint. Rockingham Park is an example of a no frills joint, there are no comps, very little in the way of service, and from the outside the place looks pretty dead. There are two places to get food, a fast food joint reminiscent of a little league concession stand as well as a deli which had more offerings. There were about 40 poker tables, most of which were in use. It appeared that the majority of the games were 2/4 no limit and $40 sit n go tournaments, which were starting about every 30 min. From talking to a few poker players it appeared that the blinds increased very quickly in these low stakes tournaments, and that they lasted less than an hour. One player told me there very are many skilled regulars who play there all the time. I think the Prizes were 250 for the winner, or 125 for 2nd, and the rest going to the house, though those might be slightly off. There were a few higher stakes tournaments at $100 and $250 buy-ins which were more generous in payout %, though these games were not going off very often as they required a full table of 10 players. It looked like a good place to play poker, though there were some good players there were a lot of people who seemed to stumble in (literally, it was a Saturday night).

Enough about Poker, let me get to what I really care about, the table games. There was one Boston 5 table, two Let-it-Ride tables, two roulette wheels, and 6 blackjack tables. All 7 spots were being played at all blackjack tables, and the floor supervisor eventually asked if I wanted to play and said to stand by and as soon as he saw an open spot he would reserve it for me and get my attention. It took about 5 minutes to get a seat. I commend Rockingham Park on having all Blackjack rules posted on the wall near the pit. The casino used 7 decks (strange I know), very deep penetration, H17, Late surrender, double any 2, no RSA, and you can play 2 hands if you like (though on a Saturday night this was not possible due to the number of players). The one major downside about this game is that you can only bet $2 or $4 on each hand, so the most possible you could bet would be $8 if you were playing 2 hands. It was explained to me that these games are designed for low stakes entertainment and that all profits from the casino go to various charities in New Hampshire. The $2 chips are red and the $4 chips are yellow. There are black chips worth $20 that you can color up for, but they can't be used to bet. The dealers that I talked to were very friendly, telling the standard mother and law jokes when I had 17 against 9, dealing some double downs facedown for the players, and typically smiling and happy when you won. I did notice dealers doing unethical things at a couple of tables that I played at. The dealers have to peek whenever they have a 10 or A, and since they use poker cards for blackjack they know if they will have to draw or not. Some dealers joked around saying, "I'm scratching my nose, but you don't know if that means if I have 20 or 12." It turned out that the dealer had 17. A couple of dealers though seemed to hint when they were short, one telling a woman, "Are you realllly sure you want to hit (She had 16 vs. 10 but it turned out the dealer also had 16). I think that this is wrong, but the management is really setting themselves up for this to happen without having a better alternative to the dealer looking at the card. It appeared that the dealers enjoyed their jobs, though one dealer told me they have a really hard time getting/keeping dealers for the table games as tokes are much better at poker. When you can only bet $4 a hand you have to imagine that people aren't going to tip much. Despite the lack of action I had a lot of fun playing, and experienced some insane positive variance. I bought in for $40 and played $4 per hand, and two hours later quit with $116, that after dropping at least 6-8 dollars for the dealers during my play (for the record I was the only person to tip, and they were all very thankful). They did not seem to mind me winning as other players were constantly pulling out $20 bills and playing some of the worst blackjack I've ever seen. There was a match the dealer's upcard bonus bet for $1 per hand, but the pay table was atrocious. If only I could have that kind of variance when I am somewhere else betting $25 a hand, oh well! I took the 16 dollars and played Boston 5 for about 15 minutes, and when the 16 was at $30 I decided to hit the road.

One interesting thing about the $4 limit rule is that it really seems to discriminate against blackjack players. On roulette the rule didn't restrict players at all as you could bet $4 on each number you wanted, and surround a number by playing splits. I saw one guy win about $400 in one spin as he had $4 chips all around the number 8. Another fun fact, there is also a Bingo Lounge that seemed to have at least 100 players in it. Don't have any further info on that.

Sorry for such a lengthy review, I hope that some who live in or travel to New England will find this review helpful and informative.

Cheers!

Is the NASCAR Racetrack nearby?

I didn't see any mention of slots. Are there any and if so, are they Magic Genie Racino Video Lottery Terminals or are they real slot machines?

Is it well lit? Carpeted? Noisy or noise suppressed? How high are the ceilings? (That last one I ask because I feel claustrophobic in a crowded place with low ceilings).

Is there a web site? I guess I can look that up.

Quote: s2dbaker

Is the NASCAR Racetrack nearby?

I didn't see any mention of slots. Are there any and if so, are they Magic Genie Racino Video Lottery Terminals or are they real slot machines?

Is it well lit? Carpeted? Noisy or noise suppressed? How high are the ceilings? (That last one I ask because I feel claustrophobic in a crowded place with low ceilings).

Is there a web site? I guess I can look that up.

The Rockingham you are thinking of is in North Carolina, but incidentally New Hampshire Motor Speedway which has 2 NASCAR races per year is only about 20-30 minutes away. There are no slot machines whatsoever, which is why most people call it a card room as opposed to a casino. It was very well lit. The carpeting was in poor shape but they said that the gaming floor was under renovation. The ceilings are very high. The cage is an old bar, which didn't seem very secure with how much cash is taken in from poker games, though there were 2 police officers nearby. Just looked up the website myself, http://www.playatrock.com/

I noticed that the Let it Ride was played on 3 card poker felt, and according to the website they offer 3 card poker, but I can assure you that the game was in fact let it ride, not 3 card.

Interesting report... I haven't seen Boston 5 in forever, so I probably would have played that quite a bit. Do you remember what the paytable was for the 3-card bonus? I believe it was set at the 4-1 on the flush by the manufacturer, but I could be mistaken...

I also enjoy the fact that casinos (or state legislatures) still set arcane rules for betting limits. $4 a hand??? Sad thing is, when they finally realize how silly that is and lift the limits, people will start raising their bets only because they can. As soon as Missouri lifted the loss limits in 2008, people started betting crazy.

Quote: Tiltpoul

Interesting report... I haven't seen Boston 5 in forever, so I probably would have played that quite a bit. Do you remember what the paytable was for the 3-card bonus? I believe it was set at the 4-1 on the flush by the manufacturer, but I could be mistaken...

I also enjoy the fact that casinos (or state legislatures) still set arcane rules for betting limits. $4 a hand??? Sad thing is, when they finally realize how silly that is and lift the limits, people will start raising their bets only because they can. As soon as Missouri lifted the loss limits in 2008, people started betting crazy.

(3-card) Straight Flush: 40 to 1
Three of a Kind: 30 to 1
Straight: 6 to 1
Flush 3 to 1
Pair: 1 to 1

This was the paytable when I played. It's really a fun game. Even with you $4 limit you end up with 14 dollars in action per hand if you play all bets at the max, and I think they would let you play 2 hands. The Boston 5 table wasn't busy as I don't think a lot of people know how to play. I played with one other gentleman and his wife.

Thanks for the report.Do they use shuffling machines in Blackjack or do they shuffle by hand?

Hand shuffle with 7 decks. Fastest shuffle I have ever seen, they just take big handfuls of cards and kind of smush them together. As you could probably tell from reading my review there is not much in the way of internal controls at this place.