Rating the best place in the Chicago area to play slots isn't like rating
the best blackjack game or best craps tables. It's not as simple as seeing
whether the blackjack dealer stands on soft 17 or whether the house takes a
commission on losing buy bets.
There's no way to tell from looking at a slot machine whether we have a
high-paying game or a coin gobbler, the way we can tell the good from the
bad games by looking at video-poker pay tables.
In a tour of the eight casinos closest to Chicago, I looked at three
criteria in rating the slots: Is there a wide variety of games?
What are the coin denominations - do the games cater to low rollers or
premium players? And how do the average payback percentages in any one
casino compare with the others?
GAME VARIETY: You'll find a wider variety of games at the four Indiana
casinos on my tour than you will at the four in Illinois.
There are a couple of reasons. With Illinois casinos limited by law to 1,200
gaming positions, they're simply not as large as their Indiana competitors.
On the Indiana side, Harrah's East Chicago and Horseshoe in Hammond each
have 1,983 slots, Trump in Gary has 1,740 and Majestic Star in Gary has
1,540. Among Illinois casinos rated, Harrah's Joliet has the most slots with
1,140 - 400 fewer than the smallest number at any of the Indiana casinos and
853 fewer than the largest. Empress in Joliet and Hollywood in Aurora each
have 1,133, and Grand Victoria in Elgin has 1,072.
Besides having more machines, Indiana operators have many games not seen in
Illinois. The recent hike in the Illinois gaming tax sent casino operators
scurrying to find ways to save money, and one way they found was to
eliminate licensed games on which they must share revenue with
manufacturers. Games such as Wheel of Fortune, Monopoly and The Price Is
Right, standards in Indiana, are endangered species in Illinois.
Illinois video-slot players still can find fun games such as Off the Charts
or Lucky Larry's Lobstermania, and reel slot spinners have Blazing 7s and
Five Times Pay machines galore. But because some of slot manufacturers' most
creative, entertaining games are revenue-sharing products, they're mostly
confined to Indiana.
One other point. I often get notes from readers wanting to know where to
find video keno games. Those also are confined to Indiana, primarily to
Trump and Majestic Star.
SLOT DENOMINATIONS: When you walk into Grand Victoria, you know it's aiming
for high-end slot play. There are $5 machines right inside the door, fewer
nickel slots than anywhere else in the area, and a higher percentage of
quarter machines are multicoin, multiline video slots than at other casinos.
Even though it has the fewest slots in the area, Grand Victoria has 23
machines that take $10 tokens or higher. Horseshoe in Hammond is second with
22 such machines.
Conversely, a short walk through Majestic Star or Trump tells you that
low-limit players are royalty at these casinos. Not only do both have a wide
variety of nickel video games, but Trump has 80 2-cent slots and Majestic
Star has 48 2-centers and eight penny games.
Low rollers will find games to play at Grand Vic, and big players will find
$5-and-up games at Majestic Star, but each has its own target audience. So
do all the other casinos in the area:
**Horseshoe, with 769 $1 slots and 120 $5 games, joins Grand Victoria (428
at $1, 87 at $5 in a much smaller casino) in targeting high-end players.
Horseshoe also has 644 quarter slots, most in the area. Hollywood (385 at
$1, 54 at $5) also tends toward the high end but has plenty of mid-level
play.
**The two Harrah's casinos and Empress aim mid-market, with Harrah's perhaps
a bit more upper-middle than Empress. Harrah's East Chicago tries to be all
things to all people, and succeeds to some extent because it is so large -
its 680 nickel games are most in the area, but it also ranks second to
Horseshoe in both quarters (503) and dollars (563).
**Trump, with 711 2-cent and 5-cent games, has the most nickel-and-under
games in the area. Majestic Star, with 623 at 1, 2 and 5 cents, has 40.5
percent of its games at 5 cents or less, second to Trump's 40.8 percent.
PAYBACK PERCENTAGES: The most recent figures I have, August for Indiana and
July for Illinois, show Trump and Majestic Star with the highest paybacks
for nickel players, each at 89.6 percent. None of the other area casinos
reached 89 percent for the month.
Trump also leads on quarter games, with 93.5 percent. The two Joliet casinos
also surpassed 93 percent, with Empress at 93.4 and Harrah's Joliet at 93.1.
Trump was the exception among Indiana casinos - after Trump, the four
Illinois casinos outdid the other three from Indiana.
Grand Victoria, targeting bigger players, was the only area casino to exceed
95 percent in dollar returns for the month, at 95.3 percent. Harrah's
Joliet, Empress, Trump and Hollywood all exceeded 94 percent.
So where's the best place to play slots? It depends on what you want.
