When my husband and I moved to Southern California from the Midwest over a decade ago, we did not know that we had chosen to live our retirement years in the gambling mecca of Southern California. We were not gamblers at that time — but that quickly changed. When I wrote my first book, I learned from the 500 Nations web site that there are 10 Indian casinos in Riverside County where I live and another 11 in nearby San Diego County. That means that almost a third of all the casinos in the entire State of California are just a short drive away for us Inland Empire residents. In fact, Pechanga, the largest Native American resort and casino in the western United States is located at the southern border of Temecula just a few miles and fifteen minutes from where I live. We have not visited all 21 of our neighboring casinos - but we have spent a lot of time in the closest five and a few hours in three others not too far away. And yet, each week when we “go gambling” we spend almost all of our “play time” in the same 3 of these resorts located on the reservations along HWY 76 — Pala, Pauma, and Rincon (now called Harrah’s Resort Southern California).
Why is Pechanga not on that list, you may ask? It is the closest to where we live. It is the largest casino in the entire West, not just the state of California. It has bingo and golf and pools and shows and RV parking and other attractions in addition to its casino and table games, restaurants and spa, it's entertainment venues it's and convention center .You'll find anything a tourist visiting Temecula for its annual balloon festival or wine country might want for a change of pace in a resort — a resort that was named the number one resort gambling destination in the US by USA today in a recent report. (You can read about that elsewhere on my blog site.) It has a large assortment of slot and table games - new games, old classic games, Class II “bingo” slot games, Vegas type slot games, so many games that during the work week, when there are fewer gamblers, some slots are shut down for several hours to the casino won’t exceed the number of machines allowed each week by its compact with the State. Gambling is not legal in California except on the reservations and as stipulated by and paid for under these compacts. The right to run gambling establishments in California does not come cheap! And you and I both know where the money the tribes pay the State for that privilege comes from.
So why don’t my husband and I play at Pechanga. There are two reasons. First it is too big for us. We don’t like mega resorts. Second, and more important, we don’t win at Pechanga. At least the penny slot players in my household don’t win there. Some high rollers might. I don’t know about the people who ride the buses from Los Angeles each day. Truthfully, the games might even be better than we think — I see ShinobiYT play at Pechanga and outplay VLR in their NA/LV competitions some weeks. But I also know many of the YouTube slot wins I see on my computer are just a small part of the games the filmers play on the machines. There are not as many winning sessions as their videos imply. Since we hardly ever play at Pechange, we haven’t learned where their loose machines are - if there are any. You won’t see signs like “95% payback” in our Native American casinos. So until my husband or I have a big win at our local casino, we will probably play there very infrequently and we will continue to make the drive to the HWY 76 reservations in Northern San Diego County each week instead.
The other mega resort in North SD Country is Valley View. It is not on our list either, but it would be if it were not so far away. A day at Valley View entails a 40 mile drive each way through the mountains north of Escondido. When we first moved to California in 2002, Valley View was a friendly little casino with 750 games housed in a tent. It was the first place we played to offer penny slots as well as fun non-gambling games. They held slot tournaments often and hot seats every day. The people running the casino were friendly, The other gamers were too, and you could play for hours on hardly any money at 1,5,10,15,25 cents a spin. We loved Valley View, went often, and even won a bit now and then. Valley View is not the same place today. It has expanded, added a hotel in 2010, now houses 2000 slots — a great assortment of slots by the way — and we really don’t know how loose they are because it’s too far to drive to play there to find out. Occasionally when we are spending the night at Harrah’s we make the 20 mile round trip from Harrah’s to Valley View and play a little, but usually we decide it isn’t worth the drive. We might be making a mistake. I don’t know.
That leaves the big three to talk about. The casino closest to HWY 15 and to home is Pala. Pala is trying to compete with Pechanga, Harrah’s, and Valley View. They have a great buffet — but they never give their players free ones except for their birthdays. You can get yourself a free soft drink however. There is a give-away card-scrape game you can play just inside the door — you used to win nice prizes playing it -- $400 if you made the right picks, $100 if you got all but one. (I won that twice). Now your “prize” is an entry in a drawing with all the other “winners” for the month…and you have to be present to win. The Pala Indians give away a car each week and hot seat money on special occasions, but that’s at night and we older gamblers don’t like to drive home in the dark, and we don’t want to pay for rooms — rooms that they would comp us if there were not a special event. We still get free play on our cards - the amount varies according to how much you play - but for us low rollers it’s usually $10 - $15 a week. And there is a free “tribute” show on Tuesdays for the over 60 crowd with a drawing at the end of the show to attract the senior citizens to play and buy a reduced price buffet. No free meals at Pala! We stop at Pala almost every trip because it’s close, it's on the way, and we have free play to spend. They have a nice collection of old classic games we like and they do actually bring in new games fairly often. They frequently move where the new games are located, however, to encourage players to visit different areas of the casino. It makes it hard to learn where the looser slots are located. Since G2E last October they have acquired a lot of new Incredible Technology games and Aristocrat Legend and Wonder 4 type games. You will see Konami’s new games earlier in other venues. My husband won a hand pay this past year at Pala on Wicked Winnings 3, on a 50 cent bet.
Our favorite casino currently is the little Pauma casino still in a tent in an orange grove, without a hotel attached, 5 miles farther down the road. Because Pauma is smaller, it is friendlier. They have more give-aways but they are for smaller prizes. They have a restaurant they call a buffet, but it isn’t like the buffets you can buy at the other casinos or like the ones you get at Vegas. Soft drinks are still free, so is lemon water, and so are donuts on Thursdays from 8 to 10 am. They have promotions on Tues and Wed morning and Friday evening where you give the player’s club girl $20, and she puts $30 play on your card. And once a month they give away something nice like a car from entries you have collected playing all month. They try to bring in new games when they can, but because they are so small there are a limited number of new choices each month. Pauma is a good place to play if you like the old 20 or 25 cent old IGT and Aristocrat games. Lest you think you can’t ever get a big win at a small casino, the only handpay I ever won was on a 50 cent bet at Pauma on Wicked Winning 2. It was 5 years ago. I also came close at Pala - $800 - again on Wicked Winnings 2, minimum bet - the year the game first came out. My husband had 2 hand pays in the same day also at Pauma, also 5 years ago. Obviously Pauma is my husband's favorite place to play because that's where he's had his big wins.
That leaves Harrah’s Southern California Resort, which I will always call Rincon after the tribe that owns the casino instead of the corporation they pay to manage it for them. My husband hates Rincon. He would never go there if he weren’t being nice and taking me to collect my comps and maintain my platinum status for our Vegas trips. I am lucky to get to Rincon once a month so most of my comps go to waste. They are pretty generous considering I low roll and don't come often. Right now I get $15 free play twice a week, a free buffet every week, and a free room offer practically any time I want to stay except Saturday night. They also try to lure me in more often with other free play offers and multipliers. My favorite slot adviser Random $$ Slots would say that they are being overly generous in their offers to lure me in, knowing I’ll give it all back and more. The managing corporation, Caesars, is in financial trouble and facing bankruptcy. The tighter slots reflect their financial problems. They are not so generous to my husband. He gets only $5 in free play, a free buffet once a month, and spends most of his time watching television in our room while I work on raising my tier score in the casino. The best thing about earning Total Rewards points at Harrah’s Rincon is they can be spent on rooms and food at any of the Caesar’s properties including Las Vegas. Even if your room is comped, you still need those points for the Resort Fee they now add to your bill. (If you are a high roller, all this may not apply to you. I’m a low roller that barely earned my 5000 tier points to keep platinum status last year.) Every now and then I get free tickets to one of their shows at the new entertainment facility. People who swim love their Lazy Water feature. There are a lot of reasons to choose Harrahs if you also choose your slots carefully.
Harrah’s has a lot of new games. They have a lot of old ones too -- probably because of the fees they pay the State on their games. The fees established under the original compacts are much lower than what they pay for the new games under the revised compacts, so it is financially better to keep older games. They have recently put in some Class II slots because those are not covered under the State of California compacts: Pala has also. So has Pechanga. I don’t know about Valley View because it’s too far to go to see. Rincon seems to be the first casino in the area to get the new Konami games. I think some Southern California casinos are a test area for Konami games because we often get them before Las Vegas. I read once that when Konami first introduced slots to the US, Barona in San Diego was the very first casino to carry them and that Konami rewards them still for that. Sometimes I see filmers on YouTube playing these new games for less money minimum bet than our games here on the reservations. But perhaps their wins are less also.
So where is the best place to play if you’re a low roller? I can’t say. It’s where ever your gut tells you you do the best. Though if you look at your win/loss statements for the year, you’ll find your gut isn’t always right. My personal win/loss statements for this past year say I lost money at all three casinos. In fact, they say I lost the most at Pauma. But It didn’t feel that way playing each week. I thought I was doing better at Pauma.
I lost about the same at Rincon (Harrah’s) as I did at Pauma also even though I went to Pauma 5 times as often. I played at Rincon less often but for a longer time each visit because we spent the night. Surprisingly, I loss less money at Pala than either of the other two casinos, and we had some overnight stays there also.
Does that mean you should play at Pala instead of Harrahs? Not necessarily. There are too many variables. Too many options. Too much luck involved. What is obvious to me from my statements is I should not gamble overnight. I almost always lose money when we spend the night wherever we play. My husband is wise enough to quit when he’s losing. He goes to the room and watches TV. I tend to play on till my money is gone. My slot advisor will probably agree I shouldn’t play so late into the evening, and I should look for some other kind of entertainment when the machines are bad. I almost think I should start keeping the gambling diary required by tapayers who want to deduct their losses, but since I can’t itemize it won’t help me any — and it would probably make me think I should give up this gaming entertainment. If you are familiar with Random $$ Slots DBG system of play, it does help to minimize bad gambling trips. But it’s mighty hard to quit after a win because there might have been another one if you had played on. I am trying to watch what I spend more closely this year, and I am doing much better.I can't tell you where my husband won or lost the most. We have separate entertainment accounts and we don't always tell our spouse how we're doing. That may be why our marriage has lasted 50 years.
So, to answer the question posed by a SoCal gambler that inspired the post - where do I do better gambling, Harrah’s or Pala - I guess for me personally the answer is Pala. At least this week it is. Next week I might have a different answer for you. SoCal readers, what do you think? Which casino is the nicest to you? You don't have to answer that. I know what you all think. You’d all say "Neither one." You'd say we should drive a little farther and gamble at Barona instead.
