When those of us who live in Temecula in southern Riverside County feel the urge to try our luck playing the slots, we usually choose to visit Pechanga. After all the resort is right in our own backyard. You don't even have to drive through the desert or the mountains to get there. It's the largest casino in the state and has everything a player could ask for - slots, table games, shows, restaurants, bingo, golf ...you name it, Pechanga has it. There's even a luxury hotel and spa and a brand new RV trailer park if you want an extended vacation experience. Travel the I-15 ten miles a little farther south, and you'll find Highway 76 leading to four other native reservations: Pala, Pauma, Harrahs SoCal (formerly called Rincon), and Valley View - all anxious to be your casino home. Drive an additional 50 miles and you have the San Diego pleasure palaces Barona, Sycuan, and Viejas where you can play. Why go anywhere else.
Well, you may not know it, because the YouTube videographers who show us slot games on our computers can not film there, but there is a fifth casino also located in Riverside County just 31 miles north of Pechanga that would like to have some of the business southern Riverside and San Diego Counties share. It's called Soboba. It's located at the foot of the mountains north of San Jacinto near the sleepy town of Hemet, and it is hoping that if expansion proceeds as planned you may give them a few of your gambling dollars too.
Soboba Casino has been around for about 20 years – when I first moved to California about 15 years ago, we discovered the little casino in a tent and made weekly trips there so I could play bingo while my husband played the slots. The casino has remodeled and expanded several times in the past two decades but it is still a "local" and not a "resort," and entertainment is more likely to be a rodeo on the grounds than a show in an auditorium. You'll find restaurants if you want to eat but no buffet like the big casinos offer.
Soboba wants to expand and increase its share of the gambling trade.The Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians is hoping to build a new facility on land recently added to its reservation near San Jacinto. The land covers 535 acres on Soboba Road, west of Lake Park Drive and the current casino. It is already owned by the tribe, which operates the nearby Country Club at Soboba and adjoining Soboba Springs Golf Course.
Plans are to build a 729,000-square-foot resort development that would include a mix of shops, restaurants, a convention center, arena, spa and fitness center and a parking structure at Lake Park Drive and Soboba Road. There also would be a tribal fire station and a gas station with a convenience store. Plans for the project include a 160,000-square-foot casino as part of a five-story, 300-room hotel.
It wouldn’t so much be a new casino, but the relocation of the current gaming house with the same number of machines and tables as the current facility, which is now located about a mile east of the new site.
But it should be a big step up with amenities not currently offered. It could be on par with the higher-end Indian casinos in the region, such as Pechanga, Morongo, San Manuel, Agua Caliente and Fantasy Springs. Or not. Time and revenues will tell.
Gaming has been offered on the reservation since at least 1984. Though the current casino has been expanded several times, it still is not a permanent building. Slot machines and gaming tables are under a large tent.
While nearby casinos have event centers that rival concert venues in the region, Soboba has an open-air arena with bleacher seating covered by an awning. So while big name acts such as Tim Allen, Kenny Rogers and the Steve Miller Band have recently or will soon perform at area casinos, Soboba has mostly featured cover bands and cage fighting.
The games in the new casino will no doubt be much different than today’s.
“This industry is in a constant state of flux,” Soboba Casino General Manager Scott Sirois said. “Advances in technology and strategies are continuous. We are constantly educating ourselves and then implementing that tech and the strategies that we feel best fit our business model.”
But don’t expect to be playing slot machines there anytime soon. There is still a long process before the land can be used for gaming purposes and ground is broken.
“We don’t have a date,” Tribal Chairwoman Rosemary Morillo said at the signing ceremony May 29. “We can’t really plan on something that is up in the air.”
We really don't need any more casinos in Southern California, but we'll see what happens. And we'll hope when plans are finalized for the new facility that the people in charge will let the YouTubers film their games there too. Cross your fingers.
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