DownTown Las Vegas

Binion’s Gambling Hall and Casino

Binion’s Gambling Hall and Casino would first open its doors in August of 1951 and is a casino property that is located directly under the Fremont Street Experience. The current owner of the property is TLC Casino Enterprises, which also owns the Four Queens, located across the street.

The property has more than 350 hotel rooms technically on site, but as of the time of this writing, only something between 81 are actually operating. In 2019, the property put a little bit of money into renovating a few rooms, so those are now available. The property had actually spent several years offering no hotel rooms whatsoever, instead, Binion’s players would often stay at sister property, Four Queens. The hotel side of operations is called, “Hotel Apache,” and acts as something of a boutique hotel.

The funny thing about that is that there is a rooftop pool at Binion’s that is sometimes open, so the Four Queens would often be sending its guests who wanted to go swimming to the across-the-street property that itself lacked any hotel rooms!

In case you hadn’t gotten the idea yet, these are two Las Vegas Downtown casino hotel properties that are still very much in the, “Budget,” category.

Benny Binion, who the property was named after, had one hell of a criminal track record by a young age (you should really read up on him!), but where many people would have ended up continuing along that road and spending life in prison, Benny’s love for gambling first led to him establishing illegal gambling operations in the Dallas area, but he would eventually gravitate to Nevada where gambling was at least legal.

Binion’s would buy the former Eldorado Club and would transform the property into Binion’s Horseshoe, often just called, “The Horseshoe.” It would actually become the first hotel casino in Downtown Las Vegas to replace the sawdust floor (yes, there is a reason places are called, “Sawdust ts,”) with actual carpeting.

Benny Binion was instrumental in bringing two standards to Downtown Las Vegas, for one, he found a way to offer comps to all players in the casino, rather than just the high-rollers. This philosophy of attracting the value gambler would quickly spread throughout Downtown, and would even later be adopted by a couple of Las Vegas Strip casinos (a decade or two later, when they were past their prime) and became a model that would attract players of all levels. The second thing that Binion would do that represented a major change in operations is that he would introduce higher maximum Table Limits than any casino in all of Las Vegas.

In other words, you could kind of look at it as Benny Binion making an effort to attract both the lowest of low-rollers and the highest of high-rollers, as far as Table Games players went. His philosophy was to deliver great customer service and a fun experience even to guests who were on a budget, but he also wasn’t scared of high rollers and opened his place up for them to come and take the biggest shot they could afford to. In fact, some nights, if Benny Binion was in the right mood…you could bet whatever you happened to have in front of you, no limit!

The casino was also the longtime home to the one million dollar display, which had been there for decades and consisted of a million dollars worth, 100 $10,000 bills, in the middle of the casino floor in a protective case. People would come in just to have their picture taken in front of the million dollars, in fact, I had my picture taken there with the Wizard (Wizard of Odds and Wizard of Vegas) Michael Shackleford, himself!–but it wasn’t $10,000 bills by then.

Of course, Benny Binion hadn’t quite given up his criminal ways and would eventually serve a few years in prison for tax evasion at Leavenworth Penitentiary. In fact, that would come to very shortly after the original opening of Binion’s Horseshoe, so ownership technically changed hands (in part) to a certain Joe W. Brown, who basically was just making a loan with the casino as collateral so that Benny Binion could take care of his back taxes.

The City of Las Vegas would not allow someone with a felony on his record to possess a gambling license (they must not have noticed that Benny Binion had been convicted of murder prior to even opening the casino), so he had to have his sons get the gambling license. The family would soon gain back full control and ownership of the property after the patriarch got out of jail.

In 1970, Binion’s Horseshoe would become the site for the first ever World Series of Poker, and such was the popularity of that event that the casino would later expand into the former Mint Hotel in order to open its own dedicated poker room. During the Poker Boom of the 2000’s, many people probably took it for granted that a Las Vegas Casino would have a poker room (not all of them do anymore), but back then, it was actually highly unusual for a casino to concentrate on poker.

Binion’s would remain the site of the World Series of Poker Main Event for decades after, in fact, it would remain until 2004, but more on that in the coming paragraphs.

Eventually, ownership and operation of the casino would through the hands of various children of Benny Binion, and their family , over the decades. Many of these folks would find themselves in various forms of legal trouble, and consequently, would have to sell their interest in the property to other family .

Eventually, in 1998, the property would find itself under the management of Becky Behnen, which basically spelled the beginning of the end of that iteration of Binion’s Horseshoe. For reasons unknown, she got rid of the million dollar display that so many Las Vegas visitors just loved having their pictures taken in front of…which would immediately result in fewer people being drawn to the property, and those who did leaving upset with the place because that was probably the main reason that they were coming! NOT a good move!

Of course, she probably should have left the million in place, as the casino would find itself in regulatory trouble for being found with not enough money to cover the amount in chips on the casino floor—which is a big no-no in Nevada. In fact, Bob Stupak wanted to cash in $250,000 worth of casino tokens one day and was unable to do so. In short, the property that had become almost synonymous with great gambling operations and favorable player treatment was able to destroy the reputation that it took decades to build in just a few months.

The casino would find itself in more trouble when its unions stated that they wouldn’t sign a new collective bargaining agreement and had fallen behind in health insurance and pension plan payments. While this matter was eventually settled, Behren ultimately ended up being unable to keep up with the payments, given that the casino had driven away a great many of its one-time players and found itself up to its eyeballs in debt of its own causing.

The casino would eventually be forcibly closed after various entities were granted permission by the courts to go into the property and seize monies that they were owed directly from the casino cage! After that happened, of course, the casino was back to having insufficient funds to pay any winners, so they agreed to close until they could get sufficient funds back into the place.

Of course, that would have proven difficult (it never happened) because it would have required an entity to want to finance a property that had a wide variety of problems with players, banks, labor unions and the Nevada Gaming Commission! The last half decade, or so, had just been one failure after another for this property, and I’m no industry analyst, but that certainly doesn’t seem like a very safe loan to make, to me.

Fortunately, Behren was able to sell the property to Harrah’s Entertainment outright.

Harrah’s Entertainment, however, was not interested in the property, but rather in the rights to the World Series of Poker brand and series of events. If you are wondering how Binion’s could possibly have failed in the early days of the poker boom, all I can say is, “Your guess is as good as mine,” but they did it! Eventually, World Series of Poker events would transition to be helped at the Rio All Suites Hotel.

With no interest in the Downtown property, Harrah’s Entertainment would sell the physical property and casino operations to West Virginia based MTR Gaming. MTR Gaming, at this time, were the owners of Mountaineer Hotel and Casino in Chester, West Virginia. Before selling out to El Dorado Resorts (which they technically partially formed), this company would come to own Presque Isle Downs in Pennsylvania and Scioto Downs Racino in Columbus, Ohio, though casinos were not legal in those two states, at this point.

This would mark the end of the World Series of Poker being hosted at Binion’s. MTR Gaming (who had its license by this time) hosted the final three tables of the Main Event in 2005, with the bulk of the event being held at Rio.

This property was never really a fit for MTR, who decided that they would move into casinos near their region when Pennsylvania (and later Ohio) would finally authorize gambling. In the years since purchasing Binion’s, Mountaineer had built Presque Isle Downs, and also owned Scioto Downs harness-racing track, which it was looking like could become a racino…so the sale of Binion’s helped MTR Gaming free up some money for that.

TLC Casino Enterprises, Binion’s current owner and owner of the Four Queens, purchased the property in March of 2008 and runs it until this day! Unfortunately, the Great Recession came at a terrible time for TLC, so plans to renovate the hotel rooms and open the Hotel Apache were put on hold. In fact, due to declining occupancy in the entire Las Vegas area, all hotel operations at Binion’s would cease in 2009 not to return for ten years!

At the very least, TLC brought back a modified version of the million dollar display for people to get pictures. Cash money sitting in the middle of a building might not draw interest, but it does draw foot traffic, which sometimes spends money or plays the games!

That brings us to the present day, so now we have the opportunity to see what the property has to offer its guests now!

Here’s how Binion’s describes the Hotel Apache on its website:

The Hotel Apache was originally opened by the Silvagni family in 1932. The family came to Las Vegas as a cement contractor for the Hoover Dam project and realized the workers needed a place to get away from their work and the heat of the desert. It was the first in Las Vegas to air-condition its hotel lobby and have air curtains at the entrance to the hotel. The hotel was eventually acquired by Benny Binion and was the place to stay for many Hollywood movie stars like Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart and Lucille Ball. It was also the first in Las Vegas with an electrically operated elevator, fully carpeted casino and made poker a mainstream casino game.

Over the course of over 90 years, the historic Hotel Apache and Binion’s Gambling Hall have had many reports of spirited guests in residence who make it clear that the Hotel Apache and Binion’s Gambling Hall still belong to them. Several employees have been touched, nudged, report sightings of figures; and ghost hunters have reported high levels on their EMF meters and motion sensors along with mediums seeing actual images of past owners’ family .

Book your next stay at the Historic Haunted Hotel Apache and let us know what you experience.

Personally, I don’t believe in ghosts, but some of our readers probably do. Maybe you should consider staying at the Hotel Apache at least one night during your Vegas trip to see if you can have a paranormal experience!

Room rates tend to be in the mid $60’s for your standard room on standard weekdays when no special events are going on. Weekend rates largely depend on what’s going on in town, and might be as high as $150-$250 depending on what’s happening. Saturdays tend to be the most expensive during special events, such as home Raiders games the following day.

Fortunately, what you see is what you get, with exception to the tax. Binion’s and Four Queens, as of the time of this writing, do NOT have Resort Fees, so let’s hope that never changes! The rooms here are actually pretty neat, if you’re looking for a simple affair that has something of an old school feel to it. They look like they came from the 1940’s, except the TV’s, don’t worry—those are new.

Binion’s doesn’t have any regular entertainment options of its own, but instead directs people to check out the events that take place at Four Queens, its sister property. Naturally, we will go ahead and cover those in our Four Queens listing.

Binion’s features a wide variety of table games with the Table Games pit as the centerpiece of the property, they offer Pai Gow Poker. I played a session of Pai-Gow Poker for a few overnight hours here once and had a great time, it’s a pretty old-school gaming pit that has the kind of, “Sawdust Casino,” feel. Cocktail service was fast, even at that hour, and everyone was friendly.

If you’re looking for something other than Blackjack, then you might want to call ahead for the typical hours of operation for the other Table Games. The majority of them are not going to operate 24/7. In fact, the night that I played there it was Craps, Pai-Gow Poker and Blackjack…with Pai Gow Poker just about to close if I hadn’t sat down! I have to it, it’s pretty neat that my sitting there and betting my red chips, with $0 on side bets, was enough to keep the table open—that’s great customer service!

The property features a surprisingly expansive slot floor and is home to more than 800 combined slot, video poker and video keno machines. Additionally, many of their Video Poker games have a return of more than 98%! For my part, I played a good bit of Video Poker here when I visited Vegas because they had a promotion for earning x amount of points in a day that I thought was worth doing, especially since I was just gambling recreationally anyway. I ended up with a shirt, two hats, some free play and actually made a small profit!

Apparently, Binion’s is home to a William Hill Sportsbook location, which I must have missed when I visited the property if they had it when I was there. I’m honestly not sure on that one.

That brings us to dining, which the main experience is the Top of Binion’s Steakhouse, located on the 24th Floor of the property. This establishment is kind of like the Vegas steakhouses of old and the menu is a bit old school, but the food is excellent and the locals still mostly seem to love the place. Vegas visitors who have been also say that they would put it right up there with most other Vegas steakhouses. They specialize in angus beef and lobster dishes.

Benny’s Smokin’ BBQ and Brews has this to say about itself:

Enjoy mouth watering, slow cooked, smoked BBQ in downtown Las Vegas at Benny’s Smokin’ BBQ & Brews. Take pleasure in a full rack of BBQ smoked ribs, ½ BBQ chicken, or a combination of both. If you want the beef, try our slow cooked, smoked to perfection brisket. Benny’s also offers an exclusive micro brew selection that will compliment your entrée choice. While eating you can enjoy watching your favorite shows on large screen TV’s that are throughout the room, as well as video poker games at the bar. Benny’s Smokin’ BBQ & Brews has the best BBQ in downtown Las Vegas, in a casual atmosphere that is sure to please everyone.

We agree with this statement completely! The BBQ place at Binion’s is excellent and offers its guests tremendous value when compared to some of the pricier options that are available on the Las Vegas Strip! If you don’t need to be surrounded by opulence and elegance, and instead just want some great food, then this is the place to go!

Whiskey Licker Up Saloon specializes in cocktails, whiskey, burgers and scantily clad women, so if you like all of those things, you know where to go. Hell, you should come here even if you just like great American burgers—they’re awesome!

Binion’s Cafe is open 24 hours per day, every day, and features all of your American favorites for breakfast, lunch and dinner at very affordable prices. If you’ve been partying hard Downtown, or just aren’t in the mood for fine dining at any given time, this place is sure to have something to satisfy your appetite.

Binion’s Deli has this to say:

For a quick bite to eat, visit Binion’s Deli, famous for its deli meats piled high on your choice of fresh bread. Binion’s Deli also offers fresh grilled hamburgers, hotdogs, salads and more. If you are in the mood for some delicious frozen custard, Binion’s Deli has cake cones, waffle cones, cups, and refreshing root beer floats, made with hand crafted root beer from Chicago Brewing Co. The Deli is open daily from 12 noon until 8:00 pm.

Their website also says that it is reopening in March of 2021, which was six months ago, so I’m guessing the didn’t have a reason to look at that page lately. Either way, this is another stop at Binion’s if you want something quick and relatively cheap.

Do I recommend Binion’s Gambling Hall? Of course! It’s fantastic and there’s reasonably good gambling to still be found here, even if you’re on a budget. Besides that, it has a few great eateries and no Resort Fees! If you’re looking for a diverse culinary experience, it’s not like the Las Vegas Strip is THAT hard to get to. Between buses, rideshares, taxis, shuttles or renting a car, you’re sure to find some method of conveyance to the Las Vegas Strip in your price range if you want to check out one of the high end restaurants. As far as American food and steakhouse goes, why go anywhere else?

Anyway, this is the sort of place that someone who goes to Las Vegas for the gambling is inclined to visit. It’s not like you can’t do the touristy stuff and save some money by staying at a fun place like Binion’s at the same time!

California Hotel and Casino

California Hotel and Casino is located on East Ogden Ave., which is a little bit of a walk from the Fremont Street Experience, so just know that you’ll have to put a little bit of wear on your feet to get there. This casino opened in January of 1975 and is known for a Hawaiian theme that pervades throughout the property. I was there, on one occasion, but only for an hour or two…it seemed fine.

The property is currently home to 781 guest rooms and suites and a gambling floor that consists of 85,000 square feet of space, which means that it actually rivals a few casinos on and near the Las Vegas Strip for overall gambling real estate. That’s definitely impressive!

The property was built by Sam Boyd, and is currently owned by Boyd Gaming, so while that became a publicly traded company, it only technically represents a change in ownership. Essentially, management of the property hasn’t changed since it was first built, nor has the branding or theme, which is quite a rarity in Las Vegas!

The casino faced some trouble early on as it was not the hit they were anticipating, so they brilliantly decided to focus on Hawaiian clientele pretty exclusively, marketing heavily in the Island state and offering a wide variety of Hawaiian food options and custom vacation packages for visitors from the Aloha State. To this day, Hawaiians typically stay at one Boyd Gaming property, or another, when visiting Las Vegas.

This property is also closely linked to Main Street Station, which historically has also attracted many Hawaiian visitors (and whose buffet featured many Hawaiian dishes), so there is a walkway between the two and many visitors float from one to another.

The hotel has recently been renovated and guests will enjoy access to a rooftop pool as well as a fitness center available for them. Standard rooms are pretty modestly appointed, though the hotel towers were recently renovated and guests might find themselves surprised at the small size of some of the rooms…but that’s the way hotels were built back then.

Room rates themselves are pretty typical for Downtown, with relatively low weekday rates on standard rooms and weekend rooms based mainly on what happens to be going on in town. For example, on Saturdays before Raiders home games, guests can expect to pay a pretty penny, well over ten thousand pennies, in fact, for even the most modest room on the property. Unfortunately, the plague of Resort Fees has spread to Boyd Gaming, as even the California Hotel and Casino tacks on an additional $27.11 to every room night…which is actually more than half of the actual room rate itself during weekdays in the slow demand season.

The main lounges for the property are the Cal Sports Lounge, which is located next to the sportsbook and features plenty of bartop video poker. Holo Holo is a Hawaiian themed bar near the Keno Lounge that is open on weekends.

Beyond the lounges, there’s really not much in the way of entertainment events, but the Fremont Street Experience isn’t too far away, some Downtown properties have regular shows and you can always travel to The Strip to catch a show at one of those casinos, if you want to.

Online advertising for the venue focuses mainly on their Table Games and Keno Lounge, but other estimates would put their slot, video poker and video keno machine count at several hundred. The funny thing is that there’s a webpage they have here which enables you to search for specific slot machines that might be found at the property, yet, they don’t list a slot count on the main casino page. In fact, the main casino page also doesn’t have a link to the slot finder page, which I managed to find on my own.

Table Games are open from Noon to – 4:00 a.m., as of the time of this writing, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and otherwise, operate 24/7. They include Blackjack, Roulette, Craps and some poker variants. If you’re looking for a specific game or when it operates, then we would recommend calling in advance of your visit for the usual operating hours for your game of choice.

The property is also home to a sizable Keno lounge that is open daily, and from which you can watch the drawings even from your room, if you like. While Live Keno tends to have a fairly high house edge, it plays slowly, so it might be a fun little diversion for you if you’re into it.

The property also features the Cal Sports Book, though it closed at some point during the Covid-19 pandemic and, according to the property’s website, has yet to reopen. We’re certainly hoping that it comes back as this property otherwise has a pretty well-rounded set of gambling options sure to entice visitors.

With that, we will turn our attention to the six eating establishments available at this property. None of them are terribly expensive, even the steakhouse, so all Vegas visitors should feel pretty comfortable dining at this casino, even those on a somewhat tight budget.

The Redwood Steakhouse is the property’s fine dining establishment and describes itself thus:

The Redwood Steakhouse is a fine dining experience not to be missed. Our menu offers a wide range of steaks, fresh seafood, and chops. The amazing side dishes are large enough to share and you’ll want to sample each one! With delicious dishes, tempting desserts, and a warm atmosphere, be sure to make your reservations for tonight at the Redwood Steakhouse.

Prices are comparable to other Downtown Las Vegas steakhouses, as are the offerings. This is the property’s only fine dining establishment, so you will have to leave the property if you are looking for an elegant fine dining experience multiple nights during your stay, although, you might just end up going here twice!

California Noodle House does what it says on the box, or did, until it closed during the Covid-19 pandemic. As of the time of this writing, it has yet to reopen, but if it ever does, then we would expect it to be open for dinner service seven nights per week.

Market Street Cafe closes only between 3:00 a.m.-7:00 a.m. and has a wide variety of breakfast, lunch and dinner options that are sure to please any palette. If you’re looking for something quick, or want to enjoy some great food and a sit-down experience that won’t put you out very much of your gambling budget, then it’s tough to go wrong with Market Street Cafe!

Aloha Specialties, as the name would imply, features a variety of Hawaiian, Japanese and other Asian Fusion dishes in a quick eats type environment and has this to say:

Aloha Specialties, located on the California Hotel & Casino’s mezzanine, will satisfy your taste buds with its Island fare. With the umbrellas and wicker chairs lining the mezzanine outside the restaurant, Aloha Specialties transports its diners, at least for a short moment, to the islands. Step inside and its walls are lined with native art and the tables and chairs are covered with the “aloha” prints that you’d see in Hawaii.

Aloha Specialties features teriyaki plates, stews and curry specialties, combination plates and noodle dishes such as Chicken Tou Saimin and of course, the popular “rice bowls”. Eating in or taking out, give yourself a treat and try Aloha Specialties.

As mentioned before, California still make sit a Boyd (as does many other Boyd Gaming properties) to satisfy the Hawaiian guests who have been loyal to the brand for decades and, quite frankly, are largely responsible for the success of the company. With that in mind, it makes absolute sense that a quick eats location should appeal to them, but even if you’re not Hawaiian, it should appeal to you, too! Hawaiian food is great, spicy and flavorful!

Lapperts Ice Cream Shop does what it says on the box and also features specialty drinks, coffee drinks, and various other desserts that include a wide selection of donuts. It opens at 5:00 a.m. every day and closes in the afternoon on weekdays, while staying open until the late evening hours on weekends.

Finally, Ethel M Chocolates is a chocolates, sweets and dessert shop that is open from 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. everyday. These savory little delicacies are positively delightful and definitely devoid of dastardly artificial preservatives, so come grab yourself a little piece of Heaven (if you have a sweet tooth, anyway) at Ethel M’s!

Overall, the eateries are pretty much what you would expect from California Casino with a Hawaiian restaurant thrown in. Given the Downtown location, it should come as no surprise that everything is reasonably priced.

Overall, we would recommend giving the California Casino and Hotel a visit, and maybe playing a bit, but many Downtown visitors are going to be budget-conscious for their Vegas trip…which makes it VERY difficult for us to recommend any properties that have Resort Fees when casino hotels such as Binion’s and Four Queens do not. On the other hand, if you’re a visitor coming from Hawaii and would like to interact with some others from your home state, then the California Casino might be an ideal place for you to stay.

Circa Resort and Casino

Circa Resort and Casino is the newest addition to the Downtown scene, having opened in October of 2020 with 512 hotel rooms and just over 8,000 square feet of gambling space. The focus of this casino is primarily on sports betting, hence the somewhat small size (by any standard) of the casino floor.

The property was built by brothers Derek and Greg Stephens, who are the owners of The D Casino, as well as Golden Gate Casino, all of which are located Downtown under the Fremont Street Experience.

The original land that would eventually come to have Circa built upon it was once occupied by the Las Vegas Club Casino, Glitter Gulch (strip club), and Mermaids Casino. For those of you wondering how much of the focus is on sports, the sportsbook consists of over three stories whilst the casino floor encomapsses only two.

Prior to the purchase, Las Vegas Club kind of ran downhill for a number of years and, if it really focused on anything, it was on offering great video poker games. The atmosphere there was pretty dark and there were a handful of Table Games, but aside from that, nothing real;ly happened at the property anymore. The owners of that time were Tavares Group, who also owned the much larger Plaza Casino.

The owners at the time bandied about ideas of renovating the casino, but it would eventually close without that coming to fruition. It would then sit empty for a few years and there were even plans to turn it into a CVS, at one point.

Eventually, the Stepehens brothers would make an offer on the property and it would be sold to them. The original plan was to simply renovate and rebrand the property, but Derek Stephens would decide that he didn’t like the design of the original property, so he would acquire nearby properties to create space for something totally new, which would eventually become Circa.

With a height of 480 feet above the ground, Circa is one of the tallest buildings within Las Vegas City Limits, since those of you who read our listings for the Las Vegas Strip will that those casinos are not actually in Las Vegas.

Guests of the Circa will enjoy access to the property’s brand new swimming pool and state-of-the-art fitness center. The swimming pool area is called, “Stadium Swim,” and is actually designed to resemble a series of sports stadiums, is a rooftop series of pools and consists of six different swimming pools! That’s a lot of fun. Circa is also a property that is an adults-only establishment, so unfortunately for the kids, they won’t be visiting these pools. In addition to the pools, the centerpiece of the swimming location is a giant video wall for those who wish to watch whatever sporting events they bet on whilst swimming…which is absolutely brilliant!

All of the rooms are spacious and, as you would expect from a hotel that just opened in 2020, are modernly appointed with the most modern furnishings. Even the standard rooms have a seating area in addition to the bed, or beds, so guests are sure to enjoy even the most budget friendly rooms that the casino has to offer.

That said, these rooms are not cheap and have weekday rates that would make some properties on the Las Vegas Strip blush! If you like the Downtown experience, but also want a luxury-type hotel experience, then you’re in the niche that this casino is going to attract…but those budget gamblers coming to the Downtown area best look elsewhere for their overnight accommodations. Weekday rates will run well over $100, even on slow weekdays, while weekend rates are all over the place depending on what special events are going on…basically the same as most Strip properties in the weekend instance.

There’s also a Resort Fee of $29.95/night, which is unfortunate for a Stephens-owned property, but has become something of a standard for Las Vegas these days. Even then, there are much older casino resort properties that charge even more of a nightly Resort Fee than that, so we guess it could be worse.

The three-story sportsbook is the property’s centerpiece and is, legitimately, the largest in the world running away. For those of you who want to visit a casino that is devoted, almost exclusively, to providing sports bettors the experience of their lives—here you go.

The property also features survivor pools and an NFL Picking contest with millions of dollars in guaranteed prizes. Of course, Entry Fees are $1,000 per each entry, so make sure to make all of your Picks as that is a ton of money to part with!

The casino itself is a brightly lit and comfortable space with plenty of room to get around, despite the casino floor’s small size. They are home to a combined 1,350 slot, video poker and video keno machines as well as 55 Table Games. For those of you willing to sacrifice the Live Dealer experience for lower limits, there are more than a dozen electronic Table Games, as well.

According to VPFRee2.com, Circa Resort and Casino also has a handful of 98%+ Video Poker offerings, which is refreshing to see for such a new property.

Table Games include Blackjack, Craps, Baccarat, Roulette and Three Card Poker. There are some carnival games, as well, so we would recommend calling the property and inquiring if you are looking for something outside of these games. With the sports betting focus of the property, it should come as no surprise that the casino area is also lined with TV’s that broadcast a wide variety of live sporting events, so you won’t have to go far if you’re playing Blackjack and want to check on how the third leg of your parlay is doing.

It should come as no surprise that such a massive new property would be home to a wide variety of dining establishments, which would rival any other casino Downtown easily.

The first of these is Barry’s Downtown Prime, which is the property’s signature steak and seafood house. This steakhouse is modeled after the vintage Las Vegas steakhouses circa the 1950’s, but the flavor pairings are plenty modern and this dining establishment should be on your shortlist if you are visiting the city and looking for a great steakhouse, especially if you are staying Downtown. You’ll definitely want to eat here if you are staying on property.

Saginaw’s Delicatessen is open 24/7 and features some of the best sandwiches that you will find in all of Las Vegas, the Strip included, and all at a very comfortable price point. We would highly recommend that you stop in here for a Reuben if you are staying Downtown, even if it’s not at The Circa, we can guarantee that you won’t regret that you did.

Victory Burger Co. and Wings is the property’s primary sportsbar, and given the emphasis of the property, it stands to reason that it must be home to at least one unique sportsbar. If you’re in the Downtown area and are in the mood for an excellent burger and savory wings, then you owe it to yourself to stop in at this location for a bite. Besides, where else would you even want to watch the big game? They have this to say:

Satisfy your sports itch and your appetite at the ultimate sports bar. Developed by the founding family of American Coney Island, inventors of the Coney Dog, Victory Burger & Wings Co. offers mouthwatering specialty burgers, wings and appetizers, including the half pound Victory Burger. And, of course, a draft line-up that would make a pro team jealous.

The Ultimate Sports Casino should be home to the ultimate sports bar, so we would recommend that you check this one out even if you’re not staying on property. Besides, how can you not want to stop in here just to check out the sportsbook?

8 East is a cozy little Pan-Asian eatery that features traditional Asian dishes with a modern take and is brought to you by Chef Dan Coughlin, who has this to say:

Inspired by metropolitan Asian food markets, 8 East is Chef Dan Coughlin’s cutting-edge take on Pan-Asian cuisine. Savor sharable dishes like GaPow basil chicken pot stickers, dumplings, wontons, skewers and steaks. Then take your flavors to the next level with Coughlin’s signature Chinese, Szechuan, Shangdu and Thai sauces.

Almost undoubtedly, this is going to be some of the best Asian food that you will get Downtown, the Stephens Brothers would have it no other way, so you can’t go wrong with stopping at Circa for this one if that’s what you’re in the mood for.

Chef Rex Bernales brings Project BBQ to visitors to Circa, and it’s sure to satisfy! This eatery is the only permanent food truck on Fremont Street and brings the sweetest and most savory Carolina-style BBQ to its guests. You might want to ask me, “Which state has the best BBQ?” My answer is: All of them!

Finally, Jack Pots Coffee That Suits You (Get it?) is your grab and go place for quick eat salads, sandwiches and specialty coffee drinks.

Circa is home to a wide variety of bars and lounges with the two main attractions being the Mega Bar, which proves that Derek Stephens is not going to be outdone, unless he’s outdoing himself. Apparently, the longest bar in Nevada at the time, the 100-foot Long bar at The D, wasn’t quite big enough, so the MegaBar decided to become Nevada’s new longest at 165 feet.

Speaking of the largest bars in the area, The Circa Bar, at 117 feet long, is the longest outdoor bar under the Fremont Street Experience, so if you’re at the Circa property, indoors or outdoors, it will definitely not be hard for you to find a drink!

The Overhang Bar is on the second floor and overlooks the sportsbook. Vegas Vickie’s is a lounge that features the cowgirl neon sign that was a staple of Downtown Las Vegas for so many decades. Derek Stephens would eventually come to own the sign and decided that Vegas Vickie spent too much time outside, so it was time to give her her own lounge. If you miss seeing her, then make sure to go in and say, “Hi,” she’s always looking for you to this day!

Finally, the Legacy Club has as astounding view for those who want to enjoy a cocktail whilst looking out over Las Vegas and has this to say:

Inspired by Las Vegas’ founding fathers, Legacy Club Rooftop Cocktails overlooks the city on Circa’s 60th floor, delivering an elegant rooftop club lounge with a panoramic view of the Downtown skyline. Paying homage to the movers and shakers who helped build Las Vegas, metal busts lines its hall, while spirited black and white photography frames the entrance, leading patrons to the club’s show-stopping attraction: a display of 1,000 ounces in gold.

Whether soaking in the intimate spaces inside or taking in the ultimate sunset from a fire pit on the lounge’s outdoor terrace, guests can explore a drink selection showcasing the mixology team’s takes on the classics. Menu highlights includes a build-your-own Old Fashioned and photo-worthy sharable sips.

If I was still drinking, I think I’d have to make my choice an old-fashioned. Why not build such an extravagant bar to celebrate, after all, the Stephens Brothers have come a long way and have done it with excellent marketing, innovative ideas and a customer-first focus, always.

Oh, and if you thought getting your picture with a million dollars cash at Binion’s was fun, then how about over a million dollars in Circa-logoed solid gold bars? That’s right, you can go to Legacy Club and do just that!

Overall, it’s kind of sad to see the Stephens Brothers resorting to Resort Fees, but if ever there were a Downtown property where it’s actually justified, it’s this one. This is definitely something between the typical Downtown place and the finest resorts on the Strip, but if there’s one thing that you can guarantee at a Stephens-owned property, it’s that you will have a great time and that the staff will treat you like royalty, no matter who you are or what budget you brought.

If sports betting, or even sports (in general) is your thing, then you absolutely must check Circa out, even if you don’t end up staying. This definitely isn’t going to be your Vegas destination if you’re on a tight budget, as cheaper can be had virtually anywhere else Downtown, and even some places on the Las Vegas Strip (especially weekdays), but Circa is definitely a one of a kind experience.

Obviously, we can’t recommend it for the budget conscious, but we do recommend it for those who love sports betting and want to watch the game basically no matter where they go on property. It’s not often that you get to watch sports in a venue that’s more akin to a huge movie theater, but Derek Stephens has done it. Also, how many places have huge sports viewing screens where the pools are!? It’s truly unbelievable and I can’t imagine someone coming to town who is big on sports betting even thinking about staying anywhere else.

Downtown Grand

Downtown Grand is a somewhat recent addition to the Downtown Las Vegas scene, at least, in its current incarnation. As the property sits now, it is home to 1,124 guest rooms and suites as well as just over 24,000 square feet of total gaming space.

This physical property once belonged to Lady Luck Casino, which opened all the way back in 1964. It would operate as such for more than four decades, but would change hands a total of six times in its last few years of existence under that moniker.

The casino would close completely in 2006, with the original plan being to add a new hotel tower and renovate the entire building. Between financing issues and the Great Recession, this process took more than seven years, as opposed to the originally intended two years.

CIM Group would finally complete these renovations on this North Third Street property, near but not under, the Fremont Street Experience, seven years after their original purchase of the property. The property would reopen as Downtown Grand in October of 2013 and exists as a boutique hotel with no real theme. The main draw of the property itself and the rest of the area known as Downtown3rd is the street scene and the food scene. They also had a game of Street Craps there, which took place outside.

Having stayed there just five short months after their reopening, when they were still partnering with Choice Hotels as an Ascend Collection property, I could say that I was more than impressed with the accommodations, though the casino floor did not have a lot going on, even then.

Jim Simms, who is currently the manager of the Silver Sevens Casino off-strip, was the manager of the property during my stay and came from Wheeling Island Hotel, Casino and Racetrack. One of the areas that he specialized in, or at least seems to, is finding ways of cutting costs during lean times…and times were lean for Downtown Grand as soon as they opened. Being away and not drawing as much foot traffic from the Fremont Street Experience as anticipated, the casino struggled to pull in guests.

It was originally thought that the partnership with Choice Hotels, a hotel franchisor with a wide variety of economy, business and limited-service chains, as well as the, “Ascend Collection,” inventory of boutique and historic hotels would bring in some guests given the franchisor’s loyalty program, but apparently not enough to justify the franchise fees that they had to pay Choice.

An early decision that was made by Simms is that Table Games at the Downtown Grand would only open during limited hours, with Blackjack not even being available in the wee hours of the night. While this cost-savings strategy worked well at Wheeling Island, it was considered by some analysts to spell trouble for Downtown Grand as not having any Table Games open during certain hours was unheard of for Vegas Strip and Downtown casinos. It might have actually been a little too forward for its time, though, as there are a few casinos in the Vegas area that no longer operate tables during the slowest hours of the day.

Downtown Grand also did not want to be seen as a value hunters property and did not market itself accordingly. While it is operated by Fifth Street Gaming, its marketing outreach was also somewhat limited, so their entire attempt to draw people to the property both began and ended with the fact that they were a new property Downtown, especially since the Choice Hotels partnership had not worked as well as they had probably hoped that it would.

Weekday room rates are pretty standard fare for Downtown, but some weekends there is not much of a difference in the rates between this hotel, the brand new Circa casino (which is part of the Fremont Street Experience) and even some Strip properties. As we all know, weekend rates are going to vary wildly depending on projected traffic and if there are any special events in Vegas that weekend, such as Raiders home games.

Personally, I want to say that Simms should have been given more of a rope, after all, the initial idea for what the property would draw, and falling short of those expectations, certainly wasn’t his fault. Building a property with an overall cost of more than 100 million dollars in the Downtown Las Vegas area, that had more than a half decade to prepare and STILL had no real focus or target market certainly wasn’t Simms fault; nor was the lack of marketing capability that he was presented with.

Weekday rates for standard rooms at the Downtown Grand usually float somewhere between $50-$100, but that’s before considering the $29.95 Grand Experience Fee, which is what the property somewhat pretentious calls its Resort Fee.

I will say that even their standard rooms are very nice. They are spacious, clean and modernly appointed…the customer service was great during my stay, as well, as they got me an early check-in for no extra cost when all I wanted was them to hold my suitcase for a bit! They also let me change my reservation three different times without penalty or complaint as, it seemed every time I would look at their website, there would be a new package deal offered that was even better than the one I had previously booked!

The continental breakfast that guests have access to is also something of a nice touch, and is very conveniently located in the hotel’s lobby, which is set off to one side away from the noise of the general casino. That might actually be something of a downside for the property overall, however, as guests checking in and departing don’t even necessarily find themselves within sight of the casino floor. The quiet atmosphere for doing the check-in and check-out stuff is nice, but is perhaps not ideal for getting people to take a few spins of machines or roll the dice a few times on their way out.

Here’s what the property has to say about their pool facility, which won, “Best Downtown Pool,” in the year 2020:

Perfectly situated on the casino rooftop, the Citrus Grand Pool Deck is a pool-party paradise showcasing more than 35,000 square feet of entertainment and special event space, a sparkling infinity pool, restaurant and full bar, semi-private cabanas, a fire pit, backyard games including corn hole, foosball, table tennis and more and a grassy seating area complete with umbrellas and outdoor day beds. The Downtown Grand Hotel & Casino is also proud to be voted by Best of Las Vegas for Best Downtown Hotel Pool for 2020!

And, I can totally agree with that. They say that it’s free for guests, but when you consider that the property comes with a $29.95 Resort Fee, the word, ‘Free,’ to describe anything rings kind of hollow. Still, foosball, table tennis and corn hole still gives guests something fun to do besides swimming. Unfortunately, we can’t imagine the award for, “Best Downtown Pool,” going to anyone besides Circa for the foreseeable future.

On that note, we can also kind of look at Downtown Grand as a victim of timing. At the time that the property was first purchased, the old Las Vegas Club (the land of which now sits Circa) was still kind of humming along, but with a Fremont Street location instead, the Downtown Grand boutique hotel and casino concept could probably have worked and drawn some guests over from Golden Nugget which, pre Circa and Downtown Grand, was the only property Downtown that could be compared somewhat favorably to a Strip property both in price and offerings.

Honestly, if the property really wanted to stand out now, then I think their best bet would be to eliminate Resort Fees, even if it means bumping d room rates up a little. You wouldn’t draw attention to the slight bump in room rates, but you could have plastered in big, bold lettering on all of your marketing materials, “The Resort with no Resort Fees!” I don’t know, but I think appealing to the Downtown Vegas visitors’ sense of value is likely a good move, or would be. It really is a very nice building and pleasant property, so I hope it succeeds regardless.

Freedom Beat American Tastes and Tunes, which we will discuss further in the restaurant section, is also home for free live musical entertainment on some weekends. We would recommend checking out their schedule on their website for acts, since it’s not guaranteed that there will be performances every single Friday and Saturday.

The property is also home to regular House of Magic and Delirious Comedy Club shows inside of its Fremont Room, most Thursdays-Sundays. Again, we would recommend checking out their website for details as these shows may not always happen during the slower months of the year. On some occasions, there will also be live bands performing outside of the Downtown Grand as part of the Downtown3rd events, but that won’t always be the case.

The property is home to a modest slot floor that consists of some 325 combined video poker, slot and video keno machines. It’s actually on the far end of the property opposite the hotel registration area, so you would go down the hall from there to look for it if that’s where you started. Denominations range from pennies to $25 per credit.

Table Games include Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Three Card Poker and Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em. If you’re basing your visit around Table Game availability, then you might want to call in advance to get the usual hours of operation.

The property is also home to a small William Hill Sportsbook location. Of course, it’s going to be hard to recommend that (unless you’re staying) when you should take your sports betting to party central adults-only Circa if you’re Downtown anyway. Circa was basically built for sports bettors!

With that, we will discuss the restaurants directly associated with the property, though there are several others in the nearby Downtown3rd area, as well.

Freedom Beat is open in the early morning hours to late night on Fridays-Mondays and opens at noon and stays open until the late night hours the remaining days of the week. This is the restaurant that occasionally features live musical performances on weekends and is otherwise best known for their delicious burgers! A cheeseburger with an oversized onion ring and a fried egg on it, grab me a bottle of horseradish sauce and sign me up!

Triple George Grill is a steakhouse on the property that is sometimes open for lunch on weekdays, as well as dinner service, and has this to say for itself on their website:

Are you the life of the party? Do you find yourself asking, “What would Frank do?” Do you know your scotch and bourbon and how to make the perfect Old Fashioned? If so, you might be a George. Whether you’re looking for the perfect kick-start to a night full of fun, or perhaps just a smart, upscale dining experience in the heart of downtown Las Vegas, Triple George Grill’s timeless atmosphere has the right mix.

Diners can delight in appetizers and world-famous martinis at the bar, or slip into a private booth for a perfectly dry-aged steak or bay-style seafood dish. But don’t just take our word for it – we’ve been voted the Best of Las Vegas for 6 years straight! Click for reservations.

While this is the property’s more upscale steakhouse, it is obviously going to be somewhat economical in comparison to others that are found on the Las Vegas Strip casinos. Overall, we would recommend this especially if you are staying at Downtown Grand anyway. Those who are not might consider Benny’s, over at Binion’s, mainly for how historical that property is…but this place is certainly nice and has great food.

Pizza Rock is one of the few places where you can get a true gourmet pizza in Las Vegas, but don’t worry, if there are any sinners with you who do not like pizza, then this restaurant also serves burgers made with Kobe beef. If your guests do not like pizza or burgers, then I really don’t know what to tell them…I guess there’s a convenience store nearby if Snickers bars are more their speed…who doesn’t like pizza? Is such a thing possible?

Hogs and Heifers is a dive bar type establishment that is meant to be reminiscent of a local bar in the Deep South. Basically, there are a variety of dancing bartenders and Southern Music aplenty, so the question is really whether or not that sort of thing is your scene; it’s a matter of your taste in music and atmosphere, mainly. If that’s your thing, then you’re sure to enjoy hanging out at this establishment…in fact, it might end up being your favorite thing about Downtown Grand.

With that, we will close by saying that it is definitely one of the nicer and newer Downtown properties, but if your main interest is finding bargains while you’re in Vegas, then we would call the price range of this place, “Reasonable,” on weekdays and, “Same as anything else,” on weekends. It appears, as of the time of this writing, that they still offer various room and dining packages, so you will want to compare that with the regular room rates, and take a deep look into the property’s restaurants, to decide if that might be the best deal for you.

Unfortunately, we can’t really call the property one that we would highly recommend overall, but that would change if they got rid of the stupid Resort Fees.

El Cortez

The El Cortez is not just one of the most historic properties in Downtown Las Vegas, it’s one of the most historic anywhere in the general area! This property was owned and operated by Jackie Gaughan for a number of years who, like Benny Binion, put a huge focus on appealing to guests of all budget levels and offering terrific gambling options to everyone who walked in the door. Along with Binion’s, El Cortez is one of the properties instrumental in making Downtown known as a place for people who wanted to REALLY gamble to go.

Located on Fremont Street, but not under the Fremont Street Experience, El Cortez would first open in November of 1941. As it sits now, the property is home to 364 guest rooms and suites as well as nearly 42,000 square feet of gambling real estate. Of course, there’s plenty of room in the table games area to get around, but we have to it that things can get pretty tight in the machine areas sometimes.

This Western themed casino is actually on the National of Historic Places, so if you’re wondering how important the property was in making Las Vegas what it is today, that should be enough by itself to give you an idea.

The property was originally built by Marlon Hicks and J.C. Grayson and was considered the first resort property in all of Las Vegas. That’s pretty remarkable considering that Las Vegas probably has as many properties that are considered resorts in such a relatively small geographic area, as any other city in the world!

The property would come to be owned by various figures associated with organized crime until Jacie Gaughan would purchase it in 1963. He would quickly expand the hotel’s room count and then do another add-on fifteen short years later. Much like the aesthetic of the property itself didn’t change, nor did the fact that Jackie Gaughan called the property’s penthouse home and could be found on the casino floor almost daily. Even after selling the property, Jackie worked into the deal that he still got to live in the penthouse and could be found playing poker with guests in the property’s small poker room for years after the sale.

The property was sold to Kenny Epstein, who still owns it and has invested some serious scratch in modernizing the place a bit. Jackie Gaughan ed away in March of 2014, but his memory still lives on at the El Cortez. I actually got to hear some really great stories about him from a Binion’s dealer that I played Pai-Gow Poker with for a few hours about a month after Jackie Gaughan’s ing.

As it sits and as of 2013, the property is the longest casino property in all of Las Vegas to operate continuously, and we would expect that to continue for several decades to come.

Guests of the hotel will enjoy wireless internet access, two bottles of water daily, a fun book filled with coupons for free play, match play and dining credits (old school—love it!) and free in-room coffee. The rooms are clean, somewhat small and slightly dated, but they’re quaint and will more than get the job done.

Weekday rates on the most basic rooms are sometimes less than $30/night, which is positively outstanding for Las Vegas visitors hunting for value. Weekend rates fluctuate, of course, and anything goes during special events, but most weekend nights are still going to be cheaper than many other hotels, even Downtown, and can sometimes be had for under $100/night, which is pretty impressive.

Unfortunately, some of the things that are d as, ‘Free,’ actually aren’t, given that the property charges a $19.95, “Amenity Fee.” I suppose saying, “Resort Fee,” would have made the oldest operating casino property in Vegas blush a little, so they decided to call it something else. Personally, I’d rather it just be added to the room rates as the, “Amenity Fee,” basically offsets the coupon book that you get. It’s basically a combination of cool and old-school coupon books with shitty new Resort Fees.

In spite of this, El Cortez remains a true value property and is sometimes less per night than even Binion’s, and that’s after taking the Amenity Fee into . On the other hand, Binion’s is directly under the Fremont Street Experience and El Cortez is not, so you can be the one to decide which is the best overall value for you.

They’ve had a promotion going for a few years, as of the time of this writing, by which you could cash your paycheck and receive 5% of the total amount, up to $50 on a $1,000+ check, in Free Play. That can actually be quite lucrative if you play it sensibly and don’t do any unnecessary gambling beyond that.

Live music is sometimes featured in the Piano Bar and/or the Lobby Bar, but the dates and times of such performances are very sporadic, so we would recommend checking out the El Cortez website for further details on that.

Just because you’re staying at a value property doesn’t mean that you aren’t going to want to look your best, which is why El Cortez offers a full service salon and barbershop right on property! I’ve talked to many guys who swear by the barbershop, so that’s definitely going to be worth checking out if you’re staying anywhere Downtown. The property also has a spa on the second floor that is scheduled to be open two hours per day, but you can call and see if you can get an appointment outside of those hours.

Naturally, what El Cortez is really about is the gambling, so let’s take a minute to talk about the gambling offerings that are available at this property:

El Cortez is home to several hundred combined slot, video poker and video keno machines, of which many are state of the art. For those of you looking for something more old school, El Cortez has one of the largest collection of old school coin-dropper machines that you’re likely to find anywhere. According to VPFree2, El Cortez also still offers several Video Poker games with returns of 99%+, so VP players will definitely want to check those out.

The El Cortez is also home to a brightly lit Table Games pit with fun and friendly dealers. Available games include Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Three-Card Poker, Double Roulette and Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em. You’ll be surprised at how busy the Tables area at this little casino gets on weekends!

The property is also home to a small and very dated race and sportsbook, but it’s kind of a neat little throwback on its own. It opens at 8:00 a.m. daily and stays open until the late evening hours, so go in and drop at least one bet there, for old times sake, before you head over and check out Circa…which should be considered the official sports betting capital of the world.

El Cortez also features a small high-limit room with a handful of slot machines and a couple of Blackjack tables. They are proud to announce that you can bet up to $2,000/hand at Blackjack, which will make you a very popular player there, while some Strip casinos would barely even blink.

With that, we turn our attention to the property’s handful of restaurants.

Siegel’s 1941 offers an old school elegant type of dining environment that would have been all the rage in the year that it was named. While it may feel a bit dated, we promise that the food is both delicious and very modestly priced. In fact, we would say that Downtown steakhouses and American food places are capable of rivaling any of the same type of restaurants that the Las Vegas Strip has to offer. The elegance and opulence and modern aesthetics are fine and all…but great food is still great food!

Ike’s is a lounge named after the current owner’s father, Ike Epstein, who was a bookmaker from Chicago. While having a few cocktails there, guests can order a bite to eat from Siegel’s gameside, which is an extension of Siegel’s 1941.

Eureka! Has a bit more modern sportsbar type vibe and serves a wide variety of fun cocktails and craft beers. There are a few locations here and there out West, so you might already be familiar with this small chain American Pub style place.

Sushi Ichiban is an all you can eat sushi restaurant. That’s incredible. They will tremble in fear before me when they see me walk in the door, because they KNOW they aren’t going to be making money on this guest. Hopefully, I might run into some readers from here next time I am in Las Vegas, as you can guarantee that I will be going to this location for all you can eat sushi at least once every trip.

Finally, the property is also home to a Subway. Subway needs no introduction.

With that, we have covered everything that there is to find at the El Cortez, but as to the question of whether or not we would recommend it for people wanting to do Vegas on a budget—probably. While we are no great fans of the, “Amenity Fee,” we think that the average rates are low enough, as well as the coupon book that you get having enough offsetting value, to make the Resort Fee basically acceptable enough. It’s at least better than the places where you pay a Resort Fee and get literally nothing in exchange.

Of course, we know that they are using the Resort Fee as a mechanism so that their listed weekday rates compare favorably to those of other Downtown properties, but when you’re comparing two properties, just look at the whole thing in of total cost—which the El Cortezx makes easy enough to see (to their credit) before you have to start putting in your information for booking. Sometimes, they’ll be cheaper, and occasionally, Binion’s will be cheaper. You’ll also have to factor in how important being directly under the Fremont Street Experience is or is not to you, or perhaps you’re the type who doesn’t prefer all of that noise anyway.

 

Four Queens Hotel and Casino

The Four Queens Hotel and Casino is a sizeable Downtown Las Vegas property that is located directly under the Fremont Street Experience! This is another Downtown location with a long-standing reputation as being a value-oriented property, even by Downtown standards, but it still has plenty to offer!

As it sits now, the property is home to 690 guest rooms and suites as well as 27,269 square feet of gambling space. Compared to a few of the other properties Downtown, it is on the small side, but they pack a lot in there. With that said, even as someone who really enjoys the property, I have to it that getting around the machine areas can be a little tight, at times.

Ben Goffstein would build the Four Queens with the name as a nod to his four daughters, but also a play on the queen rank of playing cards, of course, because technically they would have been the four princesses of the property. It would first open for business in June of 1966 and has continuously operated since that time.

In 1972, the property would be purchased by the Elsinore Corporation, who would own and operate the establishment for just over two decades. By the mid 1990’s, traffic to the Downtown area of Las Vegas had dropped substantially, so an inability to attract new visitors (and losing increasing numbers of visitors to The Strip year after year), would cause the company to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1995.

Fortunately, the historic Downtown property would be purchased out of bankruptcy by an investment firm that had the finances to do a few renovations to the property which would bring back some visitors. Seeing potential there, Terry Caudill would purchase Four Queens in 2003 and would expand the casino floor to increase the slot count. Renovations have taken place every few years since then and, in spite of the Great Recession, the casino performed reasonably well after a 20 million 2007 renovation and would do another small renovation in 2009, right in the heart of the Great Recession.

TLC Casino Entertainment (named after the owner’s initials, former Craps dealer, by the way—talk about ri!) would later go on to acquire Binion’s Gambling Hall and Saloon, having purchased that property from MTR Gaming (now part of Caesars Entertainment via El Dorado Resorts) who themselves had purchased it from Harrah’s…which would become Caesars Entertainment prior to the takeover by El Dorado…though the new company would also be called Caesars Entertainment.

In any event, TLC has been a successful Downtown casino operator and even managed to get the renovation of the boutique Hotel Apache done over on the Binion’s side of operations, so that technically counts as something of an expansion. As we mentioned in our Binion’s listing, this company continues to place a huge emphasis on value.

The hotel rooms are fairly small—basically the same size as when the property first opened. They are also the modest affair that one would expect from a Downtown Vegas value property, low on frills, but high on value. I had the opportunity to stay there myself and the accommodations were pretty similar to a middle-grade Economy hotel, like a Super 8, or something along those lines. My room hadn’t been cleaned particularly well, but I’m told that is something of an anomaly and I also could have switched rooms, had I wanted.

Weekday room rates generally range anywhere from $49-$89, assuming that there are n special events. One nice thing about the property is that what you see is what you get, in of the rate, as (like Binion’s) the Four Queens proudly charges no Resort Fee whatsoever.

Weekend room rates are sometimes as low as $99, but that’s if it’s a really dead weekend and you can get a standard room. Anything goes when it comes to weekend rates in Las Vegas, so don’t be surprised to see rooms over $200, and even occasionally over $300, if there’s some special event in town (or a Raiders home game the following day) or it’s just a weekend during the busy demand season. Of course, true value hunters are generally going to want to avoid weekends in Las Vegas, anyway.

The one thing that we should point out is that, while the property has no Resort Fee, you will have to pay if you want Internet access. For most people, that shouldn’t be a big deal as many of you will have unlimited data cell phone plans…and my experience has been that both AT&T and T-Mobile, at least, have good quality of service in L.V.; though I can’t speak for other cell phone providers.

In of entertainment, the property is home to two regular shows, as of the time of this writing. The first is Mike Hammer Magic Comedy with an Edge, a staple of the property that has been enjoyed by guests for several years, at this point. The second show is Hypnosis Unleashed, which blends hypnosis with comedy; it also performs most nights of the week, so please check their website for the current schedule if you have any interest in that.

The casino floor remains home to more than 1,000 combined slot, video poker and video keno devices ranging in denominations from pennies to $25 per credit, at least, that was the biggest one I saw on my most recent visit. There might be a $100 machine now, but I didn’t notice one when I was there. As of my most recent visit, the property was home to several Video Poker machines in the 99%+ return range, which includes a large bank of 9/6 (99.54%) Jacks or Better machines.

The Table Games area runs though kind of the middle of the casino floor and features a variety of games including, Craps, Blackjack, Roulette, 3 Card Poker, Blackjack Switch, and Let-It-Ride. You’ll actually find that the majority of these games are open most hours, though a few will close during the late-night hours, so you might want to get specific hours of operation for anything aside from Blackjack and Craps if that’s important to you. Get ready for some standing/sitting room only action, as the Table Games area is often packed to the gills, but it’s a lot of fun.

Finally, the property is home to a William Hill Sports Book location, of course, sports bettors are probably going to want to go check out Circa if they are Downtown….you pretty much have to.

While Four Queens is very much a value property from the standpoint of accommodations and gambling, it is not a slouch when it comes to food offerings. While they are home to only a few eateries, what they do have is fantastic—I would know!

Their signature restaurant is Hugo’s Cellar, which is a fine dining steakhouse that is open for dinner service seven nights per week, and has this, in part, to say:

With its brick-lined walls and deep comfortable booths Hugo’s Cellar is synonymous with romantic dining with exquisite service.

Greeted with a long-stemmed rose for the ladies, your evening can start with a fine classic martini while you pour through the many exceptional menu options.

You can begin your culinary pleasure with the irresistible Hugo’s Hot Rock Specialty appetizer, offering tenderloin medallions of beef, marinated swordfish, breast of chicken, and jumbo shrimp prepared on a sizzling slab of granite right at your table.

Your pleasure will continue with a tableside salad cart prepared to order. The main course might be an opulent char-broiled steak, aged 21 days and subtly seasoned, Australian Lobster, Beef Wellington, Rack of Lamb, or a selection of many other delicious choices.

The food here is seriously no joke and it is a restaurant that is appreciated by locals, value-oriented Las Vegas visitors and even some folks who stay on The Strip will make it a point to go Downtown for one day, in part, to eat at Hugo’s Cellar. It really is on par with any other steakhouse in town—The Las Vegas Strip included. Besides, the customer service at Four Queens is fantastic, so you’ll leave feeling more like family than you will a visitor; of course, that’s how you get people wanting to come back!

Magnolia’s Veranda is an aesthetically modest American food restaurant with prices that are on the high-end of casual pricing. That said, I’ve eaten at this restaurant a few times—including their frequently acclaimed Prime Rib special, and have found each of my visits to be excellent. This is another establishment within Four Queens that is popular amongst Las Vegas locals and visitors alike. For those of you not so much into prime rib, don’t worry, they have plenty of other delectable offerings and great burgers!

The Chicago Brewing Company is a comfortable sports bar type atmosphere that is a popular hangout for visitors to Four Queens. They serve a variety of American foods and, in of actual eats, are probably best known for their pizzas…they’re pretty good! The main reason that you will want to stop in, at least for most people, is the fun craft beer flights and wide selection of cigars. I’ve had a great time here on a few different occasions!

That about does it for Four Queens, which is a property that I simply love and have had great experiences with, exception to the cleanliness of my hotel room the one time. Again, I am told that they are usually very clean, so I plan to spend at least one night here the next time I’m in Vegas and will update this page if my hotel room experience is different.

Another thing that you will want to do when you arrive is check out some of the physical coupon books, as they will often have offers that you will not see online. I don’t believe it’s going on this year, but one of the strongest offers they have ever had is that you could go to Chicago Brew Pub during an NFL game, spend up to $100, then take your receipt to the player’s club and get it back in Free Play. On that occasion, I had a couple of beer flights, a tall beer and then loaded up on cigars.

Unfortunately, that specific deal hasn’t been the case for several years, which leads me to believe that it was just a little bit too juicy. Probably because of people like me running it off once on the 9/6 Jacks or Better machines and not really giving the property much other action that day.

Fremont Hotel and Casino

Fremont Hotel and Casino is another Boyd Gaming owned and operated Downtown property, and as such, is part of the BConnected Players Club program. Located under the Fremont Street Experience, this is the fourth property that forms a square of Golden Nugget, Four Queens, Binion’s and Fremont.

This property would originally open in May of 1956 and, over the years, would transition to being a value property. It always had a history of being kind to gamblers of all budgets, which you pretty much had to do, when you had Binion’s next store to you. One of the things they have been most known for over the years is having a Craps Table with $3 minimums at all times.

Other online sources still have them listed for $3 Craps, as of the time of this writing, but I haven’t personally been there recently enough (since Covid, basically) to be able to personally confirm this.

As it sits now, the property’s hotel is home to a modest 447 rooms and the gambling floor consists of 32,000 square feet of real estate, which makes it about average…if not a hair above average in size…for a Downtown casino.

Originally owned by Ed Levinson and Lou Lurie, the former being one of the first investors in Sands Casino, the property would cruise along for nearly two decades. However, Levinson would soon find himself involved in a skimming scandal, which isn’t really a huge surprise when one considers his former ties to illegal gambling operations, and the property would be sold to Argent Corporation in 1974.

Argent would own the property for nearly a decade, and do an expansion of the hotel, but then it was sold to Sam Boyd, then Boyd Gaming magnate, in 1983. Boyd Gaming continues to own and operate the property to this day—almost thirty years later.

Fremont hotel operations are NOT the value that they used to be whatsoever. The rooms are clean and reasonably well appointed, basically something that you would expect from a high-tier economy hotel or low-tier limited service hotel, but it doesn’t seem they are doing much to price compete with nearby properties.

We find that rates for most weekdays are nearly $100, while weekend rates can range wildly depending on what is going on in town—such as Saturday nights before a Raiders home game.

The WORST part is that Fremont charges a totally unjustifiable $27.11 Resort Fee, and then has the audacity to demand another $9.99 if you want Internet—which likely means Internet than can actually load videos in a reasonable amount of time. Honestly, for the level of this property, this Resort Fee is nothing short of completely ridiculous. There are Strip properties, I believe, that actually have a lower one…and lower weekday rates, for that matter.

What do guests get in exchange for the Resort Fee, other than shitty internet? Basically nothing. Guests can access the pool at Boyd’s sister Downtown property, California Casino, except it seems to be temporarily closed as of the time of this writing. Binion’s and Four Queens have no Resort Fees, and as we saw above, El Cortez is much cheaper than Fremont…even with its amenity fee.

I still like how all of these places list, “Unlimited local and toll-free calls,” as if that’s some kind of favor. If you can afford to visit Las Vegas at all, then you probably already have a phone plan with unlimited minutes, if not also unlimited data. This Resort Fee, in our opinion, basically gets you exactly nothing with the pool at the California being closed, and even if it were open, it’s a block away anyway! Main Street Station at least has a direct walkway to California (yes, guests of that hotel also go to California’s pool), so that gets a little bit of a .

We should also mention that everyone on the casino floor, guest or otherwise, gets free access to their basic WiFi—so we REALLY mean it when we say that the Fremont Resort Fee gets you absolutely nothing. They can’t even really claim that the surcharge is doing anything for you.

The casino floor is at least better and features a little over 1,000 combined slot, video poker and video keno games. Fremont also has four or five video poker paytables in the mid 98%-mid 99% range, so that’s at least some gambling value there. One thing that we DO like about Boyd Gaming is that there is a slot machine finder on their site here, so if there are any games from online casinos or your local/regional casinos that you are into, then you can hop on Boyd’s website and see if the Fremont has those.

As ridiculous as their Resort Fee is, we have to give some credit where it’s due. Live Keno is open seven days per week from 7:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m., as of the time of this writing. It’s not on their website, but we called and verified just to make sure it wasn’t closed—as some casinos did shut down Keno operations during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The property is also home to two dozen table games which consist mostly of Blackjack, Craps and Roulette. There are also a few carnival games there, but it’s hard to say when those tables will be open and games change somewhat frequently, so we would recommend stopping in or calling in advance to see what other games are there at any given time.

Finally, the property is home to a race and sports book as well as Live Keno, though we would imagine that you would want to go to the brand new Circa to do your sports betting, even if you are actually staying at The Fremont. In fairness, prior to Circa opening, Fremont could have been considered to have one of the better sportsbooks Downtown, so we would still consider it serviceable.

The Fremont is also home to a few eateries, including Tony Roma’s BBQ Ribs, Seafood and Steaks, which is open for nightly dinner service and is something of a higher end casual restaurant in of its pricing.

The Second Street Grill is your place for breakfast, lunch and brunch. Open daily, this eatery is a pretty simply appointed affair with really cheap eats, but it’ll definitely get the job done if you get hungry and want to step away from the low minimum Tables pit for a quick bite.

Finally, the Food Court is home to Lanai Express (Asian/American), Dunkin’ Donuts and Rocky Mountain Chocolate, in case you have a sweet tooth.

In of entertainment, aside from the Fremont Street Experience and the gambling, there really isn’t any entertainment at The Fremont. Honestly, other than a few eateries, some decent Video Poker, decent Table Games pit with low minimums and a reasonably good sports book—there’s really no reason to visit the Fremont, much less stay.

Overall, we would NOT recommend Fremont because the fact that this property even charges a Resort Fee is outlandish. More outlandish is the fact that you have to pay extra for internet, otherwise get the same internet that everyone on the casino floor gets for free, even though you are paying the $27.11 Resort Fee. When the California pool is open, it’s still located at California Casino and, unlike Main Street Station, there’s no enclosed walkway from Fremont to California…so what they should do is just have a separate charge IF you want to go and use the pool at California.

While we don’t like Resort Fees, at all, there’s basically no choice but to accept them at this time. However, when we look at Downtown properties such as Binion’s and Four Queens (no Resort Fee) or El Cortez (Amenity Fee—but lower than Fremont’s) that charges a fee, but actually gives you a few niceties and a coupon book to go with it—there’s simply no way that we can recommend the Fremont for your stay. If it’s not a value property, then it’s nothing and it’s NOT much of a value for overnight accommodations.

That said, we can recommend it if you are a Video Poker player who is staying somewhere without any 99%+ machines or where those are occupied. We can also recommend it for low-limit Table Games players, but only if they can’t find free space at another Table Downtown that has the same minimums going on. Sorry, Fremont, but you’re simply not doing what it is you should be—focusing on value in all aspects.

Golden Gate Casino

Golden Gate Casino was the first of three Downtown Las Vegas casinos owned by Derek and Greg Stephens, who are still the owners of the property to this day. As with The D, Golden Gate operates with a very, “Customer-First,” focus and emphasizes providing gamblers with exceptional treatment and value. It is located on one of the far ends of the Fremont Street Experience, across from Circa and across the street from Plaza Hotel and Casino.

As it sits now, Golden Gate is home to 106 guestrooms and just over 12,000 feet of fairly tightly packed gambling real estate. That’s perfectly understandable, of course, because the overall building itself is very much on the small side.

This property would originally open as the Hotel Nevada, in January of 1906, before there were even any legal casinos in Las Vegas. However, it does have a few firsts under its belt—for starters, they had the first telephone in the Las Vegas, which is still on display to this day. For the second first, they were technically the first casino in the state. The reason that it’s true on a technicality is because gambling was not yet regulated, at that time, and gambling would be banned in the State of Nevada (!) in 1909.

Gambling would later be legalized in the state, in 1931, so the hotel property was able to dust off the blackjack and poker tables that had been in storage for more than two decades. Hotel Nevada would be renamed to Sal Sagev that same year, which isn’t anyone’s name, it’s just Las Vegas spelled backwards.

The name for the Golden Gate Casino would come about in 1955 when the owner of the property would lease the casino operations to a group of several men, who also financed having the casino floor renovated. At that time, the hotel aspect of the property was not yet called The Golden Gate, but the casino floor area began its theme of 1930’s area San Francisco, which has persisted to this day. The hotel side of the property was still called the Sal Segav.

The full property would not be renamed to the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino until 1974, well after the original owner of the property had ed away. The property was originally ed down to the family of the original owner, but by 1990, would find itself in the hands of Italo Ghelfi, who had been one of the property’s operators for a few decades, by that point.

The property would be renovated in 2005, and by that point, was owned and operated by Ghelfi’s son. It would then be sold, at least 51% of it, to brothers Derek and Greg Stepehens who had a piece of the Riviera (now closed and demolished) casino at that time and who would go on to purchase The D (formerly Fitzgerald’s) and to build Circa.

Over the years, Derek and Greg Stephens would introduce the concept of dancing dealers to the property and the Table Games atmosphere was as electric, but also loud, as that of The D Casino. It’s quite the party type atmosphere, so that might be fun if you’re not in the mood for a quiet game…it certainly attracts a younger crowd. They would also pump more money into the property in the form of various renovations and would eventually come into full ownership.

DuPar’s was a very popular San Francisco themed restaurant that was enjoyed both by guests and Las Vegas locals during this time. Located in the back left of the building, the ambiance was that of an old-school diner, circa the 1930’s or 1940’s…or something like that. Locals especially would rave about the food, and I had both breakfast and dinner there, on one occasion…and while I thought it was pretty good, I didn’t see what was supposed to be out of this world about it. Unfortunately, the restaurant didn’t make enough to cover their lease with Golden Gate Casino, so it would seem that enough people agreed with my take on the dining establishment…otherwise, it should have been doing well.

The property was actually smaller than it is now! Believe it or not, these 12,000 square feet of gambling space came as a result of an expansion, which came about when Golden Gate purchased the small slot house casino called La Bayou, which was similar to Mermaids in that it offered plenty of coin dropper machines and cheap snacks. This expansion was needed to make room for a small sportsbook run by Circa Sports, though we couldn’t imagine why guests wouldn’t just cross the Fremont Street Experience and check out Circa instead…it’s only steps away. If there’s a reason for it at all, maybe the Stephens just felt that not enough sports bettors staying down at that side were visiting The D.

Golden Gate is definitely the value property of Stephens-owned properties, with Standard Room rates being as low as $24/night during the slowest part of the demand season and on weekdays. Weekend rates are also going to be amongst the cheapest you will find in Las Vegas, though they will often be in the $100 range (still pretty cheap) even when no special events are going on and it is slow. During special events, anything can happen, but you can pretty much rely on them to be one of the cheapest Downtown hotels regardless of what the rates are.

The Stephens also pumped a bunch of money into modernizing the rooms of the Golden Gate and replacing all of the old and dumpy furniture with more modern furnishings. Honestly, the rooms are mostly small (especially the standard rooms), but like The D, they are quite nice.

With that, we have to get to the bad news. The property charges a Resort Fee of $29.95/night, plus the tax on that, which means that technically the Resort Fees are sometimes more than the room rate itself. That’s obviously ridiculous on its face, and unfortunately, the Resort Fees really don’t get you that much. While you will have access to wireless internet, if you want to have access to a fitness room or pool, then you will have to trudge on down to the opposite side of the Fremont Street Experience and use the facilities at The D.

Some of you might say, “Oh, it’s nice that you can use the facilities at The D if you are staying at Golden Gate.” My response is, “Not Really.” The reason why is because they could just have a separate charge for everyone who actually intends to use those services, instead, guests pay the Resort Fee whether or not they are using them—and the vast majority of guests probably will not. In this sense, the Resort Fee is effectively just hidden room rate.

With that said, the rooms REMAIN REALLY cheap, even if you factor in the Resort Fee. With that in mind, we are not going to disrecommend this property, but would say that you should at least compare the total cost to hotels such as Binion’s and Four Queens…as Golden Gate might sometimes be cheaper, even with the Resort Fee added.

Or, if you would prefer just to automatically stay at properties with no Resort Fee, just skip the searching…save your calculator a little work…and stay at Binion’s or Four Queens instead.

As of the time of this writing, you will have access to Stadium Swim at Circa, which WOULD arguably make the Resort Fee worth it (it’s amazing), but we can’t guarantee that offer will last forever and might be mainly to get people to check out the higher-priced Circa property…which you should do anyway, if you are a sports bettor.

I’m not going to lie; I hate Resort Fees; I hate the notion of guests essentially paying to access a pool that they are probably not going to actually access…but credit where it’s due: If you were to offer me to hang out at the Stadium Pool at Circa, for a straight-up cost of $15/person, then I would have to it that it’s probably worth the price-straight up. Of course, I would prefer if they would just do that for guests as opposed to having a Resort Fee—let them pay for es if they want to go.

As far as entertainment associated with this property is concerned, you’ll basically want to just check out our listing on Circa.

The casino floor is home to several hundred combined slot, video poker and video keno games and features a small high-limit room. Denominations range from pennies to $25 per credit, and the high-limit room is kind of hidden with their website saying to look for the original Hotel Nevada brickwork. We don’t want to spoil the surprise, so we’re not going to tell you exactly how to get there, either. As of the time of this writing, there are a few Video Poker machines available that are more than 98%, but less than 99%, so not the best Downtown has to offer, but not awful, either.

As we mentioned before, this casino is really small, so be prepared for it to get a bit congested in spots. It often draws something of a younger crowd (at least, by Vegas Gambler standards) who enjoy the boisterous atmosphere as well as the Dancing Dealers.

The Table Games pit of the Golden Gate is not hard to miss and offers Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Three-Card Poker and Let it Ride. They are proud to offer 3:2 on all Natural Blackjacks and also are known to offer 10x odds on Craps, which is good for Las Vegas—but strangely enough, is kind of the standard for local/regional ts around the country, at least, in my experience.

You won’t generally find too many high rollers at Golden Gate, though they did accept the largest bet on Roulette in the history of Las Vegas, so check out the Table Games section of their website and follow the link if you want to read all about that!

At this time, the property is not home to any eateries.

Overall, we recommend the Golden Gate Casino and Hotel for those of you out there who want to step foot on a slice of Nevada history. It’s the first casino in Las Vegas, though technically not the oldest, but only by virtue of the fact that it did not continuously operate as Golden Gate for long enough of its history. The first phone in Las Vegas is also still there to see, so you can check that out.

We would also recommend Golden Gate for Table Games players looking for relatively low minimums (on some days), great value on rules and odds and who enjoy the Dancing Dealers, at least, if you can actually play with all of that noise going on. I’m probably too old to play with all of the ruckus, and to give you an idea how loud that is, I’m not even 40 yet.

Finally, we would recommend that you look into it if you are looking for the best value properties Downtown for overnight accommodations. While we are not thrilled with the Resort Fee, we find it partially justified if it still gains access to The Stadium Pool at Circa as of the date of your trip, and even if not, the overall price might still end up being as low as Binion’s or Four Queens even with paying the Resort Fee. We would at least recommend comparison shopping, unless you absolutely refuse to stay anywhere with a Resort Fee in protest.

Golden Nugget Las Vegas

The Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas, which is under the Fremont Street Experience, makes up one of the four corners of itself, Four Queens, Fremont and Binion’s. Prior to the opening of Circa, though gaudy in its aesthetic, Golden Nugget was essentially the closest thing that you would find Downtown to a Las Vegas Resort casino property. I guess, in of the aesthetic and how new the property is, an argument could be made for Downtown Grand, but it never achieved Golden Nugget’s popularity, probably never will and Circa is almost certain to be more popular than DG.

The property would originally open in August of 1946 and that makes it one of the oldest casino properties in the entire city. As it stands now, the property is home to a whopping 2,419 total guest rooms and suites and consists of 38,000 square feet of total gambling space, which makes it one of the largest casino floors in the Downtown area.

The Golden Nugget was once owned by Jackie Gaughan, who would later become the sole owner of the El Cortez, until just a few years prior to his death. The property would also go on to be majority-owned by none other than Steve Wynn, who eventually divested himself of this majority ownership and would instead focus his operations on the Las Vegas Strip.

That would be as a part of Mirage Resorts, which in 2000, was sold in its entirety to MGM Grand Resorts, which is now called MGM Resorts International. The property would be sold by MGM Grand Resorts, who similarly wanted to focus on their Las Vegas Strip holdings, to Poster Financial Group in 2003. MGM Grand Resorts was also in the process of obtaining Mandalay Bay (Mandalay Resort Group) at this time, so we imagine that the 200+ million dollar sale of the Golden Nugget provided an appreciated influx of cash that would help the corporation with its other properties—which included operations in Macau, which is when they came yo be called MGM Resorts International.

Landry’s Inc. would purchase the Golden Nugget in 2006, and despite the fact that the Downtown Las Vegas tourist traffic had already peaked, felt that they could still do well attracting the more high-end guests that would prefer to spend some time on Fremont Street. With that, they would spend over 300 million dollars, over the next five or so years, engaging in renovations and additions to the already sizable Downtown property.

Enter the Great Recession, though that had started during the final phase of the expansion, which was the additional hotel tower called the, “Rush Hotel Tower.” Even with that, Landry’s Inc. was financially well-positioned to weather the storm. It also helped that the Golden Nugget performed about as well as one could expect, given the circumstances.

In some ways, their Downtown positioning also helped them out during that time. While they are/were (remains to be seen compared to Circa) the most expensive Downtown property, many saw them as being something of a value compared to Las Vegas Strip properties, and that can also be said for those who are perfectly happy to play and dine at other Downtown casinos and venues.

The property is still home to the world’s largest actual golden nugget on display. Of course, Circa’s display of 100 gold bars all emblazoned with the Circa logo might even be seen as them trying to rival Golden Nugget in that way, also. Either way, it’s definitely worth having a go and look-see at that. Another popular attraction is the fact that the property has a shark tank near the property’s pool, so that’s something else that is definitely worth going to take a peek at, even if you’re not actually staying at the property.

Guests will enjoy access to the property’s wireless internet for up to two devices, though they may not enjoy the $34.00/night Resort Fee that comes with their stay. While we are no huge fan of Resort Fees, we do have to remark that Golden Nugget and Circa are the two Downtown properties where they are at least somewhat justified (in of actually being resorts) if they can ever be justified at all. Here’s what Golden Nugget says that it gets you:

All reservations will incur a daily $34.00 Resort Fee plus applicable taxes added to the room rate at check in. The resort fee includes: access for two to the Fitness Center daily (does not include the wet areas), basic, in-room daily Internet access for 2 devices daily, two bottled waters, daily (waters will be located in the guest rooms), complimentary parking, complimentary airline boarding es printing via the Front Desk or Box Office 24/7, complimentary newspapers in your respective tower lobby from 6am to 10am daily, downtown destination coupons.

I guess we can say that they at least took the time to type some words to pretend that the Resort Fee is getting you something that you weren’t already getting prior to its implementation. They at least took the time to make it seem more justified than some other properties do.

In of standard rooms, Golden Nugget isn’t exactly a value property on weekdays, especially not when you consider the Resort Fees, as there are many properties on the Las Vegas Strip that are actually cheaper and have just as many (though not exactly the same) amenities. Naturally, Golden Nugget is not a value property by Downtown standards in any way at all.

Where we think Golden Nugget positions itself well in the tourist market is that they appeal to Vegas visitors who would prefer to stay Downtown because they like the scene, but want to stay at an establishment more comparable in furnishings and amenities to what might be found on the Las Vegas Strip. It’s also possible that many of these visitors are inclined to drop a mint on their rooms, but take advantage of the cost savings to be had elsewhere Downtown with lower priced shows, dining and lower Table Minimums at some of the other Downtown properties.

In short, if you’re looking for gambling value, but also want to stay in style, then the Golden Nugget should be on your list of considerations for those wanting to go to the Downtown area. Do we think there’s value in actually staying there? Well, let’s take a look at everything that they have to offer, then we’ll give our opinion, but you can ultimately decide for yourself.

Weekday rooms can often run just under $100 (before adding the Resort Fee) if that week is not particularly busy. During more touristy weeks, that can go out the window, though we can say that standard weekday rooms are rarely more than $150/night and almost always under $200. Weekend rates are all over the place, often more than even $300/night for a standard room if it’s going to be a busy weekend…but they are also often lower, though generally well over $100. Whatever the weekend rates are at other Downtown properties, then add approximately 25-40% to that and that’s probably going to be right about where Golden Nugget will be.

The rooms themselves are not as new as some other Las Vegas properties, but they are stylish and modern enough. It’s interesting how designs change in relatively short periods of time, but it’s pretty apparent that the Golden Nugget is basically what a, “New,” room would have looked like ten years ago. They’re actually quite similar to rooms at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, which is an actual value property, due its Marina location.

During the swimming season, guests will enjoy access to the Tank Pool, which is the one where they can swim with the sharks and is the most popular. Don’t worry, the sharks are in a tank that’s enclosed behind the main pool area, so no concerns about guests being eaten by Jaws.

The Hideout Pool is a smaller Infinity Pool on the property for which cabanas and daybeds can also be rented, with occupancy being on a first-come first-serve basis aside from that. The Hideout is an adults-only pool, so you can expect quiet, comfort and solitude, and would usually have a walk-up bar, but that’s closed as of the time of this writing due to Covid-19. There’s almost no doubt in anyone’s mind that the walkup bar for this pool will be returning as quickly as possible.

As of the time of this writing, the Golden Nugget is home to five unique shopping destinations. While that doesn’t exactly put Strip casinos to shame, it’s more than you’re going to find at Downtown properties elsewhere. You can check out the list of what they have here. Guests will enjoy access to a spa + salon and fitness center, though the fitness center actually appears to be closed Monday-Wednesday, as of the time of this writing. Appointments for spa and salon services can be booked through their website and we would expect the fitness center to return to full operation after the pandemic is done.

In of regular entertainment, Lasting Impressions is a show by musician Gordie Brown that is currently taking place two evenings per week, as of the time of this writing. This schedule may change at some point in the future, so we would recommend checking out their website for whenever you may plan to be going. Covid-19 traffic decreases have hurt the property in of special performances, but as of right now, Blue Oyster Cult is scheduled to appear for New Year’s Eve. If you’re going and have an extra ticket, please feel free to shoot me a message. (Kidding)

There are some other special performances scheduled for weekends through the end of this year, and presumably there will be some for the coming years, that can be found here.

This property is also home to no fewer than seven lounges and bars, so it actually can rival some of the Las Vegas Strip casinos when it comes to having plenty of places to go for a cocktail. One of the funniest experiences that I ever had is when I was at the property and wanted to see what the nightclub was all about, but this being, “Dead Week,” (the week before Christmas) I was the only one there. They didn’t even bother trying to get a cover charge out of me. Not knowing what else to do, I ordered a drink, shot the breeze with the bartender for about ten minutes, then left.

With that, let’s turn our attention to the gambling offerings of the property.

As we mentioned before, Golden Nugget has one of the largest casino floors in the Downtown area, though it would be just below average by Las Vegas Strip standards. I can certainly say that they pack a lot into the casino floor, so getting around the slot and tables areas might be a little tricky on the busiest of days. While I do not claim that my few visits to the property are indicative of what you can expect, I can say that, in my personal experience, Golden Nugget was the absolute slowest casino when it comes to cocktail service. Perhaps it has changed now, but I am basing that statement on probably half a dozen lengthy visits.

The Golden Nugget is home to some 1,000 combined slot, video poker and video keno machines that range in denomination from pennies to hundreds. As of my most recent visit, they had a handful of Video Poker machines with returns in the mid-98% range, which isn’t terrible, but you can do better elsewhere Downtown (like Four Queens) unless that has changed somewhat recently. Another thing about their decent paytables is that most of them are at the $1 denomination, or above, with only one 98%+ paytable that I found being at under a $5 total bet. If you’re looking for value video poker, then you’d probably do well to look elsewhere.

There are a few dozen gaming tables that include Blackjack, Roulette, Craps, Mini-Baccarat and a handful of carnival games that they don’t seem to care to list on their website. If you’re looking for a particular carnival game, then we would recommend calling and asking if it is offered at all, and if so, during what days and hours is it typically available.

Golden Nugget is proud to say that their sports book is home to more TV’s per square foot than any other casino in Nevada. However, unless they are counting the pure number of units per square foot, this statement is no longer true and the title would easily belong to Circa. With that said, it is a nice sportsbook and there’s no doubt that guests of the property will be able to watch in relative comfort. If you’re not staying at Golden Nugget, and probably even if you are, we would have to recommend hanging out at Circa if sports are your main thing.

The property is also home to a modest Poker Room, and if you look around enough, you might even be able to find a coupon where they add a little to your buy-in. I was able to avail myself of such a coupon on one occasion and played a little Limit Texas Hold ‘Em and ended up with a small profit. The four-of-a-kind that I ended up turning a pocket pair into certainly didn’t hurt! I think it was threes, but it might have been fours. Anyway, I think that the poker room is nice and would definitely consider playing there again if in the mood for poker.

With the gambling operations discussed, let’s turn to the restaurant scene at the Golden Nugget and see how it compares to some of the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip!

The first thing that we will quickly note is that they have a Starbucks location on site, which normally wouldn’t be notable, except there’s not one in every single casino Downtown like there is elsewhere, so those of you staying elsewhere might want to know where to look.

Vic and Anthony’s, the Golden Nugget states, is one of the Top Ten steakhouses in America and is this property’s upscale steakhouse answer to the Las Vegas Strip. Here’s what they have to say:

Elegant, intimate Vic & Anthony’s is the place to be when you’re on a winning streak and looking for a winning steak. Our award-winning menu features USDA prime grain-fed beef, fresh seafood and an extensive wine collection.

The original Vic & Anthony’s in Houston is routinely voted one of America’s ten best steakhouses. As for Vic & Anthony’s second location, we’ll let the menu speak for itself – with succulent beef, lobster and unique appetizers. All accompanied by an eclectic wine selection and impeccable service, in a classically luxurious atmosphere.

Recently, one of this eatery’s specialties has become Kobe beef, so it may well be the only place you’re likely to find that in a Downtown Las Vegas Casino. While Golden Nugget might not necessarily rival the most elegant Strip properties in gambling square footage, they’re certainly ready to put their Vic and Anthony’s Steakhouse location against anything the Strip may have to offer.

Saltgrass Steak House is a more casual affair that opens at 9:00 a.m. most days of the week, but is only open for dinner service on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. In of the price and the offerings, what you would expect from this location is more along the lines of what you would get at a Texas Roadhouse, Longhorn Steakhouse, or a place like that. It honestly doesn’t look much different from those, either, and has this to say:

An award-winning steakhouse famous for serving Certified Angus Beef® brand steaks, known for its superior quality, tenderness and flavor. Each steak is cooked to perfection with Saltgrass-7 Steak Spice and then topped with fresh garlic butter to further enhance its mouthwatering flavor.

Saltgrass also offers a wide selection of equally as delicious fresh seafood, chicken, BBQ baby back ribs, as well as juicy burgers, sandwiches, salads and more. All breads, dressings, soups and desserts are made from scratch daily. Great food partnered with legendary hospitality make Saltgrass an enjoyable experience for the whole family.

Personally, I’d just as soon have my steak sans being drowned in butter, but people say that it doesn’t sacrifice the flavor of the beef. Still, I’m going to take their world for it and have them give me a little bit on the side that I can drizzle on lightly if I use it at all.

Chart House is the Golden Nugget’s upscale casual place that specializes in seafood and has decor to match. Literally, as it’s home to a 75,000 gallon aquarium! For those of you who aren’t into seafood, don’t worry, they also serve a variety of steaks as well as Prime Rib. Personally, I think you’d do well to save the steak for one of the steakhouses on a different night, preferably Vic and Anthony’s, and go for the prime rib here if you don’t like seafood.

Grotto Italian Ristorante is a casual Italian eatery and lounge that is open for dinner service on weekends. It has a wide assortment of cocktails as well as the traditional Italian dishes that you would expect. Honestly, it’s pretty much just an average Italian restaurant, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

CJ has a little something of everything American, including burgers, sandwiches, but probably most notably their homemade and fresh-baked pot pie. Vegas visitors from the Midwest are almost certain to want to go for that staple of this eatery! For those of you who have never tried a pot pie, then this should probably be the place to do it if you’re only ever going to do it once. It’s basically what it sounds like, meat, vegetables and gravy all baked into a bread bowl that is made in a pie tin. Their six-layer Motherlode Cake is also a popular dessert item, but it is rich like Landry, so make sure that you’ve got friends to share that piece with. By the way, the BEST way to eat a pot pie is to delicately turn it upside down and start from the bottom, by the time you get to the thick top crust, it’s had plenty of time to absorb the gravy.

Golden Nugget is home to a Chick-Fil-A location that, you guessed it, is open every day except Sunday! I wonder if they have hired Chick Fil A employees to do customer service training in the other areas of the property? It certainly couldn’t hurt!

Tapas, fajitas, tacos and Mexican Burgers can all be had at Cadillac Mexican and Tequila Bar. If you like spicy eats with a ton of color, then this is the place Downtown to go! It’s also designed differently than most other Mexican restaurants with a casual, dark and quasi-elegant vibe rather than the traditional Mexican restaurant with fun, but very loud, decor.

Finally, The Grille is your place to go if you’re looking for quick eats on the weekends. It used to be open seven days per week, but that must have changed during Covid. You can keep your eye on their website leading up to your trip to see if that has changed. Either way, this convenient eatery will get the job done.

The Buffet at Golden Nugget also closed during the Covid-19 pandemic, but as of the time of this writing, is expected to reopen at some point whereas some other Vegas buffets have decided to close permanently. People used to positively rave about this buffet, but I checked it out and wasn’t exactly wowed by the selection. To be honest, I preferred the one at Main Street Station and probably the only buffet that I would choose Golden Nugget over is Cannery North…though the latter was also much cheaper, if you’re paying cash.

Overall, we don’t identify the Golden Nugget as a value property and we consider the price for overnight accommodations somewhat questionable compared to other properties on the Las Vegas Strip. However, we do understand that, prior to the opening of Circa, Golden Nugget didn’t have much competition Downtown when it came to visitors looking for a high-end hotel experience, so they filled something of a niche in that regard.

If you’re particular about having high end quality hotel accommodations, but prefer the Downtown area to the Las Vegas Strip (probably because you’re looking for gambling and dining value, let’s be honest), then that’s basically what the Golden Nugget is there for. If your attraction to Downtown is mainly to look for a cheap vacation, then this isn’t going to be it…although, we’re sure you can go to Vic & Anthony’s even if you’re not staying (though we would recommend Hugo’s Cellar at Four Queens or Binion’s Steakhouse anyway), we’re sure they won’t mind you just popping in for dinner. The property itself is also something of a spectacle, so you should at least pop in for a quick visit even if you aren’t staying.

La Bayou (R.I.P.)

We’re just going to put a listing here for a little coin-dropper slot parlor casino with fun staff and cheap snacks that we loved and lost. Out with the old and in with the new, in this case, an expansion of Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, but this place sure was fun. This property, prior to closing, was owned by the same owners of Mermaids and the Glitter Gulch Strip Club.

Las Vegas Club (R.I.P.)

Located where Circa stands now, Las Vegas Club is another casino that we loved and recently lost. They were best known for low-limit Craps games with 100x Odds and great video poker paytables, with a few machines that paid out more than 100%! This casino was once partially owned by Jackie Gaughan himself, but would find itself in the hands of Tavares Group by the mid-2000’s (owners of Plaza Hotel and Casino) who would then sell it to Derek and Greg Stephens.

By the time it would be sold for the final time, the property was basically in disrepair and only the main casino area on the Fremont Street side was ever used for anything. Before the sale to the Stephens, plans were for a CVS Pharmacy to be added to the property. This plan even faced some controversy as some of the existing casinos, and especially the outdoor bars under the Fremont Street Experience, objected to the fact that the CVS would likely sell packaged liquor.

Main Street Station Hotel, Casino and Brewery

The Main Street Station Hotel, Casino and Brewery is currently a Downtown Las Vegas property owned by Boyd Gaming, along with California and Fremont. This property is located on North Main Street and has a walkway directly to the California. As with California Hotel and Casino, Main Street Station (and Boyd Gaming on the whole) has become known for marketing to Hawaiian visitors pretty heavily.

As it stands now, this property is home to a total of 452 guest rooms and suites as well as 28,500 square feet of gambling real estate, which makes the casino floor of about average size. The somewhat bright lighting in the property serves to make the casino appear to be a little bigger than it actually is and they did a good job spacing out machines to leave plenty of room to walk around.

The most notable feature of the property is actually in the men’s room, where a section of the Berlin Wall has been placed behind the urinals, which I’m sure is simply because they wanted to put it in a convenient place for people to look at! Yes, I have had the opportunity to piss on the Berlin Wall…well, in the urinal, anyway.

Originally opened in 1978 as Holiday International, the hotel side of operation was part of the Holiday Inn franchise while the casino was ran by a different operator. The hotel and casino would close for a few years in the early 1980’s as a result of a labor dispute, and eventually, a Japanese investor would but it and reopen it as the Park Hotel and Casino.

Unfortunately, this iteration of the property failed to draw any visitors in, so it would close in 1990. It would then be redeveloped in the form of Church Street Station by a certain Bob Snow, but that iteration actually managed to fail within a year!

Boyd Gaming would eventually purchase the property in 1993, along with a nearby lot to build a parking garage, and the property would reopen as the Main Street Station in 1996. Boyd Gaming also pumped some serious cash into the place for major renovations, which was partially enabled by the fact that they got the property at such a cheap price to begin with.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, it was wondered whether or not the property would fall victim to its previous fates, as it was one of the last Vegas casinos to reopen, not doing so until just a month prior to the date (October, 2021) of this listing being published. It would actually have been quite a shock for this property to be shuttered forever as, in our opinion, it seems to be no less popular than the California and it should be able to pull in some serious bank on the weekends of Raiders games.

Room rates aren’t much of a bargain with even slower weekdays typically being in the $70 range. As always in Las Vegas, weekend rates basically depend on how much traffic there is and if there are any special events going on, but in general, you should expect well over $100 and even sometimes more than $200 if there is a special event, even if you get a standard room.

Even though this property would not qualify, by any stretch of the imagination, as a resort and is not located under the Fremont Street Experience, they do charge a $27.11/night Resort Fee. To wit, this property doesn’t even have a pool with guests instead being directed to use the pool at California Casino. Also, some pages of their website would have the Resort Fee at $21.46, so it must have went up right when they reopened and they missed updating some parts of the site (as of the time of this writing), despite the fact that it is not at all a, “Resort,” property.

Main Street Station describes the rooms as, “Victorian,” which is extremely charitable. Basically, these rooms are clean enough, but in of furnishings and decor, are basically what you would expect from a middle-of-the-road economy hotel brand. I’ve seen nicer Super 8’s and I have seen worse ones.

The worst part is, with Boyd Gaming properties, the Resort Fee has not been added into the total final price at the time of your booking, no bueno!

What sort of entertainment does the property have? Well, if it tells you anything, most of those pages on their website direct guests to the Fremont Street Experience. For that reason, we have a better idea, stay at one of the hotels actually under the Fremont Street Experience, and preferably, one of the ones with no Resort Fees, such as Binion’s or Four Queens.

The property is home to more than 800 combined slot, video poker and video keno machines, but as of the time of this writing, we see no real reason to visit there other than to walk around and check out some of their historical pieces. VPFree2 says that they have a wide variety of Video Poker games that pay more than 99%, but we haven’t been there since the recent reopening, so we don’t know if that’s still true. If it is, then Video Poker players will likely have a reason to play there, and maybe even stay there, if they can play enough to get the room comped.

Main Street Station’s Table Games pit is home to Blackjack, Super Fun 21 (the RTP is not, “Super Fun”), Craps, Roulette, Pai-Gow Poker, Three Card Poker and Let it Ride. We would recommend that you call and inquire as to the usual days and times if you are looking for a specific carnival game, as those probably do not operate all night long.

As of the time of this writing, the property is not home to a sports book.

Triple 7 Restaurant and Brewery is open during dinner hours on Thursdays-Mondays, and has this to say about itself:

Award winning microbrews and so much more! Featuring six varieties of the freshest hand-crafted beers in town, tasty appetizers, hand-made pizza, gourmet burgers and sandwiches, and mouth-watering steaks and ribs. Triple 7 is the perfect place to watch your favorite sporting events while enjoying a great meal.

Honestly, it’s a pretty basic sports bar type of location that there’s really no reason to visit unless you happen to be staying at the property anyway.

Garden Court Buffet is actually Victorian in design and is open daily for brunch and weekends for brunch and dinner, as of the time of this writing. Other than the Video Poker, this would be the main reason to visit the property, in our opinion. Personally, I think that this was the best buffet in Downtown Las Vegas, even pre-Covid, and I particularly enjoyed some of the Hawaiian selections they had. For some reason, the buffet at Golden Nugget had the best customer rep, but I liked this one better by far.

That’s about it for Main Street Station, but we can hope that the pandemic is good and over by 2022 and they will expand their operations a little bit, or at least, have somewhere for people to get dinner seven nights per week! If you’re staying at the property in the early part of the week and get hungry for dinner, then you pretty much have to go elsewhere!

Overall, we still recommend the buffet and would recommend that heavy video poker players stop in if the games can be confirmed to still be pretty good. Other than that, unfortunately, there’s no real reason to stay here and nothing in the way of value to be had when compared to some other Downtown properties. We can understand that it’s pretty tough when, with three Downtown properties, Boyd Gaming is kind of competing with itself and this is the property they consider their least important Downtown.

Mermaids Casino (R.I.P.)

This is another recently closed slot house casino that we loved! It was pretty similar to La Bayou, and both would give you Mardi Gras beads in the evening when you walked in the door.

At the time of the sale to Greg and Derek Stephens, this property was owned by the same entity who owned La Bayou as well as the Glitter Gulch Strip Club. This and the Strip Club would both be demolished and are not a part of the property where Circa now sits today.

Obviously, Circa Resort and Casino is extremely important and will be instrumental in drawing more tourists to the Downtown area, but that doesn’t mean that this fun little place with the happy staff, old school coin dropper machines and cheap snacks won’t be missed.

My favorite story of Mermaids was one morning when I went in there for some coffee, but had no intentions of playing anything. I was staying at The D and I don’t really care for McDonald’s coffee, so I decided to hunt around and found my way into Mermaids. The funny thing was the young lady working the counter got my coffee, but had no idea what to charge me as she couldn’t anyone ever coming in just for a to-go coffee, so she charged me one dollar.

Plaza Hotel and Casino

The Plaza Hotel and Casino is currently owned by the Tamares Group and the operating license belongs to Play LV, which leases the casino floor from Tamares. This casino is located on 1 Main Street, which is directly across the street from the end of the Fremont Street Experience (intersection of Main and Fremont) such that it could just as well be considered as being under the FSE.

The property would originally open in July of 1971, and as it sits now, is home to 995 guest rooms and suites as well as 80,000 square feet of gambling real estate, making it one of the largest casino floors Downtown.

The casino floor itself is pretty well spaced out, so there’s plenty of room to get around. Additionally, much of that square footage consists of a huge Bingo Hall that is located on the second floor, so in of machines and tables space, it’s not exactly as expansive as the square footage would make it sound—though it is pretty big.

Despite the fact that Tamares Group basically gave up on the Las Vegas Club, the land of which is now home to Derek and Greg Stephens owned Circa Resort and Casino, they spent several million dollars at this property in 2009-2010 (during the Great Recession, no less) to significantly renovate and update the property as well as create some space for new restaurants.

The casino’s land was originally home to a Union Pacific Railroad Station, but that was demolished to make way for what would become the casino and hotel, originally named Union Plaza in honor of what the property formerly was. Sam Boyd, Bill Boyd and Jackie Gaughan were some of the early executives of the property when it opened, but went on to do other things.

Jackie Gaughan would eventually come to own the property totally, but would sell it to Barrick Gaming Corporation in 2005 and essentially sort of semi-retire to his El Cortez Casino, which he would continue to own until a short time before his death. Even after selling the El Cortez, he went on living in his penthouse there until he died and could frequently be found in the casino’s modest poker room. Tamares Group would take the Plaza over later that year.

In of current entertainment, The Plaza is known for regular comedy shows and comedians such as Gilbert Gottfried and Jamie Kennedy (who some people seem to think is funny) were among the artists to appear in 2021. They are also home to the Las Vegas Pickle Ball open and the rooftop pool area has twelve pickle ball courts…and I still have no idea what Pickleball is.

For those of you who want to see a schedule of events, then you can look here.

The Plaza is definitely NOT a value property by Downtown Las Vegas standards with rates on slow weekdays still being something in the neighborhood of $100 and, as always, how much they are on weekends depends on what’s going on, but even standard rooms can go for over $400!

Of course, that’s before you get into the $28.00 per night Resort Fee (le sigh) which says that it includes:

There is a $28.00 nightly resort fee plus tax, which includes: self parking; two (2) bottles of water; local/800 calls from guest room; boarding printing; pool ission (hotel charges for non-hotel guests), and early check-In (based on availability). Due to COVID-19, inclusions are subject to change.

Basically, two bottles of water. Hotel guests could obviously access the pool area as part of the fact that they were staying prior to the Resort Fees.

The Pool at The Plaza is a nice rooftop pool with Cabanas available for rent and call liquor bottle service available at $101/pop, but if you want top shelf, then you can get that for an extra $50. Naturally, we would recommend simply using the pool area to swim rather than to drink, because that is an absolute wallet beating for a fifth of liquor.

The Golden Nugget thinks it’s a Strip Casino and the Plaza thinks it’s the Golden Nugget, that’s the best way to put it.

With that, let’s turn our attention to the casino floor operations:

There is some value to be had on the gambling end of things, however, as the Plaza is home to more than 700 combined slot, video poker and video keno games ranging in denomination from pennies to $25 per credit. Plaza also has the widest selection of high returning video poker games Downtown, with several games returning in excess of 99% and two paytables that return over 100%, so you can’t go wrong with visiting if you are a Video Poker player...we just wouldn’t recommend actually staying unless you can get comped.

The Plaza is also home to one of the largest table games pits Downtown and features Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Free Bet Blackjack, Pai Gow Poker, Let it Ride, Three Card Poker, HIgh Card Flush, Ultimate Texas Hold ‘Em and high limit Single-Zero Roulette. It’s either them or The D for the best assortment of Table Games Downtown, so take your pick. While the pit is open 24/7, not all games will be, so if you’re looking for games outside of Blackjack, Craps and Roulette, then you might want to call and inquire as to the regular operating days and hours.

The Plaza is also one of the few Las Vegas properties left with a Live Keno game, and especially so, when you consider that it operates most hours of the day seven days per week. If Live Keno is your thing, then you should definitely check either this casino or The D out.

The property is home to a sizable William Hill Race and Sports Book located in the back section of the casino near the Players Club. They have twenty TV’s as well as a video wall, but it would be hard to recommend doing your sports betting (and especially watching) anywhere besides Circa, at this point.

The Plaza is home to not only the only Bingo Room in Downtown Las Vegas, but also, it’s one of the biggest Bingo rooms anywhere in Las Vegas. With many varieties of Bingo Games, daily jackpots, an open bar (Super Bingo) and plenty of promotions, it should be no surprise that lovers of Bingo from all over the country call the Plaza home when they go on their Las Vegas trip.

That pretty much does it for all of the casino action, so the only thing left to talk about is the food offerings, of which they have some variety.

Oscar’s Steakhouse is a high-end steakhouse at The Plaza that is pretty well regarded by those who have visited it. For those of you who don’t mind shelling out a few bucks, the steak and seafood dishes come highly recommended, but don’t worry, it’s more economical than many steakhouses on the Las Vegas Strip. Also, if you want to get a nice clear view of Circa’s logo, then you can do it from here…ouch!

Hash House a Go-Go has another of its Las Vegas locations at The Plaza and is open for breakfast and lunch Monday-Thursday and all three meals of the day on weekends. They have this to say about themselves:

Hash House A Go Go Las Vegas serves farm-fresh food with a funky, modern twist! This homegrown Las Vegas favorite features oversized portions that are large enough to satisfy any hungry ranch hand. Hash House A Go Go is a huge hit with locals and tourists alike for its creative menu, over-sized portions, and unique presentations. Known for the best breakfast on Fremont Street, Hash House A Go Go also serves Lunch and Dinner!

Las Vegas locals absolutely love these places, so you should trust them over me, but I personally don’t see the appeal. I basically just think of it as a much nicer version of Denny’s, but I still don’t find the American casual cuisine to be anything particularly special. I don’t know, I imagine I’ll hear about it from a few of my friends when they read this.

Plaza Casino is home to a Pop Up Pizza location, which is a popular made-from-scratch pizza place in the area. I’ve had it and I think it’s pretty good, but when it comes to pizza, I’m not really hard to please, so take that for what it’s worth.

If you’re looking for grab and go sandwiches, croissants, pastries or desserts during the breakfast and lunch hours, or some specialty coffee drinks, then The Plaza’s Coffee Bar has you covered there. It’s perfect if you need something quick!

Colorful, flavorful and delicious, as well as open for lunch and dinner seven days per week, Fresh Mexican Grill does what it says on the box and is at least a break from American food, which is pretty much everything else that the property has. This and the Coffee Bar are part of the Food Court, with the others being McDonald’s, Subway and Manchu Wok.

Overall, it would be difficult for us to recommend staying at The Plaza because the prices are often more than many properties that are located directly on the Las Vegas Strip. Most visitors to the Downtown area are looking for value in all aspects, so it would be tough for us to send them somewhere where the rooms are so expensive. Besides, at those room prices, we would choose either The Golden Nugget or Circa for overnight accommodations anyway.

We also don’t consider The Plaza worth going out of your way for the dining options, so we would only eat if we were already at the property, anyway.

With that, we will say that we are fans of the Plaza for having great Video Poker Paytables, one of the best Bingo Games in the state and an excellent Table Games Pit that offers all of those types of players substantial value. If you play enough at this casino, then there’s also a fair chance that you’re going to get comps for your next visit…so if you have to pay for your overnight accommodations for now, we would recommend true value Fremont Street properties like Golden Gate, The D, Binion’s, Four Queens and El Cortez…but you might be comped for your next visit if you play a lot and do most of your playing at The Plaza.

The D Las Vegas

The D Las Vegas is the second of the three Las Vegas Downtown casinos to be owned by brothers Derek and Greg Stephens. As it sits currently, the property is home to 638 guest rooms and suites as well as 42,000 square feet of gambling real estate over two stories. Naturally, that makes it an above average casino floor in size by Downtown Vegas standards.

This property would originally open as Sundance Casino in July of 1980 and was owned and operated by a group of individuals with known organized crime associations. Two of the casino’s managers had to abandon the operation as they were facing skimming charges (I thought skimming went out in the 70’s, guess not!) at a few other Las Vegas area casinos. With that, the Nevada Gaming Commission would flush out owner Moe Dalitz by simply not approving his gaming license, which he needed to apply for, because the ones facing the skimming charges had lost theirs.

It was at this point, in 1984, when the management of the casino was ed to Downtown casino magnate Jackie Gaughan who, it seems, had something to do with almost every single Downtown property, at one point or another!

Of course, this was meant to be temporary just until Dalitz could sell the Sundance property, which he did, in 1987, to Lincoln Management Group. Lincoln Management Group would rename the property, “Fitzgeralds,” and adopt a luck of the Irish theme, the property did well enough, in fact, that the entire company would rename itself to Fitzgeralds Gaming.

With the addition of so many new Las Vegas Strip properties throughout the 1990’s, the Downtown area of Las Vegas would find itself with waning tourist numbers, with that, Fitzgeralds Gaming would find itself filing bankruptcy in 2001. It was during this year that Majestic Star Casino LLC would purchase this and the other two Fitzgeralds Gaming holdings in Colorado and Mississippi.

The Fitzgerald’s location would be broken off from the rest of Majestic Star LLC in order to enable the property to spend tens of millions of dollars in renovations.

Don Barden, owner of Barden Nevada Gaming would successfully own and operate this property for the better part of a decade, until his death in 2011. At this point, his estate chose to sell the Fitzgeralds Casino to brothers Derek and Greg Stephens who, by this point, had majority ownership in Golden Gate Casino.

The brothers certainly don’t shy from spending money and it seems that everything they have done in Downtown Las Vegas has been a complete home run. With that, they would spend more than twenty million dollars on a 2012 renovation and rebranding as The D Las Vegas.

For anyone who wondered, The D means several things at once—Downtown (Las Vegas), Derek (one of the Stephens Brothers) and Detroit (where the brothers are originally from).

The D would become a tale of two casino floors with the downstairs casino being home to all/almost all of the Table Games and has a very much party central atmosphere. It is basically a constant cacophony during the busy hours, but people love it, though I couldn’t imagine trying to play a Table Game in that environment where one actually has to think! Maybe that’s a good way to prevent card counters from doing their thing, dancing dealers and a constant aural assault.

The downstairs of The D would also be home to the 100 foot Long Bar, which is exactly what the name implies—a long bar. In fact, that bar was the longest in all of Nevada, until Derek Stephens decided to shatter his own record at the brand new Circa Resort and Casino.

The upstairs area was a totally different scene altogether. Known as, “Vintage Vegas,” it was a much more casual and quiet area with a ton (when it was opened) of coin-dropper machines as well as a few more modern slot titles. This area was also home to the Vue Bar and was known for great customer service and speedy cocktail waitresses. The sports book and live keno counter were also located on this level.

Two notable machines located in the Vintage Vegas area were the last remaining (as of now, anyway, there was one other when The D opened) Sigma Derby horse racing machine. That machine is something of a classic with bettors placing their wagers on little horses that moved along the track and basically looked like a giant version of one of the old 1970’s and 1980’s football toy games with the players that were pushed along by magnets. The second notable machine at The D was the 101.6% returning nickel-denomination Loose Deuces machine, but unfortunately, that one is gone now.

The D is also the best place for Live Keno, they added an exterior video wall so that you can watch the drawing take place from the Fremont Street Experience outside, if you like. That’s especially convenient if you want to drink at The D Bar, which was the largest outdoor bar on Fremont Street, featuring flair bartenders, until Circa came along and Derek Stephens decided to take that record from The D, as well.

I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that, in my opinion, The D (and other Stephens owned properties) not only has the best customer service in Las Vegas, but they have the best customer service of any casino that I have ever been to in the entire country, which are several. The only one that’s ever come anywhere close is Lady Luck Casino, in Pennsylvania, at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort…but that’s a small Resort Casino as opposed to full-scale casino properties, so the fact that they can consistently deliver such excellent customer service experiences, no matter who on staff you interact with, is immeasurably impressive.

I will also say that I had the pleasure of briefly talking to Derek Stephens himself…so if you head to any of the property’s websites and see a video of him, his jovial and chipper nature are more than just advertising, from what I can tell, that’s just who the guy is! Despite his tremendous success, he’s just a down-to-Earth guy who loves having a great time and wants to make surrey all guests who visit his properties do the same thing! In fact, if you meander around The D or Circa long enough, you’re almost sure to run into him sooner or later.

This is what The D has to say about their amenities:

At the D, you get so much more than a casino full of entertainment and rooms full of comfort. Included in your stay is access to some of the finest amenities from a concierge service, pool, fitness center, and meeting space for any work events. Each one is open and available for guests staying at the Golden Gate Hotel, our sister property, as well as anyone staying at the D Las Vegas Hotel. As part of your daily resort fee, guests 21 and older receive exclusive access to our newest amenity Stadium Swim at Circa Resort.

We can say that we these statements 100%, the property is pretty fantastic! The rooftop D Pool is a pretty simple and modest affair, but as of the time of this writing, being a guest of The D (or Golden Gate) also grants you the opportunity to obtain two daily pool es for the Stadium Pool at Circa, which is truly one of a kind. The Stadium Pool, as we mentioned in The Circa listing, features a huge video wall and is an ideal place for relaxing (or partying) while watching the biggest games that you probably have some money on!

We should also mention that, while The D is a different property than Circa and not as new, it’s definitely not second-rate. We would still classify the modern red/black/white rooms as being quite modern, clean, comfortable and tastefully decorated—with a hint of Vintage Vegas fun in the artwork.

Standard weekday rooms will often run in the $39-$79 range as long as there are no special events going on, which makes it somewhat of a bargain, even by Downtown Las Vegas standards. We also feel quite comfortable saying that The D might feature the nicest and most modern rooms that you are going to get at that price range. Regular weekend rates for standard rooms will generally be in the $99-$159 range, but those can sometimes flirt with as high as $300 for special events, such as the night before a Raiders game, or just during the busy demand season, in general.

Of course, these rooms also come with a Resort Fee of $29.95/night, which makes the overall price a bit more expensive. In fact, if you are getting the room for $39 room rate on a slow weeknight, then the Resort Fee is effectively more than 75% relative to the room rate.

However, The D is not only home to its own pool, but also has its own fitness center. According to their website, here is what the Resort Fee gets you:

Resort Fee will include parking, In-Room high speed Wi-Fi, the D pool access,10% discount to Zingerman’s coffee stand, as well as both local and toll-free calls. Additionally all guest’s paying resort fee at the D will be granted 2 entries to Stadium Swim including one hour early entry (seating sold separately).

Honestly, access to the Stadium Pool at Circa (assuming you have someone to bring with you) is probably worth $15/person by itself, so we’re not as opposed to this Resort Fee as we would be to most others. Of course, it would be ideal if only the guests who were actually going to avail themselves of this access got charged the Resort Fee, but even then, The D has enough going on that the Resort Fee is at least more justified than at a property such as Main Street Station…which basically has nothing to offer aside from the gambling side.

We should briefly mention that Circa Resort and Casino is an adults-only property, so guests of The D who wish to visit the Stadium Pool at Circa will need to be 21 years of age, or older.

Even with the Resort Fee, The D is going to be one of the most affordable hotels in the Downtown Las Vegas area. Bargain hunters will know that the best properties to comparison shop are The D, Golden Gate, Four Queens (no Resort Fee), Binion’s (no Resort Fee) and the El Cortez. You can basically do the math on all of these, for the dates of your stay, and see which property is the best value overall.

Unless you’re planning to specifically play at the property where you are staying exclusively, this writer’s opinion is that the rooms at The D are going to be the best value Downtown as long as the total price is about $15 per night, or less, more than the other Downtown properties mentioned. The customer service is exceptional, the rooms are great, the gambling operations on the property are varied and fun and the brothers Stephens have, almost single handedly, transformed the Downtown Las Vegas area to make it viable to draw out of town visitors again.

The Fitness Center at The D is very modest in size, but has pretty excellent state of the art equipment and a wide variety of free weights. If you’re looking to try to work off what you did to yourself the day before, then that’s a great place to stop in. The best part is that it is open 24 hours per day with keycard access.

With that, we should turn our attention to bars and entertainment options. At the D Bar, located on the exterior of the casino on the Fremont Street Experience side, guests can enjoy watching the Live Keno drawings on the video wall, the well-practiced flair bartenders tossing bottles around and juggling them as they make your specialty cocktails, the light show that is the Fremont Street Experience, or one of the almost nightly live concerts that take place under the FSE. If you get bored doing that, even though such a thing shouldn’t be possible, then there are still the street performers you can watch—just make sure to throw them some bucks…well, not literally throw!

The LONGBAR is a bar that is, indeed, long. At one time, it was the longest bar in Las Vegas and is now the second-longest, having been easily eclipsed by the Mega Bar at Circa. This is where guests of The D could often find Derek Stepehens hanging out, but if you see him here or at Circa, feel free to go up and say hi…we can promise he won’t mind!

The Vue Bar is the second floor Video Poker bar and was my favorite spot in the casino. If the noise downstairs is a bit much for you, as it is for me sometimes, then you can stop in at the Vue Bar to relax and unwind. Also, Vintage Vegas is a somewhat small area of this casino, so having a bar dedicated to it means that cocktail service is going to be extremely fast here. If you can finish your drink by the time the cocktail waitress makes it to you again, then you might stop and consider that you might be drinking too fast!

BarCanada is also located on the second floor of The D and is dedicated to Canada’s most popular sport, croquet. We’re kidding; it’s a great hockey bar. Surrounded by 85 inch plasma TV’s for a total sports viewing experience, it’s probably the only place Downtown that can compare to…well, basically anywhere in Circa Resort and Casino, as the best place in town to watch sports.

At one point, The D was home to a showroom on the second floor with regular acts, but most indoor live performances have been moved to the Circa Resort and Casino property. Don’t worry, it’s a fairly short, and very fun, walk. Maybe some of you out there get annoyed by the street performers on Fremont, but I can’t imagine why!

With that, we will turn our attention to the property’s casino game operations. Again, it’s basically like having two distinct casinos in one building.

Here’s what the property has to say about the slot, video poker and video keno offerings:

The first-floor of our new modern casino will deliver the latest slots and table games. The D boasts a second floor casino that invites guests to step back in time to enjoy vintage slots and an original Vegas vibe. The second floor vintage casino is home to Sigma Derby – a popular simulated horse-racing game. Enjoy throw-back jams reminiscent of eras past playing throughout the casino floor.

The property is home to more than 1,000 total units between the two floors. The property used to be home to the 101.6% Loose Deuces game as well as a couple other games at or near 100%, but the Video Poker has been downgraded a bit and now there are only a handful of paytables over 98%, which is a shame. It’s okay, though, there’s plenty of great Video Poker to be found Downtown…and part of the Downtown experience is how easy it is to check out all of the casinos anyway.

In of Table Games, The D is home to nearly a couple dozen and includes Blackjack, Craps, Roulette and Big Six. If you’re looking for any carnival games, those seem to move in and out frequently, and they don’t shy from trying brand new games that other casinos don’t even have, so call the Table Games pit to see what is on offer, or better, go in and check them out. Odds on Craps are 10x, as of the time of this writing, and Natural Blackjacks pay 3:2.

The Keno Lounge at The D has recently been updated and enhanced and now features some of the most comfortable seating that you are likely to find at any Keno Lounge in Las Vegas. Guests of the property who enjoy the game will have fun kicking back and watching the numbers pop out as they enjoy some of the speediest beverage service that Las Vegas has to offer!

The Sigma Derby game is the last one of its kind in Las Vegas, and if it’s not the last one overall, it’s the last one anywhere with all of the original signage. While you’re probably going to lose on this quarter dropper game, it’s a hoot and players have a great time cheering their horses on…it’s actually much more fun than watching a live horse race, at least, in my opinion. The best part is that there are no horses that get hurt and need to be put down. The property says this about the game:

“Come on Lucky Number 4!” A common phrase heard around the Sigma Derby table found on the second floor of the D Las Vegas Casino. This 34-year-old game was a staple in most casinos and is a star attraction at the D. Currently, it is the only one remaining in the city. Sigma Derby is a beautifully-crafted track game that includes 5 mechanical horses. All you have to do is bet which horses will be first and second. Sounds easy, but betting can only be placed with quarters.

Before the game starts, you choose which horse you think will win and have the chance of betting odds that range from 2-1 to 200-1. You then have 30 seconds to put in your quarter, then after that, the gears and motors take over while you sit back and cheer. Located around the game are 10 stations for people to gather and cheer on their lucky horse. Come check out this novelty game and hopefully win big while making some new friends.

The Wizard’s (Wizard of Odds) strategy for this game, while itting that there probably is no winning strategy, I recall was to bet on the middle odds horses rather than the Even Money or long shot ones. For me, the bets were only a quarter and I figured I was bucking a high house edge anyway, so I bet on the longshots. I played this game on two or three occasions, which was good for me, but that’s because I wandered by myself most of my time in Vegas and this game is much more fun with friends.

THe D is also home to a Circa Sports betting location, but unless you’re going to watch the game in BarCanada, we think your best sports betting experience is going to be just going to the actual Circa Resort and Casino. Besides, if you’re staying at The D, then you’re going to want to check out the Stadium Pool anyway!

With all of that covered, the last thing that we have to do before we close out the Downtown Las Vegas listings is to check out the dining experiences that you can expect from The D, so let’s get to it!

The Andiamo Steakhouse is The D’s fine dining experience that has this to say about itself:

American steaks with an Italian flavor are at Joe Vicari’s Andiamo steakhouse where you can also find Italian breads, award-winning sauces, and homemade pasta. All created from scratch using the freshest ingredients. Steaks and other meats are provided by some of the nation’s top butchers. If you are looking for a fine dining experience that will satisfy your hungry checkout Andiamo Steakhouse.

It’s definitely one to consider if you are staying on the property anyway, but if not, we would probably have to recommend checking out the historic steakhouse at Binion’s (a popular stop amongst almost all Downtown Vegas visitors) or Hugo’s Cellar at Four Queens, which is a place that even Vegas locals swear-by.

American Coney Island is a Detroit Hot Dog place that is actually the first of its kind outside of the Detroit area. I’m honestly not a huge fan of hot dogs, so I’ve never tried it.

Finally, The Coffee Stand is a little grab and go place for snacks and coffee drinks open in the morning and afternoon hours. The D Casino is also home to a McDonald’s located just to the right of the Fremont Street Experience entrance, but it doesn’t seem to be listed on their website, for some reason. Don’t worry, I called and confirmed that it’s still there.

The D Grill was one of my favorite American high casual Las Vegas restaurants in the entire city with customer service that was second to none, but unfortunately, that eatery is permanently closed. I just wanted to drop that in there because I know there were some visitors to the property who might base a stay on that still being there.

With that, we have covered The D which remains one of the best overall values in Downtown Las Vegas for overnight accommodations. While we don’t love the Resort Fee, we do believe that it’s actually somewhat justified by not only The D’s facilities, but mostly by the fact that guests of the property (21+) are able to get daily es for the Stadium Pool at Circa.

Restaurant operations and video poker certainly are not what they once were, but the Live Keno offerings have improved substantially as a result of the update and furniture upgrades. The Table Games seem to be basically unchanged, so those represent a great value for Downtown Las Vegas visitors.

Basically, if you like the experience offered by the casinos owned by the brothers Stephens, then we would highly recommend The D Las Vegas for your stay. If you’re looking for pure value, then we would recommend that you compare the prices (and Resort Fees, where applicable) of The D, Binion’s, Four Queens, Golden Gate and El Cortez to see where your best overall offer is. Keep in mind that ElCo also has that coupon book, but it has diminishing value (relative to your stay) the more nights that you are staying. You should also compare the various dining and amenity package deals that these properties have to offer in looking for the best overall value.