Video Poker Forum

The wife and I will spend a few days at Harrah's in New Orleans later next month....All nights are compted...I've heard 9/6 payouts are not to be found...and both state and federal taxes are withheld at time of payout. Any of this true? Biloxi is only an hour and a half away...

We stayed at Harrahs Biloxi last fall returning from Florida..the only bad thing about the machine were there were not many of them, and very crowded. We went all over Biloxi and found the same thing. I wonder if the casinos are phasing us out. We just returned from Tunica yesterday, and sadly, that will be my last trip. Very, very few vp machines and the pay tables were terrible. Any four of a kind on Bonus Poker was 150. Thank you, no. I hope you have great luck in New Orleans.

Silver Slipper is not far from New Orleans, just across the Mississippi line in Hancock County. It's about 45 minutes from the French Quarter. It has decent but not great paytables and the video poker is rarely crowded. It is the closest Mississippi casino to New Orleans. I am in the New Orleans area and Mississippi Coast area several times a year and I almost always play in Mississippi, rarely in New Orleans. But you still have to look for decent paytables ... Silver Slipper is one of the few remaining Mississippi coast casinos that has a few decent machines. IP used to be the best on the coast --- no longer. And I refuse to play at the Beau, which has absolute ripoff paytables.

We stayed at Harrahs Biloxi last fall returning from Florida..the only bad thing about the machine were there were not many of them, and very crowded. We went all over Biloxi and found the same thing. I wonder if the casinos are phasing us out. We just returned from Tunica yesterday, and sadly, that will be my last trip. Very, very few vp machines and the pay tables were terrible. Any four of a kind on Bonus Poker was 150. Thank you, no. I hope you have great luck in New Orleans.

Yeah Roadhouse ditched 35/8/5 Bonus in April. There are a whopping two units left that have "regular" 8/5 Bonus left, but that's it. There are quite a few games left on those two units that are decent payback (99.8%+), but they are higher variance as well. And the other big problem, you now have to fight over 2 units. Or fight over the 2 units that have the 9/6 JoB progressive. :(

Happily though, the Resorts in Tunica still have quite a few machines, and they were fairly generous. I finally made back $500, so it wasn't too terrible a trip. I will be going to Vegas for 12 days starting Sept. 1, and after bringing home $1800 on my last trip, I am looking forward to it.

The wife and I will spend a few days at Harrah's in New Orleans later next month....All nights are compted...I've heard 9/6 payouts are not to be found...and both state and federal taxes are withheld at time of payout. Any of this true? Biloxi is only an hour and a half away...


It depends on your game, Uptight. I am not aware of any full pay VP in either NO or Biloxi, but I play mostly multi-line machines.
For Louisiana, no Fed tax withheld, unless you request it. State tax is automatically withheld, but if you file a non-res state return, you get it back.
In Mississippi, again, no Fed tax withheld without requesting so, but state tax is withheld. Unfortunately, they keep it, so no need to file a non-res tax return.
The Beau Rivage in Biloxi is a beautiful property, great steakhouse (BR Prime), but vanishing VP options. The Palace in Biloxi is a non-smoking property, but only a handful of multi-line VP.   

Thanks Billyjoe...I too play multiline games and will put a few dollars on the line at Harrah's New Orleans...We live in S. California and though we have many Indian casinos a relatively short drive away..we do 95%+ of our VP play in Nevada where at many casinos 9/6 is the norm and 10/6 100% payback games are available. Which brings me to this point...I'm willing to put up a much bigger bank roll when fair and reasonable pay tables are available...but invest very little when pay tables are set at rip off.... Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I am could help me understand why some casinos dedicate so little real estate to VP machines and then assign rip off pay tables to boot...when many highly successful and profitable Nevada Casino's are shrines to VP and give the best pay tables available in the country...

its called competetion the las vegas casinos especially on the strip have poor paytables, any property owned by czr (fromarlly harrahs) have weak paytables, their is some ok paytables for the 25c up player fpdw,10 ddb.,10 7 db, the major advantage players look for big progressives. folks like "mr dancer" sold alot of his material which educated the general public and as a counter measure the casinos lowered the paytables. mr dancer made alot of money buy hurt the advantage players making vp a tough game. their used to be plenty of $1 and some $2 fpdw, now only quarter games

Basically what Royal said. Competition is much larger in Nevada. Also it doesn't hurt that Nevada barely taxes casinos compared to Midwest states or even worse Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland. These East Coast states have a tax rate on slots approaching ten-fold Nevada's piddly rate of 6.75%. Christ, sales tax is Vegas is even higher at 8.1%!

If you driving from Cal to NO and back stop in Lake Charles and try the Isle of Capri for your best low denomination odds on multi-line. If you play high denominations multi-line try L'Auberge du Lac in Lake Charles just don't do it on a weekend night. Too crowded instead go to the Isle where your chances of getting a machine are much better.

BTW: The La. non-resident tax return can be filed electronically and is due after your federal tax is completed and before May 15. You can also get the refund electronically deposited to your bank (a few days) or mailed weeks later.