Gulfstream Park Racing and Casino [VP in SoFla]

[VPMiami]

Here is a basic rundown of video poker offered at Gulfstream Park Racing and Casino, Hallandale Beach, FL. It is located about 30 minutes north of Miami and 15 minutes south of Ft. Lauderdale on US 1.  It is also less than 5 minutes south of Mardi Gras Casino, allowing you to hop from one to the other. The horse racing track has been around since the 1930's. The casino was added when Florida approved limited casino operations and was the first such "racino" in the state. In addition to live horse racing (during the winter months only), the casino offers slots, video poker, video blackjack, simulcast wagering and a live poker room.  The entire Gulfstream complex is very nice since the newer parts of the complex are only a couple of years old.  In addition to gambling, there are a lot of restaurants, nightlife venues, an outdoor mall with many major national retail chains (Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, etc.).  The park hosts outdoor concerts for major acts during the fall/winter when temperatures cool down and being outside is more tolerable.  Gulfstream appears to be setting itself up to compete with the Hard Rock in Hollywood, with the exception that they do not offer any live-deal table games. As for the casino, and specifically video poker, they could do much better. 1.  The casino is small (and smoke-free which I like), has about 600 machines total.  The machines occupy 2 rooms on the first and second floor.  Upstairs there are a dozen or so video poker machines at the bar.  Downstairs there are another dozen or so machines arranged in a few banks close to the poker room.  The lowest denomination I've found on the single-play machines is $0.25.  I believe there are a handful of multi-play machines (triple, five, ten hands) as low as $0.05. 2.  In general, as is the case in most of South Florida, the pay tables aren't anything to write home about.  Here is an example pay table from my most recent visit for $0.25 Deuces Wild with 5 coins in.     1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 4 - 9 - 12 - 20 - 200 - 4000 They short-pay several of the winning hands, thereby giving you an expected return of 97.06%.  The pay tables at $1 are marginally better, bumping up the Wild Royal to 25 coins, which boosts the expected return to about 98%.  Do not expect to find anything full pay here. 3.  The slot club and promotions seem a bit flaky to me.  First, they advertise "Up to $100 free play for new members".  When I signed up a while back, the offer was really that if you lost money on the same day that you signed up, they would credit your player account a few weeks later with up to $100, based on what you lost that first day.  For all other casinos here in South Florida, when I signed up for the players' club, I received the free play bonus the same day regardless of whether I won or lost.  Since I got lucky and actually won about $75 my first time there, no free play sign up bonus for me. Also, whereas all the other casinos regularly send me offers in the mail and via email, I never get anything from Gulfstream.  This is probably one of the reasons I don't visit there that often.  Their competition is always luring me away with better offers and promotions. 4.  Everytime I've been there, the place seems dead.  I am sure this changes when winter rolls around and the ponies are running their full racing schedule.  But so far when I've visited in the off season, there never seems to be any life here. As a whole, I think the entire Gulfstream complex is very nice.  For someone who may be looking for a place to play based soley on it's video poker offerings, you may want to keep looking. - D -