Video Poker Road Trips

[FloridaPhil]

We are currently planning our next video poker road trip.  We take 2-3 of these a year and thought others may be interested in planning trips of their own.   Our spring trip is always to the Black Hawk Colorado area.  Black Hawk is one of our favorite areas for VP.  Black Hawk and Central City are two small side by side Gold Mining towns up in the mountains west of Denver.  The scenery is spectacular with 14,000 foot peaks nearby.   The area has at least a dozen casinos within walking distance.  We rent a car in Denver, stay at the Ameristar and casino hop around town.  We like to go in late April so my wife, a Florida native, can see snow without dealing with icy roads.  Nearby Central City is similar with a dozen casinos of their own.  The altitude takes a little getting used to, but it's manageable.  After two days of VP in Blackhawk, we drive west through the mountains toward Salt Lake City.  We stop half way to see the sights along the way.  Another half day drive and we will arrive in West Wendover Nevada.  West Wendover is in the desert west of the Great Salt Lake just over the Nevada/Utah State line.   Wendover has dozens of small casinos as well.  This trip we are staying at the Montego Bay.   After a couple more days of VP, it's south east across beautiful highway 70 to Grand Junction CO.  If you haven't seen highway 70, you have missed one of the most beautiful highways in America. From there it's back to Black Hawk for more VP.   All total our trip will be 10 days long with only 2 nights without VP.Over the years we have enjoyed these trips more than any other vacations.  One summer we spent the entire summer driving across the country playing VP.  Others take cruises or European tours, we play VP.  If you get a player's card, discounts and comps are widely available.  We're not much for fancy food, so we frequent resort cafes.   If you get lucky, you can even take one of these trips on the house!

[Mrstealth99]

Thanks Phil, I enjoy reading about your trip planning, as well as your trip reports.I'm not retired yet so do not have the time to take "road trips", but I do something similar except I fly to the destination and rent a car on arrival.  These are short 3 - 5 day trips typically (as opposed to the 2 x 2 week vacations, typically 1 around Halloween and 1 in March for Spring Break) I try and do 2 to 3 per year to have something to "look forward" to, and I enjoy the trip planning and visiting new areas and casino's.My next one will be in a couple of weeks - I will fly into phoenix and rent a car there and visit several casino's in the phoenix area, then take a drive to Yuma Arizona (only indian casino's), and possible home through Parker and Laughlin.   Phoenix has a lot of casino's, although they are spread out through the valley.  The video poker offerings are mixed so you really have to watch your paytables.  I've found quite a few good machines (and use wizard of odds, vpfree, etc before going), and have had really good luck which always helps.

[FloridaPhil]

There's something about spending a day walking in and out of different casinos that we enjoy.  I guess it's the idea of the unknown and what you might find.  We always liked driving around the country, so combining the two seems natural.  Now that casino gambling is so popular, you don't have go far to find some.   If Texas and Georgia ever approve gambling, the circle would be complete.

[Mrstealth99]

I do enjoy a change of scenery.  Both in terms of seeing new and different areas, but also in terms of different casino environments.  I also enjoy trying out some of the local foods of the area I visit.The one disappointing aspect of traveling to many of these casino's is the poor video poker offerings and pay tables.  There is nothing worse than finally arriving at a new casino, anxious to gamble and then finding just a handful of machines which pay only 30 - 35 coins on a full house.The other thing is with many of the smaller Indian casino's the video poker is often found on Game King machines, which also host video slots and video keno.  While I have nothing against video keno, the players will have those machine's tied up for hours and hours, and when seated next to one, the "beeping" becomes kind of obnoxious.  Have a great trip!

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=Mrstealth99]There is nothing worse than finally arriving at a new casino, anxious to
gamble and then finding just a handful of machines which pay only 30 -
35 coins on a full house.[/quote]For sure.  

Keno players are entitled to play anywhere they want.   However, they always seem to park on the machines with the best VP odds...