Tunica Trip Report

[Vman96]

My g/f and I actually went on an impromptu trip to Tunica a week ago. I didn't get to check all the casinos out, but part of my goal (because I can't afford/my g/f would kill me if I gambled 24/7) was to check the various DDB progressives for dbldbl scotty and others who would find the info useful.

6 days until the trip to Tunica. Staying at Goldstrike due to the ability to walk to Shoe and Roadhouse. (nice to have options).I hear the Strike has some construction going on, buffet is moved etc ?anyone know about any of this?

To answer your initial question scotty: Unfortunately the main buffet is closed right now, and I think one of the cafe areas is acting as a temporary buffet. I can't say how good or bad it is. They have a food cart just off the gaming floor on the hotel side. They have Nathan's hot dogs for $3.50 among other things. Better prices than most things at Gold Strike/Horseshoe/Roadhouse.

Saturday: Get to Harrah's Tunica a little after 7pm. On weekends, hotels fill up quick and you aren't guaranteed your smoking preference. Front desk clerk tried to slip us in a smoking room which we did not request. G/f insisted she booked non-smoking while the front desk clerk was being generally unfriendly. I have stayed at Harrah's Tunica about a dozen times, and unfortunately half of their front desk clerks are quite rude. The other half are very nice. The clerk eventually caves in and finds us a non-smoking room on the 7th (top) Floor. But we were also hoping to get a room without an adjoining door. When my g/f asked if the room didn't have an adjoining door, the clerk responded with "I guess". We get up there and of course it has one. But it was silent for now, so I told my g/f to gamble on it (mistake).

The Final Four was on, and we knew that Resorts casino served Sierra Nevada at the bar. So we head out there and plop ourselves on two bartops. I look through the games and DDB is 9/5 (97.87% with max bet - excludes progressive). I settle on 7/5 ACE$ Bonus Poker (98.26%), the best paying machine on the Game King, or at least I thought. I'm not positive but they also might have a 25/15/10 Double Deuces game at both bars (98.86%). The Sierra Nevada was awesome, but the service was quite terrible that night. Sometimes we waited 15 minutes for a beer. Also the progressive meter seemed to be pretty loose. The progressive increased about $50 in two hours from $1360 to $1410, and there looked to be about 6 people playing. I ended up even, which was pretty good considering I was quad free. Once the game was over, I quickly go over to the other bar "Delta Deuces" to check their games. The meter was lower at $1160 and had 9/5 DDB (97.87%). But it also had 7/5 Super DDB (98.61%), and it may have had that Double Deuces game as well. On the gaming floor, they also had a progressive bank parallel to the Delta Deuces bar. The meter was $1060 and offered 9/5 DDB. This looked to be the best game available on that bank as well.

After Resorts, we briefly go to Fitz as they had a 3X point promo day. They only had one progressive bank that I saw. At the bar next to the snack bar upstairs. For this bank, 9/5 DDB was the best game available and had a meter of $1190. When we returned the next day, it had increased about $40. Fitz is also a decent place to play for cheap as they have a bank of nickel game kings that have 9/5 DDB as well, as well as 8/5 JoB w/STP (97.3%; 97.58% w/STP) for nickels. Since I am an STP addict, that's what I played for awhile. I hit one quad, so that helped. Then as we were wrapping up for the day. I play 9/6 JoB (99.54%) coin-dropper for quarters. I float up and down for a bit, and then promptly at midnight, they announce the 3X point promo ended. I had a hand with two pair and decide to double up on it to either go to even, or down $5. Down $5, meh. Clink, clink, clink, 60 quarters out.

So now we call it a night, get back to the hotel, and then we hear the TV loudly through the adjoining door. Great. Within 15 minutes, we hear a woman moaning. Wonderful. I put in earplugs and still can hear it. Call the front desk asking if we can possibly move. They decide to send up security instead. Takes over 10 minutes for him to get there. He asks them to turn it down, but he isn't firm at all. They don't change anything after he leaves. We go down to the front desk to deal with this. Magically they found us a room to move to.

Sunday: Check out and go to Southaven, MS to eat/shop for a bit. Get back to Tunica about 5pm, and check-in to the Roadhouse. On Sunday, they had a promo where you swiped your card and spun a wheel on the kiosk to possibly win a prize (1 of 10 win). My g/f won 1000 Reward Credits! (i.e. $10 comps). Briefly play 8/5 DDB w/ Double STP (96.79%; 97.27% w/DSTP) and hit this, but couldn't get the quad I wanted. :( 9/5 TDB w/DSTP exists for people like billyjoe as well.



Then decide to eat at the Fitz snackbar for dinner. This snackbar has a great Philly cheesesteak, is reasonably priced for all their food, and is quite popular. Took us over 40 minutes to get our food. Fortunately my g/f was kind enough to order and wait in line while I went back to the 8/5 JoB STP, and get a couple more quads, and a full house with 4X multiplier. Get back to the room at the Roadhouse used the whirlpool tub (standard for all rooms there) and called it an early night. I lost my gambling itch that night apparently.

Monday: Hit up Harrah's Tunica early so we could sneak in to Paula Deen for late breakfast/early lunch. Well, you can't do that anymore as they now stay closed til 11am on weekdays...oops. So now we have time to kill, so I look for more progressives. Didn't find much. Bar didn't have one. Only one I found was an 8/5 DDB (96.79%) bank with progressives on all hits $200 or more. But the meters were all pathetic. The meter rate is probably 0.05% or less of coin-in. I finally settle in, and play nickel 6/5 Bonus with STP for awhile (96.87%; 97.13% w/STP). End up hitting 4 Deuces for $10, mildly disappointed because I planned on taking a stab at quarter Deuces Wild later. My g/f had to wait 25 minutes for a $9 slot cashout thanks to a ticket not being printed...yikes. Finally wander up to Paula Deen at about 11:20am. Great buffet, and it was better than I had remembered it. Had some tasty roast chicken from the cutting board as well.

Burn a little time at casino outlet mall, then go back to the hotel for a bit. A little after four, we go to Bally's to play in their free $5k slot tournament. Had to wait maybe 30 minutes to play. Unfortunately we both bricked out. Then we decide to give Bally's our email as they said they would put $10 free play on our card. (Resorts has the same offer, but since they are owned by the same company, not sure if you can double dip). You can use the promo kiosks there to give it, but you need to be able to click on a confirmation email to get the freeplay. Fortunately, my g/f has a smartphone and we were able to do it. Look around the video poker area and see no progressives period at Bally's. So then I decide to gamble on the best STP in Tunica (or so I thought). A 25/15/9/4/4/3 Deuces Wild machine (98.91%; 99.19% w/STP) for quarters only. I proceed to burn $40 in it in about 10 minutes. Took my $10 free play to slot machines, and got $9.50 back.

Leave Bally's and head back to Fitz for dinner because they offer a $7 buffet all day on Monday for Key Club members (limit one per Monday). It's best to save it for dinner because they have a nice create your own stirfry station. Food isn't as good as Paula Deen, but it's pretty good for $7. Get done with dinner and I want my full stomach to settle for a bit, so I tell my g/f to play here for 15 minutes or so. A dealt quad and another 4X full house, up ~$20.

]

Get back to the Roadhouse, and wanted to check out Roadhouse/Horseshoe/Gold Strike. Go to Horseshoe and it's generally a video poker wasteland [exception: 9/6 DDB Build-A-Wheel (98.98%; 99.11% with wheel bet)]. There was a single unit 8/5 DDB (96.79%) progressive at about $1050. A bank of 7/5 DDB (95.71%) progressives at $1030 against the wall next to the poker room. And 7/5 DDB with $1150 at the main bar.

Also at Horseshoe I see a bank of WMS My Poker machines with winning streak poker on them. All three Harrah's properties in Tunica have them, and their paytables are quite bad. But dammit, I wanted to try "Winning Streak Poker". So when I saw that 7/5 DDB was the best I could do anywhere playing this game, I just went for it at $1.25/round. Ended up hitting this:

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Finished up $6.25, earned 1 Tier Credit, and got the hell out.

Moved over to Gold Strike. Gold Strike's drink service is notoriously horrid, so I just go up to one of their bars, play 1 line of 5c spin poker with 8/5 DDB and order a beer. Wonder upstairs toward the poker room and find a few terrible progressives. One quarter bank was $1030 and had 7/5 DDB. Best game available is 6/5 Bonus (96.87%). Also there was the bank of 10-coin nickel triple plays with a progressive royal on each line. And a much bigger progressive for hitting all 3 Royals. The base games are terrible though: 6/5 DDB (94.66%) with best game being 6/5 JoB (95.00%). But one of the jackpots for all three royals was over $12k. It's about a 1 in 648,273 shot, but it will definitely help the return. But doing rough math, it looks like it only adds about 1%. After getting a beer, wander over to an 8/5 DDB w/Double STP (96.79%; 97.27% w/DSTP) and finally hit this hand when playing an appropriate game for it. Last time I hit this hand at Gold Strike, I was playing Deuces Wild...lol I also outdid my g/f on her slot hit there.




Now it was past midnight and I knew Roadhouse's penny progressive was in a decent state, so I drag my g/f back to the Roadhouse for a bit. The 2 penny progressives were both taken, sitting at $1040 ($1 bet; starts at $800). The best game on that progressive is 9/6 Jacks or Better (99.54%). On this machine, only 9/5 DDB exists, much worse. It may have been one of the worst variants available. For example, 8/5 Triple Bonus Plus (98.73%) existed on it.

So while waiting, I hit the cheap 2c 3-play Double STP machines with 8/5 DDB. On the next bank over my g/f notices a 7-star play a 3-play STP machine for quarters, and I am a little surprised he is just playing 3-play if he is 7-star.   Play for awhile, get nowhere. Then after about an hour or so, I see the guy next to me playing 5-play 9/5 DDB w/Double STP for nickels (97.87%; 98.37% w/DSTP). I mutter to myself "dammit", and explain to him that my game pays worse. The 9/5 DDB table exists even for 5-play at 2c. I have been giving the house an 1.1% extra edge for the last 9 months now on these trips. :( The machine feels a little bad for me and gives me these hits. It doesn't feel bad enough to let me win though..haha




Keep an eye on Mr. Seven Stars at the next bank over, and he is having a decent rollercoaster ride until hit gets dealt 4s with a kicker for $600 total. He finally gets off of the machine after about $10k coin-in and I look at it. Yep, 9/6 DDB w/STP (98.98%; 99.26% w/STP) at 3-play. The best STP machine in Tunica. What was odd is that 5-play/10-play went down to 8/5. And the unit next to it was all 8/5 DDB. Of course that meant I had to play the 9/6 DDB STP at one hand it for $20 minimum. Yeah, nada. Then the penny progressive finally opens up. I play it for awhile and see that the meter increases by 0.25%. With the current progressive level the game had a return of 100.16% for 9/6 JoB. I played for awhile, went slowly down. Got $20 in the hole on the machine, and really wasn't feeling it. So I play the cheapo machines some more and then eventually wander to some slots where I bleed off another $10 or so. But unfortunately, I slowly bled off about $100 total that night while at the Roadhouse between gaming and drink tips over 4 hours.

On the way out, I double checked the Roadhouse bars for the progressive (~$1350), and they had 9/5 DDB. The best game is 25/15/9/4/4/3 Deuces (98.91%). But at Roadhouse, as long as you're playing quarters, I would recommend 40/10/6 DDB (99.96%) or 25/15/11/4/4/3 Deuces (99.96%) instead.

Unfortunately, didn't get to Sam's Town/Hollywood this trip. But I know Sam's Town has the suited Royal progressive, and I think they have 8/5 DDB for that bank. They have regular 9/6 JoB at the downstairs bar. Hollywood doesn't have anything noteworthy, I'm almost certain. So long story short, if you want to play DDB progressives, I'd recommend Resorts, Fitz, or Roadhouse since they all pay 9/5. Hope this helps, and good luck in Tunica, scotty!

[dbldbl scotty]

thanks VMan, awesome report.  appreciate your scouting and details.where is that machine at roadhouse that the 7star guy was playing? 

[Vman96]

thanks VMan, awesome report.  appreciate your scouting and details.where is that machine at roadhouse that the 7star guy was playing? 



It is the left-hand unit of two Super Times Pay units that are in the bank directly behind the "cheapo" units (4 Double Super Times Pay and 2 50-play units for as cheap as 2c/credit). The full-pay STP unit (9/6 DDB) is a 3-play for quarters, but note with STP in my pictures you do NOT have to play the maximum hands to play the STP bet. Part of the reason I love STP vs. most "gimmick" games. And to the left of the full pay STP machine, there are a couple of rows of Game Kings that offer 40/10/6 DDB, the best paytable available in the state.

Also you have the option to play regular 9/6 DDB on that machine for 5 credits each, but I wouldn't recommend that since 40/10/6 DDB exists right next to it. STP increases the return of the game by 0.28%, but also increases standard deviation by 51% as each hand now costs 6 quarters. So you would want to have a little bit bigger bankroll than a normal game playing STP. And I will warn you now if you have never played the game, STP is pretty damn addictive, imo.

[dbldbl scotty]

upstairs? downstairs? last time i was at Roadhouse (it was called Sheraton then) all the VP was upstairs just outside of the buffet and all around the staircase.

[Lucky Larry]

Vman,
Very comprehensive and nice report.

[Vman96]

upstairs? downstairs? last time i was at Roadhouse (it was called Sheraton then) all the VP was upstairs just outside of the buffet and all around the staircase.

Nah it's all downstairs now at the opposite end of the hotel. Once they closed the buffet upstairs, they have the staircases roped off to the public now I believe. According to VPFree, there hasn't been VP upstairs for four years.