Checked out the new Red Rock Casino/Resort/Spa yesterday
The new Red Rock Casino/Resort/Spa opened the 18th at 12:00am, and I had been anxiously waiting to see the first billion dollar casino built off the strip. There was a lot of publicity and ads running up to it’s grand opening, which started with a fireworks show that woke my wife and I up at 10:30pm. It was especially exciting for me because I was hoping to find a nice local crowd and a much better alternative for playing poker other than the dingy Orleans. I have grown to not like the Orleans very much, since it is littered with local rocks, ventilation is horrible, and the tournament structures just plain suck. Even though it’s a smoke-free poker room, you’ll probably die of second-hand smoke.
We got there yesterday around 3pm, and even though there were a ton of people piling into the lot, parking was very convenient. We bypassed the parking structure, made our way around to the west side, where I heard the poker room was located. The lot was packed, but we found a spot on the outskirts, and it still only took a couple minutes to get into the casino. When we walked in, all we could say was WOW. They went all-out for this casino. Nice hard wood floors for walking around, beautiful chandeliers everywhere, music, bars everywhere, awesome pool scene, and this place was hopping. The layout is fantastic I think. As I expected, the first thing I saw was the poker room, right next to a fantastic looking sports book. We spent a good hour just wandering around looking at all the amenities. The pit area is very unique. It was laid out in a huge circular area that surrounded a very lavish looking bar. I must say that the layout is the best I have seen, so you have to go check it out if you are in town.
Now to the important stuff; the poker room. All of their 20 tables were full and the waiting list was filling up fast. I put my name on the 10/20 half-kill hold’em game and the 2/5NL and waited about 20 minutes before I was seated at the 2/5 game. The experience so far was very cool. All of the poker room managers were nice and helpful, and the cash in/out area is nicely laid out, so I got my buy-in and headed for my open seat. The tables were beautiful, with a marble “racetrack” style area for your chips, and nice “skinny” red felt tables. The tables were nice and long and I seemed to be pretty comfortable there, even though I didn’t like the chairs too much since they didn’t adjust. Everything is automated at the tables. You give them your “Boarding Pass” (comp card) which is slid through a card-reader, the push a button to make sure that your card is “live” and your seat is generating the comps. All the tables have card shufflers, and a digital readout in front of it to tell the dealer whose card was swiped and clocking the dealers in and out. The dealers were fast and efficient, but I wish I could say the same for the waitresses. It took 30 minutes to see the first one, and 20 minutes to get my bottle of water after I ordered. All in all, a very good experience. I left up after about an hour and a half of playing, but will definitely need to come back again and monitor the scene there. The play was pretty tight because of all the locals checking it out. The poker action was a little slow for my taste but hopefully things will settle down a bit after all the frenzy. Then again, maybe it was just my table.