Trip report: Video poker at Cripple Creek, Co.
Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 4:05 am
Cripple Creek, Colorado is located at 9,400 Feet above sea level near Pike's Peak, and about one hour away from Colorado Springs, a city of 750,000 people.
I played primarily at Billy's (recently bought by a corporation, not sure which) and McGill's (privately owned by one person). No Indian casinos present as far as I know. Anyone with a few million dollars on hand can buy a casino there and start one up, and many go boom n' bust there.
We'll start with Billy's:
1) Very friendly place, with excellent hotel rooms and reasonable rate.
2) Unbelievably generous point comp program. With my normal $1 Video Poker play at any other casino, I might expect $20 bucks on my card after a session. At Billy's? HUNDREDS of dollars, all exchangeable for cash.
This is the best point program I have EVER seen anywhere. It MAY be worth looking into again, if I were to return and focus primarily on VP.
3) I made the mistake of playing their slots, and I paid the price. Clearly the comps are paid for by their rather "tight" slots.
4) I played mostly Super Triple Bonus, Double Double Bonus at $1. This game boosts four of a kind payouts.
I received three tens, which then drew to four on each of three lines, for $500 each. I've never seen a draw to four of a kind hit three times in a row on triple play.
I hit a few other $500 four of a kinds, but not quite enough to keep me ahead in this costly game. I received three aces twice, but FAILED to hit $1600 or $4000 each time.
I hit Four Threes / kicker for $1600 as well. There wasn't anything else remarkable, but overall the VP machines seemed fairly "active" and not completely dead.
5) I played the NEW Ultimate X Streak game at McGill's. This was a five play, Triple Double Bonus .25 cent game. Right off the bat, I hit four 2s / kicker (I believe) it was 2x -- 4000 = $1000. There was another nice hit on the machine next to it for around $500, but I don't remember what it was.
After that, the machines went COLD. Dead cold.
The attendant opened the game up, and it showed $111,000 coin-in over the machine's lifetime. I said, "That doesn't seem like much at all." The attendant said, "Oh but that is cash! Not including tickets." and I thought, "So what? That's nothing."
It appeared the machine had been there maybe since the beginning of the year, or maybe 9 months or so. Once I put the timeline in perspective, I realized $111,000 in bills into that machine may be a fairly high amount.
I also noticed the other machine had a very low amount of lifetime coin-in, at around $15,000.
That's just an aside. I always like to take note of things like that, if a slot attendant opens up the "innards" of a machine and shows the statistics.
Something annoying about casinos there is that a "win" of $500 or so is a "jackpot" -- the attendant comes over and makes a show of it, though no taxes are taken. It's really annoying and ridiculous.
The casinos also have limited options for high denomination play, which was disappointing. I have no unearthly idea WHY a casino would put a limit on $1 play, unless they are "scared" someone might win $40,000 or something like that.
In conclusion, I wouldn't recommend VP in Cripple Creek, Co due to the lack of selection of VP games in ALL of the casinos (I checked them all) ... and somewhat suspect sense that their casinos there seemed to be rather "tight" -- I sure as hell did not see too many people winning or having much fun.
It's a good place to go to enjoy the VERY FRIENDLY people, decent food and mountain scenery -- bring $200 bucks and play very tight.
I will say again Billy's comp program is worth a serious look, it's also very possible they are not used to high limit video poker players and as such, their comp program may be overly-generous for a long-term VP player.
I got the feeling most VP players there stuck to LOW denominations, and few seemed "serious" or interested in their VP at all. It's a tourist crowd, for the most part. A smart person COULD potentially exploit their comp program if they were to play serious VP there.
I played primarily at Billy's (recently bought by a corporation, not sure which) and McGill's (privately owned by one person). No Indian casinos present as far as I know. Anyone with a few million dollars on hand can buy a casino there and start one up, and many go boom n' bust there.
We'll start with Billy's:
1) Very friendly place, with excellent hotel rooms and reasonable rate.
2) Unbelievably generous point comp program. With my normal $1 Video Poker play at any other casino, I might expect $20 bucks on my card after a session. At Billy's? HUNDREDS of dollars, all exchangeable for cash.
This is the best point program I have EVER seen anywhere. It MAY be worth looking into again, if I were to return and focus primarily on VP.
3) I made the mistake of playing their slots, and I paid the price. Clearly the comps are paid for by their rather "tight" slots.
4) I played mostly Super Triple Bonus, Double Double Bonus at $1. This game boosts four of a kind payouts.
I received three tens, which then drew to four on each of three lines, for $500 each. I've never seen a draw to four of a kind hit three times in a row on triple play.
I hit a few other $500 four of a kinds, but not quite enough to keep me ahead in this costly game. I received three aces twice, but FAILED to hit $1600 or $4000 each time.
I hit Four Threes / kicker for $1600 as well. There wasn't anything else remarkable, but overall the VP machines seemed fairly "active" and not completely dead.
5) I played the NEW Ultimate X Streak game at McGill's. This was a five play, Triple Double Bonus .25 cent game. Right off the bat, I hit four 2s / kicker (I believe) it was 2x -- 4000 = $1000. There was another nice hit on the machine next to it for around $500, but I don't remember what it was.
After that, the machines went COLD. Dead cold.
The attendant opened the game up, and it showed $111,000 coin-in over the machine's lifetime. I said, "That doesn't seem like much at all." The attendant said, "Oh but that is cash! Not including tickets." and I thought, "So what? That's nothing."
It appeared the machine had been there maybe since the beginning of the year, or maybe 9 months or so. Once I put the timeline in perspective, I realized $111,000 in bills into that machine may be a fairly high amount.
I also noticed the other machine had a very low amount of lifetime coin-in, at around $15,000.
That's just an aside. I always like to take note of things like that, if a slot attendant opens up the "innards" of a machine and shows the statistics.
Something annoying about casinos there is that a "win" of $500 or so is a "jackpot" -- the attendant comes over and makes a show of it, though no taxes are taken. It's really annoying and ridiculous.
The casinos also have limited options for high denomination play, which was disappointing. I have no unearthly idea WHY a casino would put a limit on $1 play, unless they are "scared" someone might win $40,000 or something like that.
In conclusion, I wouldn't recommend VP in Cripple Creek, Co due to the lack of selection of VP games in ALL of the casinos (I checked them all) ... and somewhat suspect sense that their casinos there seemed to be rather "tight" -- I sure as hell did not see too many people winning or having much fun.
It's a good place to go to enjoy the VERY FRIENDLY people, decent food and mountain scenery -- bring $200 bucks and play very tight.
I will say again Billy's comp program is worth a serious look, it's also very possible they are not used to high limit video poker players and as such, their comp program may be overly-generous for a long-term VP player.
I got the feeling most VP players there stuck to LOW denominations, and few seemed "serious" or interested in their VP at all. It's a tourist crowd, for the most part. A smart person COULD potentially exploit their comp program if they were to play serious VP there.