Arizona casino info?

[Covered_in_Bees!]

(Crossposted from BJT.com)

Phoenix specifically.

As seen in this thread, I'm on the verge of leaving momma bird's nest and establishing myself as an actual independant adult.

In this adult life, I want to supplement my income with some advantage blackjack play. Nothing with huge time committments, just something to do every now and then on weekends to, like I said, supplement my monies*. Tournaments too of course.

With that said, Phoenix, Arizona is a location I am likely to end up one of these days. One of my best and longest-running friends lives there and it would be nice to be able to see and talk to him more often. Maybe even corrupting him into becoming an AP too.

But I come to you all for help in preemptively pointing out good/bad casinos in Arizona. The closer to Phoenix the better, but I'm willing to do about two hours worth of traveling (like I'm already prepared to here in NM). Don't be afraid to be detailed and long-winded, I'm not.

*Don't worry about how I handle my money. I won't jump right into anything I can't financially handle. I'll be staying in the "kiddie" pool until my confidence and bankroll are at acceptable levels.

[hawkeye]

I live in the Phoenix area. The casinos I know off-hand are Gila River Wild Horse Pass, Gila River Lone Butte, Harrah's Ak-Chin (in Maricopa), and two Casino Arizona locations both on the 101 in Scottsdale, one at McKellips and the 101 and the other at Indian Bend and the 101. I think there are a couple more casinos around the Phoenix area though, I think there's one more Lone Butte at least. All the ones I mentioned are on the east half of town, so there might be more on the west.

Gila River Wild Horse Pass:
Many BJ tables, even on Sun afternoon they had $5 tables. 6-deck shoe, decent pen last time I was there, 1 to 1.5 decks. DOA, DAS, S17. Also, they're ASM.

Same rules at Gila River Lone Butte but it seems much harder to find a $5 table there, mostly $10. Also Lone Butte is very small and mostly for slots.

Casino Arizona on McKellips has a weird mix of BJ tables. Some CSM, a lot of ASM, and last time there were a couple hand shuffled. Sometimes you can find $5 tables, mostly on weekdays or early on weekends, but they are usually CSM. 6-deck ASM is usually $10. Same rules as Gila River, I think they've all mostly agreed to use the same rules.

Harrah's Ak-Chin is about 30 miles south of Phoenix in a town called Maricopa. It's decent sized, I remember a lot of $10 tables, hand shuffled at least on a few, but this was over a year ago. It's too far away when there are better games in town.

There are a lot of good places to play BJ around Phoenix. Heat is non-existent, but they are Indian Casinos so play nice.

[Covered_in_Bees!]

DOA, DAS, S17. Also, they're ASM.

Sadly I must reveal my noobishness, I need a clarification of these abbreviations.

DOA: ???
DAS: Double after split.
S17: Dealer hits on soft 17.
ASM: ???
CSM: ???

There are a lot of good places to play BJ around Phoenix. Heat is non-existent, but they are Indian Casinos so play nice.

Sounds like a may try and move there sooner rather than later.

What about tournaments?

[Brutus]

casino arizona has a tournament on wednesdays.

i was there yesterday. - 20 units

there was this abnoxious biatch sitting next to me making comments about my play. I told her I thought i might have fleas, trying to get her away. finally i asked her if she liked sex, she looked at me funny, not sure how to answer. she nodded yes, then i told her to go f herself. that did it.

avoid wearing that hood, there's enough freaks, kooks and nutjobs running around that place.

[TheApprentice]

Originally Posted by Brutus

casino arizona has a tournament on wednesdays.

i was there yesterday. - 20 units

there was this abnoxious biatch sitting next to me making comments about my play. I told her I thought i might have fleas, trying to get her away. finally i asked her if she liked sex, she looked at me funny, not sure how to answer. she nodded yes, then i told her to go f herself. that did it.

avoid wearing that hood, there's enough freaks, kooks and nutjobs running around that place.

You are my "table-clearing" hero.

Tell more about the tournament, if you have details, please.

[Covered_in_Bees!]

You are my "table-clearing" hero.

Same here.

avoid wearing that hood, there's enough freaks, kooks and nutjobs running around that place.

Not a problem.

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by TheApprentice

Tell more about the tournament, if you have details, please.

sorry I've never played tournament blackjack.

[InPlay]

Originally Posted by Covered_in_Bees!

In this adult life, I want to supplement my income with some advantage blackjack play. Nothing with huge time committments, just something to do every now and then on weekends to, like I said, supplement my monies*.

Check the 7/11 stores in your area. Night shift pays an extra $1 or $2 per hour. Also check for Pizza delivery job. Don't know the situation on crop pickers out that way but check that out also. Hope that helps you out with getting a real job.

[Covered_in_Bees!]

InPlay: Forgive me if I gave you the wrong impression, but I do have a job/career ahead of me. No kind of "mcjob". I tend to be private so I don't divulge many details about myself, but apparently I keep giving people the wrong idea about what I'm up to.

Originally Posted by Brutus

avoid wearing that hood, there's enough freaks, kooks and nutjobs running around that place.

To expound on what I said earlier about this: If I ever move to Arizona, I think anything that even resembles Winter clothing is going to get left behind.

On Phoenix specifics: Could anyone in the Phoenix area tell me about the good and bad parts of the city? Somewhere/anywhere that would have some decent apartments, but not so shady that might get a blackjack player robbed. Ya know?

Thanks for all the help.

[hawkeye]

DOA - Double on Anything
ASM - Automatic Shuffling Machines
CSM - Continuous Shuffling Machines

ASM's hold two shoes worth of cards and automatically shuffles them. The dealer pulls one shoe out of the ASM and puts in the dealing shoe and deals. When they are done, they put that shoe back in the ASM, and take the other one out and play with it. Then when they're done, repeat over and over. The game never slows down to shuffle.

CSM's are machines that continuously shuffle the cards and spit out small groups of them in a slot in the front. You can't count a CSM at all, and basically you shouldn't play at them at all.


Phoenix is very spread out. Central Phoenix, south of downtown is not good. Just East of downtown, near the airport, is not good either. Most of the East Valley is good, Chandler, Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert, Scottsdale are all nice and don't have bad parts. There's a tiny little city/reservation by Chandler/Ahwatukee called Guadalupe that's not very nice, but you prob wouldn't end up there anyways. I don't know the West side as well, but I do know that it's very hit and miss in some parts, with some nice neighborhoods being next to crappy ones. I don't know it all that well though. Tempe is where ASU is, so there might be cheap places to live but it's also the hometown of the biggest college in the country so it might be too crowded to find cheap places, I'm not sure. Good luck finding a place, there are a lot here right now. If you're looking at renting a house you can find deals as the housing market is down right now and a lot of people that can't sell are renting to get something out of their place.