Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison

Reviews 3

JE

Jessie Long

My review is going to be in three parts, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good, no alcohol- I know people love to drink I mean after all this is Wisconsin but there is nothing worse then being in a casino losing your money and dealing with obnoxious drunk people! Or to be winning and deal with obnoxious drunk people! Thats why I hate potawatomi is the alcohol. I just hope that they keep offering the free coffee so the drunk people can sober up before they leave. Being this casino is on the outskirts of town it might not be a good idea to get people drunk and send them home. Speaking of the free coffee its delicious, and i swear sometimes I decide to go to the casino just for the free coffee! The bad, the rewards club is a joke you have to spend a ton of money just to earn $5.00 in rewards play. Almost every casino Ive been to offers amazing rewards for your birthday but not this one. The staff is very rude at the rewards booth. On the commercials they show happy smiling employees at the rewards booth but when you go there no one smiles, and they all act like youre an inconvenience to them! If youre going to work any customer service job you should be required to smile and be nice! The non smoking thing sucks, they built a box for the smokers and yeah its enclosed and controlled with heat/ac but still it sucks to finally find a "good" machine and have to risk losing it just to go smoke. Im really surprised they even went through with this because we cant give the casino our money when we are out in the box! The food offered is very overpriced and not that great! The staff serving/making the food is very rude, and not helpful. My husband ordered cheese fries and they forgot the cheese. When he took them back the cook got mad and argued with him! He was extremely rude we wont be getting food from there ever again! The staff at this casino is horrible when youre losing your money at a casino it would at least be nice to have friendly employees but just not the case here! The ugly, the slots are ridiculous I dont mind that they are run by the bingo game what bothers me is that the slots they do have are all pretty much the same. Some form of quick hits everywhere you look its quick hits, and they just dont pay. Sometimes you get lucky but not often! Also its sickening to play any of the machines and get small to no wins. For instance a penny slot at max bet being $3.00 and win 3 cents, or 25 cents when you are betting the minimum amount being 30 cents I can see winning a penny or a quarter but when you bet dollars you should win dollars. Overall the is not a bad place to go if your looking for something to do but ho-chunk you really need to offer better rewards, get happy employees, dont get alcohol, bring back smoking, keep the free coffee, loosen up the slots, and get a verity of slots. Potawatomi has many different machines ranging from super jackpot party to the big bang theory they have so many different machines and that makes it fun. I recommend this casino for now until they get their alcohol license. Also I recommend that before going to this casino you plan what you are willing to lose and only take that with you because nine times out of ten you will lose!

DF

DFDalton1962

The review from Jason about manipulating the payout percentages is a feeling Ive gotten too from all too many trips to this casino. These slot machines are Class II slot emulators, meaning they dont have individual RNG chips like regular slots. You are essentially playing bingo with a central computer determining the payouts for everyone. The computer queues up the prizes and doles them out each player who hits a bingo on his/her card when they "spin". If you play for a long enough time, you will notice that the machines arent "random". For instance, I have gotten bonus rounds with 20 or 30 spins with EACH spin and the end payout being identical to a previous bonus. I can even predict which bonus Im getting based on the position of the bonus trigger symbols on the reels before taking the spins. (I have taken videos to confirm it.) However, I am NOT saying you can predict exactly WHEN you will win - Im not crazy.The bingo hits are at least semi-random. Why do I say "semi-random"? Because there is only one computer controlling the entire casinos payout. The operators are definitely manipulating the number and size of prizes in the queue from day to day, week to week and even month to month. You can often tell within minutes of arriving whether its a "hot" night or a dead one. Just go to the cashier cage and look at the area just to the right where they process the handpays. If you see nothing going on there you know its a slow night. They always seem to have just as many - or as few - slot attendants as required. If you go there on a busy night and dont see a lot of them, they are anticipating a cold night. Believe me, with one central computer controlling the entire floor instead of an individual RNGs in each slot, they KNOW. A couple of tips: You do not want to go when there arent many people there, especially Monday-Wednesday. Around the end of the quarter (late March, June, October, December) there will be a weekend or two where the floor gets very "hot". Beginnings of a new quarter are incredibly cold. Im guessing the operators are taking in a lot of surplus at the beginning of the quarters and are forced to pay a lot of it back near the end to meet the payout percentages they are allowed under law. If you go there and get the feeling it is DEAD, you are most likely right and should try another night. Dont get me wrong. Im not saying you can predict what is going to happen, time when you play here, and come out a winner. You can lose big even on a hot night. Play long enough at any casino and you always lose. What Im saying is this casino is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We all know there are some casinos that are looser than others, and frequent players tend to avoid the tighter ones. What Im saying is this particular casino can be BOTH, changing from one to the other on a dime. And your best bet is to recognize which it is as quickly as possible when youre there, and adjust your plans accordingly. There is no sense playing here when there is practically ZERO chance of anyone winning - and there are times when that is occurring, unlike at a normal casino. 5 stars when theyre loose, 1 star when theyre taking mercilessly. Avg: 3 stars.

MI

Mike Ware

Been out to this city for business a few different times in the last few months. Each time I go to this casino as I hate sitting in the hotel room all night. There seems to be a pretty good selection of slot machines at this place, however the payouts are another story. These machines are the types of machines that have frequent hits, but in small denominations. Out of 20 spins, only about 4-5 pay out more than your initial bet, and the rest pay only 1/4 to 0 of your original bet. Another strange thing about these class 2 slot machines is they have what is called "mystery pay". sounds cool but I can tell you, it is not. there are bingo card on the touch screens. when you press the button to spin the reels, if your card got a bingo and flashes yellow you know when the reels stop your going to get paid something, you dont know what until the reels stop spinning, but you do know something is coming. This is where the mystery pay comes in and more often than I would like. You bet $1.00 (max bet) and press the button to spin the reels. Your bingo card lights up and you know you have a win coming. When the reels stop spinning you notice you did not get anything so it pays what is called a mystery pay that is 0.13 and stealing the other 0.87 cents. The worst thing about these pays, while the reels are spinning, it looks like you are going to get something great. 2 out of 3 symbols needed for a bonus / progressive pay, red 7s which pay nice so you get excited since your card has bingo, and no other combination can come up but that last bonus or 7 on the 5th reel. But instead it pays you 0.13 cents and goes quiet as if it died, and small text says "mystery pays 13.00 except in this case it means 0.13. At times I wonder if you hit a nice pay, and the machine "malfunctions" and pays 0.13 cents since it clearly states on the machine "machine malfuctions voids all pays and plays". It is a good casino to waste time, but dont go here expecting to win anything. if you have a good night, you might leave even. If you are in the area and have the itch to gamble, do yourself a favor and drive the 1.5 hours to ho-chunk in wisconsin dells. that is a Much much much better casino.

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