Although I've visited So. Korea numerous times over the past decade
or two, I've steadfastly avoided visiting the Walker Hill Casino on
the outskirts of Seoul. My reasons for avoiding it were due to my
belief that it was far more European than it turned out to be. I
have no desire to gamble in a suit and tie. However my hosts on this
trip, knowing my penchant for video poker, hauled me over there last
week.
Walker Hill Hotel and Casino is darn near a mini-city. It's on the
outskirts of Seoul. It can't be on the edge of town though because
there was still city for as far as I could see in any direction. We
had a few minutes before dinner, (traditional Korean food), so we
thought we'd stick our heads in and see what it looked like.
You must be a foreign national in order to enter the casino. When we
first walked in no one asked us for our passports, but then again
it's pretty easy to tell I'm not Korean.
The casino itself is larger than I'd expect, perhaps 75K square
feet. Mostly table games, some slots, and a room off to the side
that said, "Video Poker". There were about 100 tables all together.
Of those there were probably 40 blackjack, 40 baccarat, 8 or 9
American Roulette, and 1 or 2 of Chinese Dice. Chinese Dice had
three dice in an enclosed globe. You place bets on how you think
they'll land, the total of the three, whether there will be pairs,
etc. The dealer presses a button which vibrates the globe and shakes
the dice. She keys in how the dice land and the layout lights up
showing the winning bets. Only a few people were playing this game.
The blackjack was 6 deck shoes. Of the 40 tables, half were closed.
Of the open tables, some were W10,000 minimum bet, (about $9), some
were W30,000, some W50,000, and a few W100,000. The 10K Won tables
were full, the 30K Won tables were about 75% full, and the 50k and
100K Won tables all had at least 1 or 2 players at them. The
clientele was primarily Asian. I saw a lot of Japanese Yen flying
across the table.
You could either go to the cage to exchange foreign currency, or the
dealers would do it right at the table. I heard, but didn't have any
direct experience, that the exchange rate is better at the cage. But
that didn't seem to stop anyone from exchanging at the tables. In
one memorable moment I was walking about and noticed a huge stack of
chips bet on a BJ table. I calculated it was over W1,000,000,
perhaps closer to 1.5M Won. The gambler was splitting sixes against
a dealer three. He won both bets and and the dealer paid him close
to W3,000,000. That was a kick.
Anyway, 6 deck show, cards dealt face up. No rules were posted, but
it seemed you could double on anything and double after splits. BJ
paid 3:2. I eventually found a seat at a 10K minimum table and
cashed in for W100,000. I put out 10K and my first hand was a
blackjack. I then tried to bet 15K, and the dealer took the 5K chip
off. Apparently you can only bet in increments of 10K. I think that
was the only hand I won. After losing several in a row I stood up
and let some other chap have the seat. I ended up losing about $50,
and hung on to a couple of chips for my collection.
At dinner our hosts thought it was pretty damn funny that I'd lost
$50. They wondered if I was going to try to win it back after dinner
and I said yes, but I'd be playing video poker, I'd had enough
Blackjack! None of them could come in as they're all Korean
nationals.
After dinner I went back in and headed to the Video Poker room. All
machines, (including all the slot machines out in the casino), are
W500, which is about 45 cents. I couldn't tell what max bet was, it
probably said somewhere on the machine but only the buttons were in
english. Machines I saw were DW, JOB, Jokers, and something called
Seven's Wild. Well DW is my game so I sat down and studied the
paytable. OMG, it was so bad I didn't even write it down. As I said
I couldn't tell what max bet was so I wasn't about to hit the max bet
key to find out. However at Max bet the Royal paid 7K:1, and the
deuces paid 1K:1. At a single coin bet the Royal paid 400:1 and the
dueces paid 100:1. I didn't want to cash in my chips and I only had
11K won left on me, so I fed it in for 22 credits. I played 1 coin
at a time, amazing my friends who could enter the casino with my
speed, (and I'm not that fast, but they don't play). I played about
45 minutes and during that time my credits went as low as 14 and as
high as 135. I didn't hit any dirty royals but I did hit a SF, lots
of straights and flushes and finally hit the 4 deuces. When the car
was ready I cashed out. I thought I had won 5K Won, but it turned
out to be 50K Won. So in essence I made back most of what I'd lost
at Blackjack.
My hosts were duly impressed that I had won back most of the money,
apparently believing I had a plan and had executed it.
Overall we had a good time, but Korea is a long way to go for the
poor quality of gambling you can find at Walker Hill Casino. That
certainly didn't seem to stop the rest of the gamblers though.
By the way, there were very few people playing VP. Mostly folks with
a bucket would wander in and drop a coin or two in and play a couple
hands, then wander off again. Much like I see folks do with slot
machines in Reno or Vegas. Also, I could not determine the
manufacturer of the games. I didn't recognize them, and there were
no readable logos on the machines. The graphics were far lower res
than we're used to, and the one thing that struck me was that on the
face cards, particularly the queens, they were all frowning!