Some additions to my Winstar review that is posted on the Oklahoma
Casinos page:
June 2008
Winstar has recently finished converting all their machines to their
new player card, which does offer cash back. I was told the rate is
50 points = $1, but I have not verified this yet. The card can be used
for cash back or for food comps in the casino. I haven't had it long
enough to find out if it will result in any mail offers, but they used
to do mail offers on their old card, so I suspect they probably will
on this card as well.
There are two new additions to the VP inventory at the casino. In the
older "Circus" casino, the old high-limit area on the far right wall,
near the poker room, has now been turned into a bar. There are bartop
machines at all the seats (about 15) around the bar. They are
.25/.50/1 MG progressives, with the same 97 to 98% paytables as the
rest of the casino. On two visits to the casino over a week-long
period, no one had hit the progressive, which at the $1 level was up
to over $6300 and still counting.
In the main casino, the bar in Zar's Italian restaurant has been
remodeled and now also features about 20 MG/MD progressives. Same
denominations and paytables as the Circus casino bar. The progressive
was at $4200 and counting. One missing feature: These machines have no
speed control, and right now they're set at a medium speed. Too slow
for my taste, but at least they haven't resorted to putting them at
the slowest speed.
BTW, sodas are free at these bars, but beer, wine, drinks and bottled
water must be purchased. They don't chase you off the machines even if
you're not buying drinks, but when the casino is crowded, people will
push in between the seats to buy drinks.
The management has changed the system on W2G payouts. You still have
to sign all the paperwork, turn over your ID, and wait for the
attendant to come get you and take you to the payout window. However,
at least they now pay out at windows in each casino, instead of making
you go all the way to the middle of the new casino to a single payout
window as they used to do. They may also have lowered the amount of
time it takes to get paid; I received a payout in about 15 minutes
recently, but this was on a weekday evening, when the casino is less
crowded.
Finally, my earlier report stated that there were no table games
except blackjack. This is no longer true, as I noticed at least one
Three Card Poker table, and possibly a Baccarat table as well.