Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tampa - Tampa, USA     

Well, the leaders of the Seminole tribe may be smiling - they seem to have a cash cow in hand, in the form of the Hard Rock Casino. Maybe they are getting some revenge for injustices of the past . I spent an evening and then some additional time the following afternoon there. Came away with some small winnings, but they were a hard-earned victory. The wins were mainly on VP (Jacks or Better with 8/5 pay, Dueces Wild, Bonus Poker) and a few dollars on an Aztec Temple slot. Here are some facts and figures - you decide if this is a place in which you wish to gamble. First off, as stated in many other reviews, there are not any complimentary drinks in the casino. The cocktail service seems to be pretty good, with servers readily available, in all areas of the casino, but you will have to shell out some money for anything alcoholic. The casino is large, approximate 150K square feet, I believe. The decor is somewhat austere, with much less color and glitter than might be found in a similar sized casino of recent vintage in Las Vegas. I rather thought of it as looking like a large meeting room, in a convention hotel, that had been converted into a casino. There were a few attempts at centerpieces, such as a small fountain/waterfall on one side, but nothing really memorable. The machines are laid out in fairly long rows, with few breaks in between. It seemed that they were going after maximum number of machines possible, rather than trying to approach the layout with any aesthetics in mind. The casino was somewhat smokey, as they all are (except the two establishments in Niagara Falls, Ontario, bless the Canadians!), but the ventilation did seem to do a reasonably good job. I only had a moderate ashtray smell in hair and clothing after several hours inside. The restrooms, and general premises seemed clean and fairly well-maintained. There are a number of TITO cashout machines located around the perimeter, and many of then were accompanied by a regular ATM, for those whose TITO fortunes had not gone well, and who needed more ammunition. The casino consists of approximately 4,000 slots and a good-sized poker room. The poker is the only style of table game that is offered, and it does not include any of the common poker derivations such as 3-card, 4-card, Let It Ride, Pai Gow etc. The Players Club stated that the slot mix consists of about 2,500 of the Class III (ie "Vegas Style" as they like to call them) machines, with the rest being the bingo-based type of machine. The rows of the newer, Class II machines are identified with signs at the top that proclaim "Vegas Style". Obviously, one could not do a count, but I would question the figure of 2,500 of the new machines. There simply did not appear to be anywhere near that many which were marked as "Vegas Style". Having heard some very negative opinions about the low payback on the bingo-based machines, I did not play any of them at all, and all play was on the machines that were clearly marked as Vegas Style. There were a pretty good number of well-known slot themes (Cleopatra, Cleo II, Lil Green Men, Butterfly Sevens, Hexbreaker, DaVinci Diamonds, Black & White, Jackpot Party) but absolutely none of the newer themes (Wizard of Oz, Top Gun, Indiana Jones, Star Wars etc), none of the semi-newer names such as Kenny Rogers, and absolutely none of the old classics such as Red White & Blue, Goldfish, Texas Tea, Lucky Lemmings etc. They also had several knock-offs of fairly well-known styles such as Wild Wolf (or something like that) instead of Wolf Run, and Wheel of Luck instead of Wheel of Fortune. The knock-offs were extremely similar in appearance to the better-known names, but there was no telling as to whether the paytables and hit-frequency were the same as the originals. I forgot to look and see if these machines were made by IGT or by someone else. The newest machines that I did see were one bank of QuickHit Progressives - there were only about 8 machines, and they were constantly occupied. These, and the DaVinci Diamond and most of the GameKing VP machines were far and away the most popular. Many of them were completely in use, during the entire time I was there. There were not any banks of machines with designated payout %ages ((such as the "99% Payback") that you often see elsewhere. They also had some interesting machines that I hadn't seem before, such as a full-blown Roulette machine (not Rapid Roulette - each of these machines had its own video wheel and pill, and was independent of the other). These might be fun for anyone who likes Roulette, but wants to play on the cheap - they had minimum bets down to 25 cents. There were also some video Keno machines, and some for playing regular Bingo. The casino was pretty busy when I was there on a Tuesday night, and again on a Wednesday afternoon. There were always some machines open, but it was obvious what the favorites were, and they stayed pretty well booked up. They had a small high-limit area (probably 80 - 100 machines from $1 to $25) that was not getting much traffic at all. One of the more surprising situations, to me at least, was in the fact that there were absolutely NO Penny slots to be found. The lowest denomination anywhere in the casino were the 2-cent machines, and these were all in an unusual multi-denominational mode (2-cent, 3-cent, 5-cent) rather than the 1-cent, 5-cent choices that seem to be elsewhere). Also, many of the machines which are commonly found as Penny machines, such as Cleopatra and Jackpot Party, were not available in anything less than Nickles. The payline/credit choices were the same as the Pennies, but playing a 20-line / 5 credit Cleopatra machine amounted to $5 a spin, which was a bit rich for me. And then there were the payouts. As noted in other reviews, there just didn't seem to be much evidence of big winnings. Yes, that's a very subjective observation, but over the course of about 7 hours in the casino, did not see any handpays occurring. I also spent some of the time just watching the credit meters as others were playing on a pretty good variety of different machines, and saw almost no one who did not have steadily dwindling credit totals, and quite a scarcity of large hits. As I understand it the Seminole casinos do not have to release any payback-percentage information, but one has to wonder just how low the machines might be set. The comps are pretty stingy. They did not have any new-player incentives whatsoever (however the DID give me a free players-card stretch-cord without even having to ask!), but no T-shirts, beads, necklaces, meals, drinks, freeplay or anything else at all. There comp system is 400 points = $1. Judge for yourself it that is high or not, I thought it was on the upper end. In summary, the Hard Rock Seminole casino gives a strong impression that it is taking advantage of its uniqueness in the Tampa area. There are no other casinos anywhere close by, unless the casino boats (if they are still being run out of Tampa) count as competition. You would have to go south to central or southern Florida to get to any of the other Seminole casinos, or drive to Biloxi or New Orleans to get to another establishment. Its hard not to think that the Hard Rock is milking the locals for as much as possible, with a combination of some funky machines, no table games, no drinks, no comps and undisclosed payback rates. If Florida or a close neighbor ever somehow allows 'regular' non-Indian casinos, I think there is a pretty good chance that they would be in some trouble. Please feel free to post comments, both pro and con in the TA Tampa forum. I would be very interested in hearing about any opinions that others may have. Thanks to all for reading.

Went to Hard Rock for first time with friends for Birthday. Have never seen such (tight slots) before anywhere.. Have been to Vegas and the slots are not this BAD there!!! At least the machines in Vegas would let you win once in a while, to keep you playing.. Even my neighbor told me he could not win on anything he tried playing on... Well, I guess they think they got everyone coming there to play now, for the have (Vegas Style Slots). Well, I can say now they can keep there (tight slots) for they won't see any more of my money.. NO WIN - NO PLAY... Save your money oh yeah Beer is $4.25 a bottle.. nothing free when playing, like Vegas... The AUCE Buffet is pretty good, $5.00 off with players card.. $20.00 before 4pm, $30.00 after 4pm.. Get the Crab Legs in the back they have hot ones there.