The 12 tables are nearly always full, sometimes with an audience, and you’re next to a small observation deck where you can gaze at Lake Michigan while getting a much-needed breath of fresh air. 250 S Grove Ave, Elgin (88)Īmeristar Casino Hotel East ChicagoMost areas of this casino feature low ceilings and the stench of stale smoke, but the baccarat room is a different world. But pizza, pasta, stir-fry, fried chicken and carving stations of beef, ham, turkey and prime rib constitute about two percent of the offerings in one of the biggest buffets you’ve laid eyes on…even by casino standards. But there’s also Canopy Buffet, burger-and-fries outpost FLIPT and casual Asian spot Mian, all worth the cash. Rivers Casino Hugo’s Frog Bar and Chop House, an offshoot of Gibsons, is the main dining draw here, with buttery frog legs and potent Manhattans served to high rollers holding court in cushy leather booths.

Try Mississippi stud, a riff on seven-card stud that allows for higher betting-Harrah’s was the first in Illinois to offer it. The live poker “room” (it’s more of a corner, with only eight tables) is home to dealers and regulars who know how to throw down. Harrah’s JolietGet your feet wet with more than 200 video poker machines. Call ahead to secure a spot on weekend nights. With chandeliers, leather chairs and photos of poker legends, it feels like a stately parlor-packed with men in baseball caps and mirrored sunglasses. But all are welcome in the 34-table poker room, the largest in the Midwest, offering almost any popular style of the game at any limit. Horseshoe Casino Hammond Pros should watch for World Series of Poker–qualifying tourneys here (the last one, in October 2010, had buy-ins up to $10,000). A swank, private high-limit room is home to a solitary blackjack table, which we presume is reserved for James Bond. Rivers Casino A 44,000-square-foot gaming floor ups the ante with the highest table limits in Illinois, including a $100,000 maximum bet on mini baccarat. Or just flirt your way through the inevitable bachelor and bachelorette parties-you’ll probably have better odds.

Grab a cocktail (they run as cheap as $4) at Push, the sleek bar in the center of the gaming floor, and flirt with the penny slots or $1–$2 no-limit Hold’Em.

But on weekends, it draws a crowd of twentysomethings there for the scene as much as the slot machines, thanks to the proximity to downtown (a 17-mile shot over the Chicago Skyway) and free shuttles roaming Chicago. Horseshoe Casino Hammond This casino’s not short on serious dice rollers.

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