For a long time the Four Queen's has been the best gambling destination for us downtown. They have a large selection of good video poker (10/7 DB with progressive, 9/6 JOB, and progressives at the bars that are often positive or close), reasonably good comps and bounce back cash, very friendly and attentive wait staff, some good promotions, and even .3125% cash back. You just don't find that combination many other places these days. It has always been fairly easy to come up with a positive play for us there. Recently things have gotten a little worse for us in the offers and bounceback, but we still find it to be a good play.
We have been getting good offers recently from Main Street Station, despite the fact that we don't give Boyd properties as much play as Four Queen's. I actually like the casino there better than 4Q's (in fact I think it is the most attractive casino downtown), and I really like the bar with 9/6 JOB, scratchcards and craft beer. It's far and away my most favorite place to play VP. I also like the food options better at MSS. They have a reasonably good buffet, and the 777 brewpub is mostly better than Magnolia's at the 4Q's. However they have lower cash back (.10%), and while our offers have been historically good for a Boyd property, they are not significantly better than Four Queens. Recently we have been doing VP tournaments at MSS and regular VP trips to 4Q's.
The other place we play regularly downtown is Fremont, mostly because they have the best VP game i know of, full pay Pick 'Em. In fact they added four more of these machines recently. They also have other full pay games, and lots of old time VP coin droppers you probably haven't seen in years. Pick 'Em is very uncommon in Las Vegas and fairly uncommon elsewhere in full pay trim. The Fremont is not an especially nice casino, if fact I prefer 4Q's. But most of the wait staff are long time employees, are very friendly and very attentive. On the bad side their buffet is not great, and I'm not crazy about Tony Roma's either. I don't know if it is correlated, but started getting better offers from Boyd once we switched our home casino from Fremont to Main Street.
Early on we played for a while at El Cortez, and while they have full pay VP offerings, they are not as numerous as the others I've mentioned. For the time we played, we did get good offers. Both Plaza and Las Vegas Club have some good VP, but I don't know much else about them except the LVC is pretty dingy. Plaza is much improved with the recent renovations. We don't play at the Cal either, but I know they also have good VP, and I assume the same comps and offers as the rest of the Boyd properties. We used to give Binion's some play when they had the four very good machines behind the bar (with my second favorite game, 99.66% BP), but for some reason those machines were downgraded, even though they are owned by the same people who own 4Q's, which of course has dozens of machines with the same games that were on these four measly machines at Binion's.
We had never played at the Fitz, but now that it is the D, we did try a little play there on our going home day last trip, mostly to use the LVA coupon. It is much improved from the Fitz days, and from what I've read has reasonably good offers.
We avoid Golden Gate because of the very poor VP play there. It takes an exceptional promotion for us to even try to give them any play. But we do eat at their Dupar's coffee shop, which we find to be excellent. Same for Golden Nugget. Although if you are not looking for a good gamble, they do have a very beautiful property that gives most of the strip properties a run for their money, great restaurants, a fantastic pool, and very nice rooms, which can often be had for $29 or $39/night, sometimes also including other free offers.
I hope that helps.
