Florida gaming - Class II or Class III?

Recently the question of the day involved a comment made by Bob Dancer regarding Florida gaming being Class II. My understanding was that not too long ago the Florida legislature approved Class III (call Vegas style) gaming which had been implemented in most Florida casinos. Am I mistaken? We are going to Florida in November and I want to play VP but I have no desire to play Class II machines. Help me Florida players.

You're right, the Indian casinos have had Class III games for about four years now. I live near Tampa, the Seminole Hard Rock casino still has a few Class II machines for people who like them (go figure; I think they're all slots anyway), but the vast majority of machines are Class III. Best games are Illinois Deuces for 50 cents and 9/6 JoB for $2. Blackjack sucks, $25 for a six-deck shoe, everything less is CSM and/or 6:5.

I do remember the old Class II VP, played once or twice. As you know, the outcome is determined before playing the hand, so you could throw away a paying pair and you'd always get a new paying pair. Never had the cojones to do that with a dealt FH or quad.

Thanks jon. My research indicated what you said but I wanted to be sure. We will play at Hard Rock Tampa on Nov 7th and then the week of Nov 10-16 at Hard Rock near Hollywood while spending a week on the beach. Now all we need to hope for are good VP pay tables (and sunshine of course).

Tim from Indy (go Colts)

Dont count on good VP tables at Hard Rock Tampa. Although the Class II machines offer 9/6 JOB (insert laugh line here). The Class III VP is lousy...but despite being lousy its very popular. They have about a million slot machines and maybe 50 VP machines....and the VP is always full.

Its not a bad place. They have some good food options and the slots aren't too tight. I dont know the square footage but its absolutely huge. It seems bigger than any place in Vegas.

I agree with the size comment re: Tampa. We were there once last year for a brief walk-through when we went to Tampa for the Colts/Bucs game and the place seemed huge. I understand that it has been expanded since then. I do not think we will be visiting the Tampa facility however as I do not give business to entities that advertise deceptively. I thought it might be nice to stay the night at the casino on Nov 7th. The rates to the public were pretty high but a promo box said to call a toll free number for special club members' rates. We jointed the club when we were there so I called the number and was offered the same rate as the one available to the general public. That really p---ed me off so I declined and emailed my unhappiness to customer service. I receive a prompt reply with a rate offering that was $3 less then the general public rate. I replied with a thanks but no thanks and the statement that I would take my money elsewhere. Not a smart way to run a business.