Quickie Turtle Creek report (not Las Vegas)

I recently found myself in Traverse City and I decided to stop by Turtle Creek, about 10 miles to the east. It's near the village of Williamsburg, which was probably named after some guy named William. I had been here once before, about three years ago. They were in the process of redoing the casino and adding on a hotel then. It's done now. The first thing I noticed is that I didn't recognize anything about the place. The second thing I noticed was that there were two distinct casino areas, both with its own cashier. The "right" casino (from the main entrance) has 9/5 JoB for dollars. Not promising, so I looked farther. I found 9/6 JoB for quarters... with a 2500 coin payout for the royal. Not great, but that's what I played. I ended dead even and earned a few points. Did I say my card worked from three years ago? It did. Anyway, I bounced around from the "right" casino to the "left" casino fooling around with a few slots on the way. I lost about $13 on the way. No big payouts. They had some nice and pretty slots, but nothing particularly appealing to me. But then I saw The Amazing Race. Phil asked me to throw some money his way. I did, and I lost $15 worth. Thanks a lot, Phil. BTW, I saw 8/5/30 Bonus in the left casino for quarters. The slots were busier than I expected for a Thursday afternoon. Elderly crowd, though there were some youngsters.

I went round and round the table games looking for a suitable spot. The right casino had its own pit area, but no games were open. Most tables at the left casino were open. There was one each of craps and roulette - $5-500 limits on the former. There were several sucker games with some activity. The blackjack tables were 5-200, 10-200, and 25-500. For those of you that care, all the ones I saw had 6 deck shoes that were hand shuffled. They cut off about 1 deck, hit soft 17, and paid blackjacks at 3:2. On this day, they had a couple of specials going - 777 suited paid $5000, and each blackjack offered tickets for a drawing each hour where the winner would get $1000. The $5 tables were busy, but eventually I edged my way into a seat at one. The dealer was busting a lot, but I wasn't getting very good cards, so I couldn't take advantage of it. Eventually I got better cards and things started to turn my way. Then they changed dealers and ran out of cards. I ended up $130 ahead and gave away my two tickets. I couldn't have scripted it any better. The gentleman on my left started out betting black and was up to two hands of $200 each by the time I left. He seemed to be doing well; I hope he was able to keep it up. The pit didn't seem too concerned.

I then stopped by Seasons, which during dinner functions as a buffet, but looked and acted like a coffee shop during lunchtime, when I went. The prices were nice. I selected a burger. It was overcooked (partly my fault), but away from the crunchy parts, it tasted good. There was nothing else to complain about during the meal, and the damage was only about $10. Works for me.

The staff was as friendly as you'd expect from a big employer in a small town in a state where unemployment is generally high. My impressions were favorable and might end up returning someday.

Thanks for your report.
Dick From Milwaukee

Thanks fremont4ever for that report! And just for your and the group's information, at least in 9/6 Jacks Or Better, the Royal Flush contributes about 2% of the game's overall return and so if 4,000 coins = 2%, then a reduction by 1,500 coins (down to the 2,500 coin jackpot [this on a Quarter machine would be a pay of $625]) would lower the game's overall return by 0.75%.

So what this means is that the game's overall return would then end up being 99.54% - 0.75% which would bring the game's return down to about 98.79%.

RecVPPlayer

Thank you rgpups for reading.

RecVPPlayer: Thanks for the calculations. I was too lazy to do a formal calculation, but I figured it had to be in the 99% range.

Also, for the four of you that are reading, the 500 coins for the royal goes all the way back to one coin, which I thought was darned nice of them.

You're very welcome, fremont4ever!

I just wanted to help everyone here to better figure out what the lowered return would become since a lot of people don't know how much of a game's return comes from the pay on the Royal Flush. And actually that amount of percentage differs sometimes somewhat and sometimes a lot from game to game.

Actually, if I remember correctly, the exact percentage composition of the Royal Flush on Full-Pay 9/6 Jacks Or Better is 1.98%.

I'm happy that you checked the Royal Flush payout because many times people don't check that stuff. Actually, I encourage all players to carefully check every single, solitary line on machines pay schedules to make sure that nothing has ended up being monkeyed around with before they start play on the machine.

I say this because you never know when a casino may become sneaky and alter something in a pay schedule (especially in a place where people are not suspecting that something could be changed)!

We have to be (for our own good) on guard for this kind of stuff!

RecVPPlayer

I also visited Turtle Creek over the Labor Day weekend. I didn't have much luck, but my son thanked the Chippewas many times!

Nice place and not cramped at all. I did think it could use a better sustem to flush out the smoke.

Joy

Hi, I'm in Traverse City and I went here again. They've changed things up again. The table games are all in the "right" (east) wing rather than the "left" (west); the old table game pits have been filled with a bar and some slots. The old poker room in the west wing is now the high limit room; the new room straddles east and west and it looked nice. In fact, the whole casino looked nice with mostly shiny new machines. It was a mostly elderly crowd because it was "their day".

Turtle Creek has been consistently sending me offers all year and I took advantage of a couple of them. I used their $10 in freeplay at a 8/5/30 bonus dollar machine. A couple of quick high pairs and I was $10 richer. They don't have TAR anymore, but they do have a new video version of TPIR that looked intriguing. So I tried to donate money to it. But somehow I got a big, huge 670 coin line pay (50 cents was the minimum at this machine, which is what I was playing at the time). I took that as my cue to skedaddle ahead $5.20.

Then I played some blackjack. The conditions were much the same as last time - 6 decks, cut card at 1 deck, double after split, blackjacks pay 3:2. Busy, but I found a seat at a $5-200 table (they also had one for $10-300 that wasn't as busy). Nice folks at the table, though not the best of players. My cards weren't much - I got a lot of stiffs - but the dealer busted a lot, so I was able to leave ahead $32. Not half bad.

I stopped by the deli to use my $5 off coupon ($10 min. purchase). I chose the cheeseburger and chicken wings. Both were good, though not worth writing a sonnet about.

So, I got to add another $47.20 to the pile. I'll add it to the bankroll for my LV trip next month.

Have you ever played at the casino in Petoskey or the Kewadin casinos in the UP? Played and stayed at the casino in St Ignace in June and had a great time.

Thanks F4E for your update on your return visit to TC and I'm happy that you were able to wring another $47 out of them.

I do know that side-trips can be good and profitable too and I've definitely had some of them!

RecVPPlayer