We recommend ALL OF THEM. These days value is everywhere in Las Vegas, but the locals casinos offer much more than the mega-joints on the Strip. Leave the Strip and you'll eat for less, drink for less, stay for less, and likely encounter better odds on both the machines and the table games -- that's just the way it is. But these aren't the casinos that you read about in Newsweek, so many visitors never give them a try.
So much for the macro statement. If you haven't been to the locals casinos before, a good place to start is with those near the Strip, which include Gold Coast, Orleans, Palms, Palace Station, Tuscany, Terrible's, Hard Rock, and Ellis Island. The reasons to recommend these casinos are many, but here are some of the highlights (note that we're not even including the tremendous room-rate values these places offer).
Gold Coast -- The Cortez Room for value-gourmet dining; Ping Pang Pong or Noodle Express for top-level Asian cuisine (Ping made the "essenstial 50 restaurants" in our book, Eating Las Vegas); a super $1.25 hot dog cart; and 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker at the race book bar.
Orleans -- Good restaurants throughout; very good video poker.
Palms -- Worth visiting just to get a feel for what all the buzz is about; N9NE steakhouse is tremendous; good food court for a bite on the cheap; excellent live-music lounge; truely one of the best casinos in town for video poker.
Palace Station -- Deals everywhere, including $4.99-$11.99 buffets (which is the price throughout almost all of the Stations group); a good oyster bar with late-night discounts; a little-known Chinese-food gem in Food Express; and more good video poker.
Tuscany -- We said we weren't mentioning room deals, but Tuscany is an excellent place to stay. It was also just named the best players club in Las Vegas in the big LV Review-Journal poll (and with good reason).
Terrible's -- Multiple dining deals in the coffee shop and a powerhouse $100 freeroll if you're an LVA member (see below).
Hard Rock -- Similar to the Palms, this is a place worth seeing just to see, but it also has some extraordinary dining specials running right now. The best of them is all-you-can-eat in Johnny Smalls for $19.99 (see our Top Ten for details). There're also deals in AGO and Mr. Lucky's, including the 24-hour off-the-menu $7.77 steak & shrimp special at the latter.
Ellis Island -- Awesome $7.95 steak special that's been in our Top Ten for years; great food in the cafe even if you don't do the steak; maybe Vegas' best karaoke; good games.
This is tip-of-the-iceberg. Each of these casinos has much more to offer than listed here. Then there are the many other great locals joints farther away from the Strip, including all of downtown. One more thing. In addition to the $100 freeroll at Terrible's, every casino in the list here is a prominent contributor to our Member Rewards Book. That means the great locals-casino deals are even better for LVAers.
