The New Wind Creek Chicago Southland Casino

The grand opening of the new Wind Creek Chicago Southland Casino was on Veteran Day (11/11/24), but to avoid the massive crowds, I waited until today (11/20) to check it out.  

Parking is free and they have a big parking garage.  There are also some parking spaces located outside next to the garage.  There's an enclosed walkway from the garage to the casino.  You can see the walkway on the lower left side of the building in the photo below.  

Wind Creek is located in East Hazel Crest, IL which is about a 1 hr drive south of Downtown Chicago.  Although with all of the roadwork being done on I-90/94 around the downtown area, traffic was a nightmare so it took about 1.5 hrs going and over 2 hrs returning home.

Wind Creek is the principal gaming and hospitality entity for the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. For more detailed information check out their website.

Wind Creek Chicago Southland Casino

17300 S. Halsted St.

East Hazel Crest, IL 60429

https://windcreek.com/chicagosouthland

Wind Creek is a nice property.  Of course, I say that about most of the new casinos that I've visited.  Who doesn't like playing in brand new casinos that are fresh and clean with brand new Slots/VP machines, new food vendors, etc.  

A place to get snacks before entering the main casino area.

Entrance to the casino floor.  They also have a sign, "Entering Weapons Detection Area". 

I was surprised that they weren't giving new player club members any freeplay like a lot of other casinos tend to do when they had their grand opening. I hope this isn't going to be the new trend when new casino properties open.

The casino staff that I interacted with were all friendly and helpful too.  There were cocktail waitresses on the casino floor and they also had self-serve soft drink machines too.  They had live entertainment on the casino floor, but I'm assuming that it's still part of their grand opening celebration.

Not all of the food vendor are open, but here are a few of them.

A few more photos of the casino area.

They also have a good number of table games and quite a few people were playing.  Although, I didn't take any photos of that area.

They have an area towards the back of the casino where all their VP machines are located.  However, the area is rather small which isn't surprising. LOL  Pay tables varied depending on the game.  I did find some 9/6 Bonus Poker

Of course, I spent a couple of hours playing VP and turned my initial $100 into just under $300, but I cashed out with a net win of about $50 so it was a winning day. LOL

I started out playing 9/6 Bonus Poker which was hitting on and off, then switched over to Deuces Wild Bonus Poker.  These were my best 2 hits of the day playing Deuces Wild Bonus Poker, but I had a number of smaller wins in-between.

Overall, I like Wind Creek.  However, I probably didn't see all of the nooks and crannies of the property, since I was only there for a few hours and spent a good part of the time playing VP. LOL

Their rewards program is somewhat different than Caesars or Boyd, for example, and it takes awhile to figure out some of the ways to earn both tier credits and points.  They also have an app (Casinoverse) where you can earn more rewards. Their tier system is based on the calendar year.  For Slots, 1 Tier Credit = $5 coin-in and for VP, 1 Tier Credit = $10 coin-in. They have more details on their loyal program over on their website. 

Their hotel isn't open yet, but I heard that it'll open next Spring.  I don't know what their hotel rates will be and if they'll have the infamous "resort fees", but if I can get some comp rooms, it might be a nice place for a one or two night stay-ca-tion.

January 4, 2024: A Day Trip To The Grand Victoria Casino-Elgin, IL

I haven't been to the Grand Victoria Riverboat Casino in Elgin, IL, since it became part of Caesars/Eldorado so I decided to drive out there for a day trip to see how much it has changed.  It's only about 35-ish miles from home so it's not that bad of a drive.  They have a big parking garage, as well as an outdoor lot right across the street and parking is free. LOL  I got there at around 11am.

https://www.caesars.com/grand-victoria-casino

My players card expired at the end of the year so I printed out a new one from one of their kiosks instead of waiting in line at the desk.  It only took a couple of minutes to print.  For a weekday, the place was pretty busy which was good to see.  They added a lot new slots, but not a lot of VP.  Their table games were pretty busy, but I'm not into them. LOL  They also have a Laurel Lounge at the GVC for Diamond and above.  Unfortunately, I'm still a lowly Platinum.  Their casino is also well kept and clean including the restrooms.  One nice thing is that all Illinois casinos are smoke-free.  Being a riverboat, the casino isn't huge, but they have a good variety of slots/VP and table games with everything located on one level so it's easy to get around.  The Horseshoe-Hammond is probably the biggest riverboat (or barge) close to Chicago, but their property has gone downhill for the past several years so I stopped going there.

I found some 9/6 JOB and 9/6 DDB so I was playing those machines for a couple of hours, but I was mainly breaking even so I switched over and played some slots.   They have my favorite Top Dollar machines, but they weren't hitting very well and not producing a lot of bonus hits.  I was down by about $200 so I decided to give some of the new Buffalo machines a try.

They have a good variety of the latest Buffalo machines and they were actually being nice to me today.  I never played Buffalo Chief so I decided to give that a try and on the second spin, I hit a nice bonus round and ended up with 38 bonus spins in total.  I was betting $2.50/spin and did good, even though I didn't hit any hand-pays.   I was hitting a lot Buffalos which generated some nice wins.  I was up by $1700 at one point, but I donated about another $200 before I decided to cash out at $1502.75 while I was ahead. I was also surprised that the cash machines dispenses coins, so I didn't have to go to the cashier to get that $0.75 in change.  

I didn't take very many pics inside the casino, since I was told by one of the security people that no photos/videos are allowed, although I did sneak in this one hit on Buffalo Chief.   It was still adding up the coins when I took this so the total was way more that what's shown in the pic.

Dining options are still rather sparse at the GVC.   Both of their main restaurants have limited hours and aren't open for breakfast/lunch.  The only place open was the pizza/pasta restaurant, but I didn't feel like eating pizza so I stop by Mitsuwa's (one of my favorite Japanese markets) on my way home and picked up some sushi for dinner.  I didn't think of taking photos until I was done eating so no sushi pics.