6 Casinos You Absolutely Must Visit in Shreveport
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Most folks’ minds go directly to Vegas, Macau, and Atlantic City when thinking of casinos and adult playgrounds. While online gambling is becoming more widespread in this day and age, gambling has been legal in many other locations for a while now.
Shreveport, LA, is one location well-known to some for gambling, and for good reason. It’s a fairly inexpensive destination, has a decent selection of casinos, and isn’t typically overrun with tourist crowds.
Located about 45 miles east of the Texas and Louisiana border, several casinos are available. Let’s check some out and look at the pros and cons of what some know as Bossier City.
1 – Horseshoe Casino
The first casino you’ll see as you approach this destination off I-20 is Horseshoe Bossier City. This casino is owned by Caesars Entertainment. And in my opinion, it’s one of the swankier casinos in the area. Even though I have never personally won anything to write home about here, there’s still a lot of fun to be had.
In addition to their poker room, where the World Series of Poker was born, you can enjoy table games such as blackjack, roulette, craps, Let It Ride Poker, Mississippi Stud Poker, and Three-Card Poker. The Horseshoe features 68 of the most popular table games.
While the house edge contradicts, I always have the best luck at the slot machines. This casino boasts the loosest slots with the biggest jackpots and has over 1,500 slot machines, 370 of which are multi-denominational, ranging from pennies to dollars and higher.
My strategy keeps me away from them, but this casino also has a high limit slots area that is quite popular. They have progressive slots with jackpots starting at $100,000 (for $1 slots), $50,000 (for $.50 slots), and $25,000 (for $.25 slots).
2 – Margaritaville
This is the only casino on this list with which I have no personal experience, but it’s only because I haven’t made a visit to Louisiana in quite a while. The casino boasts 50 tables including craps, blackjack, roulette, and other favorites.
They have a nice selection of slots with over 1,200 total machines, including over 100 high limit slots. They pay out over $90 million in slot winnings each month.
Speaking of the high limit area, there is a private area for their high limit slots, including private amenities available only to the high rollers. There is a cage, cash center, bar, TVs throughout (including 90” screens), express jackpot service, and restrooms, all of which are private and exclusive to the high limit slots area.
You can also order your favorite beverage (free, even alcoholic) from the slot machines, which allow you to tip your server from the dough you’ve put into the machine. This also saves your favorite beverage for future orders and dispatches the server to deliver your drink within minutes.
I, for one, am excited to check out this newest addition to an already great gaming destination.
3 – Boomtown
I have many wonderful memories of Boomtown Casino. The most memorable was Christmas 10 years ago, when I managed to recoup all my losses from a few nights prior as well as get back every dime I spent on food, gasoline, and hotel stays for the entire trip. It was quite a nice surprise to get a free trip at the last minute.
This casino has three floors of gaming areas, including an unspecified number of slots and table games, high limits slots, multi-denominational slots, video poker, friendly service staff, and many seasonal promotional bonuses for their card holders.
Even if their site is not extremely forthcoming regarding the offerings available, the multiple times I’ve visited, I lost track of the time of day and even gotten a bit lost in the floor plan with all of the offerings available.
One of my favorite areas is the video poker area with countless games, including my favorite, the 100-hand machine which gives you a plethora of selections including deuces wild. That last one is the machine I have to thank for getting the free holiday trip to Bossier City.
4 – El Dorado
Come to discover what the Spanish Empire was raving about. El Dorado was a mythical tribal chief of the Muisca people. Originally called “El Hombre Dorado” (the Golden Man), the legends changed over time, from a man to a city to a kingdom, then finally to an empire.
This casino has a poker room featuring Texas Hold’em and Omaha Hi-Lo as well as daily poker room promotions. In addition, the poker room also features multiple tournaments four days a week, including early bird specials.
Speaking of tournaments, if poker isn’t your game, they also offer blackjack tournaments every Tuesday evening with a $20 entry fee. While I’m not much of a table game player, I’ll definitely check out a blackjack tournament for a mere $20. Roulette and craps are also featured in their standard offering of table games.
With over 1,500 slot machines, you’re sure to find something to tickle your fancy at El Dorado. With multiple game types, reel varieties, denominations, and video poker, there’s enough machines at El Dorado to take many of us back to the days of adolescence, getting lost at your local arcade until the change in your pockets ran out.
5 – Diamond Jack’s
Next door to Boomtown, you’ll discover another great option Bossier City has to offer called Diamond Jack’s. In addition to over 100 new slots recently installed, they offer many kinds of monthly promotions to active players. Each slot point or hour of table play gives you one entry.
Standard offerings include over 800 slot machines and video poker games with multiple denominations including pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and all the way up to $100 denomination per line. That last one is definitely outside of my pay grade, and I try not to think about how much I could have won if only I’d bet $100 per line instead of a penny, but it’s hard not to just do the simple math.
Table offerings include standard fare as well as some exciting new industry games. The table games include blackjack with in-bet side bets, roulette, Three-Card Poker progressive, craps with hot roller side bet, and Mississippi Stud.
Every Friday in January 2020, the JackPlay for a Year Giveaway promotion has been featured. With drawings at 10 PM, lucky winners receive $250 JackPlay per month from January through December 2020. A player can win the JackPlay for a Year once per month, so a different person is going to win each week.
6 – Sam’s Town
Last, but definitely not least, let’s talk Sam’s Town Casino. During one of my visits here, I was having a pretty rough go of it. I’d only brought $200 to play with in the whole of Bossier City and ran through $180 in two hours just among the three casinos I’d visited in the area.
After a night of frustrated sleep, I considered going home but decided to hit Sam’s Town to give it a shot before I carried my ashamed tail back home. I’m certainly glad I spent my last $20.
I walked up to a slot called the Amazing Money Machine and inserted a five-dollar bill. It was a penny machine with a max bet of $5, and on my first spin, I hit a jackpot! The lights and sounds were thrilling, and I walked out of Sam’s Town $2,000 richer and very glad I didn’t just go home that morning.
In addition to over 1,100 slot machines and real money video poker offerings, Sam’s Town also features table games like blackjack, single-deck blackjack, craps, Craps No More, roulette, mini baccarat, Let It Ride, Mississippi Stud Poker, and Three-Card Poker.
Pros and Cons
While those mostly familiar with Las Vegas gambling might find Shreveport a little less thrilling than the lights of Sin City, there are definitely things to consider before booking your trip to Louisiana.
On the plus side, there are a lot of different casinos to check out, and they each have a different feel to the environment and type of play. Variety is definitely the spice of life, and slot enthusiasts will find right around 10,000 machines among all the casinos there.
Another advantage to the location is that hotel stays are quite inexpensive, with the casino hotel offering quite nice rooms for as little as $29 per night. Each casino we listed has a player’s club card, so you can actually get their suites completely free of charge for your second trip there!
Also, check out Johnny’s Pizza, one of my favorite pizza joints in the area.
On the negative side, the casinos are all pretty smokey. Smoking is allowed at most casinos though, and it is always pretty noticeable when you first walk in to get your reservation or player’s card.
The entertainment offerings, while still nothing to sneer at, aren’t anywhere close to what you’d find in Vegas, or even at Oklahoma’s WinStar World Casino.
Anything I Left Out?
With all of the great food, promotions, slots, table play, and the fact that you can have a great time without breaking the bank, I think Shreveport was a great first choice for my casino experience. It was fun, exciting, and I went back home about $1,800 richer.
Check out their websites and book at the casino, or choose a local hotel for a modest price and see for yourself. And of course, don’t forget about online casinos, which are available throughout the USA and offer many of the same games as casinos in Shreveport.
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