Location/Decor/Ambiance:
You know, it’s kinda of odd that I hadn’t been to the Great Blue Heron Charity Casino, in Port Perry, Ontario. It’s actually one of the closest casinos to where I live in the east end of Toronto, yet I frequently head in the direction of Niagara Falls for gambling, or Woodbine Racetrack if I’m near the airport for some reason. Well, one day this fall, Cass and I decided to check it out.
It was a great drive to Port Perry. We were only on the 401 highway out of Toronto for a short time, then quickly found ourselves on straight country roads passing through nice little towns and tranquil fields. We even stopped off at a church bake and craft sale, picking up some snacks and a cross-stitched Kleenex box cover. There seemed to be plenty of places to eat along the way to and through Port Perry, but we didn’t stop this time. Port Perry itself didn’t seem to exciting, so we breezed on through to the casino.
We liked how the casino looked form the outside. It was bright and cheerful, situated, well, in the middle of nowhere as most casinos are, but on a nice plot of land. Parking was easy and plentiful. Inside, I was very impressed by a well updated (although not incredibly modern) interior, accented with chrome heron sculptures flying over the main gambling floor. It was a little dark (no windows anywhere), which is not unusual. You enter into a room with a large table gaming section to the left, the bar/restaurant/buffet on your right, and then you walk through a center section (with the rewards desk) to a large separate room with slots.
Rewards Program:
The Great Blue Heron has its own rewards program, and it’s pretty good. On signup, you get the choice of $10 free slot play or $25 match play at Blackjack. The service is really nice. C needed help figuring out the free slot play, and the lady behind the desk actually walked around and out onto the floor to show her how it worked. Also, if you need one, get a card cord from them – it’s just a straight rope cord rather than one of those springy plastic ones (which I hate).
Food:
In my opinion, food is where this casino shines. We had two meals there. First, we sat at the Lucky Stone Bar and Grill. Beer is cheap for a casino: 6 dollars for a 20 oz pint of PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon, the hipster’s favourite low class beer!). I had wings, which were okay, but a little fatty. Buffalo chips (hand fried thick chips) were great. The best part is that you can take your food to the slots at this casino. In fact it’s encouraged. There’s a snack bar on the slots floor where you can get pizza.
In the evening, we went for the buffet. I found it to be excellent, especially for a casino of this size. Other people seem to agree, as they tout it as “Award Winning”, whatever that means. I can see why – the food was tasty, hot, and made in fairly small batches so that it was fresh. There were some nice pasta dishes, lamb shank, and lots of shrimp, but the most unusual thing was that they had unlimited fresh oysters. I don’t usually eat oysters but I couldn’t resist. Neither could the older Asian lady ahead of me in line, who piled on like, 20 onto one plate. C couldn’t help laughing, because that’s how my mom operates in a buffet – go straight for the money items, am I right?
Buffet prices were $7.75 for Breakfast, $13.50 for Lunch ($15.50 on weekends), and $20.00 for Dinner ($22.50 on weekends), and well worth the price.
Slots:
Slots aren’t my forté, but my wife found them disappointing in payout. This could be luck of the draw of course, but she felt that in the course of 3 or 4 hours, the machines just didn’t give back enough to justify the play, and a few of them sucked down 20 bucks like it was a black hole. There was a good selection of machines though… Wolf Run, Wheel of Fortunes, etc. were all represented. I played a new game called Code Red which I quite enjoyed. There weren’t many of the newest, flashiest games, however. 545 Slots.
Tables:
Blackjack, Roulette, but no Craps tables. I don’t usually play table games, but with my $25 match play I did great, and walked away from a Blackjack table with $150 bucks after half an hour of up and down play. 60 Table Games.
Poker:
The Great Blue Heron has a serious poker room. I don’t know if it’s the proximity to Toronto, which has no legal poker rooms, but it seemed like a serious crowd. On the Saturday of my visit, their lowest game was 5/10 limit. I usually play 2/5 or 1/2 no limit, but actually the “limit” part of the 5/10 game was actually quite sobering and reasonable. This means the small blind is $2 and big blind is $5, but after the flop the starting bet is $5. After the turn and river, starting bets are $10. The most anyone can bet or raise you are these starting bets, so I was reminded of how conservative that can allow you to be. You can always just call a hand rather than face an expensive all-in.
They also have “Kill” games, which sounds dangerous but are actually quite cool and very similar to the normal game. I had never tried it before, but for example, the 5/10 limit Kill game works exactly the same as a normal 5/10 game, until someone wins more than $100 bucks in a pot. At that point, a “Kill Button”, like a dealer button, is given to the winner. The next round of play, the game converts to 10/20 limit game and the “Kill Button” player has to put $20 into the pot as a blind before any hands are dealt. If they keep winning, the Kill Button stays out and 10/20 continues until it’s lost. It’s pretty neat, because it encourages winners to wager their money back into the pool and speeds up the action, yet everyone in the next round can also fold as usual if they don’t feel like playing the increased odds. In practice, from what I saw that day, things really don’t get too crazy in the Kill round and frequently the action stays 5/10. There’s also a variation called “Half Kill” which I didn’t try.
Poker room hotline: 905-985-4888 ext. 263, or 1-888-294-3766 ext. 263
Mobile Phone Reception: Reception and data is poor through most of the casino, but okay near the entrance to the poker room.
Date of Visit: November 12, 2011
Would I Go Back? Yup.
Fun Gambler 