how easy it is to earn a COMP ROOM at the silverado franklin playing BJ

Don't see how a game that is basically spread only for about 10-15 regular player can be deemed corrupt. The guys that do play "The Big Game" are there weekly mainly to partake in a my %$#@'s bigger than yours game. Maybe an occasional tourist happens to get in the game and gets squeezed out, but this would be rare as seats are locked up by the above mentioned 10-15 and for the most part are the only ones to participate.

Let these idiots cheat each other if that's the case. If you can't tell a game your in is rigged then you most likely deserve the fleecing.

Your friend should contact the South Dakota Gaming Commision and drop a dime on these guys if that is the honest truth. That would do more to resolve the situation than you posting maybes here on 2+2

Paid off to do what? The ludicrous example below?

I personally know damn near every dealer and poker room manager in town. None of them would risk their livelihood to participate in above scenario. For one thing All of these rooms have a manager, and a dealer crew. Floor Supervisors have nothing to do with operations in the poker room and to suggest they are inserting stacked decks into play is just stupid.

Only part of any of this thread that has some semblance of truth is of a loosely organized team of players in the 200% games at the Lodge. Those are angle shooting azzwipes and if you play any amount of poker here you already know who they are.

Easier to bite the bullet and pay for a room. Most in town are well under $100 on weekdays. Weekends and special event days can get pricy. The amount of action you would need to lay to get the comp would be relatively high, and if you can lay down that much action just paying upfront would most likely just be a bet or 2 for you. Hope that helped.

And I would posit that the team is in that game not to measure dicks, but to keep skimming off the innocent regulars that are there to see who is bigger than who, all the while clueless as to what's really going on.


Wow. I mean, really? Just. Wow. "Cheating is ok as long as it's sophisticated enough to be undetectable because then the people getting cheated deserve it." This type of attitude is exactly why Deadwood has the corruption problems that it does. Cheating is wrong, first and foremost, because it's wrong! What a morally bankrupt opinion to say that cheating is ok if you can do it well enough not to be detected. Ugly.

Oh, he's gone round and round with Gaming. He thinks they're corrupt to the very top. That may or may not be the case, but at the very least, South Dakota Gaming is, if not corrupt, utterly incompetent when it comes to poker. There's not a poker expert on their staff. And this is not just an opinion shared by just me, or my friend. I've heard many poker dealers and managers discuss Gaming. The word I hear most often in conjunction with them: "Joke". This shouldn't be any more controversial of a statement than to say "It snows a lot in Deadwood". It's just a basic truth.

I think the staff at CJ's and The Lodge is, or has been, paid off to:
Look the other way for cheats
Arrange for the team to get specific seats in MTTs to facilitate collusion
Get pre-arranged decks into games to setup civillians or to hit the BBJ.

I'll leave it to neutral readers to decide if I sound ludicrous or not. Just know that I am not the only location where smoke is coming from on this subject.

First off, a quick clean-up of terms here. In larger rooms, the "floor" and the "poker room manager" are usually two different positions. In Deadwood however, the floor is often the poker room manager. I tend to use the terms interchangeably when talking Deadwood. But, to be clear, I was never referring to random casino "floor managers".

Also, despite how I may come across, I think that Deadwood has lots of honest and upstanding poker dealers. I have seen them jump down peoples' throats before for play that's just starting to near the line of soft play. I certainly know many that would never say something shady like "Hey buddy, if you can't see the cheating, you deserve to be cheated". But to say that you know them all well enough that they'd never do anything to jeopardize their careers is, to me, a crazy mix of hubris and naivety. History is littered with poker players and staff, athletes, and business people all risking a lot more than what Deadwood poker staff have to lose. Especially when you consider how long the cheating has been going on Deadwood, and how they have faced zero repercussions, how some staff members may think it's basically risk-free money.

Only part of any of this thread that has some semblance of truth is of a loosely organized team of players in the 200% games at the Lodge. Those are angle shooting azzwipes and if you play any amount of poker here you already know who they are.[/QUOTE]

As floored as I was earlier in your post, this part gets me more. I mean, good lord man, you even know there's cheating going on at the Lodge (although somehow you "know" it's only loosely organized...how do you know that?) You also know who's on the team. And yet for some reason, you're defending them stealing money from honest players. I just don't get it, at all.

I do thank you very much for making this post though. As people from outside the area can read this now, and see that even someone defensive of Deadwood poker admits there's a team at work. It's not just one random dude on the Internet now.

The only way I know for sure to get a free room at the Franklin is to hit 10k points and get a Gold Card. When you hit Gold, you get a book of coupons, one of which is a free room. 10k points = a $25k handle at any electronic game, before any point multipliers. Also, 10k points will get you $100 in freeplay, so that's basically another room. I'm not sure what formula they use for table games, nor do I know what type of play you need to get a room comped independent of achieving a Gold Card. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Just come play poker instead. At 50 points/hr you'll be Gold in a mere 200 hours.

i was going to play the VBJ machine with the virtual dealer on the big screen (when NOT playing poker that is). id like one free as many days as i can, to avoid the charges. most of the year up til now it was showing up as $19 weekdays and like $80-120 on weekends. but now its suddenly $79 on weekdays the entire month of june? what gives?

a guy from the area told me the most comps come thru MAILERS and before the mailers the rate is only 0.10 percent. meaning every $100 u run thru it is only 10cents back. u are saying its 40 cents back? $25,000 ran thru the VBJ is $100? are u talking about a one time only offer when u sign up?

i was hoping if i ran thru like $10,000 a day (with an EV close to even if u can count it accurately since it dont shuffle every hand) or if not, at least with a 99.39% payback with their listed rules, that i could earn the room free every day

and then of course id spend a lot of time playing $1-100 spread limit or whatever games there are equivalent to $1-2 NL here. it wouldnt bother me to walk to another casino to do this if i needed to

Ah, the VBJ machine. That's a little bit of a different deal. Taped to the machine are little notes that say "Single points only". However, from what I heard from the players largely responsible for that note, they actually slashed it to 1/10 points. So that would be .04% cashback. However, I haven't verified that myself. But I think that unfortunately you're looking at paying $142.50 in EV to hit gold there. That's without quantifying any edge from counting (although, tbh, I'm not sure how you'd count the machine since you don't know when it reshuffles).

If you can count with any modicum of subtlety, I'd imagine you're best off just playing table BJ. I'm not sure what rate you'd get for comps, but my hunch is that's the play.

But whoever told you that before you get a mailer, your points are only .1%, was mistaken. Once you get a player's card, it's definitely .4%. The mailers are just a bonus, I think they usually start getting sent out the next calendar month for the previous month. Also, you don't actually need the mailer to get the offer. So if the mailer goes to your residence in LV, but you're still in SD, you can just present your player's card to the desk, and they'll give you whatever cashback, hotel, meal, or slot tourney entries you've earned (again, this is in addition to the .4% which is instant).

Rates usually go up after Memorial Day around here due to the whole area getting quite a bit busier during the summer tourist season.

Silverado will have 2-20 to play often, and a 5-100 on the weekends. Saloon #10 just down the street will get the $2-10 or $3-15. Not sure on the other two places, but I've already gone on ad nauseam about them in this thread, so we'll leave well enough alone.

A couple of weeks back a buddy had his hand killed at the Silverado game with about $150 of his chips in the pot when he looked at a text his wife sent saying, "Good night, good luck". Then after an innocent and incredulous, "wtf?", he was bounced from the table for profanity lol.

I haven't played DW in a long time, but if they want to cheat or have a "measuring" contest, bring back the 2-1k game and I'll sit with them all night long. That was the softest game evah. They must have gotten rid of it quickly to save themselves, or their "game", it is never spread anymore... a shame too.

Yeah, the cell phone rule is ridiculous. Gaming being Gaming. That's their solution to the cheating in Deadwood. It's either gross incompetence or corruption at work. All it accomplishes is annoying the player base, just like you described. sigh

It was me that told him that. Unless it changed since my last visit, the video BJ machine at Franklin pays just .1% and does not qualify for multiplier days. You must wager $1000 for 100 points that equal $1. Those rules only apply to the blackjack machine. Even though the video poker machines have the same multiplier disclosure, they pay .4% ($250 coin-in=$1 free play).

The VBJ machine has been set that way for at least five years. I would be surprised if they changed it to make it more generous. I have not been there since December though. Maybe they did.

I think you misunderstood the comment and it is actually 1/10th of a percent, which isn't the same thing, unless they made it worse since December.

There were only two of us that played that machine constantly back when it had multipliers. Was it me? If not, I know for sure who the other one was.

Don't blame the dealers. The state gaming commission made that ridiculous rule in response to the cheating accusations. I never heard anyone claim that people were texting in the middle of a hand, making this rule even more absurd.

It runs off players (I played much less on my last trip there because of that rule) and serves no purpose towards improving the integrity of the game.

yeah and apparently no warning. Just insta-killed his hand, while he was waiting on other action he took a glance at his wife's text. Even showed it to them. With gaming revenue dropping annually there, DW (or SDGC) is slitting their throat. But hey, let's bring it craps!

Sounds to me like I won't be playing any poker when I visit South Dakota.

Only 3 weeks till my "poker tourist day" in DW. Have not been there since 1952.

Staying at Lodge, so maybe some end of evening poker there. Poker room said they spread 2 - 100 Holdem. Saloon # 10 has a 2 - 10 stud hi-low game that day so will certainly play that. Also Silverado has a 2 - 20 DC of Holdem and Omaha/8.
What are the other open poker rooms in town? Cad Jacks? What do they spread? Another one or two rooms? Anything worthwhile?

Other "must sees" ? The Wild Bill recreated shooting? Dinner at the Gem Steakhouse? Inside look at interior of Franklin or Bullock hotels? Adams museum? Other suggestions? Thanks

Sounds like you have the bases covered for poker in town. For non poker... There is a new steakhouse at the Franklin hotel that sounds interesting and the restaurant above Saloon #10 is good as well. Also take a drive through town up the mountain and go down Spearfish Canyon. The drive down through the canyon is beautiful.

Hello all I decided to actually post on 2+2 because of recent experiences I had playing in deadwood. This is my first post so bear with with me. I just moved here to South Dakota to be closer to my family and my girlfriend got a new job here. I have visited the area many times before and always enjoyed playing cards in deadwood. I looked on poker atlas and played tournaments at CJ, Silverado, and The Lodge. I had plenty of success in the tournaments at CJ and only played at Silverado and The Lodge once or twice.

Well now that I am living here I realized that The Lodge was the best place to play (so I thought) because of the big prize pools created from money added tournaments. They have loads of comps for players and give away a ton of free money. Well my beliefs about the Lodge have recently changed because of the ethics of this poker room. I noticed a person on here making crazy accusations about cheating going on here in this room and kind of blew it off because the room seemed really nice and they seem to care about the players greatly. Now I am not saying that cheating is going on here, but what I am saying is that it could easily be possible based off the poor integrity I have noticed in the dealers/operators of this room.

Okay so you are probably wondering what happened. The first thing that caught my attention was I sat down to play a cash game in the early afternoon and they had the floor person play in the game so that they could "get the game going" now this is very strange to me because of all my years playing poker I have never seen a floor person sit in a game to get it running so they could start raking in money. It just seemed really off and having been a dealer in the past something like this would have never been acceptable in any of the card rooms I have worked/played in.
Alright that was the first thing that caught my attention now I was suspicious.

I continued to play even though this made me feel somewhat uncomfortable about the room. Later on in my session I noticed the dealer over rake the pot by a margin that most likely couldn't have been by mistake, he noticed I was paying attention and got really fidgety about it and ended up only raking $1! So why would he only rake $1 out of a pot that was nearly $50 after removing chips that he was about to drop. It looked really shady, when I was a poker dealer I would always make sure to never rake more than required because I didn't want to chance losing a tip. So why would he risk taking more than he was supposed to unless it benefited him in some way? After this session I decided to hop on the forums and do some more research.

That is when I stumbled upon a post about a disgruntled player who claimed to have been "robbed" by a poker tournament at The Lodge. It talks about how he registered for a tournament (the annual poker classic) and there was 300 entrants at $300+30 a seat. But somehow the prize pool was only $57,500. How could this be? 300 players x $300=$90,000! well because The Lodge has a promotion where they give out "golden tickets" to this tournament but don't actually pay the buy in of these tickets! This is completely unacceptable, and when I asked the poker manager about it he just shrugged it off and said "It's how we comp our players".

At this point my trust for this cardroom is completely diminished. However I am very curious and decide I will go check out the nightly tournament. I wanted to get one last look before I leave that room and NEVER come back. That is when I noticed something very strange. The dealer slid a seat draw to a player intentionally. It was almost like "here is your seat sir" kind of thing. The player even asked the dealer, this one? as he took the seat draw. Now I cannot prove that they are cheating at this room, but what I can say is that they are very untrustworthy. PLEASE if you are visiting deadwood do not go play at The Lodge. I have a ROI of over 20% and have not even cashed in any of these tournaments. Now I haven't played a huge number of them but the play is so bad there that it seems I should be profiting or at least show some results.

I hope this post can prevent players from playing at this room with such low integrity. Have a good day

Floors and staff sitting in games to help them get going is something I've seen many times before in small rooms. Unless you catch them cheating, I don't see what the problem would be.

More details on the over-raking would be necessary to make a judgement.

The money shorted from the prizepool definitely seems crooked. Not even shady, just crooked.

I play cards all over the country but when I visit my parents in spearfish I never play cards in deadwood.

From my experiences playing in deadwood all of the other rooms seem to be honest good people, and fair games. Its just the Lodge at deadwood I have problems with. I really do love the restoration/culture of deadwood itself. It is a very fun place to visit. Its just that if you do visit beware of the crooked card room at The Lodge.

Gonna pass through here about a week before Christmas.

Who has the biggest poker game? And what other tourist activities, especially outdoors activities (I'm aware it'll be cold and maybe snowy) should I try to hit?

Poker will be very quiet that time of the year, especially during the week. There are only four poker rooms in town. You will probably find the big games at Cadillac Jack's or The Lodge, if it exists that particular night.

As far as outdoors activities, do you ski or snow mobile? If not, there won't be much to do on the outdoors side. Mt. Rushmore is about an hour south of Deadwood.

There is a lot of history in Deadwood if you're into that. The graveyard has some famous people buried there. It overlooks town and is a nice view. I don't believe the snow gets cleared up there very often in the winter though. It is still probably worth a visit if the snow isn't too deep.

About 90 minutes to the west in Gillette there are some crazy 1/2 NL and 1/2 O8 split pot. On occasion a 5/5 game will go off as well. They'll also get into some Big O. Sounds small but depending upon who shows up there have been stacks of 8k being racked up at the end of the night. "Social" poker is legal in Wyoming and a number of the local bars will have a local dealer spread the games almost every night. Enjoy the Hills while you're here!

Thanks for the tip, I'll look that up. What is the Venue?

i too would like to know where i could find PLO8 $1-2 or at least a NL game multiple nights per week, lasting the maximum number of possible hours. if its in a bar, would people who dont drink be allowed to play, long as they bought food and coffees?

Cadillac Jacks had the biggest game on a Wednesday regularly 10-300 spread limit.

I don't know of a poker room that regularly spreads PLO8 anywhere in USA. South Dakota has betting cap of 1k, so no true NL games. Nothing above 2-100 spread will be running this year besides the cadillac jacks game.