River Rock Casino, Geyserville

The line to the buffet stretched past the Megabucks machine.

Our sojourn to the North Bay included a stop at the River Rock casino in Geyserville. Like other tribal casinos in California, River Rock, IMHO, doesn't measure up to Nevada standards: Indian slots are tighter, their "comps" less generous, and the buffets less spectacular. But a mediocre gaming experience is to be expected when the establishment has a captive audience and the nearest competition is over an hour's drive away.

Indian casinos have another drawback: Section 19, Article 4 of the California constitution allows them only to offer card games, such as blackjack, but not dice or roulette.

Some casinos try to circumvent this restriction by adding cards to a prohibited game. The craps shooter rolls two die, which come up, say, as a 5 and a 6. Then the fifth and sixth cards are selected from two stacks, revealing the point to be, for example, a 4 and a 1. Thus the numbers showing on the dice are totally unrelated to the card total used for paying off the crap bet. It's singularly unsatisfying to be rooting for a number, see the dice hit it, then have the cards produce a different result. I played "card craps" once at another casino; never again.

The minimum bet at blackjack was $10. I killed time with the basic strategy (diagram), which a player can use to make a modest stake last for hours if he's not tempted to increase his bet size. After dinner and three hours of play, the others in our party had had enough.

We were home before midnight. For all his grousing about tribal casinos, your humble observer must concede that they have one huge advantage over Vegas and Reno: they're only a two-hour drive away.  © 2013 Stephen Yuen