Page 74 - 2015 Travel Guide to California

CA.CASINOS
GRATON RESORT & CASINO entrance,
right; Richard Thompson (R) performs
with Peter Frampton at Thunder Valley
Casino Resort in Lincoln, middle; romantic
dinner in Pechanga Casino, below.
companies in Las Vegas. Bettors cheer the
swanky gambling floor, which boasts a 20-
table poker room, more than 130 table
games, and thousands of slots. Foodies
flock to the place, too—the restaurant
lineup includes a Chinese bistro from Chef
Martin Yan, and a food-court outpost of
Tony’s Neapolitan-style pizzeria.
Other Native-American casinos in this
region are small but superlative in other
ways. Many, including Cache Creek
(Brooks) and Thunder Valley (Lincoln),
have full-service hotels. Red Hawk, in Plac-
erville, offers child-care services for tykes
while mom and dad play.
Most of the other gambling options in
the Bay Area are card rooms, and many
are located in the suburbs of San Fran-
cisco and Sacramento. The two most
popular: San Jose’s Bay 101, which hosts
a number of World Poker Tour events
throughout the year, and Colma’s Lucky
Chances, which doles out nearly $1 mil-
lion in cash prizes (not to mention lots of
seats to the annual World Series of Poker)
over the course of every year. Casino
M8trix, in San Jose, distinguishes itself
with a thumping nightclub.
SoCal and L.A.
Southern California—from the northern
edge of the San Fernando Valley to the
Mexico border, the Pacific Ocean to I-15—
is home to some of the biggest
Native-American casinos in the state,
including Harrah’s Resort Southern Cali-
fornia in Valley Center; Pala Casino Spa
Resort in Pala; Barona Resort & Casino in
Lakeside; and Pechanga Resort & Casino in
Temecula. All of these properties boast
Vegas-style hotels with eateries, shopping
and spas. In 2014, after a $160-million ren-
ovation, Harrah’s opened up a new
403-room hotel tower and a pool deck that
72 2015 T R AV E L G U I D E TO C A L I F O R N I A
GRATON RESORT & CASINO; RANDY MIRAMONTEZ/SHUTTERSTOCK; PECHANGA CASINO. OPPOSITE: TONY LYLE (LTVA)