Page 58 - 2020 Travel Guide to California

CASINOS
BARONA RESORT & CASINO, above.
Resort & Casino in Lakeside; and Pechanga
Resort & Casino in Temecula. All of these
properties boast Vegas-style hotels with
eateries, shopping and spas. In early 2018,
Viejas Casino & Resort, just outside San
Diego, added the adults-only Willows Hotel
& Spa with 159 suites to its 234-room hotel.
Closer to Los Angeles, the name of the
game is card rooms. Two facilities are worth
visiting for their grandeur alone: the Com-
merce Casino (Commerce) and the Bicycle
Club (Bell Gardens). Both venues have
expansive poker rooms and host some of
the most popular tournaments in the area.
Morongo Casino Resort & Spa in Cabazon,
for instance, $199 per night gets guests a
room plus a $30 casino credit and a $100
credit at one of the on-site restaurants. Sim-
ilar deals are available at the Agua Caliente
Casino Resort Spa (Rancho Mirage). Most
area casinos have their own golf courses,
but locals rave about Eagle Falls, the course
at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio.
The 18-hole course was designed by archi-
tect Clive Clark.
The Desert
Package deals abound for stay-and-play
vacations at casino resorts in and around
the Coachella Valley and Palm Springs. At
Lake Tahoe
Okay, okay, so the casinos that sidle up to
Lake Tahoe are on the Nevada side of the
state line. Still, they’re close enough to most
other destinations in California that they
deserve a mention here.
Excluding those in Reno, the most acces-
sible venues are located in South Lake Tahoe.
Here, the Montbleu Resort, Casino & Spa
(formerly a Caesars property) is by far the
swankiest, with ultra-modern lounges and a
four-diamond steakhouse that makes Ruth’s
Chris seem like McDonald’s. The Hard Rock
Hotel & Casino Lake Tahoe, with 500 hotel
rooms and a 25,000-square-foot casino,
opened in 2015 in the old Horizon Casino
Resort space located down the street.
Of course the best thing about casinos at
Lake Tahoe is that because they’re in
Nevada, they play by Nevada rules (see
sidebar). Since sports books and dice games
are illegal in the state of California, this
means Tahoe is the spot to place those
kinds of bets.
Big spenders, consider yourselves warned.
And good luck.
SHERRY V SMITH/SHUTTERSTOCK
56 2020 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA