Chicago Sun-Times: Change at cage not just token gesture

When I attend casino openings, I tend to be impressed by small touches--a little amenity or service touch that lets me know the operator is in tune with customers' needs.

At Hollywood Casino's grand opening of its new barge June 14 in Aurora, I was suitably impressed with the new 53,000-square-foot gaming floor. But the one little touch that made me say "hooray for Hollywood" was at the cashiers' cage in the new section of the barge.

On my first walk-through, I noted that several windows at the main cage in the section of the barge that opened in February were marked "All transactions except tokens." These were the places for paper transactions such as cashing checks or arranging credit advances.

Then I crossed over into the newer section and got a happy surprise. All windows at the cage in that section were marked "Tokens only." No paper transactions were to be made at those windows.

Why is that a plus for players? Because paper transactions take much longer to complete than the simple exchange of casino chips and tokens for cash. Funneling both paper transactions and token exchange through the same windows creates backed-up lines and leaves frustrated players wondering why they're waiting 10 minutes for a transaction that takes just a few seconds.

Ultimately, technology will all but eliminate waiting time to cash in for most slot players. Several Las Vegas casinos that cater to local players already are using ticket printers on the slots, and it's just a matter of time before bar-coded tickets are approved in other jurisdictions, too. When a player hits the "cash out" button, the machine dispenses a bar-coded ticket. That ticket then can either be taken to the cage to cash in, or slid into the bill validator on another slot machine for credits to play.

In the near future, you also can expect to see ATM-like kiosks that read the tickets and dispense cash. When that happens, slot players will no longer have to wait at the cage while another customer signs papers and shows ID to draw a credit advance.

MORE HOLLYWOOD: Back in February, when the first half of Hollywood's barge was opened, I wrote about how bright and roomy it was, and how easy to navigate it was compared to the City of Lights I and City of Lights II riverboats the casino had been using.

That goes double now that I've seen the full barge. That old cramped feeling that went with climbing up and down the stairs through four gaming decks on each of the old riverboats is gone. There's room to stretch out on a single-level casino floor that is nearly double the size of the old gaming space of 29,000 square feet on the two boats combined.

The first half of the barge included a high-limit slot room complete with its own cashiers' cage. Now Hollywood has added the Beverly Hills Salon for table players, with 12 high-limit blackjack tables.

Hollywood continues as one of two Chicago area casinos to offer live poker--Harrah's East Chicago is the other--with a card room with tables for Texas Hold 'Em, Omaha and seven-card stud. Video poker players will find lots of progressive jackpots, along with the new Legends Poker Bar with 12 machines split between dollars and quarters, with multi-progressives.

Some of the video poker pay tables are pretty good--and that's not something I've always been able to say about Hollywood. I'll have to make a return visit to map everything out, but there is a great deal of $1 9-6 Double Double Bonus Poker, a 98.9 percent game with expert play. Some include progressive jackpots on royal flushes, kicking the potential return higher. Many machines are multidenominational, allowing a customer to play for $1, $2, $5 or $10 with a touch of the screen.

My biggest reservation is on the blackjack rules. On the main casino floor, the dealer hits soft 17, which would seem to be piling on in a six-deck game. That seems to have become the Fox Valley game, with Grand Victoria in Elgin having hit soft 17 on a six-deck game since its inception. Blackjack players continue to get a better deal in Joliet, at both Empress and Harrah's, with six-deck games in which the dealer stands on all 17s and in which players are allowed to resplit Aces.

Hollywood does have a good mix of games, with live poker, blackjack, craps, roulette, mini-baccarat, Caribbean Stud and Let It Ride Bonus on the tables. I'd like to see Three Card Poker, but it's difficult to offer as many different games in Illinois as in Indiana given Illinois' limit of 1,200 gaming positions per license. There's a strong slot mix, too, with plenty of old reel-spinning favorites along with a wide variety of multiline video slots.

Construction continues in the pavilion--I eagerly await the reopening of the Seven Fortunes Asian-European fusion restaurant-- but the main attraction is the barge. And that is a huge improvement over the old Hollywood.