Why Circus Circus Is The Worst Casino In Las Vegas
Image source: Alexander Migl / CC BY-SA via Wikimedia Commons
Why Circus Circus Is the Worst Casino on the Las Vegas Strip
Every gambler knows that one of the best hubs for gambling is the Las Vegas Strip. In fact, it draws over 50 million visitors every year. As a worldwide tourist destination, it’s famed for the number and quality of casinos you’ll find as you stroll down the Las Vegas Boulevard. Go into any of these mega-casinos and you’ll be assured of a great time and exciting and memorable experience. That is all of them, apart from the Circus Circus.
Quite what this establishment is doing on the strip or how it has survived is a mystery. Everything that could possibly be a terrible experience or a negative in Sin City, can be found here, at this one location. You’ll notice straight away that the nightly rates are much lower than the competition. There’s a reason for that, as you’ll see. So, without ado, let’s see where the Circus Circus Casino fails and why.
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The Casino Stinks of Smoke
These days there are fewer and fewer casinos that allow smoking throughout the premises. Times have moved on from the days when everyone could light up everywhere. many patrons no longer will tolerate the smell of cigarette smoke. But not here at Circus Circus. It’s probably the smokiest casino you’ll find this side of Macau. Though they do have a rule about smoking only being allowed in the casino itself, for some reason the stink of used smoke permeates throughout the whole building. Not only that but as you walk around, simply look up and you’ll see a layer of smoke hanging in the air like a bizarre deadly morning mist.
And it not only cigarettes. Some punters like their cigars. And with the newest changes in Nevada law, you can also smoke marijuana. So there’s a rich combination of “flavors” wafting around the game’s floors. Look, it’s not that we’re anti-smoking. People want to feel comfortable, and more especially so in a casino. It’s all good. But why is it that every other casino on the Strip seems to have worked out how to remove excess and stale smoke from the rooms. It really doesn’t seem like rocket science to get a proper air filtration system working. And having irritating smoke in your eyes is not going to help increase your jackpot winning chances.
What’s even more disturbing, is that the casino actively encourages parents to bring in their kids. So the parents can gamble and the casino will take care of entertaining the little ones. But who in their right mind wants their kids breathing stale secondhand smoke. If you look at their reviews on Tripadvisor, you’ll find 6,886 “Good” to “Excellent” reviews but 3,565 “Poor” to “Terrible” reviews. That’s over 50 % negative.
Circus Circus Is The Worst Casino: The Criminal Element
There’s a long list of dodgy and plain criminal things that have happened over the last few years. For example, in 2018, a visiting couple from Vietnam were found stabbed to death in their room. A year later, a Circus Circus maintenance worker sexually assaulted a customer whilst he was working. Later that same year, another employee lured an underage girl away from the premises and committed a sexual attack on her. This year, a member of the Las Vegas Pole Department was shot in the head just outside the casino. And there’s more. It’s depressing. But you only have to look through some of those reviews to see that many customers didn’t feel safe in the hotel or on the premises.
You’ll find stories of people’s cars being broken into whilst in the casino’s “secure” parking, with the management giving scant time to any complaints about this. One problem is that Circus Circus is at the “wrong end” of the Las Vegas Strip. For example, directly next door to the hotel, on the north side, there’s a Travel Lodge Hotel which appears to double as a brothel and drug dealers crib.
There Are Crowds of Kids in a Casino
It’s kinda weird going into a casino and then meeting tons of children. We fully understand that the casino wants to encourage parents to have a good time. And more often than not that means encouraging them to bring their kids in tow. But it’s disturbing to see so many running around the games floor. Now, you’d imagine that the casino, in their efforts to get parents to gamble there, would have any number of facilities available for the kids to either be entertained or to entertain themselves. Go up the Strip to the New York-New York casino and you’ll find that lay on roller coasters, rides, arcade games and carnival attractions. (And all without the stinky second-hand smoke and dodgy neighborhood). Having all these kids running around is off-putting. You’re certainly not going to able to concentrate or use your jackpot winning strategies.
We just don’t understand why the Circus Circus courts parents and players with kids, yet provide zero entertainment for them.
The Casino Doesn’t Have Jacks or Better Video Poker
This is a nitpick, that’s never the less going to bug a lot of layers. Now most gamblers who are fans of video poker will tell you that their favorite games are Jacks or Betters. These are the first video poker games and so always have a special place in the heart for any fan of video poker machines. In some ways, you could view these as the bona fida casino classic when it comes to video jackpot poker. There is a tiny bit of skill involved and with some time, luck and patience you can turn $1.25 into $4,000. On the whole, most casinos offer tables with a 9/6 pay-table. And the house edge is around 0.46%.
On the whole, where ever you go to play and in whatever type of casino, from the very smallest to these huge monstrosities in Vegas, you’ll always find at least a couple of Jacks or Betters machines. Take a stroll up the Las Vegas Strip and pop into any casino and you’ll find them. Circus Circus Casino has only two poker variants which are “Bonus Poker” and “Doubles Poker”. Though these are both fun games in themselves, it seems crazy to us that this casino doesn’t provide one of the most basic games to be found in any casino around the world.
Few Tables Offering 3 to 2 Payouts on Blackjack
Most blackjack players tend to be more serious about casino table games. As it’s a game that requires greater input from the player’s side of things and relies less on luck. So your average blackjack customer will be looking for anything that can give him an extra edge. In blackjack, this means only playing on tables where the payout table states 3:2 odds when making a natural 21. A big problem with playing blackjack at Circus Circus, is the casino only offers a payout of 6:5 odds. This is true of all the 27 tables they have reserved for the game. There are two other tables with a 3:2 odds payout, but they are for single-deck $10 and $15 minimum bets. This certainly does make them one of the worse casinos to win the jackpot.
So no blackjack player would ever go there to play, as just meters away there are any number of casinos offering a better rate. Again, as with many of the weird things Circus Circus does things, we have no reason why they stick with this formula.
Circus Circus Is The Worst Casino: Terrible Customer Service
You can always see the cut of a business by looking at how they deal with any complaints or mistakes. Unfortunately, Circus Circus is a huge fail across the board on this factor. It you go back and look at the Tripadvisor reviews, you’ll see, time after time, the same complaints. Many are not just about the condition of the room. But they also focus on just how rude and arrogant were the management of being told of these problems. Instead of apologies and looking for practical solutions, many customers experienced downright rudeness. This is one of the few establishments in the whole US, where the customer is always wrong.
Tragedy at The Adventuredome
Way back in 1993, Circus Circus debuted the “Adventuredome”. Here they also operated a roller coaster. Unfortunately, in 2008, a young child died whilst riding on the contraption. In 2019, a customer fell from their seat, causing the closure and subsequent safety inspectors to re-check the whole facility. Yes, we know that there have also been accidents are other amusement parks throughout the country. But having these tragedies happen here, in the worse casino in the US, leaves a lot to be desired. If you set up a business and offer to cater to families and children, then you can’t have anything going wrong.
Conclusion: Circus Circus Is The Worst Casino
If you’re a gambler and off to visit Sin City, then you’re sure to have a great time. And though we hate to be the purveyor of crap news, and hate to give negative reviews, we feel it’s our duty to do so this time. And it’s not just us. Once again, have a look through Tripadvisor’s reviews and you’ll start to get a good picture of both the casino and its hotel.
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