Lucky Chances Casino in Colma, CA: A Review

All casinos are basically designed to take epic amounts of money from the people to visit them. It's pretty much the ultimate "get rich and stay rich" scheme, even with the amounts they pay out regularly, they still take in far more on the whole. But different casinos have different styles and different vibes. Some are more bottom-dollar and ruthless, while some at least make the pretenses of pleasantries and giving you a good time in return for all that money you dropped.

Lucky Chances Casino is one of those smallish "card rooms" that seems to perpetually be skirting the edge of illegality in the community it established itself in. It was built back in the late 90s, and this is just speculation on my part, but I'm pretty sure it was built because someone noticed that there's a huge Asian population in the Bay Area, and among Asian cultures there seems to be a disproportionate trend of problem gambling as compared to other social groups. So, put two and two together and what you come up with is that this place is basically here to prey on compulsive Asian gamblers, particularly elderly ones, and that is the crowd it draws and the vibe it generates.

Vibe is important. Las Vegas goes to tremendous lengths to put out a vibe of opulence and glamour. Even Reno has some fun spots, with more of a vibe of unpretentiousness and inexpensive good times. Lucky Chances Casino is like neither of these, or any major casino city in the Western world.

"So what" you may say, "I don't care if I'm surrounded by James Bond women or pushy Chinese grandmas who can barely walk, all I wanna know is how's The Action?" Well, the house is basically split in half into two types of card games. One half is Asian themed card games with Pai Gow, Double Hand, Super Pan 9, Three Card Poker and Blackjack. All of these have their little unique twists you have to be familiar with or you'll get cleaned out in record time. Then on the other side you've got the more "Vegas style" games - Omaha Hi/Lo, Texas Hold 'Em, Spread Limit Hold 'Em and 7-Card Stud.

As far as limits expect 3/6 at the low end and 30/60 at the high end. 1-1-2 is the usual old people and noob game with the occasional hustler buying in looking to fleece everyone, and expect all-ins every single hand regardless of what everyone is holding. 2-3-5 has a 200 max spread limit, but apparently there's some no-limit tables. 10-10-20 is for the hardcore Asian mafia types with no max buy-in and thousands flying around per hand. One icky touch is that the house takes $4 for itself and then another $1 to 2 for the "bad beat" jackpots on spread limit hands.

If you look on Yelp there's like 200 great reviews of the Filipino food at the Cafe Colma here. If you go and try it like I did, then scratch your head and wonder why people are raving about microwave food that you pay $10 per plate for, look again and notice that most of them were drunk and fresh from the club when they ate here around 2-3 A.M., and most of them have no basis of comparison with really good Filipino food so anything with eggs and rice and some fat in it becomes instantly wonderful under the circumstances. Point is, no matter how much you hear about it, don't come here for the food alone. Especially between 1 to 4 in the morning when all the clubbers are here and you get to wait upwards of an hour in addition to overpaying for mediocre-to-bad food. They also have a diner that serves seafood and steaks, but it is only open during normal lunch and dinner hours.

Promotions are double Omaha Jackpots on Tuesday afternoons, double Stud Jackpots on Thursday afternoons, and $500 for a royal flush in any Jackpot game at any time (play one hole card, two in Omaha.)

I view a casino trip as sort of a mini-vacation rather than a money hustling propisition, so "poker action" doesn't mean much to me, and the vibe of desperate, addicted problem gamblers really brings me down (especially when they start cussing out the tables when things don't go their way.) Thus the atmosphere of this place is just too crummy for my liking, and the food is both overpriced and overrated. I don't know about you but I'd rather just stash my coin away for a later trip to somewhere much nicer. But if you want it, hey, it's over in Colma on top of a graveyard. Good luck.

Lucky Chances Casino
1700 Hillside Blvd.
Colma, CA 94014
# 650-758-2237
http://www.lchances.com/