Largest Indian Casino In Southern California
Southern California is one of the most unique regions in the entire country, featuring some of America’s most famous cities and most iconic tourist destinations. As it happens, it’s also a hotspot for gambling resorts and other activities. Below we will explore the types of gambling you can enjoy, and where you can do so, when you visit Southern California.
Non-Stop Action. The Pechanga Resort and Casino has the largest casino floor in California totaling 188,000 sq ft. The casino features over 5,000 slot machines, 158 table games, a non-smoking poker room with 38 tables, and an ultra-modern, 700-seat bingo facility. Starbucks opened in early 2014. The new hotel tower was partially opened in March and fully open by April 2014, bringing the resort's total room count to 1,065, making it the largest Indian casino resort by room count in the state of California at the time. Spiked and the food court also opened in April. 2020's top casinos in California include Catalina Island Casino & Avalon Theater, Del Mar Race Track + Harrah's Resort Southern California. Add these and more to your travel plan.
Southern California casinos are located in Los Angeles, Orange, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Imperial, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernandino counties.
Southern California Card Rooms
Card rooms in California are the only place you can play legal poker in person, aside from playing small games on private property. This is because players technically wager against one another. The dealer rotates after every hand. Card rooms themselves make a profit by taking a small fee from each person who participates.
Card rooms are excellent opportunities to either show off your poker skills or hone them even further. Some poker rooms are better for beginners and draw in crowds from all around the state. Others cater more to players with skill and may host a variety of professional tournaments. For instance, the Bike is a Southern California card room that sometimes doubles as a stop for the World Series of Poker.
Card rooms feature tables with a variety of buy-in limits and pool sizes.
Where To Play
Here are some of the top Southern California card rooms you can check out:
The Bicycle Hotel And Casino
This is arguably the most famous California card room thanks to its brush-ups with law enforcement over the years. These days, “the Bike” is a legit establishment that includes tons of poker games, plus a plethora of Cal Games with dramatically varying limits. Legends of Poker, a tournament series running since 1995, still runs here to this day. The Bike includes a seven-story hotel with live entertainment venues and other gaming opportunities.
Commerce Casino
The Commerce Casino is the largest card room in the entire world with over 270 poker tables. A 200-room hotel, an attached dining establishment, and more amenities make it a perfect place to stay to check out the greater Los Angeles area.
The casino also serves as the site for many major tournaments. Although it draws in plenty of skilled poker players, it’s also has a reputation for being beginner-friendly thanks to the poker-teaching classes it offers every week.
Hawaiian Gardens Casino
This casino is open 24 hours daily and includes over 150,000 ft.² of gaming space with over 220 tables. It includes a restaurant, cash games, massage services, auto shuffling machines, and cocktail services.
Hawaiian Gardens is an all-inclusive resort and casino rather than a dedicated poker room, but this makes it a great fit for general tourists or casino fans who also want to brush up on their poker skills while on vacation.
Southern California Indian Casinos
While most forms of gambling are illegal in California, tribal casinos are legal, and they remain havens of gambling activity. This is because tribal casinos are technically on Indian land instead of California state government property. As a result, state gambling legislation does not apply.
This allows Indian casinos to offer most major gambling activities you would expect from a classic casino and resort. Social games or gambling activities for money like bingo, lottery games, poker, slot machines, blackjack, and any other electronic games are all available in different amounts or in different themes depending on the resort in question. Games are either regulated by the National Indian Gaming Commission or by state authorities, depending on the type of game.
The tribal casino industry draws in over $8 billion of revenue every year, so each casino features its own theme and may add new areas or improvements from time to time. Southern California Indian casinos tend to emphasize LA or San Diego culture and iconography, featuring palm trees, movie imagery, and more. Lots of casinos emphasize their proximity to Hollywood and may include attached hotels. In this way, they serve as excellent resorts to stay at if you want to tour the greater SoCal area while also scratching your gambling itch.
Where To Play
Because of the generally warm and sunny weather that SoCal resorts enjoy, most Indian casinos in this region also feature pools or spas. Most SoCal resorts are around the LA, San Diego, or Riverside areas. Here are some of the best Southern California tribal casinos available:
Pechanga Resort Casino
This is actually the largest casino available in California, nearing 190,000 ft.² and including over 4,500 slot machines. There’s also a lot of other things to enjoy, including over 20 restaurants and bars, and a hotel that includes over 1,000 rooms. A 25,000 ft.² spa ensures you can relax as well as you can play while staying at this resort.
San Manuel Casino
This casino is currently set to add a new spa and hotel as early as 2021, and it’s one of the best resorts if you enjoy Asian or “Cal” games, like special variants of blackjack and other games. Several bars and restaurants are available in addition to its main gambling area.
Viejas Casino and Resort
Just 36 miles east of San Diego, this resort recently underwent remodeling in 2006 and now has a new high limit gaming area of over 15,000 ft.². It’s a great resort if you want to bet big and maybe win or lose it all. It also offers just about 1,000 slot machines, plus three hotels and a plethora of attached restaurants and bars.
Southern California Race Tracks
California has a particularly rich history with horse racing. There were even a few tracks open before full legalization in 1933. Horse race betting became legal when tracks came to a pari-mutuel business model, meaning that players wager against one another. The tracks themselves make a profit by taking a small cut of overall pools.
Where once there were many more racetracks throughout the state, now there are only four major racetracks at which major derbies and other races are held. However, Southern California arguably has the better part of this deal, as three of the four major tracks are located in the southern half of the state. This means horse racing enthusiasts have options within driving distance of one another, plus access to some of the best horse racing facilities in the state.
Where To Go
Below are some the best Southern California horse racing tracks around:
Santa Anita Park
This race track, opened in 1907, has played host to major racing legends including Seabiscuit. The one-mile natural dirt track and 9/1o of a mile turf course holds races through the early fall, winter, and spring seasons. More interestingly, the park is home to hillside turf course (one of the few you can find in the entire country). In 2007, the park also introduced a new cushion track with synthetic elements mixed with dirt. Tons of excellent facilities and amenities make it a great place to watch races for enthusiasts and tourists alike.
Del Mar Thoroughbred Club
Also called the Del Mar Fairgrounds, this 1936 race track now has a mile-long racecourse and has been the site of many high-stakes races, like the Pacific Classic Stakes in the 90s. The turf course was widened in 2014 and the main track was renovated for added cushioning for the horses’ safety. Tons of graded events are held every year, and the overall Fairgrounds host plenty of other entertainment venues and activities like a hat contest, Friday night concerts, and “Family Fun” days.
Los Alamitos Race Course
This track hosts both thoroughbred and Quarter Horse races. It also provides high-stakes Quarter Horse races with purses totaling over $1 million. Legally opened in 1951, it’s one of the most modern racecourses in existence. It doesn’t host as many graded events as the other tracks, but its proximity to Los Angeles makes it a popular tourist destination and a great place for horse racing enthusiasts to stop by while touring LA.
Southern California Gambling FAQ
It’s mostly because many famous Californian cities are located in the southern half of the state. Los Angeles and San Diego are just two of the biggest metropolitan areas in the Golden State, so they’re naturally good places for gambling sites to stake a claim.
Technically, the legal gambling age is 18-years-old. However, you need to be 21-years-old to enter many Indian casinos because of alcohol restrictions.
Largest Indian Casino In Southern California To Win
No. Sports betting technically isn’t legal, although tribal casinos may bring brick-and-mortar sports betting to their casino locations in the next few years.
Not really, with the exception of daily fantasy sports and online horse race betting. The former is only technically legal because there isn’t a law explicitly forbidding it.
Most are regulated by state authorities, although tribal activities are regulated by the NIGC.
— Pechanga Resort & Casino to Show Off Completed
$300 Million Expansion with Major, Star-Studded Party & Concert —
TEMECULA, Calif. – (Jan. 22, 2018) – The Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians announced today it will be holding a major Grand Opening ceremony and concert to celebrate completion of its $300 million resort expansion. The Grand Opening, scheduled for Saturday, March 3, will include a ribbon cutting with dignitaries and Tribal elected officials, a VIP poolside party with celebrities in attendance at the new 4.5-acre pool complex and a rock concert featuring artist Steven Tyler and his Nashville-based band Loving Mary inside the all-new Pechanga Summit event center. Tickets to the Steven Tyler concert will be available to the public and go on sale Friday, January 26 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $89, $99, $139, $159 and $179 and may be purchased by calling (877) 711-2946 or by visiting Pechanga.com.
The 4.5-acre pool complex, nearly the size of four football fields, will open to guests in mid-March. The pool area consists of four pools and three whirlpool spas (one with a natural rock waterfall feature). The center pool encompasses 7,600 square feet and features a swim up bar with underwater seating and a Baja ledge for chaises and daybeds that skim the water. Another large pool (2,400 square feet) features a family-friendly setting with two twisty waterslides that splash guests into a beach-entry pool. Next to the pool, kids can run through sprinkling water features at the splash pad. A third pool is a 1,200 square foot VIP pool. Two smaller pools (520 and 650 square feet) offer more spots for guests to soak. Thirty-two cabanas will be available through the entire pool and spa complex.
Encompassed within the pool complex area, named The Cove, is a large grassy field available to be used as an outdoor concert venue, space for outdoor parties, and more. Along with The Cove, Pechanga also will open an indoor/outdoor restaurant and bar serving poolside dining. This will be Pechanga’s 13th property restaurant and its 20th restaurant or bar venue.
During the December 2015 groundbreaking event that set Pechanga’s expansion in motion, Patrick Murphy of the Pechanga Development Corporation told the crowd gathered, “We are completely committed to making Pechanga Resort & Casino a world-class resort destination.”
With the entire project nearing completion, members of the Tribal Council and the Board of Directors took time for reflection.
“This $300 million project is a long-term investment to help cement Pechanga and Southern California Wine Country as a complete and refined destination experience,” said Tribal Chairman, Mark Macarro. “It is the beginning of the next chapter of Pechanga Resort & Casino and an important milestone in our history. This expansion prepares our Tribe for the next quarter century and positions our tribal government and community for success in the 21st century and beyond.”
“We are deeply grateful for the support of our Team Members, community partners, and the more than 3,000 construction workers that helped bring this project to fruition,” said Edith Atwood, President of the Pechanga Development Corporation’s Board of Directors. “This expansion gives us nearly 1,100 rooms – the most of any other casino in California – and provides our guests with unparalleled luxury amenities. We are truly taking the guest experience to another level.”
Economists from Beacon Economics estimate Pechanga’s expansion resulted in an output to the region of more than $550 million. They state the area’s local economy has benefitted from the creation of an additional 560 jobs per year as a result of the Temecula resort/casino’s expanded operations.
Pechanga Resort & Casino’s expansion includes a new, AAA Four Diamond, 568-room and suite hotel wing; a stand-alone luxury two-story spa and salon with 17 treatment rooms, a fitness center and hydrotherapy pool terrace; a 4.5-acre resort-style pool complex; two new restaurants; and an additional 67,000 square feet of event space. Tutor-Perini was brought on as the project’s builder. Lifescapes International, the landscape architectural firm responsible for iconic resort and casino landscapes such as the Bellagio and Wynn Las Vegas, was responsible for the pool complex, outdoor event lawn, and green roof atop the fourth floor roof. CLEO Design was tasked with all interior designs of the new spaces.
Snapshot of Pechanga Resort & Casino After Grand Opening:
- Casino square footage: 200,000
- Event/meeting/convention square footage: 100,000 (indoor) 174,500 (outdoor)
- Number of hotel rooms: 1,090
- Number of restaurants & bars: 20
- Number of pools & spas: 15
- Number of employees: 4,750
Pechanga Expansion Has an Economic Output of over $550 million
Southern California Indian Casinos Map
- Nearly 3,000 jobs from construction-related activities
- 560 total new jobs within community going forward from expanded operations
Local Improvements Funded by Pechanga as Result of Expansion
- $5 million to widen Pechanga Parkway and improve local roads. Over $9 million in funding for local law enforcement
- $14 million contributed for Interstate 15/Temecula Parkway Ultimate Interchange