Lumiere -- St Louis
I was looking forward to the opening of this new casino and poker room. The Grand Opening was Wednesday and a carload of us went two days later.
Its a $500 million facility and seems as if run by some nickel-dime management nitwits.
There are many positive features;
This casino has a Prime Location right in downtown St Louis - close to the football stadium, close enough to the baseball stadium, very close to a convention center, and right next to the entertainment district. Quick parking garage access. Take an elevator down and you are right there at the entrance to the casino.
Everything in the casino is new. The building and all equipment. Casino is nicely laid out with lots of table games and wide aisles. Cocktail waitresses are well chosen and outfits are innovative.
The poker room is 13 tables and is very plush. There are all new chips, cards, tables, chairs, and all other equipment. Chairs are extremely nice. Many automated features will eventually help the rooms operation. Rake was $4 max, with an additional drop of $1 for bad beat jackpot and other promotions. Dealers kept their own tips. NL games are raked instead of time charge. No jackpot drop at 2-5 tables.
There were several problems with this casino and poker room. A few of these could be attributable to it only being open for 3 days, but the opening kinks should have been worked out.
First off-- getting IN to the casino was a huge pain. You must have a Pinnacle "My Choice" card for this property. Everyone who frequents Missouri Casinos knows this will be the case as the same thing has happened with Harrahs and Ameristar in the past. We purposely went on a mid afternoon to avoid any lines or problems. HA ! They were completely understaffed for the lines of people getting a new card. We had to wait for 40 minutes. Later at night when they had opened 2 or 3 other lines -- they still had huge lines of people waiting. What a huge frustration for new or first time customers. Their first impression. One employee even suggested I could get a card quicker by walking down to the riverfront and getting a card at the President that would work at the Lumiere.
Another big negative to the place is that they have only ONE Cashier Cage for buying and cashing in chips. Wow! I couldn't believe it. Plus - the lines here were long also. Poker room does not have its own cage, so you walk over to the main cage (7 cashiers) and stand in line. Same thing when you cash out. Be sure to buy extra chips when you do initially buy in, because it may take you another 20 minutes to get chips if you have to reload. Some players solved the buy in problem by going up to a BJ or Craps table, buying chips and then walking away.
Drinks and food were expensive. This is probably on purpose to keep the riff-raff out. Free soft drink stations around the casino including some expensive coffee machines that serve expresso, latte, cappacino, etc. These were broken or out of service by 8pm.
Poker room has some problems;
Ten tables were in operation. The other three were not allowed to open due to some security problem. Limit Holdem games spread was only three tables of 3-6. That was IT. They had a list for 4-8 with about 20 names. They later erased this list and started a new 4-8 list, got about 9 new names and never called it. Then about midnight, they erased that list and put up a 20-40 interest list with no names on it. NL games spread were a couple tables each of 1-2, 1-3, and 2-5. Now --- WHY would you initially set up a games spread with both 3-6 AND 4-8? Also -- Why both 1-2 and 1-3 NL? Goofy
The electronic wait list worked partially, but staff was not fully up to speed on it. Tables had an electronic method of notifying the floor when a seat opened, etc -- but this feature was not working. Shufflers at each table worked fine.
The room is in the shape of a rectangle with 3 sides enclosed. One long side is open to the casino. They have a nice rail for observation and casino player "walk bys" --- but it is very loud in the poker room with all the casino noise. The floor staff did not have any microphone and the voice calling of lists, etc was not very effective. Tables calls for the floor or to fill empty seats were also hard to communicate.
Tables were a little small. Plus they had the hardsurface "racetrack" around the table between the betting surface and the table rail. This feature always looks pretty but makes the table more crowded and causes other problems. All the tables had the dreaded betting line on them, but it seemed to not be in play-- even at NL.
Dealers were often terrible. I had heard this casino was getting its pick of dealers from the other poker rooms, but this is not the case. There were some dealers from President, Ameristar and Harrahs, and some dealers who had transferred from other Pinnicle properties. And there were some brand new first time dealers. Some very slow and confused, some card moving difficulties, some button confusion, one who couldn't figure out how to let a player buy the button, another who sometimes did not burn. And (my favorite) one dealer who started dealing to the big blind, got about 8 cards out and then asked the players; "Is that a misdeal?" All these bad dealers and floormen were working Prime Time shifts -- afternoon and evening on a Friday night.
Floormen were not a lot better. Some were first timers as floor staff. Most were not at all friendly or helpful in answering questions . Some confusion on procedures, etc including one very funny discussion as to whether the 2-5 NL game had an uncapped buy-in or not. There was no shortage of floormen. Each shift had 3 or 4 suits working the 10 table poker room. And they still couldn't keep the player seats filled - even with all the big wait lists.
The poker room "player swipe in and out" system was not working. It is supposed to track your hours played and reward you with $1 per hour in comps, similar to what Harrahs, Ameristar and several others use. No big deal. I figured they would make it up later like Harrahs and Ameristar always have done. (wrong!) After 4 hours of play, I went up and talked with a floorman. Told him I had heard the swipe system was not working and that was fine. But -- I had played for 4 hours and was going to play for another 4 hours - and could he comp me a sandwich or something. Think I also told him I was from out of town, first time here, brought 3 other guys, etc etc. This little line of patter is almost ALWAYS good for a comp of some kind. The floorman doesn't know the answer, so he calls the poker manager on the phone. The answer is NO! (haha Welcome to the Bellagio - where we treat our players like crap.)
Much later as we were about to leave a floorman said the swipe system was now working and he took the players cards and swiped everyone in. 20 minutes later I swiped out and he said I had almost a half hour in play. I asked about the other 7 1/2 hours and he said "Too Bad".
Yes - unbelievable customer service at this place. But it all fits the pattern. Lumiere had sent me a couple of e-mails in the last month, and the Casino Manager had given an e-mail addy for people to send him comments and questions. My two e-mails are still unanswered. I also called them twice with some questions a few days before we went. There was much confusion at the switchboard and I was twice given voice mails where I left my message and have received Neither response. I asked for Casino Comment Cards while there -- but they don't have them. I asked for Poker room business cards with the managers e-mail and they don't have those either.
Other Comments and Great Thoughts;
Chips were all brand new but a little generic. No "Grand Opening" chips. In fact, there was nothing festive, or "WELCOME!" signs or little giveaways indicating a grand opening.
Having only ONE Cashier Cage location in this casino is a huge mistake. Unbelievable.
The technology they have bought will be fine once they get it working and the people are trained to use it.
Poker room management seems poor. Confusion among the staff, stuff not working, not personally present in the poker room -- even on prime time on opening weekend. Maybe a knowledgeable experienced poker person is needed for dealer/floorstaff training -- and to come up with a reasonable mix of games spread.
The Poker room being only small stakes is fine for opening week. I personally would not have wanted to play for higher $ with that set of dealers and floormen. However if this room is going to be another 3-6 and 1-2 NL ghetto like Harrahs, they are missing a big opportunity.
I'm probably not going to be the only one with a funny NO COMPS story from this Poker room. They should take a quick lesson on how Ameristar and Harrahs have handled similar situations before they anger lots of prospective players.
And speaking of taking a lesson --- The Horseshoe in Tunica runs its 16 table poker room with ONE floorman. Maybe the Luminere should have put as much effort into employee training and communication as they did into picking outfits for the cocktail waitresses.
I'll go and try this poker room again next summer after a baseball game.
posted by Abe @ 10:51 AM
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