Ameristar Casino - Blackhawk, CO

Last week I visited the Ameristar Casino in Blackhawk, CO.

The Ameristar is located all by itself on Richman Street across the main town road (Hwy 119) from the rest of the Blackhawk business district. It has a 33 story hotel with a 10 story parking garage. Valet Parking is only accessible from the north bound lane of 119 but there was no need for it when I was there as parking was plentiful within a few steps of the elevators that go directly to the gaming floor. This casino is very new and it showed as everything was in pristine condition. The Poker Room is on the 1st floor along with half of the casino (other half is on the 2nd floor). The room is open to the rest of the casino with only a half-wall demarking the area. I arrived there around 2pm on a Thursday about 12 hours after a large snow storm had moved thru the area so I wasn't expecting the room to be too busy but there were 6 tables running, 3 $2-$100 Spread Limit ($1/$2 blinds $100 max bet) games, 2 $4/$8 1/2 kill Limit & a $10/$20 Limit game. The $2-$100 has a min buyin of $40 and no max, one player sat down later with $500 to start with. The action was a mixture of good regulars and tourists. Chairs were very comfortable, adjustable and tilted, much better than the chairs at the Gilpin. The back wall of the room is lined with flat screen TVs with different events on most of them. The rake was the usual for CO casinos, $7 and they had a bad-beat jackpot of ~$450K, jackpot was quads getting beat both hole cards had to play. The wait staff was excellent, very quick with orders and came around very often. The room also had it's own self-serve soda machine and snack dispenser. I was also able to sit out for 45 minutes while I had dinner at the buffet which is right next to the room. As the evening wore on the room filled up even more and by the time I left there were 2 additional $2-$100 games, a $2/$5 game, a tournament and more limit games running. Also players were regularly leaving tables and a number of players were moving tables. My table ended up with a number of off-duty, off-property casino employees that all knew each other. I did not find out what their comp rates were for poker play. Overall the Ameristar is definitely a must see casino if you are ever in Blackhawk.

You were at my old stomping grounds. I use to play there, the Gilpin and the Lodge at least once a week.

The hotel part of the Ameristar is new, that was just added on in the last year.

Well if the casino area wasn't new, it certainly looked like it, very well kept.

Yeah, they do a good job keeping it up, the Ameristar casino is at least four or five years old. As far as casino's go, I would imagine that's pretty new.