Heading over to Yonkers Raceway (New York State) this coming Saturday (8/4). They recently redesigned the facility and added a ton of slot machines: 5,500. This is one of the few facilities in the northeast that I've not been to yet. 5,500 slot machines is more than any casino in Atlantic City. Only Mohegan Sun (approximately 6,000 slots) and Foxwoods (approx. 7,000 slots) have more.

Will report on it next week...

Ricky

Looking forward to the report. Good luck to you!

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"I am in so far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin" - Richard III

Sorry it took so long for the write-up. The Empire Slots, part of Yonkers Raceway is located in Yonkers, about 8 miles north of the Washington Bridge. They've done a great job of renovating the Racetrack and adding 5500 slot machines. All the slots are video terminals. They have all denominations, but you have to be careful about the amount of money you play. Some of the machines are configured so that it's difficult to determine how much you have bet--they have buttons where the minimum can be very high. One of the problems is that the casino doesn't open until 10am each day (local law restriction). Also, the majority of the parking is far from the casino--you can walk or take a bus that operates in the parking lot. Valet Parking is expensive at $10.

It does become fairly crowded in the early afternoon. They have regular restaurants and a food court. The food court has about 6 different food types (italian, deli, chinese), all reasonably priced. You can use your playing comps to pay for the food.

They had many machines that I'd never seen before, as well as some of the regulars that are found in all casinos (but again, they are all video terminals). They don't have actual table games, except the new computer table games. I found the machines to be very loose. I noticed many winners there.

Ricky

Thanks again. These kinds of reports are incredibly helpful.

__________________
"I am in so far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin" - Richard III

Have been there many times. The real advantage to this place is two things

A) On high dollar machines ($5 and $25) you only have a tax consequence if the win is more than 300 times your bet...So for example if playing max bet on a three credit $5 machine a win of $3,600 or $4,000 is NOT taxable as it is less than 300 times the bet. The win would have to be more than $4,500 on $15 bet or more than $15,000 for a $50 bet for there to be tax

B) Progessives- Because of the size and amount of money that comes in here, there are LOTS of mid sized progressives that you would never see anywhere else that hit with consistency. For example, there are at least 10 progessives with top awards ranging from $25,000 -$100,000 that only take a $3 -$5 bet per spin and they contributions to the progressive pot is within Empire City, not a wide area progressive like with IGT machines you find in most other casinos

They do have one wide area game called Lucky Wheel which is connected with other "Racino's" in New York State but the odds have to be better than the Wheel of Fortune

That being said, please don't get the idea that it is "EASY" as I believe these video machines have "ON" and "OFF" buttons, and when they don't want to pay they turn everything off. I have been there when there are few people around and machines are hitting like crazy, and I have also been there when the place is PACKED with at least 3,500 machines in play and no winners