“Little things can make a room unlucky that you wouldn’t even think about,” Bach says, citing the original MGM Grand in Las Vegas as making one of the worst design mistakes in casino history: Originally, patrons had to walk through a giant lion’s head to enter the casino-a major no-no.ĭes Plaines’s Rivers Casino recently hosted a customer-appreciation event in Chinatown, which treated 50 guests to a VIP meal at that neighborhood’s Evergreen restaurant-“the first of many events to be held in Chinatown,” according to a spokesperson. Luck, fate and tradition are paramount within East Asian culture, and some modern casinos cater accordingly, says Bach. “Asian families always do some sort of card game during holidays.” “Certainly around Lunar New Year we have a surge in business.”Ĭhicago resident John Michael Yee, a baccarat and blackjack player who, during the Lunar New Year, was offered $100 by a local casino marketer, explains the holiday upswing another way: “It’s kind of like a holiday for Asian people to do what they want to do-and a lot of Asians like to gamble.” Yee, who’s of Chinese-Filipino descent, grew up playing card games, wagering nickels and dimes at age nine. “Lunar New Year is a time for rebirth and considered a lucky time for Asian gamblers,” says Rhiannon Bach, director of casino marketing at Horseshoe Hammond Casino within the Caesars Entertainment Corporation. Horseshoe hosted a special New Year’s concert featuring a half-dozen pop stars from Vietnam’s popular Paris by Night musical variety show-that culture’s answer to America’s Got Talent-which drew a crowd of 2,000. Last month, Horseshoe celebrated the year of the dragon, which is believed to be the best year for everything: weddings, births-and making money.

Translation services, noodle shops, high-end restaurants with top Asian chefs, even special gaming rooms are features of local casinos such as Hammond’s Horseshoe, whose luxurious Le Cheng gaming room featuring multiple baccarat tables and pai gow tiles was installed as a part of the casino’s $500 million expansion in 2008. The shuttles whisk away Chinese-Chicagoans (and anyone else who boards) to a half-dozen massive casinos on the hour every hour, through the night every night. Any given Saturday night, you can shuffle onto a comfortable, heated bus with a dozen or so others-mostof them traveling solo, a few in pairs talking low about the night’s goals-and your driver will joke, “Anything you make tonight, I get half,” and smile as he pulls awayfrom the mud-streaked snowbanks of Archer and Wentworth Avenues.

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