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| Beating the Odds
Beyond slot machines and card tables, today’s casinos offer fine dining, a-list entertainment, and world-class spas |
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By Shellie Karabell
“Linda Riley, you’ve won $140 in the instant prize giveaway. Don’t get up. The prize control will come to you.”
The cheery young man on the loudspeaker has the only voice audible over the ching-ching-ching of slot machines and music cascading together like a great wave enveloping the Spa Resort Casino in downtown Palm Springs. No one looks up to see “the prize control.” They’re too intent on their own games: video poker, the Hot Tabasco, White Ice, or Progressive Slotto.
Outside, two dozen seniors board a Coach America bus back to San Diego. “Did you win?” someone asks one of the women. “No! I lost a bundle,” she replies with a big smile.
While there are drawings for cars, cruises, and vacations and celebrations of every holiday from Chinese New Year to St. Patrick’s Day, desert casinos offer more than gaming these days. Competition among Indian tribes has given Southern California casino experiences for which players previously had to travel to Las Vegas.
The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indian’s Spa Resort Casino was barely open a year when the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians turned its casino property into a resort with a hotel in Indio and the Morongo Band of Mission Indians opened its own resort with a new casino in Cabazon.
Today’s casinos are entertainment centers, offering restaurants ranging from food courts and buffets to fine dining steakhouses, dancing, spas, bowling, comedy acts, cocktail lounge singers, and concerts by famous performers.
The Wild Past
Even with all the noise, glitz, and glamour, these establishments seem tame compared to the three establishments that introduced gaming to the Coachella Valley in the 1930s. The first gambling houses were illegal, but that only added to their cachet — as did the celebrities who flocked there for smoky nights after days in the sun: Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, Errol Flynn, Darryl Zanuck, Clark Gable, Carol Lombard, and Robert Taylor.
The first and fanciest place was the brainchild of Detroit mobster Al Wertheimer of The Purple Gang; he arrived in 1934 and promised Palm Springs City Council he’d build a fabulous palace with good food and music that would attract his friends from back east, filling local hotels and easing the economic woes of the Depression.
Wertheimer opened his posh Dunes club in Cathedral City (pictured right), with a special road leading to it; that street became Date Palm Drive. A year later, Earl Sausser opened the 139 Club, at 139 Broadway in Cathedral City. With sawdust on the floor and only chili and beans on the menu, it was the opposite end of the spectrum from the Dunes’ chandeliers and tuxedo-wearing staff.
In the middle was The Cove, operated by Frank Portnoy and Jake Kattleman — an establishment described in Palm Springs Historical Society archives as “a knock-down gangsterish place.”
Locals were banned from these illegal establishments, lest they lose their rent money. However, the success of the big three spawned a host of smaller establishments all too happy to engage locals and their money. The long arm of the federal law did not often reach into the eastern corner of Riverside County.
Then, on Jan. 17, 1941, a battle cry arose from deputies of the California Attorney General’s office and Riverside County Sheriff’s Department as they swooped down on the three gambling houses, definitively closing them. Wertheimer was fined $800, convicted of maintaining a gambling establishment and ultimately tax evasion. The Dunes’ furnishings were sold at auction, and the whole place burned down.
Here and Now
The Supreme Court, some four decades later in 1987, gave Indian tribes the right to operate casinos: In State of California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, the court ruled that states had no regulatory control over gaming held on tribal land. A year later, Congress established the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to oversee casino operations.
“Indian gaming is the most regulated form of gambling in the country,” says Waltona Manion, spokesperson for the Morongo tribe. The current compacts for the area’s six tribes — operating seven casinos among them — allow each to operate two casinos and a maximum of 2,000 slot machines.
In eight years, Indian gaming in California has become wildly successful. While local casinos are not as powerful as Foxwood and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, one university study suggests California tribes account for as much as 32 percent of all Indian gaming revenue.
It was only a matter of time before the California budget deficit came face-to-face with the pot of gold on the reservations and new deals were proposed for more slot machines, generating more money to the state. In April, the state Senate approved new compacts with the Morongo and Agua Caliente tribes raising the limit of slot machines to 7,500 and 5,000, respectively.
Tribes account for millions in contributions to local communities as well. The Agua Caliente tribe has given away nearly $20 million in the last dozen years; and the Morongo tribe feeds needy families every Thanksgiving.
The past year has seen even more evolution in the size and scope of Indian gaming in the Coachella Valley
- The Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians broke ground for a 200-room hotel adjacent to the Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella; it is expected to open in 2008.
- The Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians opened a six-table, 349-slot machine, no-frills casino near the Salton Sea.
- The Agua Caliente tribe is building a hotel at and plans to remodel its Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage, scheduled for completion in 2008.
The current scope of local casinos beyond gaming
Agua Caliente Casino
Dining options include the Desert Eatery Food Court, Sage Bar and Grill, The Steakhouse, and Grand Palms Buffet. Canyons Lounge features large-screen televisions and nightly entertainment, including salsa and swing dance lessons.
Augustine Casino
While, Augustine Casino (pictured left) primarily offers a casual, friendly gaming venue, it does serve up two excellent dining options: the Menyikish Bar and Grill and 24-hour Café 54, as well as live entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights in the lounge.
Fantasy Springs Resort Casino
 Fantasy Springs (pictured right) offers the most diverse recreational options. In addition to five restaurants (Pizza Kitchen, The Bistro, The Café, The Fresh Grill Buffet, and Players Steakhouse), the resort features several music venues: Velvet Palm Night Club on the 12th floor of the hotel; the Rock Yard outdoor stage; Fantasy Lounge, which this year featured an Improv Comedy Series; and the Special Events Center for major concerts, as well as conventions and exhibitions. The resort also includes a bowling center and this spring opened Eagle Falls Golf Course. Hotel guests enjoy a 100-foot swimming pool and a beach volleyball court, while the nearby pool bar and fire pit are open to all visitors. Also on the property is the Cabazon Cultural Museum.
Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa
Twenty minutes west of Palm Springs, the Morongo Casion, Resort & Spa complex (pictured right) features a 27-story hotel with 310 rooms, 32 double-bay suites, a two-story penthouse, and six detached, private casitas with private pools. Hotel guests also enjoy a power-surged lazy river, Jacuzzi spas, sand beach, and private cabanas with bar service, televisions, and refrigerators. Other attractions include three restaurants, 11,500 square feet of ballroom and meeting space, a 12,000-square-foot luxury spa, and a 34,530-square-foot nightclub. Vibe, on the 26th floor, books celebrity performers. In March, a 24-lane bowling alley, Canyon Lanes, opened in the original casino building adjacent to the resort.
Red Earth Casino
The newest local casino opened in April in Thermal. With no restaurant or concert venue, this 10,000-square-foot casino is currently all about gaming. However, expansion plans include a hotel, water park, shopping center, and horse racetrack.
 Spa Resort Casino
The most renowned aspect of this resort is mineral water from Palm Springs’ only hot springs. There has been a bathhouse of some sort on this site since the late 1800s. Today
it is a first-class hotel with spa and fitness center. The casino houses five restaurants: The Steakhouse, Noodle Bar, Corner Deli, and Oasis Buffet. The Cascade Lounge features local and name talent.
Spotlight 29 Casino
The casino attracts top entertainers to its showroom, while the Blue Bar features live bands and DJs and country and salsa dance lessons. Restaurants include the fine Rattlesnake restaurant with its James Beard-trained chef, as well as the 24-hour restaurant and buffet Café Capitata and two chains: City Wok and McDonald’s. |
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