First bar on left side up front of casino has brand new curved screen video poker machines installed. These are Class II.

Reportedly many Class III machines have been converted into Class II VLTs.

“Premium Play” (Free play $) are NO longer eligible on ANY video poker machines! You are forced to use free play on slots

It's been reported that the Casino has both Class II and Class III video poker. Watch out!

All bar top video poker machines have been removed from Water Lilly bar. Remodeling and now a walk-through connecting pool and rooms.

All VP bartops in the newly opened Ascends sports bar have been downgraded to very poor paytables, due to the hiring of a new CEO that started recently. Even the JOB at the dollar level is now only 9/5. Best playable game is 8/5 Bonus poker, (Bonus on Aces and 2,3,4's version of bonus poker) and 9/6 DBL DBL Bonus and this is only at the $1 dollar level. They are also in the process of removing all 9/6 JOB games from various banks throughout the casino's main floor, even the banks of machines that didn't have other good VP games on them to begin with. I would say that within 1-2 months there will be nothing good to play there at all on VP when this downgrade to all VP continues.

The new Ascend Bar at Soaring Eagle has many bar tops (at least 25) with the 99%+ games found elsewhere in the casino and Water Lily Bar

Player's club has 4 tier levels which are reset every 6 months beginning Feb 01 and Aug 01.

Classic - no minimum Gold - 16,000 points in 6 months Platinum - 96,000 points Diamond - 480,000 points

Note that, level upgrades are NOT given out when earned - you must wait until the beginning of the NEXT 6-month period to get the upgraded card.

BOUNCEBACK CASH - boothling told me that gold level cardholders receive $20 bounceback per week for the entire 6-month period.

Soaring Eagle Resort in Mt. Pleasant, MI has added FP 9-6 JOB in nickels up to $5 to more than 300 machines, including lots of the new Bally HD machines. The same-day casback is miserly, but comps -- including their excellent hotel -- are easy. Decent play also will earn mail offers good for $20/week Freeplay. Finally, I've HEARD (but haven't personally confirmed) that playing "play money" games online at their website results in Freeplay coupons that you can print at home and redeem at the casino.

New Slot Club - Soaring Eagle has changed to a tiered slot club: These levels are based on 6 month periods (Jan-Jun & July-Dec) Classic 0 pts. Gold 16,000 pts. Platinum 96,000 pts. Diamond 480,000 pts. Gold level needed to get good mail (freeplay, discounted hotel, etc.) Platinum free tickets to events, tourney invites No cash back, all freeplay instead $1 Coin-in = 1 pt. Video Poker $1 Coin-in = 2 pts. Slots (and NSUD in error) 1000 pts. = $1 freeplay Comps similar to previous level

Soaring Eagle is advertising that they have over 350 vp machines with "full pay" 9/6 Jacks or better from 5c to $10. I can confirm that they have 25c and I think they were always available on $. 9/6 DDB is available in the Slot Palace in 25c. CB in the form of free play (they call it Premium Play) is 0.1 percent on vp  0.2 on slots. Comp dollar percentage is unknown.  Comp dollars still have not been figured out, but are four or five times point dollars.  They are redeemable dollar for dollar for goods and services and concerts at the casino and can be cashed for Premium Play dollars based on a  percentage  based on player rating. Points and comp dollar total show up on the card readers. One of the nice recent changes is that entries for drawing are accumulated electronically and can be read at a kiosk .   However, just inserting card registers you as having played that day, it is not necessary to swipe cards at the kiosk.

There are (12) 9-6-5 DB poker in quarters with progressives on all the quads.

All of the full pay bar top machines they had on my last trip in

*** MIA - *** $1 TB+,  25c NSUD and $1 JoB

What a junkyard: First of all, let me preface this by saying that MT. Pleasant's Soaring Eagle is a beautiful facility. And I do mean that sincerely. However, other than that...... VP junkyard, indeed! There isn't a single playable machine in the joint, unless I missed something during all that time I had to wander around because there isn't anything worth playing. 7/5 JoB, 8/5 DDB, 9/6 DB. I found Pick-a-Pair (PickEm clone) with the diabolical payout changes to 10,000 for a Royal but the 3OAK dropped to 20 from 25. That comes out to roughly 97.5% from the fullpay version (at Greektown) of 99.95%. A very few dollar machines are gracious enough to boost the JoB to 8/5. Don't bother thinking they're going to give you a break for higher limits, either. Same crap, more money. I did see a few progressives in there, so I suppose there might occasionally be something worth shooting at, but it ain't worth the trip. And I'd say that if I lived across the street. Even the buffet was a massive disappointment. We intentionally went to the buffet about 20 minutes after the lunch "spread" was supposed to be out. Their idea of changing it over is to take half of the buffet's breakfast slop, pile it into like bins on the other half, then put out the lunch gruel. So you pay for lunch and half of it is leftover breakfast items. There is a huge bin of peel and eat shrimp, one of my favorites. However, it would have been even better if there were any freakin' shrimp in the thing. Big bin of ice. Hoo, boy, that was worth the trip all by itself!