Winstar has recently finished converting all their machines to their new player card, which does offer cash back. I was told the rate is 50 points = $1, but I have not verified this yet. The card can be used for cash back or for food comps in the casino. I haven't had it long enough to find out if it will result in any mail offers, but they used to do mail offers on their old card, so I suspect they probably will on this card as well. There are two new additions to the VP inventory at the casino. In the older "Circus" casino, the old high-limit area on the far right wall, near the poker room, has now been turned into a bar. There are bartop machines at all the seats (about 15) around the bar. They are .25/.50/1 MG progressives, with the same 97 to 98% paytables as the rest of the casino. On two visits to the casino over a week-long period, no one had hit the progressive, which at the $1 level was up to over $6300 and still counting. In the main casino, the bar in Zar's Italian restaurant has been remodeled and now also features about 20 MG/MD progressives. Same denominations and paytables as the Circus casino bar. The progressive was at $4200 and counting. One missing feature: These machines have no speed control, and right now they're set at a medium speed. Too slow for my taste, but at least they haven't resorted to putting them at the slowest speed. BTW, sodas are free at these bars, but beer, wine, drinks and bottled water must be purchased. They don't chase you off the machines even if you're not buying drinks, but when the casino is crowded, people will push in between the seats to buy drinks. The management has changed the system on W2G payouts. You still have to sign all the paperwork, turn over your ID, and wait for the attendant to come get you and take you to the payout window. However, at least they now pay out at windows in each casino, instead of making you go all the way to the middle of the new casino to a single payout window as they used to do. They may also have lowered the amount of time it takes to get paid; I received a payout in about 15 minutes recently, but this was on a weekday evening, when the casino is less crowded. Finally, my earlier report stated that there were no table games except blackjack. This is no longer true, as I noticed at least one Three Card Poker table, and possibly a Baccarat table as well.

Winstar doesn't have much VP, and since they don't do cash back or any other kind of frequent player reward any more, even the "good" paytables don't get you over 100% - they're just exactly what they are. A little bit of backstory here: Winstar started life as a typical bingo-based Indian casino. All the machines, including VP, were just front ends for a big multi-player bingo game. The VP was 9-6 JOB, but I could never figure out if the return was really the same since it was a bingo game, not true VP...but I suspected it wasn't. However, as a bingo-based casino, they did offer moderate cash back and cash-based frequent player reward mailers, and since they're the closest action to my Dallas home base, we dropped in every now and then. About two years ago, something must have changed with the regulations for Indian casinos in Oklahoma, because suddenly the bingo-based machines started to be replaced with genuine slot machines, including a few IGT VP machines. These new machines did not take the Winstar player card (they were TITO machines), and so you didn't get cash back or player tracking with them, and thus no frequent player rewards either. Fast forward to today: The casino is now about 80% true slot machines, all TITO - location and game details are unknown. Specifics about VP: There are two $1/2/5 IGT machines in the the new "High Limit" area. Good paytables, including 9-6 JOB, 8-5 Bonus and so on. Very hard to get a seat on weekends. In the main (newer) part of the casino, there is a single bank of about six .05 to .25 multidenom IGT machines, with the 97% paytables you normally find at these denominations. In the "Circus" casino (the older, original part), there is a a bank of about fourteen .25/.50/$1/$2 slant tops. The paytables vary with the bet, but the $1 and $2 paytables are good. As the closest casino to Dallas, the place gets VERY crowded on weekends. If you go on a weekend, get there early or you'll be hard pressed to get a seat. Since even the good VP machines have low denomination/bad paytable options, people tend to get on them and stay on them for long periods, resulting in other players circling the banks of machines like hawks waiting to pounce on an empty - location and game details are unknown. With all that said (probably more than you wanted to know, right?), I'll tell you that I've never had a big day at Winstar. I play $1 and higher, but have never hit anything major there, and I've been going a long time. However, when I can get a machine, I can usually be assured of being able to play for a long time, and mostly come out even or only slightly behind, thanks to the 98 to 99% returns. My wife's tactic is to play their penny and .02 slots at max bet, and she does very well there. She's gotten a lot of W2G wins there in this way, and enjoys the large variety of these machines available. Their system for paying out W2G's is awful...it takes about an hour to get paid on a weekend, which we both figure is just their way of making sure you give some of it back while you're waiting to get paid. Finally, in the interests of a total report: The only table games are blackjack. I don't play, so I don't know the minimums or limits. There are four restaurants, but only one of them is even decent. The buffet is terrible, and the "midway" cafe serves burgers and such, and isn't very good. They've recently opened an Italian restaurant, which is ok. The steakhouse is the best, but it's only open from 5pm on. Best bet is to go down the road to the restaurants in Gainesville, Tx.

Oklahoma does have Class II gaming except for the Cherokee Tribe who are building their casinos into Class III establishments. The State laws have changed so if a Tribe creates a new compact with the State, allows the State to take a cut, and allows the State to have similar machines in their "raceinos" the Tribe can have Class III - location and game details are unknown. So far they are the only Tribe to do this. Cherokee has 5 locations in Northeastern Oklahoma. The one closest to Tulsa is in Catoosa, 5 or 10 miles east on I-44. The offer everything from IGT VP to Wheel of Fortune in real live machines. They still have an assortment of Bingo based slot machines but no live bingo anymore. They have a nice hotel and great Golf Course, hence the Cherokee Casino and Resort name. The State law requires that the Casino cannot make any money from gambling wins on table games. Therefore, the 50 cent ante is what the Tribe makes for dealing the games. The wins the casino make on table games must be distributed back in the form of payouts to winners and the rest must go back to the customer. They do this with a lot of car, chopper, boat, etc.. giveaways. All games must involve cards. Cherokee Casino has a big poker room with nice promotions. The Osage Million Dollar Elm in North Tulsa does have a version of Craps much like in California, where the roll of the dice determines cards that are chosen to set the point.