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Dec 03, 2019 Spirit Mountain Casino: Late night - See 348 traveler reviews, 21 candid photos, and great deals for Grand Ronde, OR, at TripAdvisor.
Introduction to Oregon Slot Machine Casino Gambling in 2019
Oregon slot machine casino gambling consists of nine American Indian tribal casinos as well as a small number of slot machines at many bars, taverns, and pari-mutuel wagering facilities. All slot machines in Oregon are of the VLT-style variety.
The Oregon Lottery controls non-tribal VLTs and has set an upper payout return limit. Each slots game has a readily available theoretical payout return found in the game.
This post continues the weekly series Online Resource: A State-By-State Slot Machine Casino Gambling Series, an online resource dedicated to guiding slot machine casino gambling enthusiasts to success. Each weekly post reviews slots gambling in a single U.S. state, territory, or the federal district.
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Relevant Legal Statutes on Gambling in Oregon*
The minimum legal gambling age in Oregon depends upon the gambling activity:
- Land-Based Casinos: 21
- Poker Rooms: 18
- Bingo: 18
- Lottery: 18
- Pari-Mutuel Wagering: 18
Per Oregon state law, bars and taverns may have up to 6 VLT-style slot machines. There are additional restrictions on how close together such businesses may be. Pari-mutuel sites have up to 10 VLTs. The maximum bet is $2.50 while the maximum payout is $600.
*The purpose of this section is to inform the public of state gambling laws and how the laws apply to various forms of gambling. This information is not intended to provide legal advice.
Slot Machine Private Ownership in Oklahoma
It is legal to privately own a slot machine in the state of Oregon if it is 25 years old or older.
Gaming Control Board in Oregon
The Oregon Lottery regulates video lottery terminal (VLT) style gaming machines at non-tribal locations. It’s 1992 video poker lottery terminal network was the first centrally controlled gaming system in the U.S. Vegas-style line games for slots were added to Oregon’s VLTs in 2005.
Eight out of Oregon’s nine tribes have negotiated a state-tribal gaming compact. Regulation of tribal gaming in Oregon is by the Oregon State Police and the Tribal Gaming Commissions of individual tribes
The Oregon Tribal Gaming Alliance (OTGA) is a coalition of these tribes which own and operate casinos in Oregon. In 2015, tribal gaming accounted for less than 32% of all gaming conducted in Oregon.
Casinos in Oregon
There are nine American Indian tribal casinos as well as many non-tribal sites including bars, taverns, and pari-mutuel sites in Oregon
The largest casino in Oregon is Spirit Mountain Casino having 2,000 video slot machines and 49 table games.
The second largest casino is Wildhorse Resort & Casino having over 1,200 video slot machines and 17 table games.
List of Casinos in Oregon
Spread throughout the state, Oregon currently has 3,935 VLTs retailer sites at different venues having VLT gaming machines operated by the Oregon Lottery.
List of Tribal Casinos in Oregon
The nine American Indian tribal casinos in Oregon are:
- Chinook Winds Casino Resort in Lincoln City located 89 miles southwest of Portland on Route 101 along the Pacific Coast.
- Indian Head Casino in Warm Springs located 104 miles southeast of Portland.
- Kla-Mo-Ya Casino in Chiloquin located 105 miles southeast of Portland.
- The Mill Casino Hotel & RV Park in North Bend located 220 miles south-southwest of Portland on Route 101 near the Pacific Coast.
- Seven Feathers Casino Resort in Canyonville located 202 miles south of Portland.
- Spirit Mountain Casino in Grand Ronde located 64 miles southwest of Portland.
- Three Rivers Casino Resort – Florence located 170 miles southwest of Portland near Route 101 on the Pacific Coast.
- Three Rivers Casino Resort – Coos Bay located 223 miles southwest of Portland near Route 101 on the Pacific Coast.
- Wildhorse Resort & Casino in Pendleton located 215 miles east of Portland.
Other Gambling Establishments
As an alternative to enjoying Oregon slot machine casino gambling, consider exploring casino options in a nearby state. Oregon is bordered by:
- North: Washington Slots
- East: Idaho Slots
- South: California Slots and Nevada Slots
- West: Pacific Ocean
Each of the links above will take you to my state-specific blog for that neighboring state to Oregon.
Payout Returns in Oregon
Theoretical payout return percentages for a specific game are under the GAMES menu or online at the Oregon Lottery Games section. A percentage range is due to potential bonus rounds or other game features.
Examples include:
- Five Times Pay Line Game has a payout percentage of 91.99%
- Dragon Fire Keno has a payout percentage range of 91.84% to 92.42%
The Oregon Lottery clearly states in its Myths & Facts webpage that VLTs cannot have their payout returns modified by the Lottery’s central computer server. Instead, any such changes would require the physical on-site installation of new gaming software.
No payout return limits are available for tribal VLT machines nor are actual payout return statistics publicly available.
Our Oregon Slots Facebook Group
Are you interested in sharing and learning with other slots enthusiasts in Oregon? If so, join our new Oregon slots community on Facebook. All you’ll need is a Facebook profile to freely join this closed Facebook Group.
There, you’ll be able to privately share your slots experiences as well as chat with players about slots gambling in or near Oregon. Come join us!
Summary of Oregon Slot Machine Casino Gambling in 2019
Oregon slot machine casino gambling consists of nine American Indian tribal casinos as well as 3,935 retail stores and pari-mutuel wagering facilities. Both tribal and non-tribal slot machines in Oregon are of the VLT-style variety.
The Oregon Lottery controls non-tribal VLTs and has set an upper payout return limit of 96%. Each non-tribal video game has a readily available theoretical payout return found in the game. No payout return statistics are publicly available in Oregon for any of their VLTs. Tribal VLTs have not set theoretical payout return limits.
Annual Progress in Oregon Slot Machine Casino Gambling
There has been little to no change in the Oregon gaming industry over the last year.
Archive: Oregon Slot Machine Casino Gambling in 2018
Related Articles from Professor Slots
Other State-By-State Articles from Professor Slots
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Which Slot Machines Pay The Best At Spirit Mountain Tickets
Have fun, be safe, and make good choices!
By Jon H. Friedl, Jr. Ph.D., President
Jon Friedl, LLC
GRAND RONDE, Ore., July 17 (UPI) -- With 3 million visitors a year, the No. 1 tourist attraction in the state of Oregon is . . . a casino.
'We beat out a waterfall,' says Michael Moore, the affable redheaded chief executive officer and president of Spirit Mountain Casino.
It's not that Oregon is short on tourist attractions. It's just that the reservation land owned by the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde is located at an especially strategic place on State Highway 18 -- halfway between Portland and the beach -- and the meandering two-lane road is just annoying enough for travelers to rejoice when they see the flat sandy building with a columned portico popping suddenly out of the woods.
As Indian casinos go, it's neither the largest nor the smallest -- it could almost be the prototype for Typical American Indian Casino -- but what's a little eerie about it is how CALM it is.
Spirit Mountain is one of the first casinos in the country to go all-coinless, all-the-time, so that its 1,500 slot machines hum and gurgle and buzz, but you never hear that satisfying sound of 1,000 quarters plummeting into the noisy steel tray. (In Las Vegas, by contrast, the trays are designed to be as noisy as possible, on the theory that it stimulates more gambling.)
'When I got here, I was amazed at how efficient this operation is,' says Moore, a veteran casino executive who's worked in Reno, Nev.; Atlantic City, N.J.; and Vegas. 'We have very loyal customers and we spend very little money to get them. We have no cashback. We have no expensive promotions. And people PAY for the bus. (They do get a funbook worth about $20, including a food discount.) We give no credit. We don't cash checks. It's literally a cash business.
'You know what it reminds me of? Harrah's Tahoe in the 1960s. The same kind of casual, informal feel, where everyone is family. If employees get sick here, the customers actually send them cards and flowers.'
Offering virtually nothing that a Vegas casino offers -- not even complimentary cocktails due to a tribal rule --Spirit Mountain is still the most profitable casino in a state that has six other Indian gambling joints, including the rival Chinook Winds Casino and Convention Center, which is another hour down the highway on the beach in Lincoln City.
Since most of the business is from Portland, Spirit Mountain has the advantage of being the most convenient place to gamble in the state. A drive from Portland to Chinook Winds would take two to three hours -- too far to bop down there on a weeknight -- and Spirit Mountain no doubt picks off a lot of motorists who get 60 miles down the road and decide, 'Why drive any farther?'
'We do share some customers with Chinook,' says Moore. 'Many Oregonians have summer homes in Lincoln City, so they spend the warm months on the beach. We have a far better product, though. They have a hard time at Chinook in the wintertime. We just look at it as one more reason to come down here.'
On a recent day that was gray, misty and damp -- not uncommon for Oregon logging country -- the crowd at Spirit Mountain was reminiscent of Atlantic City. Almost all of them were day-trippers, they stayed about four hours, the only 'comp' they cared about was free food, and they tended to be older people, 50 and up.
As you might expect, this is almost entirely a slot-machine business -- 90 percent, according to Moore, with Spirit Mountain's 50 table games standing empty much of the time. Unlike other western states, though, video poker is not such a big deal here.
The reason is that Oregon allows up to five video poker machines in every bar, and the easy availability of it has created a sort of video poker stigma. Oregonians refer to it as 'video crack,' as though it's a low-class form of gambling, and debates are periodically waged about eliminating so-called 'convenience gambling' entirely.
The result is that the day-trippers pour into Spirit Mountain to cadge a free buffet and play the cheapest games of them all -- nickel and penny slots.
'We're the opposite of Nevada,' says Moore, referring to the trade's heavy marketing of dollar slots and relegation of the lower denominations to small slot-machine ghettos.
'We're also very heavy on video. We have 1,500 machines, and 80 percent of those are multi-line video machines.'
For the most part these aren't the kind of machines to offer big jackpots, but the casino is tied in electronically to a progressive jackpot shared by Indian casinos nationwide. Since opening in 1995, Spirit Mountain has had six 'primary hits' on the progressive -- payouts of $100,000 or more -- and all six winners have not only agreed to publicity, but actually WANTED to have their pictures taken. (In Las Vegas, by contrast, big winners often want to remain anonymous.)
The success of Spirit Mountain has been a boon for the Confederated Tribes, which is actually five surviving bands of Pacific Northwest Indians called the Molalla, the Rogue, the Chasta, the Umpqua and the Kalapuya. Altogether it's about 4,000 people who share the profits of the casino every July in a generous distribution of 25 percent. They put 6 percent into a community fund, given to local charities and used for civic improvement projects, and the remaining 69 percent goes to tribal services and their main business, logging.
Which Slot Machines Pay The Best At Spirit Mountain School
Oregon, almost alone among casino states, doesn't tax casinos directly, so the effective tax rate is 6 percent -- good news for slots players, who don't have to put up with the extremely tight payout schedules of states like Illinois and Indiana.
The casino itself is just the basics -- a beautiful lobby with a skylight rotunda done in baby blues and light woods, a roomy casino floor with a planetarium ceiling and festive neon columns, a buffet, a small steak and seafood restaurant, a Starbucks (with penny slots on premises) and a deli. Spirit Mountain Lodge is a 100-room hotel reserved mostly for high rollers and done up in rustic hunting-lodge style, complete with headboards engraved with coyotes and a coyote sculpture fountain in the lobby.
Entertainment is minimal. They do have a lounge, and about six times a year they convert the 1,500-seat bingo hall into a showroom for B-level acts like Tony Orlando, B.B. King, Gallagher, Jeff Foxworthy and Colin Ray. All the shows are on Thursday nights to draw midweek business since the weekends are already packed.
Which Slot Machines Pay The Best At Spirit Mountain Park
With so many people obviously comfortable here, you would think they would be thinking about expansion, but that's not such an easy thing to do in environment-crazy Oregon. 'We're thinking about it,' says Moore, 'but we have problems. We have limited land and water here, and we're dealing with protected plants. The sheer expense of expansion would make it difficult. You have to get tribal approval, EPA approval, federal approval, state approval, county approval. It might happen, but if so, it will happen slowly.'
Spirit Mountain also benefits from being right smack dab in the middle of the Oregon wine country, with 100 wineries in the area and lots of bed-and-breakfasts trying to create the kind of yuppie tourism common in the Napa Valley of California. Add to that the recent reconstruction of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, which was disassembled and then put back together in a special hangar in nearby McMinnville, and they have the beginnings of an overnight-tourist business. (Spirit Mountain has already installed a 'Spruce Goose Progressive' bank of slot machines.)
For the time being, though, Spirit Mountain has the character of a locals joint, even with all the midweek buses and the drive-ins from Portland and Salem. 'I like working here,' says Moore. 'I certainly don't miss the alcohol that you have in the traditional casino business. No drinking problems. Quiet. Non-rowdy. Family-oriented.'
The first thing you see when you enter is a bronze statue of Martha Jane Sands, a 19th century tribal member, weaving a basket with her attentive daughter standing nearby. The Confederated Tribes don't weave baskets anymore, but Martha Jane looks totally at home. It's a safe, cozy, eminently respectable place. If it weren't for the occasional ding of a slots payoff, you could almost hear a gurgling Oregon salmon stream. Is this the neighborhood gambling place of the future? For better or worse, I think it is.
SPIRIT MOUNTAIN CASINO
Highway 18, Grand Ronde, Ore.
Theme: Native American Lite
Opened: 1995
Total investment: Unknown
Known for: Top-grossing casino in Oregon.
Marketing niche: Drive-in business from Portland, Salem.
Gambler's Intensity: Low
Cocktail speed: Alcohol not allowed on the casino floor, but serve-yourself, drinks are free.
Dealers: Friendly
Bosses: Laidback
Tables: 50
Rare games: None (Three Card Poker recently added)
Slots: 1,500
Rooms: 100
Surrounding area: Dense forest and the Oregon wine country.
Web site: spiritmountain.com
Overall rating: 60
Joe Bob's bankroll: Up $20 after some low-limit craps: total to date: +$155
--
(Joe Bob Briggs, 'The Vegas Guy,' can be contacted at JoeBob@upi.com.)