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Pickering Casino is probably one the worst poker room in worst poker rooms in all of Ontario. I'm going to break it down into sections because it's so bad.
1. Will start off with the only thing that's actually somewhat decent, the competition. While the opponents there are nothing special you will get a bit of everything. You'll get the local legends, the old man coffees, the GTO nerds, the nits, the whales, the fish and etc. So there's every kind of poker player there which is nice, compared to somewhere like Casino Rama which is mainly just a bunch of old man coffees. Most of the players at Pickering are relatively nice as well which is nice and surprising considering how garbage the casino itself is.
2. Now onto all the bad stuff. Their poker promos and comps are atrocious, you don't get any comp points for playing poker because they don't let you give in your card, and they promo is garbage they only have a high high bonus every couple months, and it's garbage because they take a percentage from the BB jackpot to give it towards that. Because they're too much of cheap stakes to give it out of pocket, I guess they'd go out of business if they did. They also rake $20 up to 10% per hand plus $1 for the BB jackpot per hand, which is absolutely absurd, I can't think of anywhere in the world that charges such an absurd amount for a rake for a mainly 1/3 poker room and that gives so little back. What a bunch of absolute con artists and cheap stakes.
3. Their dealers are mediocre at best on a good day, while they do have one or two really good ones the rest are absolutely atrocious I'm sorry. They're either way too slow, don't know what they're doing or both, which really isn't good for a game that revolves around trying to get as many hands as possible in as you can. The dealers just don't hold up to other casinos or card rooms in the area and it really shows if you go somewhere else then go to Pickering.
4. Now while there's nothing wrong with the food in particular it's overpriced, majority of their meals are over $20 which isn't crazy expensive. But when you combine it with $20 rake and getting no comp dollars for playing poker it adds up and is not worth it at all. The portion sizing aren't the biggest as well so if you're a bigger eater I doubt you'll be full for most of there meals, and don't get me started on the alcohol prices and portion sizes.
5. Last but not least and definitely the worst part about Pickering Casino, the atrocious management. Gosh if I could sum up Pickering's staff in a short I would say explosive diarrhea. The staff are absolutely god awful, they don't know what they're doing. They are very incompetent it seems when you ask them a genuine good question they'll freeze and whenever they got to do something important they'll be running around like a bunch of headless chickens. Not to mention some of them are just plain rude, like if you have to get up from the table to pay for something down stairs and it's take longer then you thought because of their incompetent staff they'll yell at you and act as if you're in the wrong. *cough* *cough* You know who you are Ms. pink stuff I'm so high and mighty pit boss. Majority of them are also just a bunch of sleaze bags, like I know it's casino and they're purpose is to take your money, but it feels like majority of these pit bosses could care less to pretend to act like they care about you and your well being. But no they're all just a bunch of sleazy corpo rats who couldn't care less if you lose and definitely don't make you feel welcomed to come back. Now is a couple exceptions but they're far and few and they can't make up for the rest of the atrocious staff. They also seem to be very understaffed most of the time making waiting to play poker very long and unpleasant, same with guest services. So they're basically cheap in every single aspect of their business. It's honestly the same at woodbine casino so it seems to be the Great Canadian business model to be a bunch of cheap sleazy @#$%.
Overall Pickering and Great Canadian is probably one of if not the worst Casinos when it comes down to how poorly it's run, and unfortunately it's going to continue to be like that. Because unless the strict gambling rules change in Ontario I doubt will see any new completion casino's make their way into Ontario. If they do that'd awesome because it would force Pickering to get there in potent heads out their @#$% and actually be a good casino. But until then I'll stick to casino Niagara and poker rooms. If you do for whatever reason go to Pickering and play poker only go as a last resort, and try to go on a Friday or Saturday night or when one of their crummy promotions is ruining. That way you'll at least get the most of out their garbage casino.
