The place was packed on Friday and Saturady last weekend as the Bad Beat jackpot was over $125k, aces full of anything or better beaten by quads or better. Usually the Orleans only has about 12 or 14 tables going on a busy night. With the Bad Beat being high they had about 30 tables on Friday night and about 25 going on Saturady night. The place was crazy with all the people. They did have their "A" Team running the floor so things moved along well. The one lady JoJo is great at running the list and managing tables. She has the perfect personnality for that job, very nice lady. JoJo and Leon run the floor very well, a pleasure to watch them work together, do their thing. I do just give the room an average rating because it is a no frills locals room, nothing fancy. The tables are basic and most of them are actually quite dirty and need the felts cleaned and/or replaced. Overall I had a good time, everyone was going for the jackpot. Reality is that the room share, when that busy, is actaully kind of small. So unless you at the table the hits the jackpot or of course you are the one hitting the jack pot being there is not worth while. Overall it can be hassle to play there when the jackpot gets high, a lot of pushy people trying to get on a table and have a chance at the jackpot. Overall still had a good time, easy to get caught up in the Bad Beat Mania!!!
A mix of regular locals and a few tourists, being busy last weekend with the Bad Beat there were a lot of new faces there. A lot of dealers from around town, hears one Venetian guy mention there were 30 or so people (mostly dealers) just from the Venetian playing for the Bad Beat. The games were looser then usual due to the bad beat mania in the room.
Most of the Orleans Dealers are just OK, a few of them work at other casinos, work a couple of jobs. I think working at the Orleaans is secondary, a filler. Many of the dealers this weekend were very tired as they have been overworked, long shifts and no days off til the jackpot hits etc. Alot of nice people, they do the best they can, not the sharpest dealers in town though overall.
The regular waitresses are very nice, good at what they do. Service can be and was slow because the room was so busy. Usually the service is quick, just really busy the last few days so you need to be patient, they are coming.
As mentioned above the "A" Team people running the floor are very good and managed the masses well. With the jackpot being high the wait can be a couple of hours with over a hundred people on the list. Fortunately the management would call a name once or twice and then move to the next name. If you missed your name you had to put yourself back on the list, the bottom of the list. Management did do a good job taking care of the pushy people who work an angle trying to slip in. The grumpy regulars didn't get to angle shoot and through a fit to get their way. Usually the management is very average, depends on who is there, a couple of the floor people have no business trying to run the floor, all depends on who is there and how busy it is.
One bad side affect of being busy was the cleanliness of the room and surrounding areas. The room was very busy and the cleaning people were not able to keep up. One part that really turned me off were the restrooms, my feet would stick to the floor, good thing I wore regular shoes instead of sandles. The restrooms was very dirty, worse than going to a ball game, urine every where, what a smelly mess.
I think it is a $1 an hour, but they have a cap of $9 per day. Not that great especially if you are pulling a marathon trying to hit the jackpot.
