My previous review somehow was incomplete. I'm not sure what happened.

Pros- Nice hotel (free shuttle to & from casino)
Great Buffet with live cooking stations

Cons- Tight slots
Lots of grouchy seniors

Must Sees- The Buffet is Great!

just ok casino. service was really missing and some people were rude. not very crowded playing area. cant get served in bar on weekends. Go to Traverse, Kewadin or Mt Pleasant, even Firekeepers is much better run and safer.

I will never return to this 3rd rate casino. It is simply impossible to win here. You can spend hundreds of dollars in a matter of minutes without ever seeing a bonus or a payout over $10. And in the rare case someone does win more than $10, it's considered a "Big Win"! As much as I hate to say it, with the current management style, I don't see this place lasting much longer. And with no real regulations to keep it from screwing over the community, its reputation as a stingy, lawless gaming resort will spread - it already has. So when you hear of them "donating to the surrounding area" - it's quite hypocritical - given their absurd payout rates (if you can even call them such). Do not go here - they have taken the fun out of gambling by eliminating your chances altogether. I think they owe Petoskey an apology.

Complete joke. I witnessed people putting $100 bills into a slot machine and not win a dollar in return. You can visible watch the patron volume deplete as the word is spreading - spend the gas money and go to a real casino - Traverse City or the U.P. - too bad - it could have been a great, place. Greed, greed, greed... going to shut the place down.

I have had a hand payout for $600 once, but that was after i put through $200 on the same machine and getting nothing more than 5 dollar hits...the place is very nice inside but DO NOT GO THERE TO GAMBLE SLOTS. A lot of people are very upset with this greedy place and myself and others drive up north to Kewadin or to Traverse City instead and im from petoskey. From what i hear though is that the customer service is great and i can imagine why because of having so much staff to give hand pay outs to literally no one unless someone hits in the high stakes...my advice to everyone is if you want to go have normal fun in a casino and get at least a greater chance from slim to none to win some money, skip ODAWA and spend the extra time and money to go to a better casino in MI.

Now other than the pathetic casino portion, the three places to get food is the deli, buffet and the very nice SAGE restaurant. The hotel is nothing special, but an affordable place to stay with free transportation. The inside is like a vegas style casino and if thats what your here for, than go for it. Other than that, i think this place is far to greedy and are driving people away from this place more and more til eventually the place will flop. Pick it up a little Odawa!!!

Could have been a great place, but the greed of management has earned it a laughable reputation. You have to let people win something, sometime to eventually - I thought that was common sense.

Just a few updates to the casino overall. The slots are better than they were with more selection and more variety to choose from. They actually seem to pay off a little better than they have in the past although still tighter than the average casino in Michigan. But better at least. 4 out of 5 stars.

Table games are pretty good too although a lack of tables open at times. But nice 6 seated BJ instead of 7 seats makes it more comfortable. Ultimate Poker, 3 Card Poker, Roulette, and Craps available along with a high limit room with blackjack between $15-25 min bet. Dealers are overall friendly - some really friendly - none of them seem rude or anything. Overall a better job on table games. It would be nice to have tables open 24 hours but they are so slow at 4am.....I can see why they don't. 4 out of 5 stars.

Also food and drink went downhill. The Copper Cafe deli is still pretty good - excellent chicken fingers still - and great chef salads at a reasonable price (free when using your points on your card or at least discounted). But the buffet they offer wasn't as good the last 2 times there. Once at 11am the food seemed all dried out and appeared to be leftovers from the night before. Most of it was not of good quality - dried out - just not good even for $8.95. And I was sick for 2 days after eating it which of course wasn't good. Then we went to the Thursday night all you can eat Crab Legs buffet. Their picture shows King Crab legs but they are only snow crab. They must be cooked well in advance because for the first time I have seen it was hard to get the crab out of the shells - it was stuck to the inside.....have never had that problem at Kewadin or Bay Mills or any other crab leg buffet. The rest of the meal was pretty good this day but $21.95 is pretty steep too. If you want a quick bite the Copper Cafe is good - the buffet would only be about 2 out of 5 stars IMO.......

The new Odawa Casino (formally Victories Casino) changed into a modern Vegas like casino about 5 years ago. They really spent a lot on the new building and it has some crazy details no other area N. Michigan casino has. That being said it is really overdone for the area.

The slot selection is kind of surprising. For having 1,500 slots they don't have many classic machines like Sizzling 7's, Red White & Blue, 5x Pay, etc. Instead they have more digital machines than anything else and machines like Triple Butterfly 7's, and a lot of odd machines. They are the only area casino that has the Cash Wheel machines and one of the only ones to have Party Time branded machines though which are good machines. But too bad to say the machines are TIGHT. Ask anyone there and you will get the same reply - if only they would pay a little more. Not much cheering or screaming except people saying "I lost again?" Overall a good selection of odd machines but overall very tight and not many winners of any type which is too bad since the overall place is quite nice. 3 out of 5 stars for slots.

Table games are a bit better...they offer a wide selection of BJ, Craps, Roulette, Let it Ride, 3 Card Poker, usually another poker game of some sort, and even a Big 6 Wheel. The table game staff is quite friendly overall and do a good job with dealing and so forth. No automatic dealing machines here which is nice. But the rules are bad - dealer hits soft 17 - doesn't offer surrender - the cut on the 6 deck games is not good. You can get on some runs and it doesn't seem like you lose really bad on table games there so that part is good. They also have a nice poker room away from most of the games so it is less noisy and offers a good game with 6 tables. They have tournament games about 4-5 nights a week and cash games about 5 nights a week as well - very slow action early in the week but by Thursday-Sunday there is usually a game going - normally 1/2 or 2/4 NL. Good dealers - good wait staff while on table games - about 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Customer Service/Players Club is good. Most of the staff is well trained and knows most of what promotions and so forth are going on. The slot club is one of the better clubs around as points are worth double in the restaurants or hotel compared to cash. So if you like a meal "on the house" you can usually collect enough points in one trip for at least their "take out" restaurant. Overall 3.5 out of 5 stars....

The Atmosphere would be great - a lot of nice copper work throughout the casino and amazing tile work in the front lobby area and even the restrooms are above average. Too bad so many people seem to be losing which would make it much more fun to play there. But overall the casino is quite quiet and laid back. It easily could be 4.5 out of 5 stars for decor but overall with the lack of excitment it is about 3 out of 5 stars.

The Hotel gets low marks only because it is the old Holiday Inn from years ago - at least a 30 year old building. They have put a lot of work and money in improvements to the location but it is still dated to a certain extent. Probably one of the only area casinos that doesn't have an attached hotel to the casino although it is less than 1 mile away and they offer free shuttles to and from although in the middle of winter it would be nice not to have to throw your coat and boots on just to go back to your room or back to the casino. They do have a nice bar and restaurant in the hotel and it is a clean place to stay just a bit dated. Overall low marks just because it is a mile away from the casino - 2 out of 5 stars.

Food & Drink is mixed. Their "take out" type place is the Copper Cafe and they have excellent food for fair prices. Their salads are amazing and reasonably priced. They have Chicken Fingers that are hand cut chicken breast pieces breaded and fried that are excellent. The burgers and such are only average. But the deserts are fantastic - carrot cake and triple chocolate cake are just amazing although $5.00 a slice is a bit high but worth it. Excellent food at a reasonable price (cheaper with a players club card). Their middle buffet style restaurant is excellent as well offering well over 100 different food items on a LONG buffet. Every nationality is offered along with crab legs on Thursdays (at least during the summer) - Prime Rib some nights, you name it - chicken, beef, pizza, pasta, mexician, everything you could want. Again the deserts are fantastic - the bread pudding with rum sauce is just incredible. But it is a bit pricey ($15-25 for dinner) although for what you receive it is fair but could be a few dollars cheaper. Finally the Sage is their upscale restaurant and it is very upscale - almost too much for the area. Their menu is around $25-75 per person with fine wine, filet mignon, etc. The food is excellent but really priced too high for the area - 1/2 price would still be a bit high although again the food is excellent so if you have an anniversary or a special event it is a nice place to eat. Finally the drinks are EXPENSIVE. I have only ordered one mixed drink there ever - a well rum and coke (pepsi) for $6.25. I don't know if a special event was going on or what - I questioned the staff and they said yes that is the price for a well drink rum & coke - the most I have paid anywhere by a mile. I could get 5 rum & cokes at other places for the price of 1 here. And I saw a special sign last year saying Bud Light Lime 12 oz bottles on SPECIAL for $3.00. Wow - $3.00 for a bottle of Bud? What is the regular price I wonder? So yeah the drinks are very high - they even will charge you $1.25 for a tomato juice - again the first casino I have ever had charge me for that. The restaurants are 4.5 out of 5 stars with excellent quality except price - and the bars are about 2 out of 5 stars for the same reason - high prices.

Overall it could be a fantastic resort. If they had a hotel attached to the casino (which they have talked about adding but to date haven't done anything yet), looser slots, slightly lower prices in the restaurants and especially the bars, and did I mention more winners? 3.0 stars out of 5.0 total.

We have spent a couple week-ends recently at Odawa and fell in love with the place the very first week-end. We love the way we're treated there, the whole staff is on the ball and ready to serve you in a quick, efficient, friendly manner. We really appreciate that. We love the concerts and the Ozone Comedy Club....we have so much fun. The slots were fair and we had such fun playing them. The players club is more than fair. We give it an enthusiastic thumbs up.

The hotel is just fine, but the hallways to the rooms could be cleaner....and the carpet and wallpaper needs to be replaced, but the rooms were very clean.....and so were the elevators, but it is just....getting to the rooms in the tattered hallways that is a real turn off.

But, we will be back again very soon....we love the variety in the restaurants and pretty much give it very high marks all the way around......Oh, and self parking was great. We didn't use the valet service, but it appeared to be running very smoothly.

Oh....another thing.....the retail shops are super.

Can't wait to come back in a few weeks again.

I did not enjoy this casino at all. The day we visited most of the slots did not work. If you were left with a small amount of money the machines would not give you a pay out You had to wait for an attendant who never came. Therefore, you walked away and forfeited your money. This is just another was for them to take your money. The slots were very tight. I finally found a working machine which broke down during a bonus round. I waited over twenty minutes then went on the hunt for an attendant. After he fixed it he walked away and it broke again I hunted again and finally gave up. I Will never go again. Drive a few miles to Little River or Turtle Cheek.

The Odawa Casino is quite simply not worth the bother. The tribe blew a great deal of money and even more community goodwill when they abandoned a working model (Victories) for their overindulgent monstrosity on the hill.

The list of negatives is so astoundingly high. The atmosphere is so unpleasant and cramped for such a large space. The slots really are tight. The table games are occasionally fun, but have never risen to the level of exciting.

The worst part of all is that neither the tribe nor management seems to 'get' it. They've never given the impression that they are even open to suggestions. I don't really wish the casino ill at all. I wish there was someone there who was interested in turning the operation into an aesthetic and financial success. Although it's less than 10 minutes from my door, I would rather save my casino money for a single trip to Vegas every couple of years than spend time at Odawa.

We had been to the old casino and wow were we surprised when we walked into the new casino, it felt just like Vegas. If I can play on my money for awhile it is all good for me.

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This is a great, repeat great casino with all the amenities. Friendly personnel. Do stay at the resort hotel, as they have a shuttle on call.