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Elsewhere, in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, the name of the game is card rooms. Big ones. Like, the biggest in the state. Two card rooms are worth visiting for their grandeur alone: The Commerce Casino (Commerce) and the Bicycle Club (Bell Gardens). Both venues are poker-centric and attract the best of the best; some nights, pros such as Annie Duke and Kenny Tran might be in the house. OPPOSITE, AGUA CALIENTE; CACHE CREEK The Desert Package deals abound for stay-andplay vacations at casino resorts in and around the Coachella Valley and Palm Springs. At Morongo Casino Resort & Spa in Cabazon, for instance, $169 per night gets guests a room plus dinner for two inside Potrero Canyon Buffet and a $50 spa credit. Similar deals are available at the Agua Caliente Casino & Resort Spa (Rancho Mirage). Most area casinos have their own golf courses, but locals rave about Eagle Falls, the Clive Clark course at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio. Of course the most convenient casino in this region is the Spa Resort Casino, right in the middle of downtown Palm Springs one block from Palm Canyon Drive. As the name suggests, the draw here is the spa. San Francisco Bay Area & Beyond All of the (legal) gambling action in San Francisco takes place not within the city limits, but instead in suburbs and other cities within a three-hour drive. With this in mind, the region has more gambling options than any other part of California. Most of the options are card rooms, and many are located in the suburbs of San Francisco and Sacramento. The two most popular: San Jose's Bay 101 Casino, which hosts a number of World Poker Tour events throughout the year, and Colma's Lucky Chances, which doles out nearly $1 million in cash prizes over the course of every year. A new spot, Casino M8trix, opened in San Jose in August 2012. Native-American casinos in this region are small but superlative in other ways. Many, including Cache Creek Casino Resort (Brooks), Thunder Valley Casino Resort (Lincoln), Gold Country Casino & Hotel (Oroville) and Chukchansi Gold Resort & Casino (Coarsegold), have full-service hotels. Though Red Hawk Casino in Placerville does not, it's still worth a visit as it's the hippest of the bunch. SLOT PLAYERS try their luck at Cache Creek Casino Resort in Brooks, above. Lake Tahoe Okay, okay, so the casinos at Lake Tahoe are on the Nevada side of the state line. Still, they're close enough to most other destinations in California that they deserve a mention here. Excluding those in Reno, the most accessible venues are located in South Lake Tahoe. Here, MontBleu Resort (formerly a Caesars property) is by far the most luxurious, with ultra-modern lounges and a steakhouse that makes Ruth's Chris seem like McDonald's. Harvey's, located just down the street, isn't exactly posh but its entertainment venue regularly attracts big names such as Sammy Hagar and Bob Dylan. CA ยป KNOW THE RULES JUST BECAUSE California has casinos doesn't mean games there play the same way they'd play in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Perhaps the biggest differences: craps and roulette. State gaming laws expressly prohibit the outcome of a game to be determined by dice or a ball. While the games incorporate traditional elements of dice and a ball, the games themselves hinge on overturning different types of cards. For novices (or those just looking for a good time), these differences are minimal. For hard-core craps and roulette players, however, they make the games so foreign that adjusting becomes tough. Ask the croupier to review the rules before buying in. If a game seems confusing, don't bother; there are dozens of other options throughout the casino. 2 0 1 3 t r av e l gu i d e to c a l i f o rnia 77