Hard Rock casino: Free drinks on Friday
The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, which added blackjack last year, is temporarily adding another feature prevalent in the world’s most popular casinos: free drinks.
Slots and blackjack players can have wine, beer and cocktails at no charge from noon to 4 a.m. Friday and July 24. (But you actually have to be playing the games.)
The Hard Rock, off State Road 7 north of Stirling Road in Hollywood, is expanding on its recent Ladies’ Night promotion with free drinks, Public Relations Manager Ryan Rogers said.
“Now it’s something the guys can take advantage of as well,” he said.
Dania Jai-Alai’s poker room started giving drinks away about eight months ago to those playing cash games. The Seminole Casino Hollywood “Classic” has offered them for about two months.
Slot areas at Gulfstream Park, Mardi Gras and the Isle — regulated by the state — are not allowed to give away drinks because of a state statute designed to discourage players from using a machine for hours at a time. One part of the rules states that slot players can’t get any breaks on alcoholic beverages that no one else gets.
So, the question: How important is free drinks to you at a casino? Will it get you to go there more?
NICK SORTAL began playing 3-card "gut" and "Indian poker" on high school band trips, moved on to "night baseball" and "pass the trash" during a Dr. Pepper-infused midnight game in the 1980s at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and now play in a regular neighborhood Hold 'Em game in Plantation. I have been given the assignment of writing about the gambling life in South Florida casinos for the Sun-Sentinel...which means sitting around watching poker on TV now counts as research.
