The Turning Stone Casino has had little trouble drawing people to the central part of New York State since it opened under a different name in 1993. The Oneida Nation town of Verona is the more exact location for this dynamic resort and casino, and should you be planning on dropping by for some fun, the address is 5218 Patrick Road. Upon arrival, the lively gaming action might be the first thing that you choose to enjoy, though you won't want to limit your options, as there is more to do at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino than gamble.
Welcome to Turning Stone, a luxurious community nestled in the hill country of Cibolo, TX. This community is designed to provide your family with room to play, entertain, and relax. Floor plans range from 2,400 sq ft. To 3,400 sq ft. And include granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, 9-foot ceilings, ceramic tile flooring, and much more. Turning Stone Resort Casino is a resort owned and operated by the Oneida Indian Nation (OIN) in Verona, New York. The facility opened on July 20, 1993, and offers golf amenities (on- and off-site golf courses, one of PGA Tour quality, and an indoor golf dome), an RV park, an amusement arcade, many restaurants, spas, Bingo, Keno, table games, and many types of reel and video slot machines. Join us at La Quinta ® by Wyndham Verona for relaxing accommodations and modern amenities right across from Turning Stone Casino off I-90. We offer a complimentary shuttle for our guests to the casino and our ideal location puts you near towns including Oneida, Rome, and Utica, along with companies at the Griffiss Business and Technology Park.
Gambling enthusiasts who are looking for that next great vacation destination will want to add the Turning Stone Casino to their list of considerations. The action never stops at this casino. There are more than 80 table games available. These games include let it ride, roulette, craps, and blackjack, not to mention a variety of other games that might suit your fancy. Complementing the table games are 2,400 slot machines, and if you prefer poker to everything else, the state-of-the-art poker room offers a most inviting environment, not to mention plasma TVs so you can watch the big game while you play. Bingo and keno round out the gaming options at the Turning Stone Casino, and thanks to the excellent alcohol service, you should have little trouble getting drinks on the casino floor if that's part of the plan.
A number of exciting Turning Stone Casino events only help to make this resort destination a major central New York attraction. The Showroom is the venue of choice for many of the main events, the likes of which include concerts and comedy shows. There's also the Event Center, which hosts its fair share of big time Turning Stone Casino events as well. On the concert side of things, fun tribute bands often take the stage when big name artists aren't in town, and as far as the other events are concerned, you might have the chance to catch a ballet performance or something the like.
New York Map
When a break from gambling is due during a visit to the Turning Stone Casino, enjoying one of the special events isn't the only option. As long as you are 21 or older, stepping inside the pulsating LAVA nightclub is among the options for things to do, though if you like things a little more subdued, you might prefer getting drinks and maybe even something to eat at one of the numerous restaurants. Italian food is on tap at the trattoria restaurant, and you can indulge in fresh seafood or juicy steaks at the traditional steakhouse. Also figuring among the dining venues is a churrascaria-style restaurant that you might expect to find in Brazil, an intimate fine dining establishment, a buffet, a convenient café, and a pastry shop. When all the other dining venues are closed, the Emerald restaurant will be open, as it offers casual fare around the clock.
The Turning Stone Resort and Casino is more than just a gambling hot spot. It also doubles as a top golf resort, and an excellent spa. Numerous golfing awards and accolades have been heaped on the resort. There are no less than three championship golf courses that are on offer at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino, and they include the Tom Fazio-designed Atunyote Golf Club course. This course plays host to PGA events, so that should give you an idea about its overall quality. A bunch of other excellent courses, some of which are found onsite and some of which are located offsite, can also be enjoyed during a stay at Turning Stone, so you won't want to leave the clubs at home if you like to play. As for the resort's spa, it offers a full range of treatments in two different locations. Should you prefer working out to indulging in massages and such, then you can head to the Tower Fitness Club instead. You can find this fitness center at The Tower, which in turn is one of five different lodging options.
Finding your ideal accommodations at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino is made easy by the fact that there are plenty of excellent options. The Lodge offers AAA Four Diamond luxury in its cozy suites, and over at The Tower, the rooms and suites boast a stylish boutique hotel appeal. The Tower is nineteen stories tall, which makes it the tallest building between Syracuse and the capital city of Albany. Other lodging options include The Hotel, offering comfortable, classic-style rooms and suites at a good price, and you can also enjoy good rates and amenities at The Inn. There's also the Villages RV Park, which offers 175 paved sites with full hookups and Internet access. Nature trails for hiking, ponds for fishing and paddle boating, and a heated pool and hot tub can also be found at the RV Park, and free shuttle service to the casino and back is provided for guests.
The Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York sits about halfway between Albany and Buffalo. While Turning Stone is in a less populated section of New York, the convenience of being right off I-90 makes it very accessible. Accessible is a good word to describe Turning Stone in general. This is a full service casino with many dining options, a full suite of slots and table games, and several hotels/inns. Turning Stone’s moderate size and brighter than normal casino atmosphere give it a very welcoming vibe.
That vibe continues in the poker room. An airy room with comfortable chairs and exceptional dealers, Turning Stone’s poker room quickly vaulted to the top of our list.
Setting and Non-Poker Amenities
Beautiful exterior landscaping and a serpentine building structure provide an attractive drive-up to the casino. The main Tower Hotel rises at the right edge of the casino, giving Turning Stone an attractive vertical dimension. At the other end of the complex, The Lodge is a freestanding hotel, which is gorgeous from the outside.
Turning Stone is a full service casino that features a massive bingo hall, numerous slots, and smoking and non-smoking gaming options. For the kids, there is a small arcade area. The areas outside of the gaming rooms are unusually bright for a casino. Skylights above most of the restaurant entrances lend to a bright airy atmosphere. It is refreshing for a casino to have natural interior light anywhere. The gaming areas, however, were warmer than most casinos. While it was a summer afternoon that we visited, it wasn’t an extremely hot day. Perhaps this was a downside of the natural lighting; it may be a challenge to keep Turning Stone fully air conditioned.
As first-time visitors, we got some free slot play when we signed up for player cards. I got $15 but Heather got $50. After our poker tournament, we quickly played enough video poker to cash out $48 of those $65 “free” dollars. So that was a nice bonus.
Turning Stone Poker Room Comfort
The approach to the poker room is through the very smoker friendly part of the casino. However, the room is separated by a double glass door, so not open to the rest of the casino. Where we sat, the air was fresh without any wafting smoke. There is also a back entrance through a hallway that wraps around the gaming area. That became our way to access the room to avoid walking through the smoky slot machine area. In contrast to the casino at large, the poker room was nice and cool.
The poker room boasts 32 tables. There were about 10 tables of cash active during the time we played a tournament on a summer Saturday afternoon. The room was spacious, with plenty of room to navigate around tables. The room itself was attractive enough. Nothing unusual or striking other than the ceiling with a central chandelier. But the room was neat, clean and had a modern feel. The medium height ceiling gave the room an airy feel, not as closed in as say Foxwoods. The table felts were new. The chips were a bit nondescript, but clean. The chairs were reasonably comfortable.
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Poker Room Staff
Cutting to the chase: Turning Stone has the best dealers I have experienced as of this writing. Lucky bet casino no deposit bonus codes. Just their abilities, made this experience unique. At once the fastest and most efficient dealers I have ever seen, they also maintained a warm, friendly, and relaxed demeanor. And this group of dealers never made a mistake in the tournament we played. Never, not even a small one. It is hard to even comment on the quality of the floors. They didn’t have to do much given the dealer quality. The whole tournament and room at large had a professional and well run aura.
The only real service issue was that the waitresses did not circulate often enough. A few players expressed frustration with the time it took to put in a drink order.
Cutting to the chase: Turning Stone had the best dealers I have experienced as of this writing. They made our poker experience unique.Click To TweetPlayers at the Turning Stone Poker Room
The players were a mix of regulars and a few passing through types. They were generally friendly in the small tournament that we played. However, there were a couple of irritable players at the table. There was a large contingent of older loose calling stations. Most pots were multi-way, and it wasn’t easy to get anyone off a draw or medium strength hand. However, that meant there was great profit to be made in over-betting for value.
Not everyone was able to shift strategies late in the tournament. A few players chipped down too far, and others ran ill-timed and unnecessary bluffs. This worked for us, as we were able to maneuver long enough to both end up in a 3-way chop. Along with the 2 bounties we each won, and defending our own of course, this tournament offered us a decent payday despite the small number of runners (just 23).
Tournament Structures
Turning Stone hosts multiple daily poker tournaments. We played in a Saturday 4pm bounty tournament. The buy-in was $100 with $25 of that in the form of a bounty. Starting stacks were 10,000 with a 2,000 add-on if you registered 45 minutes before the start of the tournament. Almost all daily tournaments at Turning Stone have a 10,000 starting stack. Most have a potential add-on, either through early registration, a dealer add-on, or prize pool add-on for additional chips. Blind levels were only 15 minutes. However, they went up gradually enough that it didn’t feel like the radical turbo of most 15-minute blind level events.
Turning Stone, even in this small tournament, has adopted the big blind ante (kicking in on level 4) Increasingly popular, and likely de rigueur in all card rooms soon, the big blind ante really helped move things along. Paired with the high speed and skill of the dealers, this helped compensate for the short blind levels. Another small but nice feature of the tournament was an automated tournament clock voice. The announcement at the end of each level was helpful when a floor was otherwise occupied.
Overall Assessment of the Turning Stone Poker Room
If you don’t live in upstate New York, Turning Stone is schlep to get to. If you’re taking a trip through the Northeast, maybe hitting Niagara Falls and New York City or Boston, Turning Stone might be a convenient overnight Access is easy, right off I-90. For the poker player, Turning Stone offers a nice smaller casino experience. It boosts a positive atmosphere in the non-gaming areas and a comfortable, attractive poker room.
But the main selling point for the Turning Stone poker room is a group of dealers that set a new bar for speed and skill. Fast, skilled, knowledgeable, and friendly, the Turning Stone dealers are as close to ideal as one can imagine. Turning Stone has nailed this important dimension of the poker experience.
Turning Stone Casino
- Comfort
- Tournament Structures
- Personnel
4.4
Summary
Turning Stone Casino Floor Map
For the poker player, Turning Stone offers a nice smaller casino experience. It boosts a positive atmosphere in the non-gaming areas and a comfortable, attractive poker room.
Turning Stone Casino Free Play
But the main selling point for the Turning Stone poker room is a group of dealers that set a new bar for speed and skill. Fast, skilled, knowledgeable, and friendly, the Turning Stone dealers are as close to ideal as one can imagine. Turning Stone has nailed this important dimension of the poker experience.