The former Poker Palace in North Las Vegas has reopened as Club Fortune North to positive reviews from several longtime patrons.
Reno-based Truckee Gaming purchased the Poker Palace in October for $20 million and closed it to remodel the casino. After extensive renovations and a complete refresh of the property — which opened in 1974 at its 2757 Las Vegas Boulevard North location — it reopened Saturday, a few days ahead of its adjusted schedule.
“It’s beautiful. It is really nice and bright,” retiree Bob LaRocca, 80, said Wednesday afternoon while having a beer and watching a baseball game on one of five big screens at the Kickoff Bar. “The machines are nice. Everything is updated. It was a little rough before.”
Retired North Las Vegas resident Willie Harris, 67, who had played at Poker Palace two or three times a week for the last 20 years, praised the makeover moments before hitting four 4s on a five-cent triple play poker machine.
“It’s more of a neighborhood atmosphere and it’s actually pretty nice,” he said. “There’s a lot of new people that I don’t know but they’re all friendly, so that’s one of the good things about this.
“I live right around the corner. It’s real convenient. It’s pretty much my home casino. We need other options (in North Las Vegas). We only had Jerry’s Nugget and (Ojos) Locos, so it’s good to have another place to go.”
North Las Vegas resident Anniya Carrington also had some good fortune Wednesday while checking out the new Club Fortune North with a friend who was celebrating her birthday.
“It’s really nice, it’s clean, it smells good and I won a couple of dollars,” Carrington said. “I used to come to the restaurant that was in the Poker Palace and they used to have a live band that used to play here that I really liked back then. But now I really like it a lot better. It’s spacious, the people are much nicer for sure, all of the employees. I’d rather come here.
“The machines are much better and easier to win at. A lot more variety.”
Truckee Gaming CEO Ferenc Szony said there are nearly 500 machines in the casino, which now features one wide open floor after a couple walls were knocked down that separated gaming areas in the old Poker Palace.
“Blowing it all up and making it into one big area is probably the biggest transition. But it’s good,” Szony said after having lunch at Baskets Snack Bar, which offers $1 ice cream. “The key thing is if you had seen the operation before, to see what it transitioned into, it’s dramatically different.
“We’re happy with how it came out. If you look at the North Las Vegas market, we think we’ve brought in something of high quality, great machines, a nice floor and a spectacular bar area. We felt the market was ready for it.”
The casino will give away $10,000 each on Friday and Saturday — $500 every 10 minutes from 6-9 p.m. — in a grand opening promotion for rewards club members. Also, there will be no ATM fees for a limited time and players on their first visit to Club Fortune North will receive up to $100 back to cover losses.
There are no table games but Boomer’s Sportsbook offers betting on sports and horse racing, where parimutuel bettors can earn 4 percent back on their wagering handle to use for food and beverage.
‘Lobster for $5.95’
LaRocca, who graduated from Rancho High School, said he’s been coming to the property since the 1970s, when it was called Bunny’s Casino, which he recalled had great pizza.
“The food was great,” he said. “Then the Poker Palace had lobster. Pick your own lobster out of the tank.”
LaRocca’s wife of 47 years, Debbie, 70, happily recalled eating lobster there.
“You can get lobster for $5.95,” she said as she played a poker machine. “They had pan-fried lobster. It was the best.”
Debbie LaRocca, whose sister-in-law and close friend were bartenders at Poker Palace, liked the fact that the bathrooms are new and clean at Club Fortune North. She only wished it had blackjack.
“I wanted blackjack tables. I love playing blackjack,” she said. “My father and mother, they won trucks and everything else in the drawings from Poker Palace. And $50,000 on bingo one time. They’re gone now but they’d be here if they were alive.
“We loved playing. She played bingo every day and we played blackjack. We all had a good time. This casino is a gold mine in this part of town. They needed it a lot.”
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com. Follow @tdewey33 on X.
