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I live 15 minutes away from here and go here several times a month, so I can give you a pretty accurate picture of the casino. If you enjoy playing slots and are not looking for anything else you will have fun here. This is particularly true if you smoke, since about half the slots here allow smoking. If you don't smoke, there are plenty of slots far from the smoking areas as well. The payouts of the slots are not nearly as good as Atlantic City or Las Vegas. It pays better than Delaware Park though. Figure on about a 90% return, as opposed to the 93% to 95% you get in AC. If you are looking for more to do than play slots, this is not a good choice. The Diamond lounge was open late when they first launched the casino, but they decided to close it early to try to push their best players out and back onto the slots. It is now basically dead except the hour and a half they serve free food there. Though why anyone would eat that food is beyond me. School cafeterias serve better food than the Diamond lounge does.
They have a typical Harrah's circle bar in the back which is surrounded by smoking machines, but does not allow smoking in the lounge. They will usually have the local Philly sports game on, but you have to usually beg them to put on the sound. The other bar on the Casino floor is called a sports bar, but has no high def televisions and plays loud music instead of the sound of the game. It does seem to get a lively crowd from Chester on Fridays and Saturdays when they have live bands, if that is your scene.
Food at the casino ranges from terrible to mediocre. I wouldn't feed the Diamond lounge food to my dog. Their high end restaurant is not terrible, but would never compete in AC or Vegas. The best food is probably the sports bar, which serves average TGI Friday type of fare. I would suggest eating somewhere else and then coming here to just play the slots. If you really want a meal with your gambling, drive down the road to Delaware Park which actually serves decent food.
In conclusion, if you live nearby or are visiting Philly and want to take a quick trip to a place to play some slots for a few hours, this is a good choice. It is a half hour drive from center city and despite the location, perfectly safe to drive in and out of. If you have a whole day to kill and want to gamble, drive the extra hour it takes to go to Atlantic City and visit any of the casinos there (Caesars is my personal favorite). You will have a much better time in AC than Chester.
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