This article was originally posted on Maryland Advantage. Posts and pages from that site have been relocated to US Casino Advantage. Additional archived posts may be found here.
We drove from Atlantic City to Washington DC the day before this, stopping at four Maryland casinos. That blog post is here. We stayed in downtown Washington, DC hoping to do some tourist things on this Sunday. It was cold and raining. We met a friend for what was to be a half a day of hanging out at MGM National Harbor, but it turned into a full day.
We started out with lunch at the sports bar. It was good. The service was excellent, as were the drinks.
Our friend is a high-limit player. Kristina and I cheered him on and helped push the buttons on the slots. He hit a number of hand pays. He played a variety of $10 and $25 denomination reels. Here is a sample of his big wins.
After a few hours of that, I decided to play some high-limit blackjack with my winnings from Caesars in Atlantic City. The minimum bet was $200. My friend sponsored half my action to make it a $100 game for me. Yes, I am that cheap.
Kristina got bored watching us play. She toured the property, taking pictures of interesting things, while we played. Some of those pictures are on our MGM National Harbor page. We will add more soon.
Things did not go well. It was the opposite of Atlantic City. All of my double-downs and splits were busts and the dealer hit dream cards. It wiped out most of what I won at Caesars. My friend’s luck was better than mine. The picture below is one of his hands. He won it. I had already busted.
I lost $6,300 at a $200 game over a few hours. I was reimbursed for half of it, paid for by my friend who won that and then some.
We partied late and took an Uber back to our downtown Washington, DC hotel. We checked out the games while we were there. Our friend got caught up in this hand.
Results: -$3,150, trip: +705
Games available at MGM National Harbor
The table-game limits at MGM National Harbor were among the highest of all Maryland casinos. Poker table games, 6:5 blackjack, and Casino War started at $15. It took $25 to get a 3:2 blackjack game and $200 for a blackjack game to stand on all 17’s. Surrender and re-split aces were permitted.
Craps with 3-4-5 times odds and Pontoon were $25. This is the only other casino besides MGM Grand in Detroit where we found Pontoon.
Double-zero roulette was $25. We found six triple-zero roulette tables at MGM National Harbor, which was nearly all that we found on this entire trip.
The second level is mostly the poker room and video-poker machines. I found some 99% games, including 9/7 Double Bonus, 9/6 Double Double Bonus, and 15/9 Deuces Wild, all at $1, $2 and $5 denominations.
The next morning was rough. We took an Uber back to the MGM National Harbor parking deck. We then headed to Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races in West Virginia. It slowed us down for the trip and ultimately made us miss much of Indiana. Even with the loss, it was worth it to catch up with an old friend and have some fun that we’d planned to have in Atlantic City but ran out of time there.
