Hollywood Casino & Hotel Lawrenceburg — Attraction in Lawrenceburg Township

I'm going to break this review into three sections: hotel, food, and casino. Note that I've been staying at Belterra around every 3 months for 15 years while I've only stayed at Hollywood once. I love Belterra, but their casino has gone downhill in terms of game variety and pay tables for video poker recently.

TL;DR: If you want the best casino Ohio/Kentucky/eastern Indiana region and you're willing to sacrifice room quality, go here. If you want a nicer hotel and location and are willing to sacrifice variety and quality of casino games, go to Belterra.

Hotel: 3/5 A lot of people have mentioned dirty rooms on here. My room was not dirty per se. It did have a red stain on the carpet near my bed, but that looked like it was permanent so i can understand why they weren't able to get that out. It didn't bug me much.

The room itself was fine but definitely felt old. The hotel kind of feels like an old Holiday Inn. It gets the job done, but don't expect a nice view or up-to-date amenities. I'd also advise bringing your own shampoo/body wash/conditioner. They supply some, but it's a bottle that looks like it stays between guests, and it's not all that great.

Food: 4/5 I ate from three places during my stay: ESPN Bet (the sportsbook restaurant). The Eatery, and Hollywood and Grind.

Both dinners came from ESPN Bet and were quite delicious and pretty cheap. Easy 5/5 there.

I got a salad for lunch from The Eatery in the casino. It was decent, but if you wanted to add chicken to any salad (most of which don't have much protein), it's an extra $4. I didn't get a salad with chicken -- I got the BLT Salad -- and it was good enough. 4/5.

I got a dessert from Hollywood and Grind, but I saw their general menu and prices. I would normally go to a place like this for breakfast as well, but I had alternate plans for breakfast. The food seems okay but overpriced. 3/5 based on price, 4/5 if you don't care about price.

Casino: 5/5 Hollywood has always had a lot of games, but having spent about 16 hours in the casino, I can say I was very satisfied with what was present. I usually split half my time between video poker and slots.

For video poker, the pay tables and the machine quality were excellent. If you're a video poker player and are looking to stay overnight somewhere, you have to stay here. Belterra used to be better and Hollywood used to be worse, but that's changed over time. Easily a 5/5 on video poker.

For slots, the game variety is huge. I will say, a lot of the games are high volatility simply because that's a lot of the style with newer games and they have a lot of newer games (e.g., Lightning Link). However, there are a decent variety of lower volatility games if you dig around (e.g., Top Dollar, Triple Double Diamond). There are also some of the older penny slots for something in between on volatitliy. Generally a 5/5 here too, but I wish there were a few more lower volatility options.

Conclusion/Comparison with Belterra Overall, I wish Hollywood had anything close to what Belterra's deluxe rooms have. At Belterra, you can get a pretty nice room with a jetted tub. Here, you're going to get a small bathroom with a tub/shower combo and a pretty old feeling room. Belterra easily wins on rooms.

For food, I'd give the slight nod to Belterra as well just because of Nosh. It's better than any individual food place at Hollywood. Hollywood is not bad though.

For the casino, Hollywood easily wins over Belterra. Hollywood is probably always going to win on pure number of machines, but if Belterra focused more on keeping their machines fully functioning, changed their video poker offerings/pay tables, they'd be good enough. As it stands, Hollywood is pretty far ahead of Belterra here.

Unless Belterra mixes up things in their casino, I'm coming back here for the...

The service from Jennifer and the old fat woman at the check in counter at the hotel was absolutely terrible. They were extremely rude and hateful. The old fat woman behind the counter, offered another guest a non smoking king room that was available which she declined. After the other guest walked away I asked her if we could take that room because we were not smokers. I explained to her that we booked the smoking room because everything else was sold out. She told us that that offer of the non-smoking room was not for us that was ONLY for the other guest, and we would have to stick with the smoking room. And she also refused to honor my AAA discount. And also Jennifer gave me the third degree about going to the restroom. She basically questioned me when I came in where was I going and I told her I was going to the restroom. For some reason she acted like I was a homeless person coming off the street trying to use the restroom. She first told me she didn’t know if the bathroom was unlocked then she told me that it smelled and I probably didn’t want to use it. Then after this odd encounter, she acted like she was checking us in. Then she told us we had to come back at 4 and she wasn’t checking us in any earlier. So we came back exactly at 3:50 PM to get in line so we could check in at 4. Then mysteriously, she was checking people in before 4 o’clock when we got there. After we got to our room it was absolutely disgusting. The window frames are caked with dirt and grime. The floors and setting chairs are disgusting and are badly stained and smell extremely bad. The lampshades were dirty and nasty with stains all over them. The room looks like it has not been cleaned in 20 years. It is very dusty and dirt is caked on everything. The phone was caked with dirt and the numbers were sticking because of some kind of sticky substance all over it. In the bathroom, there was hair all over the tub and the tub fixture were nasty and corroded. The ceiling had stains all over it with chipping paint, falling everywhere. The vent in the bathroom was caked with dirt grime. The sink and the toilet had a ring of dirt around it. This place needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt. My husband and I ended up, leaving a few hours after checking in because the room smelled so bad and was so disgusting. I would appreciate it if the casino would refund my money for my room because it was so disgusting. I even have the pictures to prove it was disgusting. They charged me $159 for a room that should cost no more than $25. Also, they took out a lot of the slot machines from the non-smoking section. So the non-smoking section of the casino has way less machines in it now. And they took out the good machines. It seems like the slot machines are not loose anymore. I didn’t see anyone winning whatsoever. If the owner of the casino sees this, please refund my money for my room. Look at the pictures from your rooms. This place needs to be gutted and redone. Also, I posted pictures but I don’t know if anyone can see them because there are so many pictures posted already. Also, in the reviews about the hotel that shows crab legs. I have not seen one place that serves crab legs like they show. Also, they do not have the buffet anymore. You’re very limited to what you can get to eat there. You can eat at the sports bar, but the food is terrible there. Or you can go to the steakhouse that is open on certain days and times. They close very early in the evening. If you can’t find the pictures on here, go to Tripadvisor and you can view all of the pictures that I posted of the dirty...

So the funny part about our check-in process, I say to the front desk person….”Is there any chance you can put me in a room close to the casino?” And she says, “let me see what I can do. The casino and the hotel are in separate buildings but….the casino is on the third floor, I’ll put your room on the third floor and you can take the covered skywalk/sky bridge over to the casino.” Great! We get checked into the room, go look for the sky bridge…and it doesn’t exist. Call down to the front desk (same lady) - No, it doesn’t exist. What!? Please note, it's far walk from the hotel to the casino. Definitely got my steps in.

Quote of the stay “I feel like I’m in a wrap sandwich, my feet are being crushed” (referring to the tightest bedsheets, folded under the bed ever. But nicely done on making the bed!) Rooms are clean-ish, lots of black things on the bathroom floor.. Our room’s heat was a hot mess - please note it was like 16 degrees outside during our stay….heat was a must. The window unit provides the heat and the thermostat does not - maybe just tells you the temperature of the room. Choice is way too hot or on the chilly side. The drapes - there are none that are not decorative. There is only the white, see-through window liner drapes. The heavy drapes that you might expect to be able to close to block outside lights….no, that’s decorative too. Doesn’t move and if you’re lucky enough for your window to face the parking lot full of bright lights like we were; you won’t need a night light or need to use your phone to hit the bathroom during the night. Beyond the drapes, the room was like stepping back into the 90’s. The place is pretty dated, the casino looks pretty good. Share the wealth. As we walked into our room, we were greeted by multiple large stains on the carpet. Time for a carpet cleaning and an update.

Valet was great! Staff are really nice and helpful (except for the hotel check-in lady - it’s not that she was mean or rude, she wasn’t. But miscommunication to say the least.) Beds were comfortable, and the shower pressure was great. Check-out was easy and on the TV, leave the key cards in the...