What the American Casino Guide 2020 Actually Covers
The American Casino Guide 2020 is a reference publication produced by Kalmbach Publishing that catalogs casinos across the United States. It covers everything from tribal casinos in California to riverboat operations in Mississippi, including slot machine payback percentages, table game rules, hotel amenities, and dining options. The 2020 edition contains information on over 1,300 casinos. It's updated annually, which matters because casino conditions change faster than most people realize. Most people treat it like a phone book — look up a city, find a casino, move on. That's not how you get value out of it. The real utility is in the comparison charts and the specific game-by-game breakdowns. When I'm researching a trip, I don't just look at the casino listing. I pull up the slot payout percentages for that property, check the blackjack rule variations, and compare the minimum bets across the floor. That's where the guide earns its keep. The section on Native American casinos is particularly detailed. Some of the tribal properties publish their actual hold percentages publicly, and those numbers appear in the guide. If you're playing slots, knowing a machine averages a 92% payout versus a 88% one makes a measurable difference over time. The guide lists these where most people won't look.
I once spent three hours trying to verify whether a specific slot machine in a Reno casino had been recalibrated after a maintenance visit. The front desk wouldn't say anything. The floor supervisor changed the subject. I went back to the guide's online companion resource and found a user-submitted update flag from two months prior noting the same machine was pulled and returned with different settings. That's the kind of edge case the printed book can't always cover, but the digital version sometimes does if you know where to look.
Common Pitfalls People Miss
One thing nobody warns about: the guide's data on table game rules is only as current as its publication date. I've seen instances where a casino changed their blackjack rules — something as simple as moving from a six-deck shoe to an eight-deck shoe, or adjusting the dealer standing rule on soft 17 — and the printed edition still listed the old rules. The 2020 guide came out in the summer, so any rule changes made after that point are invisible to you unless you're paying attention on the floor. Another thing: the guide rates hotels and amenities, but those ratings are fairly coarse. A four-diamond resort might still have a pool that's closed for renovation. A three-diamond place might have a newly renovated room. The star ratings don't capture that level of detail. I always cross-reference with recent TripAdvisor reviews for the specific property I'm targeting. Takes five minutes and prevents a lot of disappointment. The slot percentage data is another area where expectations need calibration. The guide provides average payback percentages, but those are aggregations across hundreds of machines. If you walk up to a single machine and it hasn't paid in a while, the guide's number doesn't tell you anything about that individual cabinet. Each spin is independent. The average is a statistical descriptor, not a prediction.
Get the Full Details
What the Guide Doesn't Cover Well
The biggest gap is promotions and loyalty program details. Casino rewards programs change frequently — bonus offers, match play coupons, free play distributions — and the annual print cycle can't keep up. By the time you're reading the guide at home, the promotion it mentions may have expired. I've seen people plan trips around free play offers that were no longer active because the guide was twelve months old. Digital booking and mobile check-in are barely addressed. The 2020 edition still assumes you're calling a reservation line or walking up to a desk. Most major casino chains now handle bookings through apps with dynamic pricing. The guide doesn't help you understand that layer at all. If you want current promotion information, the casino apps and websites are far more useful than any printed guide. I use the American Casino Guide 2020 for floor layout information, game minimums, and comparative property data. For active deals and booking, I go straight to the casino's official channels. Using both together covers the blind spots.
Where to Access It
The guide is available as a print book through major retailers, Amazon, and the Kalmbach website. There's also a digital companion section on the AmericanCasinoGuide.com website that occasionally posts updates and corrections between editions. The print book runs roughly 600 pages and costs around $15 to $20 depending on where you buy it. Worth it if you visit casinos regularly. Not worth it if you're going once a year to one destination — in that case, the online companion and the specific casino's website will serve you just as well for half the cost.
