Miami Valley Gaming Casino Trip Review

Introduction to Miami Valley Gaming

In southwestern Ohio, along I-75 near the town of Lebanon, lies Miami Valley Gaming. This racetrack offers video lottery terminal (VLT) style slot machines. What follows is my review of this racino.

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Miami Valley Gaming, 30 Miles North of Cincinnati

Ohio has five stand-alone casino resorts and seven racetracks with slot machines. This week, on Sunday, September 19, 2021, I’m providing you with a casino review of Miami Valley Gaming in Lebanon, Ohio, located 30 miles north of Cincinnati.

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I’ve just left MVG, as the locals call this casino, but before I get to what happened, let’s go over my pre-trip research for this racetrack with slot machines sometimes called a racino.

Theoretical Payout Limit and Return Statistics

Ohio’s Gaming Control Act section 3772.20 states that the minimum theoretical payout is 85% for slot machines at Ohio’s casino resorts. This same payout limit applies to slot machines at Ohio’s racetracks with slot machines thanks to the Ohio Lottery’s Video Lottery Game Rules.

Ohio’s five stand-alone casino resorts have return statistics publicly available from the Ohio Gaming Commission. However, Ohio’s seven racetracks with slot machines have their return statistics available from the Ohio Lottery. Both sources offer return statistics by:

• Month
• Casino
• State-wide

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In August 2021, Monthly Casino Revenue Reports from the Ohio Gaming Commission shows return statistics for the four casino resorts were:

• State-Wide: 91.99%
• Hard Rock Cincinnati: 91.76%
• Hollywood Columbus: 92.28%
• Hollywood Toledo: 91.54%
• JACK Cleveland: 92.41%

The highest return for casino resorts went to JACK Cleveland at 92.4%, while the lowest went to Hollywood Toledo at 91.5%.

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In August 2021, VLT Fiscal Revenue Reports from the Ohio Lottery shows return statistics for the seven racinos were:

• State-Wide: 90.86%
• Belterra Park: 90.15%
• Eldorado Gaming Scioto Downs: 90.90%
• Hollywood Gaming Dayton Raceway: 91.38%
• Hollywood Gaming Mahoning Valley: 90.52%
• JACK Thistledown Racino: 90.72%
• MGM Northfield Park: 90.89%
• Miami Valley Gaming: 91.09%

The highest return for racinos went to Hollywood Gaming Dayton at 91.4%, while the lowest went to Belterra at 90.2%. Overall, JACK Cleveland had the best return of any casino or racino in Ohio, while Belterra had the lowest.

Overall, JACK Cleveland had the best return of any casino or racino in Ohio, while Belterra had the lowest. And all seven racinos had a lower return than all four casino resorts.

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What all this means for today’s trip to Miami Valley Gaming is straightforward. MVG has the second-best player return statistic of Ohio’s seven racinos and worse than every casino resort. For August 2021, MVG ranked sixth out of the eleven places to play slots in Ohio.

Food and Accommodations

Otherwise, Miami Valley Gaming is open 24 hours a day and seven days a week. It has two smoking parlors available. No wheelchairs or mobility scooters are available for guests.

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This racetrack with slot machines does not have an attached hotel, but many commercial hotels are nearby. Miami Valley Gaming has three restaurants and two bars, including a buffet, a stop-shop, and a reservations-only dining establishment.

The MVG Club Loyalty Program

Miami Valley Gaming has its MVG Club player’s club. At this time, new signups get $10 in free slots play, and spending $1 will earn you one point. If you reach 1,000 points, you can redeem those points for $1 in free play or spend it to help purchase food. However, there is a $5 minimum redemption policy or 5,000 points.

Tier level point requirements are Classic for new guests, Advantage for those who have earned 10,000 points in the last six months, Premier after earning 50,000 points, and Elite after earning 150,000 points.

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I’ve just spent 2 hours playing slots at Miami Valley Gaming. I walked in with a $300 bankroll in my wallet and left with $200. Since MVG is a local casino, I already had a players club card. I am barely Advantage level with 10,058 points when I started and 11,745 points when I left.

That’s a difference of 1,687 club points so, at a cost of $1 per club point, I spent $1,687 today at Miami Valley Gaming. But according to my wallet, I only spent $100 as my bankroll dropped from $300 to $200. I’ll say more, but you now know I cycled by bankroll many, many times.

My Miami Valley Gaming Slots Experience

Because it is a local casino for me, I’ve been to Miami Valley Gaming before including earlier this year. Upon walking in today, the first thing I noticed was that the winning machines I’d seen prominently displayed near the entrance on my last visit were gone. That whole area has been completely changed.

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That’s too bad because one of the machines in that carousel was a winner because anyone walking in would see wins on it. That’s my Strategy 9: Location, Location, Location at work for the casino.

Because I’ve been to this casino before, I know what its operators have chosen for their casino setup. It’s my strategy 9. But on my prior visits, I’d stopped at that strategy.

How else has this casino set itself up? Does it offer my Strategy 1: The 5-Spin winning slots strategy? That’s what I was here today to find out.

After walking in, I tested for my 5-spin strategy on slots machines while my eyes and ears calibrated to what I saw and heard in this casino environment. As you may know, I’ve created a modification to my 5-spin test procedure to help get the best return.

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I made minimum bets on twenty prominently displayed slot machines. Of these twenty machines, I won within the first five bets on 14 of them. That’s good.

It’s not great, because fourteen is less than 15. It’s not excellent either, because I didn’t win on most of those twenty machines. It’s just good.

I started with $100 and, after playing twenty machines, I had $82.33. That makes my player win% 82.3% and the casino hold percent 17.7% And, on one of my bets, I won $12.

I lost money trying to use my 5-spin method at this casino. Just using it without trying to combine it with another strategy isn’t particularly enjoyable. On the other hand, I saw a lot of others doing far worse.

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Testing the 5-spin method took about half an hour. For the next 45 minutes, I walked the casino looking for prominently displayed slot machines. Some of the people playing them were winning.

I saw two hand pays today, both on the same slot machine by the same person. For my entire two hours, that’s the only slot machine they played. Their first big win was for just over $12,000 and the second for just over $2,000 about 30 minutes later.

She was still playing when I left. Just before I left, I walked up and asked how many hand pays she’d won. She only said, “A couple.”

There I was, walking throughout the casino looking for prominently displayed slot machines that were being played endlessly. The first one, with the two hand pays, was a Cash Express Luxury Lane just south of the central bar and pointed directly to the east.

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Another seemingly winning machine I didn’t play was by the west entrance. But facing it across a wide opening was an end-of-row machine, which I had some fun playing. For that one, I used my ten bets, another ten bets, and then more bets because it seemed to be a winner.

But it stopped paying out around fifty bets, so I abandoned that machine. From there, I walked south and liked how a tall slot machine was facing another wide, open area and the north smoking parlor entrance in the distance. No one was playing it, so I did.

I played this machine, called Cash Falls with a pirate theme, for forty-five minutes. I didn’t make a profit. But I also didn’t lose money.

I cycled my bankroll. Endlessly. After 20 minutes, I decided to go from 50-cent minimum bets to $5 maximum bets. That didn’t go so well, taking the $80 I’d started with quickly down to $30. Ouch.

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So, I split the difference. I started making $2.50 bets. Over the next twenty minutes is when I earned most of those 1,687 club points.

Plus, just as the two-hour casino visit limit I’d given myself was just about to end, I had my most significant win of the day. This game would put up points symbols and leave them there for five spins.

As these five spins would go on, sometimes each column would get additional points symbols. If the entire column filled up, you’d win everything that was in that column.

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Oh, and the two left-most column was only four symbols high, the center two columns were six symbols high, and the right-most was a single column eight symbols high. Over five spins, I filled the entire left-most column with winning symbols worth at least $10 each. One of the symbols was a Mini worth $20, and two of the symbols were Minors, each worth $50.

Summary of Miami Valley Gaming

With that $200 win on a $2.50 bet, I ended my visit to Miami Valley Gaming. If you plan to visit Miami Valley Gaming yourself, I hope the details I have provided will help you earn club points by cycling your bankroll, giving you hours of entertainment.

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