Horseshoe Hammond Casino

This place is horrible. Worst payouts of any slot machines in Indiana, according to what they report to the state. Staff is awful. Hold onto your purse tight and never let your chips out of your sight because this place is crawling with people who would love to snatch it from you.

This place likes to pretend it’s Vegas. But let’s be real. It’s freakin Indiana. Don’t try and get any food past 10pm. Don’t think there’s any kind of bumpin music like they say on their website about a ‘lounge’. Doesn’t exist. This is a sorry excuse for a casino with some seriously pathetic people who don’t know what customer service means. If you want to throw your money away on machines that don’t pay and over priced drinks, then this is your place.

I have been coming here for years and years. I don’t smoke, most people don’t smoke. Management NEEDS to make this place smell better like the casinos in Vegas. If Vegas can do it, then why can’t they? We have a group of about 20 of us that are seriously considering switching to Ameristar. It’s worth the extra drive to avoid the smell. Everyone I talk to tells me the same thing.

While the Horseshoe Hammond Casino is located right off Lake Michigan it’s in the absolute worst location, as the surrounding neighborhood is somewhat questionable. I guess the lake access and marina provide quick access for those visiting from Chicago, and surrounding states via Lake Michigan.
Inside you will find a large parking garage with multiple floors, the main casino is large with a large gaming floor and a wide variety of slots and table games. Drinks are reasonably priced, there are also several dining options located inside the casino along with a buffet located upstairs near The Venue, which is their concert venue. Since Horseshoe is located in Indiana smoking is allowed within the casino, which is unfortunate.
Overall the casino is large with a wide variety of game, it’s only a short 15 – 20 minute drive from downtown Chicago too making it convenient to access, but apparently if you have a boat its even easier allowing you to bypass any traffic nightmares.

Great casino! Had a blast. The guy Martez at the total rewards desk was very helpful. Most casinos i feel dont care about their customers but i felt very welcomed by him.

Although it’s probably one of the nicer casinos in the area, it’s still hit or miss for me. Sometimes I walk in and there’s plenty of slots, other times I can’t find a machine for the life of me. It’s also a very interesting crowd that hangs out on the weekends, I wouldn’t go by myself.
I am a fan of the non-​smoking section. There are PLENTY of penny slots, a few nickle and quarter, and very little dollar slots. They do have some table games as well.

Wow Horseshoe has now made it to #1 in NWI casinos in my opinion. So many baccarat tables! The casino floor is bright and beautiful. The buffet looks delicious. These guys know how to run a casino and what hospitality is all about. I was comped dinner, free champagne at midnight (it was New Years), strong pours. Friendly dealers, pit bosses and all staff were super friendly and nice. These guys know how to throw a party! Live music and showgirls. Both my wife and I agree that this place is so much better than Four Winds. We really had a great time.

Very eclectic variety of food, seasoned well. Everything I tried was very good. Workers are friendly!

Still a nice place, But one of the staffers or quasi-​staff was real arbitrary, And probably got his degree or training from some fly-​by-​night firm. Rather unprofessional.

Let me just say that I really hate buffets. I like to be served, instead of walking around with plates of food. Anyway, we met family here for a birthday dinner. It was crab leg night, so it was packed. I’m not a fan of crab legs, because it’s too much trouble breaking open the shells.
The spread of other food was okay, not delicious or fabulous. Just okay. It kind of reminds me of Old Country Buffet.

This was my first casino! It’s really fun and the drinks are really well made compared to the bar and the buffet food is absolutely the best I’ve ever had.

we came to see Russell Peters who was excellent, worth every penny. The «venue» where the stand up was done is actually pretty decent but the Casino… i had no idea ‘Merica still allowed smoking inside public spaces?! Wtf, ridiculous imo…

Saw that this place offered a free shuttle service to the casino and back so I had to try it. I did not know I would be traveling from Chicago to Hammond, but hey I didn’t mind the ride. This place was fun to visit and hey I came back a winner! So not a bad place to enjoy some gambling if you ever have the time.

Came here to see one of our favorite comedians, left with nagging coughs, burning eyes, and smelling like ashtray. Having to run the gauntlet of smokers from the front entrance to the concert venue and back ranks right up there in the pleasant-​experience continuum with riding a cross-​country Greyhound bus with a broken toilet. (And I can truthfully make this comparison, having done that in my travels some unnamed number of years ago.) Walked past «non-​smoking» sections for slots and table games and wondered how smoke-​free they could be with smokers walking just behind you. Didn’t bother to find out; just kept heading for the exit.
Not coming back here, not to gamble, not to see my favorite act, not ever… and seeing as how this happens because of Indiana’s swiss-​cheese smoking laws, not planning to spend more than a few minutes in any bar or casino in the state from this point on.

I love going to the casino, but this place keeps getting grungier by the day. Half the machines don’t work properly, they are covered with smudges and cigarette ashes, and you can never find a server walking around. The shuttles to Chicago make the trip worth it cause it does not cost you anything with a rewards card. The buffet is the only redeeming quality left in this place!!! The buffet has a lot of tasty options and isn’t too costly… less then $ 20 with the rewards card. It also has a nice view of Chicago by the water. I have seriously contemplated going to some of the other casinos in the area because its gotten worse… but I don’t want to drive there… lol

We came here on the hunt for electronic black jack, but didn’t find it. They had a non-​smoking section but it was very small and you had to go through the smoking section to even get there. I did get carded, but that was the only excitement I had going on for me. The buffet didn’t seem that enticing to me either.

This review is about the buffet and not the smoke-​filled, lung cancer generating, senior-​citizen infested casino floor that I actually tend to come out ahead in. No. that one you can experience all for yourself. I”m not going to share how I took $ 12 and made it $ 105 on a penny slot machine, or how you can gamble with live card dealers until you deplete your least-​favorite kids college fund. No sir. this is only about the food.
In the grand scheme of things, I think casino food ranks right about the same as college residence hall cafeteria food. Some of the items here are hit or miss. the salad bar leaves a bit to be desired and sometimes the entrée choices don’t make much sense, but it’s better than most that I’ve visited outside of Vegas.
The last time I visited, the seating area was fairly empty. We asked to be seated away from most of the people so we could talk and were accommodated. Our server, Mary, was very attentive and kept our drinks filled and plates cleared away as we worked our way through the different sections of the buffet, starting with salads and soups and working our way through the Asian, Italian, Latin and American areas before finishing with the dessert bar. Some of the items were downright unappealing, like the whole pig that had been roasted and thrown on the line to show how fresh the pulled pork was. I half expected to see a live one next to it «on deck» for the next roast.
While the food is three stars at best, the service AND the sugar-​free options on the dessert bar make me feel generous enough to kick in an extra star.

While I lived in Chicago, I never made it to this casino but with its new sibling opening in Baltimore recently, I decided to give the Horseshoe in suburban Chicago a try as I was driving away from Riot Fest. I was just hoping it would give me things I hadn’t gotten at the festival itself, mainly free water, clean bathrooms, and air conditioning. It satisfied this requirements but not much else.
This is a casino that definitely shows its age and use. While the outside is relatively shiny, immediately upon entering, any sign of a modern casino evaporate. The slot machines are almost as worn as the carpet. The whole place smells heavily of cigarettes, and there is no luster to the bars. They are just places to get drinks.
Knowing that midnight on a Sunday isn’t going to be when the high rollers come out to play, I won’t hold the aged, raggedy clientele there against this place (it made me feel less awful only playing about $ 5 on video blackjack at one of the bars while watching the late sporting events). But I can’t see why anyone who isn’t the sort of person who likes to just pour money into a slot machine with a cigarette dangling out of their mouth would even bother with this place.
There was barely any video poker to be found and no advanced video blackjack. And for a Sunday, there were high minimums on their live blackjack tables.
I do have to say that it was easy for me to find free water as the servers were almost as plentiful as the cashiers. And the bathrooms were immaculate. It was better than the best rest area in Indiana on I-​94 could have been. I just wish that I didn’t walk out of here wanting to pour my little free bottle of water all over myself just to feel unclean.

BFF: You want to go on an old lady bus trip?
Me: Wait, what did you say?
BFF: Ok, I hope you’re not mad but for your birthday I signed us up for a trip to Horseshoe through my church’s women’s group
Me: Wait, my birthday… old ladies… what?
Ok my BFF and I pretty much have a blast wherever we go, but mingling with old church ladies was pretty darn hilarious. Imagine 50 back seat drivers yelling out directions to the charter bus driver. Entertaining to say the least. But after the short trip across the border, we set out to explore Horseshoe.
I must look pretty young compared to the usual Horseshoe population and our fellow bus passengers because I got carded. Wha??? yes I did. So if you look youngish, keep your ID handy at the entrance because they card hard and are pretty stern about it.
My first impression of the casino though is smoke. And it’s not from the hot dice being thrown at the Craps table, it’s the cigarette smoke. Cough, cough, cough, cough. Ugh, I hate smoke, But after wandering around for a bit, we miraculously found an area that didn’t seem as smoky and we settled into our slots.
There are tables – blackjack, poker, craps, roulette. Seemed like the minimum for a lot of the tables was $ 5. But we stuck to the slots. $ 40 richer from the penny slots and enough credits to get comped at the buffet, Yay me.
The buffet was good – I stuck to the basic American fare as the Asian and Italian and Latin food stations looked like the food had been sitting out for a while. But the food I had was good – prime rib, potato, veggies, a salad, fried shrimp. The desserts look good but be careful what you choose, any type of pudding or custard did have a film like it had been sitting out too long. So that was a lesson learned. I did get the warm peach cobbler and topped it with vanilla soft serve and that was fantastic.
Every employee I encountered was pleasant and friendly. Now if they could just get rid of the smoke…

This place was a major lifesaver for me, when I failed to successfully be able to find any cab company that’d go to the Whiting area to pick me up after this year’s Pierogifest, and decided to see if I could pick up one of their shuttles back north. For the record, most of their shuttles to various places stop running after 11 – 11:30pm, and the last one to Lincoln Park/​Wrigleyville (w/​also a few River North stops) leaves at 1:30am. The only shuttle that is 24 hours is the Chinatown shuttle, and those buses leave at 2:15 and 4:15am.
Like I thought, there wasn’t much open except for the main gaming floor, and 2 bars (one in the middle of the casino w/​a DJ, and the other was off the back side of the gaming floor) about 11:30pm to midnight. The upstairs things like the buffet, were closed that late. Gaming floor was at least clean, they did have a non-​smoking section that did feel marginally less smoky vs. the rest of the gaming floor (but with no separation, but that didn’t bother me), but at least the smokiness didn’t feel too overwhelming. I just didn’t gamble much except for one machine, since I was so darn tired that night after Pierogifest.
Thanks for saving my butt and having your shuttles to Chicago still operate that late at night when I couldn’t successfully call a cab, Horseshoe! And for the valet cashier waving the $ 20 price for a replacement ticket, for whatever reason (as I was playing it off as that, when I got up there since I badly wanted to get home), was also an appreciative gesture.