Where Is the Luckiest Casino in Iowa, According to Reviews?

Iowa is home to around 23 commercial casinos, including four tribal establishments, which employ thousands of people all across the state. Although the state has not yet legalized online casinos, Iowans can easily satisfy their casino addiction without traveling far. 

And it’s a pretty booming industry overall, bringing in the 12th most gross gaming revenue out of all states, with casinos in 2023, employing around 25,000 people and contributing around $817M in taxes and tribal revenue share.

The Hawkeye State legalized sports betting pretty quickly after the U.S. Supreme Court got rid of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018. In fact, Iowa was one of the first to legalize sports betting, with legislation passing on August 15, 2019, and there is a plethora of online sportsbooks to wager with. Unfortunately, similar strides have not been made for online casinos, which frankly makes the crew at Casinos.com quite sad. 

But not too sad, because their land-based casino selection is among one of the best in the nation. So, the team here at Casinos.com is always trying to find interesting data around casinos in different states. The clue is in our name and it’s kind of our job, and it was finally time to find out which is the luckiest casino in Iowa according to real-life reviewers who took the time to detail their experience on Tripadvisor. 

We follow the same methodology for each state, measuring keywords in the Tripadvisor review that we perceive could be related to luck, such as “lucky,” “lucky,” “winning,” "won," "jackpot,” and more. Of course, this does not equate to a definitive answer of luck, so take the results with a pinch of salt—but it does give us an impression of whether real-life visitors to these casinos got a rub of the green. 

Here are all Iowa casinos whose Tripadvisor reviews we took a closer look at:

• Horseshoe Council Bluffs
• Hard Rock Casino Sioux City
• Diamond Jo Casino
• Rhythm City Casino Resort
• Harrah's Casino
• Prairie Meadows
• Q Casino
• Ameristar Casino Hotel
• Grand Falls Casino & Golf Resort
• Casino Queen Marquette
• Riverside Casino & Golf Resort

Look, it’s impossible to say, as casinos operate using the same odds for most table games, with slight discrepancies across different variations of blackjack, roulette, and some slots having higher or lower volatility.

But we’ll stop teasing you now and reveal that the Casino Queen Marquette has been found to be the luckiest casino in Iowa with a pretty incredible 49.52% luck percentage score. We will caveat this by saying it had a lower amount of reviews, just 105, compared to other casinos—but it’s still an impressive score nonetheless. 

There were 28 mentions of "luck," alongside 13 mentions of "won," which boosted the score dramatically. The all-important “jackpot” was mentioned five times, which could indicate that if you win here, you win big. 

One reviewer wrote, “Enjoyed this casino even though it was far smaller than we're used to. Someone in our group did win a jackpot as her birthday wish so that was an added bonus,” while another added, “I come here often with a friend of mine. I just won the JACKPOT...$2,124.05.” 

Next up was Prairie Meadows, albeit some way behind the number one spot, but still with a respectable score of 23.18%. With Prairie Meadows, located in Altoona, keywords "won," "winning," and "winner" were prevalent throughout the 302 reviews at the time of writing. 

Visitor Patty commented, “Love the casino. always winning on the slots. Food at the buffet is awesome. Good time to go with friends and enjoy the night or weekend.”

Rounding out the top three was Diamond Jo Casino with 22.69%, with Q Casino (22.18%) just behind in fourth. Riverside Casino & Golf Resort (19.38%) and Rhythm City Casino Resort (19.11%) also scored well in the 2024 study. 

Unfortunately, with the good must come the bad and that’s where Horseshoe Council Bluffs comes in. With by far the most reviews out of any casino at 8,613 at the time of writing, this only translated to 10.77% on the luck percentage scale. Grand Falls Casino & Golf Resort scored marginally better with 13.04%, while Ameristar Casino Hotel was next with 13.11%. 

Methodology 

Casinos.com utilized Tripadvisor reviews to do an in-depth analysis of phrases associated with luck to determine the luckiest and unluckiest casinos in the state of Iowa. We calculated the percentage of luck-rated mentions in the total Tripadvisor reviews. Only casinos with the requisite number of reviews were chosen for this study in order to represent a fair data set. For Iowa, the minimum number of reviews was 90.

Keywords tracked: Lucky, Luck, Winning, Big Win, Winner, Bonus, Profit, Success, Jackpot, Hand Pay

This data was collected in August 2024. 

Disclaimer 

The data in this article is intended for entertainment purposes only. Casinos.com does not claim any one casino to be “luckier” than another. Please don’t use the information presented in this article as gambling or betting advice, and as always, please bet responsibly. 

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