Four Winds South Bend 2024

We have been to most every casino with a hotel in the near Chicagoland area. I say "near", as those within a 2 hour radius. Sometimes we travel outside that boarder, like when we do Soaring Eagle in Mt Pleasant MI. But the Four Winds in South Bend Indiana was never on our radar. Until they finally included a hotel to go along with their casino. 

I just couldn't justify a 4 hour round trip, to spend a few hours in a casino and then head home. Plus, I like to play the comp game. And if I cant even earn myself a room from my play. Why bother? Well, all that changed last year, as the South Bend location not only added a fancy hotel. But also another casino to go with it. With thousands of slots, and a brand spankin new hotel. I loaded up the kiddos for a 4th of July get away.

Day 1

I get a bit more excited for this trip, than I typically do for a stay-cation. As everything here would be new to me. Lots to explore and discover. I tried looking for pictures or walk-throughs of the casino on YouTube the week prior. But really not much out there for a local casino. Which is a bit strange, as this place seems to be pretty substantial. 

Zero people in line for check-in at 2PM on a Thursday. I tell the desk agent there wasn't an option to select 2 kids when I booked my offer online. So, I had to plug in 4 adults. She says she was glad I said something. As I would need 2 beds. I asked why they would put 4 adults in one bed, without me selecting the Orgy Room. Which she didn't bother replying to. 

She says she will give us a room with a North facing view of downtown South Bend, so we can watch the fireworks from our room. Which was a great idea, as we planned to just go to a local park and hope for the best. No crowds, bugs or bull shit? Sign me up!

We get up to our room, and its just a single bed. For whatever reason, she moved us from 2 queens into a 1 king. Even though she said she did the opposite. Everyone back down to the lobby!

Her: "Something wrong with the room"?

Me: "Only one bed"

Her: "Huh, sure enough. I'll put you in the Junior Suite. It only has one bed, but it does have a couch for the kids"

The room is exactly the same as Four Winds in New Buffalo MI. Which is to say, nice but nothing crazy awesome. But if I was a local from the cornfields, this place would be the Ritz!

As you can see, really not much going on out here...

Mom wants to nap, the kids have 2 TV's and WiFi so absolutely none of them give a fuck if I wander off to play. 

The best I can tell from my days worth of research. Is that they opened the casino in 2018. Back then, the casino had 175,000 SQFT and 1,800 slot machines. THEN they added the hotel tower, which opened in 2023. AND another casino to link the hotel to the original casino. 

And with that, they have a very, very big casino! Its an easy walk from the lobby elevators right into the far end of the casino. 

The place was hopping. Mostly old people. But those are the best slot neighbors. They don't get too rowdy, ask for money or do much of anything beyond live out their final years. Pissing away the grand-kids inheritance. I can laugh at that, as there are plenty of dead people in my family tree. And none of them ever left me anything. 

I pull a copy of my card from the players club desk. And she tells me I have $80 in free play. Which seems like a gip, as I have $250 in free play at their other casino just 30MINS West of here. But considering I have never stepped foot in here before, I take what I can get. 

I dump that $80 into this rarer Ainsworth game below, along with a $100 bill to convert my free play. It didn't take long to land a bonus. And just like that, I was up $400 when I cashed out, after landing a $363 free spins and some other smaller hits. 

I played this Tiger game below, that you've seen in a bunch of my trip reports before. And I was grinding up my $500 TITO. $110 here, $140 there. And just like that, I am up $535!

But I dumped way too much into this stupid coin pusher game below. I eventually won $160 after I spun a wheel for 1,000 coins to be added. But it still cost me $100 to do so. Still, that $160 win kept me from a $260 loss. 

I only sat on here for so long, as the max bet seemed reasonable. And I don't know how much truth this holds. But a former host buddy of mine, that worked at a Tribe run casino, once told me Class II slots favor the player betting the most in any linked group. Class II slots are just fancy BINGO games. And you can tell a class II, as they show a little BINGO card off in a corner on the screen. The higher you bet, the more BINGO "cards" you have in play. 

Obviously more cards = more chances at a win. You aren't actually gambling against the house, but rather against other players at the same time. Everyone's money goes into a pool. The house takes 5% for running the BINGO game. But the rest of the money in play from the pool is up for grabs. 

This Four Winds opened as a BINGO casino with Class II slots over 5 years ago. But when they added the hotel, they were allowed to bring in Class III games as well. Which are the same type of machines you find in Vegas, Atlantic City and any major casino destination. 

How true the above is, I really cant say. Class II slots seem to be shrouded in mystery. But, supposedly, they are the better bet if you can afford to bet more than most of the others around you on Class II games. 

Anyway, I play the above down to $500 and cash it out. That is my $100 seed money back + $400 of theirs. Pretty solid start to the trip! I find another BINGO slot that seemed interesting, and I won $100 on it. So who knows...

I take that $135 TITO over to this FuXuan88 game. And I just start banging away on it!

$102 win, and I have $172. $105 win, and I now have $249. $440 win, and I now have $638! Either I am just riding out one hellofva lucky streak here. Or this is one fucking fair casino! $440 is now my best hit of the trip. 

I see a couple more Class II slots, and I head over to explore them. With no one else playing, I wonder to myself how the BINGO game will work. Maybe the pool of money just sits in a reserve? Who knows. Just eat the sausage, and don't ask what is in it. 

I picked this machine, as it has a perceived progression on it for the bonus. You need to collect 10 diamonds, and that starts the treasure hunt bonus. The other 3 machines had zero diamonds. This one had 9!

I got a normal bonus for $91.25, but I was way deep into it. And not a single diamond. Then a line hit for $104, but again I was a couple hundo down by then. Eventually a lady came to play the one next to me, and that bitch was getting Diamonds left and right! "Perceived" it is! You can get 9 Diamonds in your first 50 spins. Or be a chump like me, and get zero in 100 spins. The bonus hits win the bonus hits. What the screen shows is bull shit, and meaningless. I finally got my last diamond and won a whopping $67.50. In my face! Overall, this was a -$200 disaster. 

But I got that $437 TITO up to $510 after clearing out a $121 progressive on Cash Money. Casper bonus for $128 got me back up to $588. And thankfully I got a wheel spin on Little Shop for $150, to put me back to where I was when I left Casper. So far, so good. I am getting a ton of play, and the slots seem more than fair here. No Jinx!

I took that $576 ticket over to this fancy Luxury Line, and got a bonus for $603! My new best hit of the trip! But I wasn't done, as I moved over to the newest NFL slot, which I am sure is a suckers game due to all the licensing fees. But I got a $200 hit on that in spite of everything. Now I have $1,162!

I played that down to $1,000 and cashed out yet again. With my earlier $400 win. And this $900 barrage. I am up $1,300 and it isn't even supper time. 

But I start to go cold. I am not sitting on and pissing away a ton on a single game. I am playing hummingbird, and plopping $100 into anything that catches my eye. Stick and move. It didn't take long to lose $700. It happens. Turns out, I am not infallible here.

I was $200 into the above, when I got the worlds shittest bonus for $205. Whats wrong with a $205 bonus? I was betting $12 a spin, and triggered the super bonus for 8 games at once. There should be a stupid Leprechaun that comes out and throws a bunch of Wild Coins on the reels. 14 games, and that little green fucker came out just once. And only added one single wild to a random reel set. That's it! I should have won a lot more. 

I immediately cash out that ticket, thankful I at least got my money back. And bonus the shit out of whatever the hell the above game is. Betting $7.50, I get the free spins. And got the bonus in the bonus as well. Once the dust settled, I won $628.75! Which now takes the cake as the best hit of the trip, and erases all of my recent mistakes. As I now have an $817 TITO!

I did sit on the below for way, way too long. I am one and done on this chunk of shit Dragon game. I normally play Incredible Technologies games when I see them. As I like their math and win-ability factor. But it seems this one dumps too much of the payback into these larger progressives. Making this one a loser for most who try. I was $400 in, before getting this $120 bonus. And still lost -$300 on it. 

I go on tilt shortly after that... The casino is even more packed by now. So far, I have been gambling for a good 3 hours. And still up considerably after all that. 

My $817 TITO, which was down to $521 after Fuck Face Dragon. Was all the way down to $284 before I finally got a bonus on this Ainsworth slot. I like Ainsworth. Their games aren't the flashiest. And most of the time they are just reskins of their other games. But most don't have huge progressives, which means a lot of the returns are pretty frequent. Super hard to get a massive win on one. But fairly easy to get a decent win due to that. 

Any way, I thought for sure I won more than this. I got a full screen of wilds, but they were only worth $5.00 per line X 50 lines. And that was my only real hit in the bonus. Still, good enough to get me back up to $565!

Which I pissed away, cause I am a greedy dumb fuck. To make matters worse, the wife texts that they are hungry. So I gotta stop gambling, and I cant gamble my way out of this latest debacle. And if that wasn't bad enough, the game I was playing when she texted, I broke. The deck wasn't working, so I couldn't cash out. And I was tucked away in a deserted section of the casino. If I had a few bucks it there, I would care. But I have over $300 still. 

I had to pull the Rio Trick. And put the service lights on all the games around me, to send up a smoke signal for an attendant. Which eventually worked, a good 20 minutes later. Boo!

We grab food from a place called Timbers, and eat in the suite. Food was good, and we have eaten at their New Buffalo location before. I have been running with a Keto diet for the past 3 months. So I gave myself a hall pass to carb up some this trip. And pigged out on some cheese fries. 

By now, its about 7PM and dusk is still a couple hours away. I was up a whopping $1,300 at one point. But now only up $500ish. Not that I am belly aching. I am up! I figured I had a couple hours left in me, then we will all watch fireworks from the room. 

And boy, was I glad I came back down to gamble! After donking off a few hundred bucks more, I settled in on another rare Ainsworth game called the Enforcer. The twist to this one is, if you land a line hit with the Outlaw symbol, not only is he a wild AND a multiplier. But it also triggers a bonus game.

I was lucky enough to land a 5 of a kind with TWO Outlaws! That was good enough for a $312.50 hit. And in the bonus, every time you get an Enforcers badge, you repeat that hit. IE, another $312.50 for each one. I only managed 3 badges, but still scored a bonus of $1,252! Jackpot! And a new high water mark, and best hit of the trip!

Even though I have been gambling at a Four Winds property for over 15 years. This would be my first handy there. And they were slow as fuck to pay me. It took about 20 minutes for someone to come by and start the process. But they did unlock the machine for me, so I can keep playing while I wait. So nice of them to allow me to lose more money, while I wait for the money I won. She did ask me to spin off my win, which I haven't been asked to do in years. And she wouldn't leave to get my money, until I did so. Which was weird, but not the end of the world. 

But Fuck Them! I won even more! I got yet another Outlaw bonus, but only betting $5.00 this time. And my repeat win was only $50. Still, I took another $330 off them! She should have left it locked! 

And another 15 minutes after they took my ID, to bring me my money. And it shouldn't take over a half hour for a handpay IMO. I could have watched an entire episode of SpongeBob during that time. Now I have $1,200 in cash (after tip) and a TITO for over $700. And just like that, I am up over $2K for the trip!

I do what any responsible gambler does. I pressed my luck! I couldn't get Ming Warrior to pay Fuck All. And I lose about $200 in that chunk of shit. 

I actually had that $600 TITO above down to $260 farting around. Before I pulled out a $400 bonus on this dancing drum spin off. That got me back to $660

Which I bleed out some, before getting a $200 wheel spin here. 

Which I pissed away as well. I do a quick wallet check, and I am up $1,500 on the night. And its clearly getting dark outside. I book my win, and head up to the girls. 

They actually had a ledge along the big picture windows. So each of them had a seat on their own little perch for the show. It was pretty cool. You could still here the pops and bangs from the fireworks. And could see different displays going off all around us in panorama. It was fun for the first 2 hours. But dragged all through the night. Fireworks are like marijuana. You make it legal, and everyone wants in. 

Day 2, Friday

South Bend is an hour ahead of Chicago. And I wake up at my typical 6AM. Making it 7AM local time, I don't feel nearly as weird walking around a casino that early. As I do when it happens in Vegas, and its 4AM there. But even at 7AM, it seems I have the entire place to myself. 

I do a quick points check, to see how much I ran through last night. I started with zero, and have 6,773 points. $2 coin in on a slot = 1 point. 6,773 = $13,546 gambled through. Not too shabby! And with a $1,500 win to boot!

I plan on just playing out the morning on some video poker, just to kill time. But winning $10-$30 here or there, just isnt getting my dick hard. Not after what happened yesterday. 

So, I wander back into the slots. And good thing I did. I nearly got a full screen on the below. Which could have been massive. But I was one square shy, and managed "only" $605. And here I was, playing video poker like a sucker.

The casino is my oyster! Which is an expression I never understood BTW. I know what it is supposed to mean. But how does the World being your oyster make sense? 

I end up back in the same corner where I broke their machine the other night. And sure as shit, I break another machine! This time, not only am I in a deserted area of the casino. But its so early in the morning, no one could find me if they wanted to. 

I send up my typical Bat Signal of Service Call buttons. But no one comes. I run across the casino to a guy cleaning machines, but he says he cant help me. I know that Sir, I don't need my slot wiped down. I need you to radio someone that can help. But he says they don't have radios. 

I waste at least 20 minutes sitting here with my thumb up my ass. And I start googling the casinos phone number, to call and have someone send help. The same lady from last night wanders over to help once more. I tell her "I broke another one" and she just laughs at me.

Super annoyed after that, I press on. $797 down to under $600 before I get an $87 hit on Shrimpmania. Why isn't the World my Shrimp? 

And I was balls deep into Yardbirds, for only a $92 bonus. And now I am down to $462 on my ticket. Still up, just not as up. 

Which I piss away as I gamble around some more. It happens. I was getting play, just nothing big enough to pull me back up. 

South Bend is a non-smoking casino. Which seems to be the case at most local places these days. I have to go outside to vape. Or they have a little room inside, with TVs. But it was pretty stinky in there. Outside is better. 

I do finally get the bonus on Little Shop, that I was chasing all of last night. I'll book that $180 win, which puts me back up for the morning. But just barely.

Move over to another hard to find Ainsworth game, Dragon Climber. Four Winds South Bend has zero older games I normally play. No old IGT machines, like Texas Tea, Ducks in a Row ETC. Really no older anything. I guess with the casino only being 5 years old, they just didn't have the chance to leave older games on the floor. 

But they have a shitload of different Ainsworth slots everywhere. And that somewhat made up for it. Anyway, I get a few progressives and line hits for a $140 win on Dragon here. And then fuck up a bonus round for $874! Which puts me up a Grand for the morning and $2500 for the trip!

The wife texts me looking for coffee. And my folks were dropping by to do the County Fair with us here. The plan is to meet up with them for breakfast at the Resort. Then head out together. I cashed out that $1,000 TITO above, fetched the coffee and brought it up to her. While I nervously sat in the room for 15MINS until the wife said "Did you want to go back down".

She could hear me saying "yes" as I was running to the door. 

And good thing I did! $681 win on this Dragon Train slot! Now I am up $3,000! When did gambling become so easy? Seriously, the past few years have been kinda shit for me when it comes to gaming. But for the past 10 months or so, I seem to be doing really well. Including my first winning Vegas trip in years.

True to form, I started pissing that away. Oustide of some fleeting luck on Casper here, for $225. Not much happened. 

I was thissssss close to fucking up this cash machine. I got double zeros for a respin. And landed another zero, for yet another respin. I was inches away from that 1 dropping for a grand. But nope. 

This round, I went from $100 up to $856. $856 all the way down to $53. And then $53 back up to $357 after a Luxury Line bonus of $296.

Then got that up to $436 on Firestarter here. With what I thought should have been a better bonus. I played that down to $400 as my folks, and sister, were just pulling up. 

Breakfast at the Edgewater Cafe was... interesting. It sits right next to their pool, which is on the 3rd floor of the hotel. Half of the restaurant was super humid. And the other half freezing cold. And we were pretty much the only ones in there.

The waitress and chef did a good job with out gluten free needs. But even though the place was empty, it took 40 minutes to get our food. And my Mom had to send her eggs back twice, as she said they were too slimy and undercooked. 

I let them bitch about the food/service, and I headed down to gamble a little with Dad before we pushed off for the fair. 

I was holding my own. $148 here...

$300 there... Which should have been a lot more. When you get 3 bonus symbols on the center line, you jump from the regular bonus right into the super bonus. And that is where you can win the Grand. I think the $300 I won, was the worst I could have gotten. 

Dad meanwhile, was on fire. I go to find him, and he's taking a picture of a $240 line hit. He wanders off again, and I see him snapping another picture. By the time the girls come down, I am up another $300 and Dad is up at least $300.

The fair was, what we all expected in Hick-Town USA. Lots of 4H Club stuff. Tractor shows, Monster Trucks, Chickens, Pigs and Horses. Deep fried this and sugar covered that. 

They did have some old Showbiz Pizza animatronics doing shows, which was awesome to see! It cost $25 for the 7 of us to get in, which isn't bad. Parking was free so there is that. But the rides were stupid expensive. $6.00 each to go into a small traveling Fun House. I let them do two of them each, before I convinced them its a better deal to go back to the hotel. And just do the pool. 

By now, I am up thousands. The girls head off to the pool with their Aunt and Grandma. And I hit the casino with Dad and the Wife. 

I should have done the pool. I was bleeding money this round. I was at least $600 down, before getting $102 back on Money Slam. Lost that, and some more before a shit bonus on King Ramses here. I had to have lost at least $500 on King Ramses over the trip, and that was my first bonus. And a shitty one to boot. 

Turned things around some after that, with a $103 bonus on Light it Up. 

Which I walked over to this Kitty game, that no one was playing. They had an entire bank of them, and I never saw anyone play one this entire trip. So, why not? I cant tell you the name of it. As I don't speak Japanese. I mean, my wife is Japanese and my kids are half. But none of them do either.

I assume it was called "Come get your $1,000" as that is exactly what happened. I got a bunch of Queens for $445. Then a bunch of Kings for $297. Then a bonus game for $411. I walked over to that game with like $200 and cashed out over $1,200!

I played this Voodoo Magic game some, and won $120. Before eventually cashing out yet another $1,000 TITO on this trip. 

I started running cold again after that. We found Dad, and he won another $300. He is getting ready to sell his house. And they are doing all kinds of repairs. I know he second guessed himself on even gambling today. But the fact he is going home with at least $600, means he made the right choice. But now, he wants to shut things down before he goes on tilt. Like I suddenly am. He runs off to the pool to meet up with the group. 

This $120 Casper win, was all I could do for the next hour or so. I was taking big swings, being up so much. But either my bonuses were suddenly lackluster, or they just weren't coming at all. 

I walk the wife over to my FuXuan88 game I was playing the other night. And I tell her about the hits I was getting one after another. $100 here, $100 there and Bam! $450 more. I start feeding more $100's into it than I'd like to admit. 

First $100, poof. She makes fun of me for talking it up. Next $100, poof. By now she is laughing in my face. That bitch! I cant just take my medicine. I have to win something, anything! With only $30 left of my third hundo. Bonus!

First 8 spins are just shit. Half way done, and I won next to nothing. Spin 9, $660 line hit! Spin 14, $492 line hit! Last spin, $435 line hit! By the time the smoke clears, I just pulled a $1,764.60 rabbit out my ass.

That's right, play with your phone and pretend you weren't just shitting on me. 

Just like last night, the Handpay was taking forever. And yes, they asked me to spin off the win once more. Its not like these are Megabucks jackpots. Whatever. 30 minutes later, and I finally have my money. 

To ice that cake, I walk the wife back over to my Bears games. And bang out a $780 bonus there too! That is $2,500 in back to back games!

After that, I couldn't win Fuck All. I dropped at least $500 donking losses on a few games. I won $118 below, after feeding it $300.

I'm throwing money everywhere by now. I just couldn't lose it fast enough! I did get a solid bonus of $371 on Valhalla here. Plus a couple other small ones. But I was nosediving fast. 

My folks took the kids out to eat, as I had one free buffet in the casino for some reason. It cost me $40 to get the wife in with me. And it would be silly for each of them to pay $40e, plus my grubby kids. Neither of which can eat enough to make sense of the cost. 

So, we are having a date night now. 

The buffet was fine. Nothing great, and not worth $40 IMO. $40 for 2 people, sure. That's doable. The food was edible, but nothing to write home about. 

We play on a bit after this. I lose some more, and gave her a few hundred bucks to gamble with. That she lost as well. I was Oprah for a while when I was way up. Just throwing money to people. The below 3 games were the best I could do the rest of the night. 

I did turn my points into free play. 13,054 is $26,108 gambled through the slots. I was never down once, at all, during this trip. That doesn't happen very often. Let alone over 2 full days of gambling tens of thousands of dollars. After tips on the Handys for the attendants. Tips for the maid. The buffet, money for the fair and gambling money for the wife. I took just over $3,500 off them. Not bad for a couple nights work! In pure gambling dollars, I won like $4 Grand. Wow. 

Day 3

We are just waking up and heading home today. I did head down to play some, without my card. No sense in fucking up my averages with 30 minutes of play. I wanted to see if I could book 3 straight days of wins. And did I mention, I am rich by now? 

I dropped $100 fast on a Quick Hit slot, that gave me nothing. $100 in Luxury Line for nada. And $100 in this Cash Machine for next to nothing, beyond some small $5 wins. I was OK dropping $300 on my way out. But I gave Cash Machine just one more hundo, and spun the wheel for $200. Cashed out that now $345 TITO. Which would be just a $55 loss. 

Figured I'd play it down to $300 on Wonder Woman, but hit for $87.50 instead. Played that down to $402 and left up another 2 bucks. For 3 straight days of winning! Next up, Vegas! Hopefully this streak lasts!