Ameristar Casino Resort Spa St. Charles

Ameristar Casino St. Charles casino games

Ameristar St. Charles is one of the largest casinos in Missouri. It is the sister location to the Ameristar in Kansas City and serves St. Louis residents in much the same way.

The St. Charles casino offers a more diverse set of games than does the Kansas City location, but the most common type of game is the same — slot machines.

Slot machines

Ameristar features more than 2,000 slot and video poker machines on the St. Charles property. There is a multitude of penny slots, several low- and mid-level games, and slot machines with coin values as high as $100. The progressive jackpots in the casino’s high-limit salon begin their meters at $20,000 and move higher from there.

Here are some of the best slots at Ameristar St. Charles:

• Dancing Drums
• Dragon Link
• Fortunes & Gold Bonanza
• Heidi’s Bier Haus
• Lightning Link
• Willy Wonka: World of Wonka

In addition to slots, Ameristar St. Charles has video poker machines and several electronic table games, including roulette.

Table games and poker

Ameristar St. Charles is home to nearly four dozen table games. The exact lineup will shift and change, but you can always find options for the following:

• Blackjack
• Craps
• Pai Gow Poker
• Roulette
• Three Card Poker

Along with those popular choices, the following table games have popped up at Ameristar St. Charles recently:

• Mississippi Stud
• Craps No More
• 5 Treasures
• I LUV Suits

The property even maintains an entire pit for baccarat players. There is also a high-limit room with eight blackjack tables available for players who want a bit more privacy.

One notable difference between this casino and Ameristar Kansas City is the presence of a poker room at Ameristar St. Charles. The poker room features 21 tables, $1.66 in food comps for every hour of live play, and USB device chargers at every seat. Soft drinks are free and available through a self-serve machine, and the entire room is a comfortable place to play.

Stardust social casino

Although online casinos remain illegal in Missouri, Ameristar does offer the option to play for free on Stardust, its social casino. Most of the slots that you’ll find on the floor of the actual Ameristar Casino St. Charles are available here, as well, and there’s no extra charge to play.

It is even possible to play Stardust and acquire points for your Boyd Rewards account (discussed below). However, you must pay for these points, albeit indirectly. You receive the points as a reward for purchasing virtual currency on the site, as follows:

• Every $1 of purchases is worth 150 Boyd Points
• Every $5 of purchases is worth 1 tier credit

Obviously, it’s going to take some time to accrue enough points for any significant reward at that rate. However, if you are already a Boyd Rewards member but would like to stay home and earn points, then Stardust can allow you to do that. It is available for both Apple and Android users.

Will Ameristar St. Charles have a sportsbook?

Although sports betting remains illegal in Missouri, Ameristar St. Charles would likely offer a retail sportsbook should the state ever allow the activity.

Boyd Gaming, which owns the Ameristar, has a partnership with FanDuel, which has already placed retail sportsbooks at other Boyd locations outside of Missouri, and there’s no reason to assume that it wouldn’t do the same at Ameristar St. Charles if the time comes.

In addition, Boyd Gaming also maintains its own app, B-Connected, for customers visiting its Nevada properties. Whether the company plans to expand B-Connected elsewhere is unclear, but there’s no question that Boyd is ready for sports betting to begin in Missouri.

Ameristar Casino Resort Spa St. Charles amenities

Ameristar St. Charles is a casino resort with similar amenities to other destination casinos. First and foremost, if you need a place to stay, Ameristar St. Charles has a hotel featuring 400 suites. If you get hungry, you have five restaurants at your disposal, including two fine dining options.

The spa in the property’s name is the luxurious Ara spa, which is 7,000 square feet of relaxation and rejuvenation. There is also the Ryse Nightclub, Bottleneck Blues Bar, and Globar. Ameristar St. Charles is also home to a TopGolf swing suite and the Hi-Vi Arcade.

Boyd Rewards

In addition to earning points for your Boyd Rewards account through the Stardust social casino, you can also increase your standing within the Boyd Rewards program the old-fashioned way. Every dollar you wager or spend at Ameristar St. Charles generates more points, higher tier status, and an increasing number of benefits and perks when you visit.

Common rewards include deals on hotel stays, restaurant visits, cruise packages, and flights. In fact, higher-tiered members can often get their hotel stay, their food, and their flights entirely through the program. Additionally, Boyd Rewards offers annual gifts, FastPlay, and eligibility for special events called B Memorable Experiences.

The Boyd Rewards system has five tiers:

• Ruby
• Sapphire
• Emerald
• Onyx
• Titanium

Points depend on how much you spend in a calendar year, with your points then determining your tier status. You may also visit the dozens of other Boyd locations to redeem your rewards points, if you like.

Ameristar Casino Resort Spa St. Charles history

Ameristar Casino Resort Spa St Charles has been in service in Missouri since 1994. It was one of the first riverboat casinos to open in the state and, for that matter, the rest of the United States. At the time, it operated as the Station Casino St. Charles and was, amazingly enough, a floating vessel that had to cruise before gambling could occur.

For two years, the boat operated using two-hour gambling cruises, and it did not allow customers to lose more than $500 in a single session. In 1996, changes in regulations finally did away with the cruising requirement and allowed the then-Station Casino St. Charles to dock on the banks of the Missouri River permanently.

Gambling operations continued separately on both the moored section of the property and the river-worthy barge portion until 1999, when a consolidation finally brought all of the gambling at Station St. Charles under one roof. The addition of the hotel, pool, and spa occurred in 2008. That was also a banner year for all Missouri casinos, as it was the last before regulators finally dispensed with the $500 loss limit requirement.

The property rebranded as an Ameristar casino in 2000, changed ownership to Pinnacle Entertainment in 2013 (as part of Pinnacle’s purchase of Ameristar), and then passed to Penn National Gaming in 2018. Penn chose to spin off the property to Boyd Gaming, its current owner, in order to satisfy regulatory requirements. Through all of these purchases, the Ameristar name has stuck, presumably due to the brand’s entrenched familiarity with the surrounding community.

Ameristar is now a mainstay of the casino options in the St. Louis area. It competes for customers on a daily basis with Hollywood Casino St. Louis, which lies only a few hundred yards south of it on the other side of the river. Its opulence and selection of activities make it one of the more successful casinos in Missouri.