Christmas, MI (population about 400) seems like an unlikely location for a business to flourish unless it’s the post office or one of the gift shops that inevitably capitalize on the town’s unique name. But Kewadin Casinos decided to build one of their five impressive gaming facilities in this little town that lies on highway M-28 between Munising and Marquette in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Now Upper Michigan gambling enthusiasts can have Christmas year-round.
Kewadin’s Christmas location is comprised of about 22,000 square feet of gaming area with over 200 slot machines. They also have card-based table games (blackjack and various forms of poker) but no roulette or craps, and no bingo hall or live poker room and online poker at www ufabet com. You can grab a snack or drink at the cutely-named Frosty’s Bar and Grill; it’s standard casino-type fair, and it’s the only dining option.
There’s no onsite hotel, but there are plenty of nearby lodging options. But the fact is, you probably won’t want to stay anyway. Kewadin’s Christmas Casino is a tiny footnote compared to their main locations–it definitely wouldn’t be considered their “flagship” casino by anybody’s standards. It’s more of a “stop on a road trip” casino, and not so much a “getaway for the weekend” casino. If you spend more than a hundred bucks or a couple of hours there, you’re probably going to get bored. If you’re driving through and feel the urge to get out of the car and gamble, Christmas is a perfectly nice place to spend some time and money. But if you’re in the Central Upper Peninsula of Michigan and you want to get away for a few days of gaming excitement, you should definitely opt for the Island Casino Resort near Escanaba instead.
On the other hand, if you’re from the Marquette area and you just want to go out for the night, it might be worth your while to pass up the nearby Ojibwa Casino II in Harvey and make the half-hour drive to the Kewadin Christmas Casino instead. When compared to the Ojibwa Casino in Harvey, the Kewadin Christmas Casino is cleaner, more modern, and just plain nicer. The only drawbacks are that the Ojibwa Casino II has the roulette, craps, and live poker action that Christmas lacks, and 18-year-olds are allowed at the Ojibwa Casino whereas you must be 19 to gamble in Christmas.
The Christmas casino is also worth going to because of Kewadin’s rewards program (Northern Rewards Player’s Club). In a single visit, I got $25 in promotional tokens just for visiting the rewards program desk: $10 for signing up for the player’s club, $10 because it happened to be my birthday month, and $5 just for being there! When most casinos seem to be giving out fewer and fewer good freebies, you have to love a rewards program that’s going to be that generous before you’ve even actually earned any rewards!
If you like to play slots or blackjack with a few friends, give the Kewadin Christmas Casino a shot. You probably won’t find action-packed Vegas-style gaming, but you will find a classy, clean, low-key place to enjoy a few of your favorite games and maybe get lucky.