We Rafted Out to an Abandoned Casino Boat in Iowa, and Walked Through the Employee Areas

The only way onto this casino boat was across the water. We rafted out to it, climbed up, and found a boat the size of a building with its slot machines gone and its crew areas still full of paperwork. The exact location stays off this page, but the video says Iowa.

I explored this one with RangerRickTV. The upper floors were the safe part. The employee side below was the part I wanted.

What we found

We started on the top floor, which is as high as you can get without the captain’s quarters, and those were locked. It was busy outside, so we couldn’t step out onto the deck without being seen from the surrounding businesses.

The kitchen deck had nice lights, decorations, and all the tables and chairs still set out. Behind the cashier counter there was A1 steak sauce and a lot of other sauces, a rack of life jackets, glasses, a dishwasher and a furnace. I liked the railing more than I expected to.

Next was the bar. They took the machines out, so the top floor and this one are mostly fixtures. The bar has a nacho machine and an auto fryer. A sign said management could limit play to one game per patron, and another said payouts over $10,000 would be paid by check.

One flight down was the best floor on the boat. The stairwell wall is the Wall of Winners, and it has no winners, because the house always wins. There was a sign banning firearms, an empty box that once held quarters, and the redemption and bill breaker counter. The gaming tables were still set up, though some had been cut up and tagged. It was my first time in any kind of casino. I also found the third deck buffet, with food still in the containers, and it stank.

I tried the captain’s deck on my own. The door was locked, with a small room underneath and nothing in it. On the way back down, a man spotted me and stared for about ten seconds. There was nowhere to hide, so I kept walking. Nobody came for us, and we’d been there a good minute by then.

Below that is the restricted area, the employee side. Lockers, scales, a small kitchen, then a security room with cameras, walkie talkies and a cabinet of keys, locked. There was a security logbook and a diary from 2006. A server room had been smashed, with the monitors broken. Paperwork on the wall referenced the Iowa racing and gaming commission. Further in were a watertight door, a hard count room, lock boxes, and an ad for a one cent machine.

The engine side had no fire extinguishers left and no CO2 cylinders, only the signs telling you what to do with them. We found a sprinkler pump, spare sprinkler heads, the thruster controls, batteries, and an empty freezer. The last find was an entire unused bottle of Bloody Mary mix at the bar, which was probably past saving.

Near the end it was quiet enough to show a little of the outside, including the raft we took. It had started to rain and people had gone inside.

Why places like this end up empty

Casino boats exist because of how Iowa wrote its gambling law. The Excursion Gambling Boat Act passed in March 1989, and gambling on Iowa’s rivers and lakes began April 1, 1991. The original rules forced the boats to sail while people gambled, capped casino space at 30 percent of the boat, and limited bets to $5 with losses capped at $200 per excursion.

That model didn’t last. In 1994 the legislature loosened the rules, cutting the required cruises to a minimum of 100 a year and giving gamblers more time at the dock. The state history page ties the change to the poor results and closure of three riverboats. A 2004 law then let casino boats stay permanently moored, and in October 2007 the last floating riverboat casino cruise in Iowa made its final trip because its operator was moving to a land facility.

I can’t tell you why this boat closed. What the history does explain is why boats built to sail stopped needing to, once the law no longer required it.

It was my first casino, and the Wall of Winners was empty.