I recently took a vacation to Nicaragua. The trip was great! My entire family went and we were able to explore the culture of Nicaragua together. Of course, since it was my first time leaving the United States, I had to also check out the local casino scene. While planning the trip I spent some time researching about poker in Nicaragua.

At first, it seemed like a dead end. I could not find anything online about poker in Nicaragua. There are plenty of casinos, but from what I could tell none of them had poker. After a few days of searching, I came across a casino that said spread poker. Only problem was that Google showed it had permanently closed. Odd, but at least now I knew that at some point in time there had been a poker game.

I talked about the situation to some friends that I knew had experience travelling internationally and enjoyed gambling. The responses I received to my questions were mixed.  One of them told me that I was crazy for even considering bringing enough cash to go play poker with. The other told me that they never really played at any casino they came across other than if they traveled to one for that purpose. Another told me that I should be careful, but they really weren’t sure because they tend to avoid gambling when they travel. Obviously, I would be careful and not flash any cash. My intentions were to only play at a casino and experience what poker was like in Nicaragua.

I decided to take my inquiries to Reddit. If anything, I would probably learn about a local perspective of the casinos down there. I made my post asking about the casinos and explaining that if given the opportunity I was interested in playing poker while on my vacation. Soon I received a response from a user that lived down there. He informed me that the game was hosted in the casino that Google had listed as permanently closed. I really wasn’t sure what to make of this information. Had Google really made a mistake or was this person trying to set me up? The game was semi-private, a guy organized it and everyone would meet at the casino to play. Everyone was welcome to join but it was easier to get your name on the list by getting in contact with the game runner. What I was being told seemed believable, but I didn’t want to give away too much info about myself. In the end I decided not to message him back once I arrived.  

Once we made it past customs and got our transportation sorted out. We got on the main road that would take us to where we would be staying during our trip. It was amazing to me to see what it was like in another country. It all felt so familiar yet so distant at the same time. I saw a lot of familiar buildings that I had come across during my time researching casinos and hotels. Almost right away I spotted one of the casinos near the airport. As we traveled further into the city, I spotted a couple of the other casinos that I had seen. They didn’t look very big at all; in fact, they looked more like sports bars than a casino. Unfortunately I did not see the casino that supposedly had the poker game. By the time we arrived and settled into our lodging, it was kind of late. I also did not have readily available transportation until the next morning when my rental vehicle would be delivered.

Our first stop the next day was at a local casino named Pharaohs. Casinos are the best place to exchange currency as they will give you market rates.  The entire casino could have fit inside one of the ballrooms that the WSOP uses in the summer. On one side there was a bar, in the center there were a few table games, and then the rest of the room was filled with slot machines. In the back corner was the cashier. I walked straight to the cashier and exchanged a couple hundred USD into local currency, this gave me a little more than seven thousand. As I waited for my aunt to exchange her money, I walked over to the only table game that was running. They were playing Caribbean Stud Poker. I bought-in for twenty dollars and played a couple of hands. I guess I found poker but not the poker that I wanted to play.

The next night, my aunt and I began talking about casinos. She had been living in Nicaragua on and off for the past decade. I asked her about the casino that Google had listed as permanently closed. She shook her head and said that it used to be her favorite casino, and it was popular when it first opened but that it was still open. Casino Princess Managua, not a big casino but part of a global brand that has numerous locations around the world. It also just happened to be one of the nights that my contact from Reddit had said the game would run. Now the funny thing about the game is that he told me it doesn’t run every week but often it would run on a Friday night. We agreed to go check it out and if there was nothing going on there then my aunt would take me to her favorite casino.

When we arrived, I asked the security guard if the game was running. He said that it did not start that day and that maybe they would have the game the next day. I went in to look around and found that they did not have any table games running, it was all slots! I went back and asked if they would open a table for me to play blackjack, but I was denied. I asked them about the poker game and how I could find out if the game was running or not. He started to write down the casino’s number, but I explained to him that I would not be able to call since I did not have international calling on my phone. He then picked up the phone and called someone. They instructed him to get my information and tell me I would get added to a What’s App group chat. I was never added to the group, and I never returned to that casino.

Instead, we went to my aunt’s favorite casino called the Palms Casino. This place would exchange your money above the market rate. The catch was that you had to be a member of their rewards club and have some play. So, I played… The first night I broke even playing Blackjack. It was weird because I had never played blackjack where the dealer didn’t take their second card until all the action had been completed. In theory it should not affect any basic strategy, but in practice you might think differently. I went back a second night. I am not sure why I went back; the games were capped at a three-hundred-dollar max bet. The casino manager who knew my aunt also knew who I was. They had acceptable customer service but once they saw that I was tipping their attention to service became better. I lost the second night, but I had fun.

After that I didn’t go back to the casino again. I didn’t want to play any of the table games that they had and honestly the place didn’t interest me that much. It was small, like Pharaohs and the table games they offered were focused more on the side bets. There was no room for negotiation to raise the limits either. Maybe if they had higher limits I might have gone back. Poker in Nicaragua was a bust on this trip.