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Okay. The pun in the headline is pretty bad, but the casinos in Prague are not -- if you like very small ones in an atmosphere that reminds you of your neighborhood pub.
In fact, that is what most of the city's casinos are -- neighborhood pubs that have between 10 and 20 slot machines. They are spread out throughout Prague, both in tourist and residential areas, and trade the glitz and glamor of Las Vegas for what Americans like to call a "down home" feeling.
There are a few larger ones in some hotels, such as the Ambassador, the Hilton, and the Panorama, but even these tend to have just a few more slots and some table games. They also require registration and ID (you do not have to bring your passport, your driver's license will suffice) before letting you in.
The smaller ones are much less formal. You can just walk in, sit down, and start feeding the machines. As Prague seems to overflow with very beautiful women, within a few moments one is certain to come to you and ask you if you would like a drink. She will not be half-dressed like in many Vegas casinos, nor will she be trying to get you drunk so that you will play more than you can afford. The drink she is offering you will be a soft one (hard drinks are available but are not free -- these are, after all, bars) and when she is not being a waitress she is also the cashier.
In fact, at almost all of these bar/casinos that I visited, there is generally only two people working -- the manager, who also fixes the slots, and the cashier, who doubles as the bartender.
The one problem that anyone (except, of course, a Czech) will run into is that while the names of the various games are in English, all of the buttons on the machines are labeled in Czech only. You are not going to be able to figure out how to switch games (almost all of the machines offer multiple choices), change the size of your bets, increase or decrease the number of lines that you want to play, tell the machine if you want to go "double or nothing" on your latest win, or even how to cash out.
Fortunately, the beautiful bartender will be happy to show you all these -- with the exception of cashing out. That she will have to do by herself.
This may have been sheer coincidence, but in all of the small casinos that I played at (and there were quite a few), the slots were much looser than I have ever found on line, in Vegas, or even at the larger Prague casinos. In fact, while I invariably lost at the larger ones, I walked out of the neighborhood casinos a winner about half of the time -- and you certainly can not complain about that.
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