Casino and Tourism Guide

Note: The Guide below covers most of the basics with Tourism and Gambling. If you'd like to dive into the details of the High-Wealth Casino trade, you should check out my Guide to High Wealth Casino Cities

SimCity Casino & Tourism Guide00
By: Joshua Gellock (@joshuagellock)
with contributions from Phongpanot Phairatwetchaphan and Randy Roberts of the SimNation Guild




Hey everyone. The tips I share here will help you plan and grow a successful tourist city. Let’s get to it!


Planning

Planning starts with picking the right plot. You’re going to want to find a plot that offers as much real estate as possible to offer attractions, services, and homes for your Sims.

For tourism cities, the best plots offer a water connection, rail connection, and a lot of flat land. Ferries and trains are going to bring lots of tourists in, so plan to zone low tourist attractions near trains, and high tourist attractions near ferries. Using this method has an added benefit: lower road traffic.

Mass Transit

Transportation is key to make your tourism city successful. To prevent traffic jams and keep streets moving, you’re going to have to offer your tourists a mix of mass transit options. While offering various methods of inter-city and inner-city transit will help tourists, it will also help your residents and businesses.

Airships - The airships pack can be purchased and downloaded from the Origin store. This airship is an helpful transit because it brings in medium and high wealth tourists to your city, but doesn’t take up a lot of space. The module, commuter airship mooring, can bring in workers from other cities, or send workers to other cities. If one of your casinos, or multiple casinos, are closed due to a lack of workers, it might be a good spot to plop the commuter airship mooring.

Bus terminal - The bus terminal brings low wealth tourists to your city. The region will supply inter-city buses that bring tourists from the region or other cities with a bus terminal. You can add municipal garages if you want to offer your low wealth sims an inner-city bus system.

Municipal airport - The airport brings medium and high wealth tourists to your city. Sims do not like having homes near the airport, so you’ll want to make sure you place it away from homes. The airport can have up to 4 runways, so make sure you give it room to expand. Tourists from the airport have their own car to drive to the tourist destination, hotels or commercial businesses without using the additional mass transit. Note: the number of tourists arriving via airport are not very great. It does not work as well as the cruise ship terminals and I tend to not use them. Likewise, the International Airport Great Work is not so great. Most people have been disappointed in it's performance, so it is generally avoided.

Train station - The train station brings in low and medium wealth tourists to your city. It also brings shoppers and commuters from neighboring cities.

Streetcars - Streetcars are used by low and medium wealth Sims to get around your city.  Note: Since Update 8 the streetcars often get stuck at the depot. Keep an eye on them, and if the system breaks down, close and reopen the city.

Cruise Ship Terminals - Cruise ship terminals are the single greatest form of transportation to bring in high wealth tourists.  If you want to have a successful Casino City, make sure you have a good coastline to work with and place cruise ship terminals adjacent to your high wealth casinos.



Maglev (Requires Cities of Tomorrow, abbreviation of “Magnetic Elevated train”) - Transports sims and tourists in the city of all wealth classes. Unlike other forms of transportation, there's no centralized garage or station. Costs more than any other transit systems. Requires ControlNet and needs at least two stations.  Lowers land value in the vicinity, but futurises as well. The Maglev system tends to get clogged up and the trains will stop moving.  If you see that they are stuck, exit your city and reopen it.  The trains will move again after reopening.  You’ll want to check the Mass Transit menu often. Average Wait times should be in the green, or you may lose tourists. If you’re in yellow or red, it may be time to add the Academy, staff all workers, then plopping two maglev stations on the major attractions, or adding a bus garage in additon to the maglevs. Uncivil's Tip: I find that the maglevs get stuck less frequently when you don't use any loops in the system.

Roads

Avenues - Avenues offer 3 lanes for cars (6 lanes total) and also carry streetcars. Sims coming on to an Avenue can only turn right. Some buildings, such as police stations or bus terminals, allow exiting vehicles to turn left on the avenue.

Streets - Streets offer 2 lanes for cars (4 lanes total). With streets, you can start with a low density road and upgrade as your city grows. You can’t upgrade from streets to avenues.

Here are some tips about how to use avenues and roads in tourism cities:
  • Place your casinos and tourist attractions on avenues. The exception to this, is when you have mass transit near an attraction. 
  • It’s best to extend your city entrance and have a long avenue through the heart of your city. Limit intersections on this avenue - if you need to have one, make sure it’s a “T” intersection. 
  • Use 3-way, or “T” intersections, or circles (seen below) as much as possible. 

However, Circle roundabouts will not work well like the real roundabouts. It’s better you use the 3-way intersections.

Zoning

Mass transit will help bring workers into your city. However, the best source of workers are your local residents. Make sure you section off a part of your city for residential zoning. You’ll want to keep your commercial zoning near your casinos and tourist attractions.

Keep your residential and commercial zones inside the city and away from your city entrance. You want to keep traffic flowing in and out your city and zones near the entrance will add more cars to the road.

A note about commercial zones
Used strategically, commercial buildings can keep tourists in your city, which allows them to spend more money before leaving. Hotels, resorts and suites can be helpful if rooms at your casinos are filled. When a tourist comes to your city, they will look for a hotel or an attraction. If they go to an attraction first, they will look for a hotel once they are done. If they find a hotel, they will stay the night and spend more money the second day.  Since Update 8, hotels only pop up in areas that are near tourist attractions. They will not appear in far flung corners of the map. This allows more strategic placement and management of tourist traffic.

Tourism

Landmarks - Landmarks are tourist attractions that accept Sims from all levels of wealth. Some landmarks, like the opera houses, can put on events that will payout at midnight once the event has concluded.

Stadiums - Stadiums accept Sims from all levels of wealth. You can schedule events for low wealth, medium wealth, and high wealth Sims.

Amusement Parks - The amusement park can be purchased and downloaded from the Origin store. The amusement park accepts Sims from all levels of wealth.




To learn more about the amusement park, check out the SimCity Amusement Park Overview video on YouTube.

Amusement park tips:
  • Make sure you place your sign as this will draw tourists to your amusement park. 
  • Offer a mix of main and secondary rides. Do not flood your park with secondary rides. 
  • Place concession stands in between rides, so tourists will purchase goods and food. 
  • Place rest areas on lengthy stretches of the walking path. 
  • Use multiple entrances for larger parks to help relieve traffic and draw more tourists in. 
  • Remove rides that have low or no profits. 
  • The train will serve as a ride, but will also transport Sims. Plan ahead for where your stations will be. 
Tourist Parks - These parks are from the SimCity Crest DLC pack. They were offered for a limited time. These parks offer some variety to your tourist city, but they do not bring in many tourists.

Tourism Crowns in the MegaTowers - Both types of MegaTowers have a Tourism Crown option. This brings in tourists and can reap huge profits. I've seen Tourism Crowns bring in $300,000/day.  If you put your MegaTower with the Tourism Crown near the highway entrance, the Crown will work very well. There is a multiplier involved, so the more tourism crowns you have in the region, the more they will make.



Casinos
Casinos brings in tourists of different wealth classes. Casinos other than the Gambling houses requires the Gambling HQ and the different divisions in order to unlock the casino modules. As all of you knows, all types of casinos generate crime. So It’s good to have a school in your city, and make sure that everyone is educated before plopping a casino. This will decrease crimes.

  • Gambling House - Brings in low and medium wealth tourists.
  • Sci-fi Casino - Also attracts the low and medium wealth tourists.
  • Sleek Casino - Accepts tourists with all wealth classes.
  • Roman Casino - Accepts Medium and High wealth sims.
  • Elegant Casino - Attracts Medium and High wealth sims.
Gambling HQ
You can add three divisions (modules) to the Gambling HQ:

  • Entertainment division
  • Gaming Division
  • Lodging Division. 

Each division serves its own purpose:

The Entertainment Division unlocks the ability to add the disco club, concert hall, and exclusive club. If your casinos are struggling to bring in Sims of a particular wealth, adding one of these modules may help. These modules work best with couples with the modules the Gaming division provides. How? The Gaming Division modules increase your capacity, while the Entertainment Divisions modules will get more tourists into your casinos. The two go hand in hand.

The Lodging Division unlocks the ability to add rooms to your casinos. If you already have hotels in your city, and you’re making a decent profit, add this module last.

The Gaming Division unlocks the ability to add modules that increase capacity. Check your tourist data to know if you have high, medium, or low wealth tourists visiting your city. Add modules that are going to meet the needs of your city. If you have a lot of medium wealth tourists, you may want to add the Craps Parlor to your Sleek Casino.

Keep your Gambling HQ turned on at all times. Powering it off to save money may close your casinos.

Crime
Casinos and tourist attractions draw criminals to your city, so it’s best to be prepared for the soon-to-come wave of crime. If you have the Deluxe Edition, keep Dr. Vu out of your city.

When you have the income, plop a Police Precinct. After you plop your airport, you’ll have access to the police helicopter. This module will stop crime without adding cars to the road. If you have a pocket of crime far away from the Precinct, add a police station and cars as needed. Keep an eye on your jails and make sure there is room for the additional felons. Depending on how bad crime is in your city, you may need to plop a detective wing module.

Check game data often to make sure you are providing enough jobs for your Sims. Unemployed Sims will turn to a life of crime.

The best defense to future crime waves, is an educated population.  Use high schools to keep your Sims educated. The gymnasium has an added bonus with a tourist capacity of 500 Sims. If you’re strapped for cash, plop a community college. Educated Sims are less likely to grow up to be felons.

Misc tips
  • Slow controlled growth is best for a casino city. 
  • Traffic will not only cripple profits, it will cripple power. If you are using a power plan that uses natural resources (coal or oil), traffic will prevent on-time deliveries. This could cause problems with supplying your city enough power. 
  • Check your tourism map (data layer) often to know where sims are going. If you have lots of low wealth sims, put on low wealth events to earn maximum profits. 
  • Do not invest in a recycling center. 
  • Turn off stadiums and opera houses when events let out. 
Fluctuating profits
Fluctuating profits may occur with cities that have casinos and attractions. Cities will see fluctuations for a variety of reasons. Use these tips to combat the fluctuations:
  • Be patient. It takes time for your city to draw tourists and gamblers, so don’t expect to drop a casino and start raking in profits immediately. 
  • Plop a casino and turn it off. Casinos cost money to run. It may be good to plop down a casino, and turn it off until you enough funding to keep it running. 
  • Once you can afford to roll with the ups and downs, keep your casinos turned on all the time.
  • Do not plop modules until you’re making a profit. 
  • Plop landmarks to fill in the gaps. Landmarks like Tokyo Tower, the Washington Monument, or others, can help boost hourly income, when numbers are low at the casinos. 
Check your gambling and tourism data often & cater events and modules towards the Sims that visit your city the most. Example: If you have a lot of medium wealth Sims coming to your city, add the Craps module to your Sleek Casino instead of the Poker module.
Put casinos on both sides of the avenue. Give Sims an opportunity to visit before they leave your city.

7 comments:

  1. Hello I'm Crazymotoman, and i'm attempting a somewhat ambitious high wealth gambling city. My first move was to choose a map, i went with Palamino. My next move was to make a bunch of airports 8 to be exact, which were organized in a pinwheel formation around a central circle of Roman casinos. Opposite each airport i placed another Roman casino bringing my total to 16 roman casinos, each with at least one of the club modules and 3-4 of the high wealth baccarat table houses. I then interspersed many parks and commercial areas in an attempt to get as many high wealth hotels as possible. Thanks to the cities of tomorrow content i can now make megatowers with the population, schools and energy i need to run the city. With the Megatower's Crowns included as high wealth casinos it would basically make it 24 high wealth casinos. My plan was to work slowly and build up each of the 8 "sectors" one at a time. The plan being to have the sims come in via airport go into casinos hit the hotels then back to the casinos then leave via airport. The megatowers would provide the workers to make it all work, the parks would both up the land value for hotels and keep the workers happy too. Each airport is upgraded with 4 airstrips, 3 high wealth addon thingies (i forget the name) and a freight addon for the commercial areas. I have everything i need i think... I turn on one sector of the city. Its got workers from the megatower an open airport and two Casinos working, the commercial areas are working and so are utilities and services (police, fire and medical all taken care of). Unfortunately no tourists are coming, at best i get about 200 high wealth with two casinos up and running with their club modules functioning. I've only built two cities in the region the first is a low wealth gambling town which i was experimenting with traffic and bus terminals and i got working and is financing this endeavor. I can't figure out if its just airports just don't bring in tourists, if i don't have enough cities or i need a great work to make this work or what. I'm on north america west 1 server with a region name Crazyworld i'm still trying to find out if there's a search option for regions if so maybe someone could take a look and see if there are any suggestions cuz i've read everything i can and watched all videos i can find on high wealth tourism and casinos and there is like nothing on municipal airports. Everyone goes with ferries which i'm not against but i had my heart set on a name for this town. Since the airports were in a pinwheel formation i was gonna call it " the pin- Wheel Of Fortune!!!" Lame yes. Ambitious yes. But that's me all over. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That does sound ambitious! In my experience, the airports are pretty useless because they only bring in a couple hundred tourists (like you were seeing). The cruise ship terminals work a lot better and can bring in thousands. Even with the cruise terminals, high wealth casino cities are hard to get going, but can be extremely successful if you do it right. I know someone who had over 200k/hr using all high weatlh casinos. My best so far has been 100k/hr.

      Delete
  2. Crazymotoman here, yup i'm just not seeing enough tourists to make it work. I put it on the backburner for a bit and made a different high wealth city. I went with Grand Haven map this time round. I'm on North America West 1 server and the region is called Crazyworld island. I took a lot of inspiration from Uncivil Engineer's circle gambling city video and Skystorme's video on high wealth tourism and made a new city with the cities of tomorrow content and i must confess it has surpassed even my wildest expectations. I'm not sure how the gambling boards calculate things but my city crushed the highest leader on there. Yazoo mills was at 19 or so million for a score and my city is reading 32 Mill. At times over 800k per hour profit. I'm currently trying to figure out how to upload the screenshots i took. I went with 8 megatowers in the middle of the city in a ring with a second ring of commercial/hotels and for the third ring of elegant casinos around that. It looks really cool i think. Anyway i'm still kinda tweaking it but take a look if you like its a public map that i just stole all the regions in. I'll figure out how to upload pics soon i hope.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Crazy here again trying this out this out. [IMG]http://i44.tinypic.com/neuvb6.png[/IMG]

    [IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/1znlobb.png[/IMG]
    [IMG]http://i39.tinypic.com/f2[IMG]
    [IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/2ivbrlj.png[/IMG]

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, that is awesome. I like the photo with the Millenium Plaza in the center. Very cool!

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is how I get max money out of casino with a population below 20 000 (Low Wealth) and NO SHOPS + 90% Happiness (Mayor mansion upgrade).

    What you will need:
    -- Basic services,
    -- Emergency services
    -- Public transport
    -- Casino's
    -- Expo Centre.

    Another city unlocked a few models, so in my city I have the necessary water, waste ect. I have an airport, and a fully upgraded police force, a hospital and fire station. And a school to support my sims. I dezoned after I could build a Mayor Mansion, so that I have less people to please, thus upping the rating. Also built an Expo center (Near freeway leading out of city). With a only my traincars leading people from airport, to the block where your expo centre and casino's are, aswell as the bus station that bring people in and out of the city, and to the area where my workforce lives. NO OTHER BUS STOPS. Also a train station.

    Next, you dezone all commercial areas as you will need all your workers at your cassinos and other services.

    The expo centre attracts 3000 tourists per day. If you can handle more, you can try the stadium.
    Directly opposite to the expo/stadium, build a SLEEK casino. Tourists will flock to your casino after the "Show".
    You may build a sci-fi cassino and keep your gambling house to unlock the gaming devision on your gambling headquarters. Once you have, go back to your Sleek Casino and add 6 Craps parlours. If you have a show everyday and you keep the tourists there, you will get about 20 000 simoleons per hour via the Sleek Casino.

    I attract so many, I have 3 sleek casinos, just oozing cash. I have a fully upgraded Headquarters, With this money I lowered tax to 0% and built basic parks around my block of workers, and all the services are running. I even have left over to import oil to send to the International airport I am building. After my manion is fully upgraded I can zone my entire city again.

    Hope this helps..
    Any questions? Just ask.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Do u guys have any idea what landmarks can attract and keep the high wealth tourists? Cause i found some like empire state and sydney opera house but i dont know what more, tell me if u guys know something about this, i cant handle the high wealth tourists and i want to make places for them to spend more besides hotels and souvenirs, thank you guys, have fun making money :D

    ReplyDelete