Mount Airy Casino Resort

Even before you arrive at the main entrance of Mount Airy Casino Resort, you realize that is not just another gambling den.

Perched on a rise amid 1,000 acres in Mount Pocono, Pa. -- the very heart of the mountain range of the same name -- the casino gives the impression of a luxury resort rather than a glitzy, frenetic casino. And that’s pretty much how the folks who run the property want you to see it.

“I would call it a destination first,” says Vincent Jordan, Mount Airy’s vice-president of marketing. “We have everything you would expect in a resort setting: skiing, a phenomenal AAA four-diamond hotel, gaming, a spa, pool, restaurants. I would say it’s a true destination that offers a little bit for everyone.”

The casino-hotel -- which also boasts an 18-hole golf course -- opened in 2007 on the site of the famed Mount Airy Lodge, which was torn down and replaced with the current complex. Today, it offers a little less than 200 rooms and luxury suites, a 62,000-square-foot casino (not including the 11-table poker room) and eight food-and-beverage outlets, including Guy Fieri’s Mt. Pocono Kitchen, which serves as the 24-hour dining station (and specializes in Fieri’s brand of comfort-foot stylings), and Bistecca by Il Mulino, an outpost of the upscale Manhattan-based chain that compares favorably to the best casino gourmet rooms anywhere (and is great news for those who miss Il Mulino at the now-closed Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City).

Of course, entertainment and nightlife are also part of the package: Gypsies, a casino-level venue, operates as both a dance club that likewise measures up to similar facilities elsewhere, and as Mount Airy’s headliner venue.

But it’s those who enjoy the casino experience but not necessarily the pulse-pounding go-go-go-ness of Las Vegas-style gambling dens for whom Mount Airy is especially recommended: It’s bucolic setting offers an atmosphere of peacefulness and serenity that most casinos simply can’t provide. And with prime weather conditions through the next six or seven months, sight-seeing and outdoor-fun opportunities abound. These include such activities as hiking, boating, sky diving, fishing and checking out the picturesque towns and hamlets in the region, among them nearby Stroudsburg, with its Victorian-era downtown.

But most of all, insists Jordan, it’s the service and attention to customers that sets Mount Airy apart from its gaming industry brethren.

“Customers tend to go where they feel known and have a comfort level,” he offered. “We truly do excel by knowing our customers by name, their family members…we really know the customer and take the opportunity to create a true experience when they get here.

“With some of our competitors, you’re just another number [in a computer database]. We work very hard to ensure you’re not just another number when you arrive at Mt. Airy.”