Aruba Casino of the Day 2 - 79 JE Irausquin Blvd. Part 1

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Aruba Casino of the Day - 79 JE Irausquin Part 1

On April 9, 1968, almost nine years after the Aruba Caribbean opened, Aruba's second resort and casino opened, also on Palm Beach in Noord, at 79 JE Irausquin Blvd., right next to The Aruba Caribbean.  The Aruba-Sheraton opened with the Aruba-Sheraton Casino within the hotel.
I have never seen photos of the casino, but during my time collecting from Aruba, this casino was always the smallest and least enticing casino there.

The Aruba Sheraton had two series of chips, with the hat & cane mold and the Ewing mold. I don't have a $5 chip, but someday I would love to get one. Strangely, the h&c mold chips come in two conditions, with full clear, shiny hot stamps and with no foil in the hot stamp at all (even when the condition of the chip is very good). I have never seen a chip in an intermediate condition. I am including both varieties:

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Here is a floor sweeper or a cancellation that includes an old Aruba-Sheraton roulette (a very hard chip to come by - I don't have one):

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Here's some more stuff:

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Luggage stickers:

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Matchbooks:

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Yeah, that last one is actually smaller, and the colors of the letters are different than the larger orange book.

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Some swizzle sticks:

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And here's what (they wanted you to think) it looked like (essentially it did):

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Here are some borrowed images:

Postcards:

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Room keys:

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Ads:

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And dice:

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Michael Siskin

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Aruba Casino of the Day - 79 JE Irausquin Parts 2-4, A Trifecta!

For this post, it's a trifecta - three casinos. Unfortunately, that means I don't have a lot for two of them. So, please keep an eye out for me, would you?

The Grand Casino -

Sometime in 1980, the Aruba-Sheraton, while still the Aruba-Sheraton hotel, changed the name of the casino to the Grand Casino. In Ralph Pollack's seminal works on the chips of Aruba and the Dutch Antilles, he shows a black and white picture of what appears to be a manufacturer index card. I have never seen one of these chips and, to the best of my knowledge, no chip collector has. I suspect they planned to buy chips and changed their minds. The Grand Casino was only open one year. They did have tokens, at least $1 tokens (they could have had higher denominations). They look like Sheraton tokens, but upon close inspection, they do state on one side that they are usable at the Grand Casino:

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This token is the only collectible I have which lists the Grand Casino.

The Hart Casino -

Some time in 1981, also while still the Aruba-Sheraton, they changed the casino name again to the Hart Casino. Here they did have their own chips:

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This swizzle was either used at the Hart Casino or the following casino, the Aruba Palm Beach.  The seller told me they got it in 1983, which could be either casino.

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The design on the chips represents an abtract roulette wheel and an abstract pair of dice.  Oddly, the chips say Hart Casino Aruba Sheraton. Most Aruba chips list the casino name or the hotel name, but not both. Although they made tokens in 1981, they list the casino as the Aruba-Sheraton Casino, leaving out the Hart Casino name. I don't know why.

It is interesting to note that on Curacao, a sister-Country and also historically part of the Dutch empire, a very similar design was used at both the Curacao Hilton and the Curacao Plaza. They could have had the same casino management companies (the hotels were different). I have not checked to see if the dates coincide, but note that it was also used on a coin in center chip at the Curacao Plaza:

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The Aruba Palm Beach -

On November 2, 1982, the Aruba Palm Beach purchased the Aruba-Sheraton. They opened a casino with the same name:

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The $5 through $100 chips are especially easy to find and I believe the entire rack of those chips were sold to Nevada Jacks and snapped up by the set collecting world.  The $1 chips were not included, though.  At one point, they were exceptionally hard to find and commanded top dollar.  Some have since been found, but they are still not common and I have not seen one on ebay for a few years, at least.

The $1 token:

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They had two logos:

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My only glass swizzle stick!  I believe this was the original logo.

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Here are some borrowed images:

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I think that might be Terry Schaffer's photo.

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Hope you enjoyed these three simultaneous installments.

Michael Siskin

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Aruba Casino of the Day - 79 JE Irausquin Parts 5-7, Trifecta #2!

Yeah, another three-fer. It's tough to find stuff from 79 JE Irausquin! Either they did not like stuff walking out of the door, or no one really wanted to keep souvenirs!
At some point, the Aruba Palm Beach became the Aruba Grand Hotel, but I don't know when. I suspect, the first of the casinos presented in this installment, and possibly the second, were still at the Aruba Palm Beach.

Some time during 1984, the Aruba Palm Beach Casino became the Palm Casino. I know little about this casino, and have never seen a picture of it.

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The $1 chip is the hardest to find, which is not saying much. It's a somewhat common chip, but the other denominations are available in playable sets, with thousands of chips out there. One year, an ebay seller showed up with what he claimed is a no cash value chip that came from the Palm Casino. He had a box them.  Unlike almost all Aruba chips, it does not say Aruba on it. The seller swore it came from a storage space with a lot of the other Palm chips. Ralph Pollack did not list it in his guides. So...who knows?

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I have never run across anyone who claims to have played with one of these $10 match play chips, but Aruba has historically given away match play chips at timeshare presentations, so it's possible. In my opinion, the attribution remains doubtful, or at least questionable.

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Note that the cup shows it's from the Palm Casino but the hotel is listed as the Aruba Palm Beach.

That's all I have for the Palm Casino, which is strange for a casino that lasted 15 years.

Next, in 1999, the casino became the Merengue Casino. The Merengue Casino continued to use the Palm Casino chips (a start of a trend at this casino). According to Ralph Pollack, the only thing they issued with the casino name on it was a single token. I have never seen any of these tokens for sale, or even outside of Ralph's guides. I assume they continued to use playing cards and dice from previous casinos. This is the only Aruba casino for which I have nothing. Literally anything from the Merengue would be a real thrill to acquire.

In 2000, the casino became the Centurion Casino. The hotel had changed to the Aruba Grand by this time. My first trip to Aruba came in 2002. The people I was with did not like the Centurion and refused to go there. As stated in an earlier post, it has never been one of the nicer casinos in Aruba. When I later came back, the whole hotel was boarded up and signs said it was being massively renovated. The Centurion never reopened.  So, I have never been to a casino at 79 JE Irausquin.

The Centurion used the $5, $25 and $100 chips from the Aruba Palm Beach. They used a token for their $1 chips. I don't know which token they used. My one collectible from the Centurion, came from Jim Gagnon. Jim and I hit the Chip Board at the same time and became friends. He hosted the NE Chipper's Gatherings I organized long ago. A very nice guy, Jim no longer collects casino chips. Anyway, he traded me:

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Here are some borrowed images:

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Here is Terry Schaffer's photo of the hotel sign:

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In the next post, we finish 79 JE Irausquin.

Michael Siskin

[Michael Siskin R-7387]

Aruba Casino of the Day - 79 JE Irausquin Part 8

Around July 20, 2007, the Aruba Grand, once the Aruba-Sheraton, was purchased by a Spanish hotel chain and became the Riu Palace Grand Aruba. The hotel was completely renovated, taking on a Spanish style (Moorish?) very much at odds with the existing resorts. Some loved it, many hated it. I think it looks nice, but it certainly stands out. Although the hotel was completely altered, the casino space was the same as it always had been, a small space which required a trek up to the second floor. On July 27, 2007, The Cool Casino had a soft opening. It officially opened in November later that year. Typically, the soft casino openings in Aruba are within a week or two of the official opening, when they make a big fuss, get pictures in the papers, etc. I don't know why it took so long for the Cool Casino to open officially.

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They had one of the best Chipco grand opening chips I have seen:

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In 2009, they added a snapper:

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I don't know if the 50 centers were retired at that time.  In 2011, they changed their $1 chip, but not the other denominations:

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Here are some borrowed images:

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In 2020, all of the casinos on Aruba closed for the pandemic.  The Cool Casino never reopened and the space was repurposed for something else.

And that wraps up the second location. In my next thread, it's on to the third. I hope people are still enjoying these.


Michael Siskin

[Barry Sherwood R-9037 (admin)]

I'm definitely reading all of your posts, so keep them coming.  I've been to a lot of islands in the Caribbean, but I've never been to Aruba (yet). Thanks for such wonderfully detailed (and illustrated) posts.