Blue Water Resort and Casino

Year Opened

1999

Hours

Open 24/7

Age Restriction

21+

Property Type

Resort

Regulator

Arizona Department of Gaming

Slot Machines

500

Poker Room

Yes

Marina

On site

Inside Blue Water Resort and Casino

Blue Water Resort and Casino opened in 1999 and operates as a riverside gaming and lodging property in Parker, Arizona. The resort sits directly on the Colorado River at 11300 Resort Drive, which is what sets it apart from inland Arizona casinos: most of the state’s gaming properties are dry-desert venues, and Blue Water’s waterfront location with an on-site marina is part of the visit format rather than a side note.

The gaming floor carries 500 slot machines, a table game pit, and a live poker room. The table side runs blackjack, 3 Card Poker, and other carnival-style games, while the poker room spreads Limit Hold’em, No Limit Hold’em, and Spread Limit Hold’em. There’s also a bingo section. All gaming operates under Arizona Department of Gaming oversight with a minimum age of 21.

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Blue Water Resort and Casino

Parker, Arizona

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Blue Water Resort and Casino in Parker, Arizona

On the Gaming Floor

The slot floor at Blue Water Resort and Casino holds 500 machines across the standard penny-to-high-denomination range. The table game pit includes blackjack as the headline pit game, with carnival-style alternatives alongside.

3 Card Poker and Lucky Ladies blackjack variants run as the side-bet carnival options on the pit, with electronic keno and bingo as separate gaming sections.

Travelers comparing Blue Water against the wider Arizona casino market will find it sits in the smaller-resort tier on machine count, but the live-poker room is what differentiates the floor from peer river properties.

The gaming floor’s most distinctive feature is the integration with the broader resort: this is a property where the casino is one part of a day at the river, not the only reason to drive in. That changes the floor’s character on summer weekends, when boating and lake-day traffic feeds visitors into the casino in the afternoons and evenings.

Poker Room

The Blue Water poker room is a working live-poker operation spreading Limit Hold’em, No Limit Hold’em, and Spread Limit Hold’em. Spread Limit is the variant that’s interesting here: it’s less common than fixed-limit or no-limit, and a Spread Limit Hold’em game is one of the better entry-level structures for new live players because the betting range is bounded but flexible.

Hours, stakes, and tournament schedule for the room are not widely published. Players planning a trip around a specific game should call the room directly before arrival to confirm it’s running. For visitors comparing river-resort poker against the larger Tucson casino rooms further south, Blue Water’s poker offering is a smaller-volume room, which suits players who want a softer cash-game scene rather than the bigger fields of metro properties.

Resort Amenities

Blue Water Resort and Casino runs as a full waterfront resort property. The on-site hotel is the central amenity, and the resort designation reflects that the property is meant for overnight stays connected to Colorado River recreation. The “Resort Drive” address is part of the resort campus itself, with a swimming pool, bar, marina, RV parking, valet parking, and self-parking on site.

Compared with other Arizona casino resorts, Blue Water leans harder than most into the recreational-waterfront positioning rather than the buffet-spa-concert resort model. The marina makes the property unusual: very few US casinos are set up for boat-in arrivals, and at Blue Water the marina is a working amenity rather than a token feature. RV parking is similarly integrated for travelers towing campers along the river.

Location & Access

Blue Water Resort and Casino is at 11300 Resort Drive in Parker, Arizona, on the Colorado River at the Arizona-California border. The drive from Phoenix is approximately 160 miles west on Interstate 10 and US-95, and from Lake Havasu City the trip is about 35 miles south. The riverside positioning means the property is also accessible by boat via the on-site marina, which is rare for an Arizona casino.

Self-parking and valet are the standard arrival modes, with RV parking available for guests towing campers. The Parker location keeps Blue Water outside the metropolitan circulation that drives the Phoenix and Tucson rooms, which means weekend river traffic and seasonal tourism shape the floor’s busy periods more than weekday commuter visits do.

How Blue Water Resort and Casino compares locally

Visiting Blue Water

Blue Water Resort and Casino works best as part of a Colorado River trip rather than a standalone gaming drive. The property is small enough that a focused gaming visitor will work through the slot floor in a single session, but the surrounding waterfront, on-site marina, and resort lodging give it the structure of a weekend stay rather than a quick afternoon stop.

For comparison shoppers, the property sits closer in feel to the smaller riverside resort properties along the Colorado than to the high-amenity destination resorts in Tucson and Phoenix. The minimum gambling age is 21 and the property runs on Arizona time (no daylight saving), which matters for travelers coming in from California or elsewhere on Pacific time.