Casino Lanes: The Irresistible Allure of a Vintage, League-Night Atmosphere

To get to Casino Bowling Alley inside the historic American Legion Hall in Faulkton, you don’t walk through the front door.

Instead, you go around the corner and head down a concrete stairwell that descends below street level.

And on any given evening, on the other side of the heavy, metal door at 107 ½ 8th Avenue N you’ll hear a symphony; the loud, explosive crack! of balls striking, chaotic clattering of pins falling, and the mechanical thunk clunk of the vintage, 60-year old pinsetters.

There is exuberant shouting and swaggering bravado and sometimes, dejected moaning. “Are you kidding me?”

“There is interaction among everybody down there, either good-natured ribbing or cheering good shots,” says Monty Geiger. “You’re gonna hear some hooting and hollering if you have a really good delivery. And you’ll get laughed at and kidded about leaving the five pin... until somebody else misses it.”

A Place That Just Makes You Happy

Unlike a lot of its modern counterparts, Casino Lanes isn’t a glitzy warehouse-sized bowling alley exploding in a kind of sensory wonderland with shimmering, synthetic lanes as far as the eye can see, all bathed in ultraviolet blacklights and the glow from jumbotron-sized LED screens.

Instead, there are four cozy lanes where wood paneled walls proudly display advertisements for Budweiser and Bud Light; one of the smallest, certified active bowling alleys in the state.

One that offers an incredibly intimate, vintage league-night atmosphere that is alluring and fun and captivates, holding its own in a world increasingly engrossed with scrolling through iPhone screens.

It’s a charm that’s kinda impossible to avoid; a place where it would just seem odd to leave without feeling happy. Especially when you hear someone fire up the jukebox, even as you’re getting berated by your buddies for leaving the five pin.  

“A quarter a listen,” Geiger explains. “The jukebox is so old that the outfit that services it says if it ever dies, there’s no fixing it. It still has CDs in it, ranging from really old country to ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s rock.”

You just can’t avoid the charm, even when you’re in the back of the house.  

“When they first did the lanes, they were handset pinsetters. Back in the early ’60s, they used to pay kids to go back there and set the pins by hand,” said Geiger. “We’ve got some spots on the back walls behind the pinsetters that have never been painted. People signed their names there and wrote down the years they worked.”

It’s the One-on-One Interaction That Brings People In

Faulkton’s American Legion Post 102 is the only one in South Dakota with its own bowling alley, which provides the primary income for the building expenses, including things like heat and electricity.

And while the Legion owns the bowling alley, for the past 18 seasons, Geiger has been at the helm; managing the lanes, figuring out the shifts to accommodate the leagues, keeping the machines running, whirring, thud-clunk-ing.

“I took over running it because I wasn’t going to drive 45 miles to go bowling,” he jokes. “Now, I only have to drive a mile.”

The alley isn’t open seven days a week. Availability depends on Monty’s schedule but if he’s available, he’ll flip on the lights.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are league nights, which are the busiest. Open bowling is generally offered Sunday afternoons from around one to five p.m., and if you want to host a birthday party or bachelorette party or any other kind of party, just call Monty to schedule it.

Kids bowl here, ladies bowl here, men bowl here; even Gen Z is getting into it, having recently formed two teams of twenty-something’s.

Even after not bowling for years, people just keep heading down the concrete stairwell at 107 ½ 8th Avenue N, joining the symphony of hooting and hollering, dropping a quarter in the jukebox, ribbing, teasing, poking fun, feeling the joyous rumble from balls cascading down each of the four cozy, lanes.

“I think it’s one-on-one interaction with people that brings them all in,” Geiger says.