LakeSide Entertainment in Union Springs has done something that billion-dollar casino resorts spend fortunes trying to manufacture: it has made people feel at home. This gaming parlor on Cayuga Street has won Gold for Best Gaming Establishment three years running (2023-2025), consistently beating out the far larger and better-funded del Lago Resort & Casino — and it has done it by being, as its own regulars describe it, the Cheers of Finger Lakes gaming. The staff knows customers by name, celebrates their wins, and creates an atmosphere that feels more like a neighborhood hangout than a gambling floor.

The operation is compact compared to a full-scale casino, but that is precisely the point. LakeSide offers electronic gaming machines in an environment that prioritizes hospitality over spectacle. There are no towering ceilings or labyrinthine floor plans designed to disorient you — just a clean, well-run space where regulars come to play, socialize, and feel genuinely welcomed. The staff's reputation is so strong that LakeSide also earned Silver for Best Place to Work in both 2022 and 2023, a rare double recognition that speaks to the culture ownership has built from the inside out.

Union Springs is a small village on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake, and LakeSide Entertainment has become a legitimate community institution there — the kind of place people drive past bigger, flashier options to visit. The consistent FLX Finest Gold is not a fluke; it reflects a customer base that feels a genuine personal connection to the business and its people. In an industry often associated with impersonal transactions, LakeSide proves that knowing your regulars and treating them like family is still the most effective business strategy there is.