Ute Mountain Casino Hotel & Resort
Casino playing cards featuring Native American courts.
Ute Mountain Casino Hotel in Towaoc, Colorado, is one of a number of Native American-owned casinos that have issued customised playing cards reflecting Indigenous culture and identity. Operated by the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, the casino's souvenir deck replaces the standard court cards with illustrations of Native American figures in traditional attire, while the ace of spades incorporates a map highlighting the Four Corners region. Such decks serve both as gaming equipment and as promotional items celebrating tribal heritage. Like most casino playing cards, they were retired after being used and permanently cancelled, typically by clipping the corners or punching holes through the cards. These voided decks were then sold or distributed as souvenirs of the casino and its cultural setting.
This deck is voided with the corner clipped. It’s unclear whether the courts are based on actual Native American costumes. The jokers are bull skulls, a common motif in the American West and Southwest. The same pattern was also used by Sky City Casino in the Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico and Thunderbird Wild Wild West Casino in Norman, Oklahoma.
Ute Mountain Casino Hotel & Resort tribal playing cards, USPCC, 1997.
Ute Casino Mountain Hotel website ►
By Lev Golinkin
United States • Member since May 26, 2026
I'm a US-based author and journalist. I've been collecting playing cards since I was about 8 years old, when I got mesmerized by the various decks that were used in Soviet Ukraine, where I'm from. I collect mainly European decks such as those by Dondorf, Grimaud, and Piatnik. I love courts above all else, and am drawn toward historical and artistic decks.
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