Grease paint and putty noses were on full display yesterday at the Nevada Gaming Commission‘s charade of pretending to discipline Resorts World Las Vegas for consorting with criminals and laundering their money. In reality, the purpose of the hearing was to sweep the whole inconvenient mess under the nearest rug. The NGC rubber-stamped a paltry, $10.5 million fine, one which veteran casino executive and regulator Richard Schuetz termed not even a wrist slap.
Continue reading Send in the Clowns
Caesars Palace – Bacchanal Buffet: Crab Brunch is now weekends only instead of weekdays. It’s served 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and is still $79.99.
Circus Circus – Circus Buffet: This week’s breakfast buffet is Fri-Sun, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. for $25.95. Dinner’s Fri-Sun, 4:30 p.m.-10 p.m. for $28.95.
This week Anthony and Andrew talk with Casino Marketing Guru Dennis Conrad.
The beautiful thing about doing a podcast vs. being in traditional media is that there’s no need to mince words, be politically correct, or tap dance around hard truths. Eddie takes full advantage of that to open Episode 104.
WARNING! This episode begins with an extended profanity-laden rant about Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Emil Lilleberg and his blatantly dirty hit that knocked Tomas Hertl out of the game and out of the lineup for an undetermined length.
With Hertl, arguably the hottest player in the NHL and the VGK’s leading goal scorer sidelined, Coach Cassidy is going to have to make some significant line changes.
Eddie and Chris analyze the 3-0 homestand, the race for the all-important Pacific Division title, and what it will take for the VGK to reach the Western Conference Final and Stanley Cup.
All this and MUCH more on Hockey Knights in Vegas Episode 104: Emil Lilleberg Is a 5-Letter Word for a Cat.
This is a newish restaurant at the Commercial Center on E. Sahara. We generally don’t pay much attention to these eateries, since they don’t seem to last too long (except for Lotus of Siam and that has yet reopened more than seven years after the roof collapsed in 2017). What caught our attention was the Manhattan clam chowder on the PK menu, which we rarely see in Las Vegas. A quick search turned up two mentions in LVA, one from way back in 2003, the other not much more recently in 2005.
We first tried the house salad ($8) and steamed clams ($20); the clams came in a choice of white broth or red sauce. We’d never seen clams served in a red sauce, so we opted for the novel preparation. The strong sauce definitely overpowered the delicate clams (but more on that in a bit).
We prefer the red chowder over the white, though being the Advisor, we also tried the white for comparison purposes ($12 each). They both come in a bread bowl with the top cut off and the middle emptied out. You can also get them in a regular bowl, which we should have; both chowders were gloppy enough without the added dough. And frankly, neither was recommendable. More like stews than soups, they were bland and very thick, with way more (undercooked) celery than clams.
Also on the menu are fried shrimp, calamari, oysters, and catfish ($15-$20), five pan roasts ($25-$32), five gumbos ($23-$32), a few po’ boys ($15-$18), and specialties such as jambalaya, etouffée, bouillabaisse, and two pounds of “Voodoo pasta” ($19-$32).
All in all, the salad was the best thing about the meal, with the red sauce that the clams came in a close runner up. Even though it didn’t do the clams any justice, we scarfed the sauce on its own, slopping it up with some of the bread from the bowls, so we didn’t leave hungry. A good thing, since the bill for the salad, clams, two chowders, and a $5 happy hour beer came to just under $62 with tax.
Maybe the best thing about PK’s is the $1.50 oyster special on Wednesdays.
No complaints on this deal. All in all, though, there are better oyster bars around town.
Ancient casino vizier Steve Wynn finally ran out of luck. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court to have libel laws reinterpreted in his favor because … well, because he’s special, we guess. Wynn used to fancy himself “the most powerful man in Nevada” and all that absolute power corrupted him absolutely. He got to the point of thinking that he could play hide the salami with Wynn Resorts employees and get away with it. He couldn’t and that was the end of a hitherto spectacular career in casinos.
Continue reading The biggest loser … and other dirty linen
The 2025 MRB offers some enticing hotel discounts. These also lead to even better casino offers.
I recently stayed at the Downtown Grand for eight nights, followed by four nights at the Rio, for a total hotel cost of $400.
It’s not hard to get comped at DG. I get two free nights a month as well.
Of course, each has different values, depending on your tastes, goals, and preferences.
Downtown Grand’s MRB coupon is good for waiving the resort fees. This is very valuable, saving $40+ a night, especially for your first stay. You also get daily in-room coffee and water.
I prefer the Gallery Tower right over the casino. The room rate is a little higher, but access is key, at least to me. Everything is close: the free Parking, casino, restaurants, new food court at the Fremont across the street, and Fremont Street is one block away.
Be sure to use your check-in coupon for up to $50 matchplay and your MRB matchplay. And with just $50 coin-in at video poker, you get 50% off on a great selection of entrees including breakfast, a great burger, and prime rib.
Once you’ve stayed and played, call casino reservations. They might give you up to 50% off your resort fee and the max room discount.
I cashed in on the Rio, with its no resort fee as well. The resort fee here is $56 a day, so this saved me $250. I stayed Monday-Friday for $107 total. No kidding.
Since I’m old school, I like the Masquerade Tower with a bathtub. It’s also less expensive than the new tower and self- parking is very close. No in-room coffee, but a fridge is comped. They also have room service, which tickled me. Great views, food hall, and pool too.
Check out the 9/6 JoB by the Sports bar. Hop over to Gold Coast for good VP, low-limit table games, and Ping Pang Pong. Then use your 50% or 2-for-1 at the Palms Buffet, including the Wednesday and Thursday lobster nights (a $79.99 saving). And I hear the Wow show is spectacular.
Finally, the Plaza. The MRB coupon is good, but the real deal at the Plaza is bingo.
Every month they have two-day $160,000 bingo that’s $160 to enter and is good for two lunches four nights Sunday through Thursday for $40 a night! And that includes the resort fee. The North Tower rooms are nicer, but noisier, facing the Fremont Street Experience. The South Tower’s are old-school with a tub, but quiet and very close to the free parking for guests.
Plaza has $15 single-zero roulette, excellent VP, and lots of food options where you can also use MRB coupons, from pizza to steaks. Pink Box donuts and Hash House A Go Go are also on the premises. Plus, fire up the positive expectation video poker at the Sand Dollar lounge with great comedy on Wednesday. A.C. and others love the new Mavericks show.
This is an article about slots rather than video poker. I know this will irritate some of my readers, and if that describes you, perhaps you had better skip this week’s blog. But I know that enough of my readers find “all things casino” interesting enough that they will allow me some grace in selecting my topics. Plus, this week I haven’t learned anything new about video poker and I did learn something new about slots I’m going to share with you.
I was playing Wolf Run Eclipse (WRE) at a Boyd property on a 10x point day. WRE is an IGT persistence slot machine that sometimes gets positive for the player. It has four or five separate meters, depending on the version. One of the meters is the “Grand,” which I have never hit in the thousand or so hours I’ve played this game — so I ignore it. When I started playing this time, the meter read ten thousand dollars and change, and if and when I ever hit it will be very nice, but I don’t pay any attention to it when I try to determine whether the game is worth playing.
The game has three meters that start at 5 free spins (mini, minor, and major) and one that starts at 100 (mega). I have hit the mega three or four times, but I generally ignore that too unless I need a “tiebreaker.” Each meter rises periodically until it is finally hit, in which case the player earns the number of free spins that are on that particular meter.
These progressives aren’t identical. The mini meter gives you one column (out of five) of wilds every spin. The minor meter gives you two such columns. Both the major and the mega give you three such columns.
The mini meter, in addition to being the least valuable, hits more frequently than the minor, which in turn hits more frequently than the major.
I have a formula I use to determine whether or not to play. It has different multipliers for each of the three lower meters. The “strike” numbers are different for different denominations. In most casinos the 1¢ and 2¢ denominations are tighter than the 5¢ and 10¢ of the same game on the same machine.
On the day in question, I was playing 1¢, 800 coins for an $8.00 bet. Had I found the same meter numbers on the game for 10¢ 80 coins or 5¢ 160 coins (both also $8.00), the latter would be better bets because they have a higher return to player (RTP). But this time the 1¢ version had the higher meters, so that’s the one I played.
I shaded my strike number a little for three reasons: 10x points, the mega meter was at 110 rather than the reset value of 100, and while I was going to be playing for the minor, the major was at nine — which is higher the reset value of five.
As I played, I hit the mini four times and the minor and major continued to rise. By the time I hit the minor (which turned into a W2-g) the mini had risen high enough that it was worth continuing to play. So, I did.
When the mini finally hit, I noted that if it returned $860, I was even for my play at that particular casino for that particular day. This was a score that was definitely possible — probably even likely.
As it turned out, after all the free spins were spun, the bonus was worth $845 — so I lost $15. I knew I had actually won because I had played for more than a half hour hammering an $8 machine. At 10x points, this generated a lot of points. I don’t count those points as profit until I redeem them, which I didn’t do on this day.
After the $845 was revealed, the machine calls it a “massive win” and starts to add that amount to my existing $700+ in credits. While in the process of this happening, my machine went totally black, along with the adjacent machines on either side. All three were IGT slot machines — and all three were different games. All the other games in the casino that I could see continued to work.
A slot manager came by to look at it. He probably had a message on his computer that told him three machines went dark. I asked him if this was likely to be a long-lasting problem. He said probably not, but the outage wasn’t planned and he wasn’t sure.
I wasn’t in a huge hurry, but I’d been planning on going to dinner. I wanted to retrieve my $1,600 ticket and be on my way. There was no way I was going to leave it behind. I knew the casino didn’t do this on purpose and was willing to give them a little time to fix the problem — but I didn’t want to wait all day.
After about ten minutes, all three machines began to reboot. I expected that when my machine came back on it would continue to add the $845 to my existing credits and I could be on my way.
That’s not what happened.
When the machine came back on, I still had my $700+ in credits, and the mini bonus began to play again! There were more than 30 free spins. Some were for more than $100 each, and many of the spins turned out to be worth zero.
As the bonus round played out, I started thinking about what I would do if it turned out to be less than $845? The machine was probably on camera, and they could verify what the bonus had been worth previously. Would they honor that? I also mused what I would do if the bonus round turned out to be worth more than $845?
Before I worked out all of the ramifications, the bonus round ended, and it was worth exactly the same $845 this time as it was worth last time! I was surprised.
The slot director came by and asked if everything turned out okay. I told him that it had replayed the bonus round, all 30+ spins, and the result this time turned out exactly the same as it had before the blackout.
He told me this was exactly the result he expected. At the start of the bonus round, he told me, the computer program decides how much this bonus round is worth. Once that number has been decided, it’s just bells and whistles for the bonus round to end up providing that exact number. The player doesn’t know how big the bonus will be until all the spins play out, but the machine knows and figures out a way to get there.
I think this slot director is correct. I just hadn’t realized it before he said it. The machine has a specific RTP to give out, and it does.
This is very different from the way a video poker machine works. In video poker, the player chooses how to play each hand. Each machine holds more than the designated RTP because video poker players make mistakes.
But slot players, taken as a whole, don’t make mistakes. They just hit the button and take what they get. The skill in this kind of slot machine is to wait until the meters are high enough before playing. But other players have played this machine to get the meters that high. So, the machine holds as much as it is supposed to — the casino makes money — and the knowledgeable players also make money playing this game.
Anthony and Andrew go live for BEER FRIDAY.
That $10K which Resorts World Las Vegas donated to Joe Lombardo‘s gubernatorial campaign in 2022 was money well spent. It might be the best investment Resorts World LV ever made. How else to explain the incredibly lenient penalty handed down to Resorts World after it got caught laundering money and consorting with criminals? If the Lombardo administration wanted to go easy on Genting Group, the Nevada Gaming Control Board sure obliged.
Continue reading The fix was in