In this week’s video Anthony and Andrew talk about cannabis lounges, weekly fireworks downtown, Double Double vs Triple Double video poker, and more.
LAS VEGAS ADVISOR WEEKLY UPDATE – EP 135
Fontainebleau’s Promenade Food Hall
On our first visit, we took a brief look around the Fbleau food hall and were underwhelmed by the offerings and overcome by the prices: $18 for a slice of pepperoni pizza and a Bud Light; $35 for chips and salsa, a burrito, and a churro; $20 for an orange juice and cinnamon roll; $16 for a chicken sandwich. Then there’s the expensive stuff: $18 for a bagel and lox; $22 for a Wagyu and quail-egg bowl; $25 for a cheeseburger and truffle fries. Yikes.
We were, however, impressed with the venue on the second floor of the building. It’s expansive, comfortable, and welcoming.
On the second visit, we dug deeper and we’re glad we did. This food hall is more than meets the eye.
Yes, the burgers are dear, but Capon’s is a venue of Josh Capon, a celebrity chef in New York, after making his bones at restaurants all over Europe, appearing on numerous cooking shows, and winning the New York City Wine and Food Festival’s Burger Bash six times. The Smoke Show burger is slathered with mustard, then grilled and topped with cheese, strong pickles, and a signature onion-and-bacon jam.
Bar Ito’s proprietors are Michelin-starred chefs Kevin Kim and Masa Ito, who also own and operate ITO, a New York City omakase restaurant, and the ITO in the Poodle Room, Fbleau’s uber-exclusive members-only club on the 67th floor.
Miami Slice, we understand, is one of the most popular pizza places in south Florida; the story is it took the proprietors two years to perfect the dough.
Likewise, El Bagel started as a popup at food truck events around Miami and gained a cult following; last year, Bon Appetit named El Bagel one of the “best bagels in the U.S.”
Still, as on our quest to try the least expensive item at Durango, we wanted to see how little we could get away with spending at the Promenade Food Hall. Next time, we’ll try the burger, a slice of pizza, or a taco, but this time, we opted for an everything bagel and butter, total price $3.99 (cream cheese raises it to $6.50).
We ordered at the counter. When we sat down at a table, we saw the QR code for the menu app and were surprised by how many more choices are available in the online ordering system than on the signs at the outlets. For example, we could have ordered the bagel toasted, untoasted, or even burnt. We could’ve added onion, tomato, jalapeno, or dill for an extra $1 (each, of course), plus lettuce ($2), Swiss or American cheese ($3), bacon or sausage ($4), pastrami ($5), or roe ($6). We’d have never known that just from reading the signs. The tacos have six substitutions, a dozen add-ons, and gluten-free and allergy-free choices. Bar Ito has a complete sushi menu—three handrolls ($33) or five ($50), with lobster, spicy scallop, hamachi, and roast shiitake.
We spent an enjoyable 15 minutes perusing all the different selections, while scarfing the bagel, with was excellent, by the way, oversized and the most loaded-with-everything everything bagel we’ve ever eaten. We’d go back for one — or a dozen — of those in a New York minute.
Roadside Taco and Break, the coffee and pastry bar, round out the Promenade’s offerings.
You’ve no doubt heard or read by now that Fontainebleau is a sparkling brand-new hotel-casino with numerous jaw-dropping and wow-inducing features and the seating area at Promenade is without a doubt the nicest of the two other recent openings (Durango and Rio) and in the top two of them all.
But nowhere is Fontainebleau more sparkling than in the bathrooms. It’s worth the trip just to see these—each at least five times more expensive than this reviewer’s entire house.
BLACKJACK PLAYS THAT FEEL WRONG CAN BE SO RIGHT
This post is syndicated by the Las Vegas Advisor for the 888 casino group. Anthony Curtis comments on the 888 article introduced and linked to on this page.
AC says:
Blackjack is the subject, but the advice in this article applies to all gambling games. When there’s one correct play and you’ve been told what it is, you’re costing yourself money every time you do something else. This comes up in video poker all the time, when players reason their way out of making the correct play. I can’t count all the times I’ve been asked for the correct play and given the answer, only for the player to wave it off and do something else. Amazing! You may desire an explanation that you can get your head around, but you don’t need one. One of my favorite stories is blackjack expert Ken Uston being asked for a reason that a certain play should be made. Uston answered simply, “Because the computer says so.” You’ll recognize some of the blackjack plays in the article that you’ve probably wondered about. You don’t need the explanations, but author John Grochowski obliges anyway.
This article was written by John Grochowski in association with 888Casino.
BLACKJACK PLAYS THAT FEEL WRONG CAN BE SO RIGHT
Learning basic strategy at blackjack is one thing. Internalizing it so it becomes second nature can be quite another.
The problem is that some blackjack strategy plays seem to defy common sense regardless of whether you’re playing online blackjack or in a live casino. As one player asked at a seminar I gave, “How can a play be so right when it feels so wrong?”
How can hitting hard 16 be the right play when there’s such a large chance of busting? How can splitting 8s against a dealer’s 10 be the right play when you could wind up with two 18s losing to a 20? How can doubling down on 11 when the dealer has a 10 face up be the right play when you can’t hit if you draw a low card and the dealer could be sitting with 20?
It’s enough to give you a queasy feeling even while you make the best play.
But they are the right plays. All casino games are grounded in math. Basic strategy takes into account all possible outcomes and calculates the play that, on average, yields the best chance to win.
Bobby Vegas: Waste Bothers Me
I don’t get my kicks on Route 66. I get them chasing value. Wherever I go.
Friends had a kitchen in a summer-camp conference center in Virginia, which burned down recently when a neighbor’s bonfire got out of control. No insurance. I saw an eight-foot stainless-steel triple-compartment sink ($1,500 retail) in a construction dumpster. I called my friends; they said “Perfect!” I hired a buddy with a pickup for $50 to move it into my back yard until they can pick it up.
Value proposition solved. Even good for the environment.
I bought silver below $18. It’s now $28.50
At McDonalds, I get a snack and like the App offer for free fries when I buy a $2 burger. The fries would cost more than the burger and I get an additional 10% in points.
In Vegas, whether it’s LVA newsletter tips, Member Rewards Book coupons that have given me a 10-to-1 return for 20 years, American Casino Guide’s free downloadable coupons, VPfree2 for the best video poker, Jean Scott’s Video Poker Scouting Guide that’s returned 1500% to me, I’m always chasing value.
Downtown Grand is great value. Rainbow is great value.
Then there’s spending $10,000 taking 15 people to Stadium Swim for the Super Bowl when one ticket at Allegiant cost that much.
And renting a 6,000-square-foot Villa in the 5-star tower at Encore instead of a trade show booth, saving my corporate client $100,000 over what they paid every year before —completely blowing the clients’ minds and generating $1 million in new product sales in 90 days.
Or discovering, attending, and partying at the opening of Bruno Mars Pinky Ring lounge for $75 a night. An ultimate experience and an insane value.
My 17 days in Vegas for the Super Bowl and a week at the Pinky Ring cost $3,400. I made $8,000 on new-client orders in 45 days. That’s value.
Researching, devising, and implementing a value Strategy are fun for me. Doing match play or coupon runs while cashing in free food is fun. And don’t think I survive on burgers and fries. My freezer has lobster claws bought on sale and Washington State oysters at $14 a pound.
A favorite book by Malcolm Gladwell, called The Tipping Point, shows how fads, phenomena, and new-product launches happen. He identifies two key players in this process: information mavens (that’s me) and connectors (that’s Anthony Curtis).
I get my kicks researching, analyzing, and discovering new information and sharing it with others. That’s you people. Hope it helps.
Then I hand it to a connector. Anthony gets it out wide.
Coupons are a form of money. If you can’t “lower” yourself to utilize it, go ahead and pay retail.
If you can’t see value in 50%-off Seniors Day at Siegel’s 1941 on Wednesday or getting a free $8 ice cream cone sometime in your birthday month at Ben and Jerry’s, its fine by me. But I like free. Free is fun.
Culinary setback; Blowing smoke
Although it’s been on a roll lately, the Culinary Union got some very bad news this week. The Station Casinos house organ, otherwise known as the Las Vegas Review-Journal, reported that a large number of Sunset Station employees were petitioning the decertify the Culinary as their bargaining agent. First, given the amount of progress (i.e., none) made in long-running Sunset labor talks, frustration would be understandable. Second, you have to wonder how much better employees would fare negotiating with Station all by their lonesome.
Continue reading Culinary setback; Blowing smokeAnima by Edo
Chef Oscar Amador Edo grew up on the outskirts of Barcelona in a cooking family and owned and operated three successful restaurants in the city before taking the plunge and moving to Las Vegas in 2016.
After a brief stint in the kitchen of Le Cirque at Bellagio and launching a food truck making sandwiches, with a partner he opened Edo Gastro Tapas & Wine on the western edge of Chinatown (Jones and Spring Mountain). It immediately earned several local “restaurant of the year” awards. When Edo opened his second eatery, Anima by Edo (Russell and Durango), it was quickly named Best Restaurant of 2023 — in the whole country — by Yelp. Edo himself was also a finalist for a 2023 James Beard Outstanding Chef Southwest award and a semi-finalist for the same in 2024. With all the attention on this chef and his food, we spent an interesting evening sampling the offerings at Anima.
John Curtas, top Las Vegas restaurant critic for the past 30 years and author of our series Eating Las Vegas, recommended “all the appetizers and any pasta.” So we loaded up on the charcuterie of cold cuts and cheeses ($28) and the accompanying Catalan olive-oil bread ($8), artichoke salad ($23), beef tartare ($23), Peruvian scallops crudo ($21), octopus ($27), truffle cavatelli ($29), Bravas potatoes ($12), sprouted cauliflower ($18), and rhubarb-jam lemon-cream pistachio-powder mille-feuille dessert ($14).
If nothing else, it was a lot of food for one person. (Kidding; there were three of us.)
The charcuterie was fantastic, especially the very French and Italian cheeses, though the bread was a bit pedestrian.
We also adored the octopus and cauliflower.
And we liked the cavatelli pasta (that came with a huge beef bone filled with yummy marrow); if we ever go back, octopus and cauliflower will fill the whole bill.
The three of us were less impressed by the tartare, artichoke salad, and raw scallops, while two liked the potatoes and one didn’t. The dessert was good, but it sounded better than it tasted.
With two drinks, the bill came to $227 before tax and tip — very expensive. But in the end, it was worth it to see what all the fuss is about. We mostly saw it, though not entirely.
Hockey Knights in Vegas Episode 78: The Regular-Season Final Report Card
Not much more needs to be said.
Lindsey, Chris, and Eddie break down every aspect of the VGK’s season.
What do you think of the VGK’s performance in the regular season?
Let us know in the comments!
Why Video Poker for Me?
I’ve been playing video poker for 30 years, and by any measure have been quite successful at it. Prior to this gambling game, I tried very hard to become successful at several other gambling games — specifically poker, backgammon, bridge, and blackjack.
I’ve been pondering recently as to why I became successful at this one specific game and not the others. Today I’m going to compare my results at video poker with my non-success at backgammon — which is the gambling game I tried hardest and longest before I gave up.
A factor in winning at any gambling game is one’s intelligence — both IQ and the ability to apply that intelligence to addressing the many aspects of successful gambling. It’s difficult for me to talk about my own intelligence without having some people conclude I’m full of myself and/or others conclude I’m being overly modest. But I’m convinced it’s a big part of the reason for my results in both games.
Video poker is a relatively easy game compared to other gambling games. When I learned the game, I had to create my own strategies, or at least perfect strategies published by others. When I had a strategy, I needed to execute it competently over and over again. Usually this meant memorization, but sometimes I’d bring some sort of “cheat sheet” strategy card, especially if it was going to be a short-term play where it would not make sense to take the time to memorize the game completely.
I needed to evaluate how much a game is worth, and how much the slot club, promotions, and other benefits slots were worth. Of these, probably evaluating and analyzing promotions was the most difficult. Having a working knowledge of probability and statistics helped here.
By the luck of the draw, I “grew up” in video poker right as computerized programs were becoming available to the public. Had I started five years earlier, the problems of creating a strategy and figuring out how much a game is worth would have been beyond my capabilities. Players starting today are able to get a strategy for most video poker games for free from www.wizardofodds.com but casinos aren’t offering as many good opportunities as they used to.
I’m not sure why, but using commercially available software in the 90s, I was able to create and execute accurate video poker strategies better than most other players. I attribute that to intelligence, basic mathematical ability, and the willingness to put in the hours necessary for success. Also, looking at five cards and immediately seeing the various possibilities for straights, flushes, straight flushes, etc., comes easier to me than others. I never appreciated this until I discovered when I was teaching that this is not easy for many players.
Also by the luck of the draw, I grew up with video poker in an era when casinos were giving away the store to video poker players. Not intentionally, of course, but slot directors generally didn’t understand the mathematics of video poker nearly as well as the best players did. All competent video poker players had to do was “Repeat Until Rich,” which is the name of a book (on blackjack success) by Josh Axelrad.
Backgammon, which I played for 20 years from 1974 to 1994, was a totally different situation for me. Computer software wasn’t available yet, and the way to learn the game was to read books and roll out positions over and over again until you understood them. I certainly learned from playing and watching others, but that is a complicated and potentially expensive way to learn.
Backgammon has a zillion different possible positions. Even long-time players regularly come across positions they’ve never studied before. Or maybe it’s the same position, but last time you studied playing a five and a three, and this time the roll is a six and a one. The correct play on most rolls from most positions is fairly obvious to competent players — but some rolls require you to select among different good positions, or perhaps choose the least bad among several not-so-good positions.
No player has studied every position — or even seen every position. During a game, you have to make the best decisions you can. Raw intelligence plays a big part in this, because there are a lot of elements to consider, both offensive and defensive. After a lot of study, I was pretty good at this — but there were many players who were better. I concluded they were brighter than I was.
I did “grow up” in backgammon at a fortunate time. The game was popular in the early 1970s and played by celebrities. The game was played at the Playboy Mansion, and to a young man in his mid-20s at the time, that was pretty interesting. The game was played at discos, and I took dance lessons and obtained a suitable wardrobe to fit in there. For the most part, the players in discos took the game much more casually than I did, and my skills were such that I could clean up in that environment — and meet plenty of ladies who liked being with guys who could dance. What a life!
But that environment ended in the late 1970s. Discos closed and the days of making easy money gambling against non-professional players were over. There were enough better players than I was (including brains, knowledge, and whatever else) that I eventually went bankrupt and had to go get a job.
While I worked my way back into modest backgammon success, I never reached the highest level, no matter how hard I studied.
Today, there are a number of computerized programs available for backgammon players, with the best one called Extreme Gammon (XG.) With the same innate intelligence, players using XG for six months can get as good as I got in 20 years of play.
Today gambling at backgammon is fairly rare. It’s still done, of course, especially while backgammon tournaments are taking place, but today a “PR rating” is generated in tournaments comparing a player’s actual play with the play of XG. A player with a rating of 3.0 (world class) will have a very difficult time getting a game against players with ratings of 10 (intermediate level). Years ago, such matches were possible because nobody knew how good other players were. Today they do.
I know that I could return to that game and get as good as I was 30 years ago, but 30 years ago I was an intermediate player! And there are players who could beat me 30 years ago who’ve been playing and studying continuously since then. They could beat me then and they’ve only gotten better since. I’d have no chance.
Basically, starting over again, at age 77, is not a formula for success. And if I busted my ass for several years and got my average PR rating down to 5 or so, I still couldn’t make enough money to support myself because games against lesser players simply aren’t regularly available.
Can-Can Show at Le Cabaret Lounge at Paris
Le Cabaret is a lounge at Paris off the casino and near the front doors. On Friday and Saturday nights, four 18-minute shows take place on the small stage and in the audience in which four dancers and a singer perform to recorded backup music.
The 9 and 11 p.m. shows are called La Femme. The dancers wear pink babydoll dresses and berets and dance to Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now,” Maroon 5’s “This Love,” Vanity 6’s “Nasty Girl,” and the like.
This performance is fairly tame compared to The Red Shows at 10 p.m. and midnight. The costumes are sexier — red can-can outfits — and they’re shed to a certain extent as the show progresses, with some naughty moves and suggestive poses; they also employ feather fans and chairs as they vamp to racier tunes, such as “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade” (“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?”), and the Police’s “Roxanne.” The Red Show finishes up with more contemporary hits, Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” Ginuwine’s “Pony,” and the finale, Fergie’s “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got).”
The singer gives her all in belting out the songs and ramping up the crowd, the dancers are serviceable, a bit starchy and occasionally out of sync, and the whole effect is a bit low rent, but these are free shows after all and the audiences are definitely appreciative.
There’s no minimum that we could discern and with only one cocktail waitress at the early show, several tables were full of people without any drinks. Another waitress came on duty for the 10 p.m. show and we assume the later two, so it might be tough to get away with seeing those without ordering. The drinks are even stiffer than the dancers: beers starting at $11, wine and champagne $18-$30, cocktails $23-$25, Red Bull $9, and soda and water $7.
Luckily, the lounge is completely open on two sides, so you can just stand beyond the railing and take it in without being approached by the waitresses. Plenty of people do.
Porter pity party; Control Board awakes
It was only a matter of time. Sooner or later, some guilt-ridden white liberal would pen a think piece declaring the real victim of the Jontay Porter scandal to be … Jontay Porter. Never mind the defrauded sports bettors, the Toronto Raptors fans and general NBA fans who all had a reasonable expectation of seeing basketball games played on the square. No, it’s this game-tanking weasel who merits our pity, according to Chris Dell, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Dell wrings his hands over Porter being a “casualty” of the marriage between major-league sports and sports betting itself.
Continue reading Porter pity party; Control Board awakes