A walk down Comp Memory Lane

Anyone have any Westward Ho stories? 

My first trip to Vegas, on a comp, was at Westward Ho.  Their marketing team used to fly around the US and set up seminars at airport hotels.  When they came to my home city, I attended after seeing an ad in the sports page of the local newspaper (remember those?) which touted "Free 3 night Las Vegas Vacation".   I figured it was some sort of scam.  After the short sales pitch in the conference room of the hotel we were all given a certificate good for the hotel stay.   My wife and I figured out dates, then I called to reserve.   Sure enough, all free.  

We get to the Ho where we're treated like old friends.  Assigned a room in their old motel style rooms.   Extremely dated but clean and comfortable enough.   I'll never forget the walkway from the casino to the rooms.. dubbed the "Super Secret Shortcut" and with a sign to match. 

Still remember their single deck BJ (none of that fools 6:5 crap back then), quarter 9/6 Jacks progressive - which frequently topped $2k since it had a fast meter along with a backup.  They advertised free donuts in the morning.  A little ole lady would push a cart throughout the casino offering the sweet treats.   But heaven forbid if you dared tried taking two donuts!   You'd get admonished as if you were back in grade school!.   

I recall crossing the street and playing at the smoke free Silver City.   While it was great not having to deal with the pigarette smokers, the place had a bad vibe late at night.   Undesirables frequently hung out around the bathrooms dealing their warez and I believe there ended up being multiple shootings here. 

Frontier next door to the Ho always had matchplay coupons too so we'd hit their pit for a few bucks before playing the .25 full pay deuces progressive.   

Ahhh, the days of the low roller grind.  

I never met the Westward Ho. I hear she was friendly.

I have two memories, one weird, one lousy. One was twelve hands of blackjack. The first six hands were pat 20s. I lost all six. The next six hands were hard 12s. I won all six. WTF?

The other memory was a "lesson hand." I played .50 triple play 10/7 DB. Got dealt AAAA. Hand pay $1200. They brought a W2-G form. I said no no no no no, I had only won $1,192.50 and my jackpot wasn't taxable. Round and round we went. I insisted they call Gaming. Gaming confirmed--not taxable. They paid me--then they threw me out for being a "troublemaker" (!!!).

Never went back.

I stayed at the Ho once.....once.   Not a great experience.  Room wasn't the cleanest and I ate the 99 cent footlong.  Middle of the night, was playing some VP, started not to feel very good, so went to the room.  Ended up throwing up all night.  Had to be food poisoning, since I didn't drink very much.  

That 99 cent dog was overpriced.

Agree with KL.   That .99 dog was repulsive mystery meat that I wouldn't eat for free.   And those cheap sugary slushy cocktail drinks were equally vile with the piss grade spirits used.  

Next door at Slots of Fun they had triple play 9/6 Jacks and decent mailers that frequently included an offer at CircusCircus.   One time the mailer included double free play during the month but the catch was you had to redeem between 2-3am.   You wanna talk about spooky?   The clown at 2am on a Monday night was as eery as it gets.  Nothing but the third string girls desperately looking for a trick and a handful of strung out degenerates....and a dozen AP's lined up at the slot club to get the bonus FSP activated.     

always went to vacation village for the wheel spin and $2 in nickles. hit a rf once and used the $1199 coupon. damn machine kept playing "you're in the money" very loud and that was the south end bus stop at that time.

finally got paid and went upstairs to "hide" until several buses passed.

Vacation Village was the first place where I cut my teeth with AP promos in Vegas.   The airfare spin, the 'take the bus on us' promo, the royal and full house coupons in LVA and all the various MPs in the newspaper rag magazines.   

They had 10/7/80 DB for quarters in their Ballys Gamemakers and I still remember always hitting those for my $12.50 bonus on my first full house using the LVA coupon.  Never hit the airfare but a friend did one time.   They used to give the matchplays for the bus and spin promos in a small manila envelope and the coupons were printed on standard colored construction paper.  Once arrived with probably two dozen MPs between me and my girlfriend.   Pitboss says "What are you doing, copying these in your hotel room?"   I laughed and told him they gave them all to me at the Players Club.   He didn't care and let us use them all.  We'd usually walk out + $50-$100 each trip.  It was a complete grind joint and I definitely miss the hustles here. 

They tore it down and put up the now defunct Frys Electronics store where VV once stood.   

Interesting angle to avoid the W2G.   Had never considered this one.    Sometimes you have to pick your battles.    

I was at the Clown (CircusCircus for you ploppies out there) about 15 years ago with the Casino Player $15 for $10 matchplays.  Sat down at a single deck they'd just opened and they didn't have the 6:5 signs up and nothing noted on the felt.  Hit a snapper on the first hand and the dealer tries to pay me $12 for the bet and $5 for the paper.   I insist it should be $15 for the BJ since there wasn't any signage noting it was a fool's blackjack table.  Pitboss refuses to budge on the extra $3.  We go round and round for a few minutes then I whip out my phone and call Gaming (every sharp player needs their number saved in their phone).   Pitboss finally relents and tells the dealer to pay me the extra $3 before he proceeds to tell me I'm not welcome at their BJ tables anymore.   

In hindsight, the $3 wasn't worth my time, getting worked up over the confrontation and most definitely not the backoff.  But it did feel good to stick the Clown for the extra three bucks. 

FrankH, thank you so much for posting this.  What a fascinating read.

mannydogpro, Don't forget the ice cream social hour in the afternoons at the Ho!   They had a soft serve machine there, open for an hour or two.   It was too much like ice milk for me, but loved the idea.   Then for a year or two they actually sold coffee for 5 cents a cup.

The first couple of  times I went, I was shocked at the rows!!!! of 9/6 Jacks or Better progressive flat top VP machines.   Like 3 or 4 rows of 8 machines.   So many, that when the progressive hit, you'd have to look all around to see who actually hit it.

About 2 years before they closed, when the progressive was down to maybe 8 machines, I managed to hit a $1500 royal there.   And as you said, there was a backup progressive which often was decent.  I think it was near $1200 on the backup meter at times!   Hard to believe these existed, but they did.