Resort fee at The D for comped rooms

Because a relatively modest amount of coinin on the 8/5 BP will put you firmly in the +EV side of the equation when the mail starts rolling in...   And if you put that action in and stack it with the LVA FSP coupon, it's a definite play. 

The resort fee is an absolute ripoff as if I needed another reason NOT to stay at The D.   But I'll play there in the early mornings before the posers get up and the music gets too annoying.   

I noticed that over the past 5 years the number of posers and semi-illegal posers, as well as homeless has increased dramatically. you may not even notice that when you're a one-time visiting tourist. but if you happen to return regularly, it gets to your attention.

even inside the once so beautiful Golden Nugget this has become an issue to me. If you walk into the main restroom there, during the day......you better don't I was gonna say...... I don't know why they aren't doing anything about it. I quit visiting downtown. There are other places more quiet and more entertaining than this....

I've organized an annual group trip of about 15-20 college buddies since 1984. Because of the downtown trash, we're heading to Laughlin in October.  We've had enough.

Las Vegas is a city with a bunch of casinos. Laughlin is a bunch of casinos with a bizarre little town that lacks any goods or services to speak of...five miles away up a very steep hill.

If one intends to never leave the casino, Laughlin could be a reasonable choice. I've found the place to be desolate and depressing.

Boilerman

I can partially agree with you. On the other hand, Laughlin is a great place to spend time during the cold winter season.  I was there last month for a few days and will be there again at the end of this month.  I noticed that the Colorado Belle Casino has been closed during Covid and never opened since. Seems to me that the owners are hoping for a buyer to come around the corner. The Casino is so old but on the other side this makes the beauty of that river boat style casino. Not sure about the rooms, I think they must definetely get a remodeling for the potential new ownership. 

The shopping mall (Horizon) has lost most of the shop owners. 3/4 or at least half of the stores went out os business, so it was kinda bizarre to walk the round. Even the food court downstairs has only a few open places. The bar that can be accessed directly from the parking lot was open but had no customers. It was 1 p.m. when I went there and I saw that the only person inside was a female barmaid that was dressed like a future gentlemen's club female barmaid. I am not sure if this fits into the cathegory of typical Laughlin visitors. The concept is a failure in my opinion.

I like the Riverside because they get some action and must have a strong marketing department with all these charter flights arriving almost daily and bringing in new traffic.  Harrah's as the last outpost was pretty empty. For the size of the casino and hotel it makes me wonder what they are expecting..... I wanted to play in the 2-5 nol poker game which has been there for so many years on the weekend.  When I arrived at the Poker Room all they had going was a short handed 2-6 spread limit game or whatever that was. Obviously the big time players are not going anymore, or it was just not the right time of the day to visit Harrahs.  

I think the Riverside is the only very successful casino in Laughlin. And they have a buffet. It's not actually the best buffet, but it meets my expectations. Overall, I still like it there. To me it's more what I am looking for than the super busy Strip in Vegas where you pay for parking and expect to get a 50 dollars resort fee on top of your room bill.

From Switzerland

Boris

It's a bizarre place. As you noted, any non-casino businesses that tried to establish themselves on Casino Drive, across from the casinos, have withered and died--with the exception of the prominently situated In-N-Out Burger, which as the only fast food outlet on the Nevada side of the river, does a land-office business. Especially helpful is the fact that the casinos ALL have crappy and overpriced food.

In fact, that alone has kept me away from Laughlin in the past. The food in the casinos is effin' terrible, and it costs far too much to boot. You mentioned the Riverside buffet, which I give 1.5 stars out of 5. Their coffee shop has edible food, big whoop. If you have a car, you can flee across the river to Bullcrap City, which has all the usual restaurant suspects, but the sales tax is something gross like eleven percent. Cheap gas, though.

The gambling in Laughlin is crummy, and there's no decent VP at all, now that Aquarius has tossed their good games into the river (and yes, I know they have a few ancient 9/6 JOB games). I've played poker at the Riverside, which has actually been kind of fun, if only for the novelty of sitting at a table where the average age of your opponents is 85.

This is the time of year to go there if you must, since the weather is actually decent now. Most of the year, it's either a wind tunnel or a hellscape inferno.

Kevin

What do you say if I told you that I found a full pay deuces wild game in Laughlin? My eyes popped when I saw it. Matter of fact, I believe it's by error or they forgot, but it's indeed 100.75 Deuces Wild. The problem is that the very right button is sticky and sometimes when you play too fast it unholds the card that you actually wanted to hold. The machine owes me big time as I hammered it like crazy. Next time I'll go there I hope it will be still there and I will try to get at least 1 set of deuces, hopefully a royal flush :)

The food is not high class, but it's ok. I don't want to get fat there and if I am a culinary expert I would also rate it with only a couple of stars but the purpose is fulfilled. I wasn't hungry after eating at the buffet, and I didn't get no stomach ache. It was ok. Nothing special, but I paid with my comp dollars, so it was ok.

Greetings

Such situations exist. My guess is that the machine is at the Aquarius, as that's the only place that ever had FPDW. But you don't have to tell me. BTW before AZ Charlie's Decatur finally killed all their FPDW machines, one of the holdouts had a sticky button exactly as you describe--and it caused so many errors that people stopped playing it. I--and I'm sure many others--asked several times for it to be fixed. They never did, and I concluded that their refusal was deliberate. That way, they could tell everyone they had the best machines in town without actually incurring that horrible horrible $7 an hour loss.

I wasn't hungry after seeing the food at the Riverside buffet, so I guess it served its purpose :) Many years ago, it seemed to me that their emphasis was on food that could be easily gummed, to serve their core clientele.

Boilerman

I am with you, 100 per cent. I used to visit the El Cortez each time over the past 25 years or so. I gambled there, ate at the Coffee Shop and at the Steak House. Then they turned the Steak House into Siegels 1941 and created some other stuff on the other side. 

Then came covid and obviously more and more people in Vegas lost their jobs / homes / money, whatever. The number of homeless and handbeggers has increased dramatically and sometimes when I returned to my hotel after a long poker session I would see people sleeping on the streets. Then, when walking through the El Cortez to the Elevators, more strange subjects were sitting at several slots without gambling, just hanging around. Where else should they go if they need a restroom?

Overall I just don't feel comfortable anymore in Downtown. In the evenings you may not really notice the fact that it's crowded with drug addicts and very weired people , along with the big crowd of tourists. Plus the noise on Fremont Street and inside some casinos. I wonder what is it that a person accepts that and goes there to work or gamble. You really got to be a special kind of a fun seeker. I also have enough of that trash. Will spend my time elsewhere in the future. Not sure if the casinos can do anything about it. The concept is a complete failure in my eyes. 

Kevin

My guess is also that they have that game in a menu on a machine but with the sticky button it turns such a highly attractive game into a loser for the player.  I also noticed that many bartop games have buttons that are very hard to hit and if you don't pay close attention every time when playing your hand, mistakes can happen and it occurs frequently so the overall expectation of such games drops considerably. 

Of course I will go there again and check out if the game is still there and I will play it, but I know already that i must pay extreme caution when getting dealt deuces as missing one of them in the wrong moment could turn out into a desaster.  I know that some people know where to find that game. For certain reasons I cannot reveal that information publicly.