Your 1st Vegas hotel?

mid 70s - Las Vegas Hilton

June 1972- I was 12. Stayed at the Holiday Inn on the strip. Their casino wasn't open yet, so I didn't know anything about gambling, until we went downtown and that's when I fell in love with Vegas. I saw all the slot machines practically on the sidewalks spitting out coins and I wanted to play them.

I was stationed on a ship in San Diego from 1973 thru 1976 and would make the trek about a dozen times . My first hotel was the Sands and a few times at the Stardust and the rest Downtown. I did not go back until 1999 and my first hotel back was the Main St. Station. I go 2 to 3 times a year and always spend half my stay there- still my favorite place. The Four Queens and the Golden Gate are my usual other free rooms. Downtown IS the place to be!

Some great tales of adventure! Thanks to all for taking the time to post.

December 1994. First annual Las Vegas Baseball/Softball Coaching Clinic. High school softball coach and I (head baseball coach) booked a fun jet package at the late Westward Ho. Flight from Louisiana and 3 nights at the Westward Ho for $179. I wish you could still get those kind of deals today!!!!!!

What a cool thread! Wish I had seen this last fall when it started, not sure how I missed it. Thanks for starting it, Tommy. It's nice to see how so many of the people I know from the boards got started.

I really wish I could remember more details about my first trip. I was 11 or 12, so it would have been arounde 1967 or 1968. Went with my parents who weren't gamblers at all. I was a math geek even back then, so gambling was pretty interesting to me and I learned a lot about the games even though I couldn't play. I don't remember where we stayed, but I'm pretty sure it was at or near Flamingo, so it was probably MGM Grand. I remember trying to sneak into the casinos and getting chased, watching my mother put a quarter into some sort of keno machine (might have been a mechanical thing back then) and winning like $30, also distinctly remembering going over to Little Caesar's and playing a few pulls on their penny slot machines (didn't get caught). I also remember some cheap food: nickel hot dogs and nickel beer in front of some of the Strip casinos, and a prime rib dinner at some fairly nice restaurant (maybe at the Dunes or the Aladdin, can't quite figure it out). Maybe even the Circus Circus buffet (my parents liked a bargain); obviously, no great memories of that meal.

Might have had another trip later, when I was an older teenager; I seem to remember having an adolescent-looking picture of myself in front of the million dollar display at Binion's Horseshoe (the original display, with the hundred $10K bills in the lucite frame). Next trips were in the mid- and late-1980s, but I wasn't really serious about gambling back then. First semi-serious trip was for a convention at the Venetian in 2004; I had studied some blackjack and the casino was too rich for us, so we mostly walked down to the Frontier or the Ho to play. Started getting serious around 2007, been coming twice a year since then (almost all downtown).

July 2006
The Orleans (allowed my wife and I to combine two Mardi Gras Packages)
$44 DING via Southwest (ahhh the gold ol' days of DING.....$234 each way right now)
First and LAST time in Vegas without a rental car. (too much time wasted on bus & waiting)
Ate for under $50 for entire week via coupons and CRAZY points specials that Station Casinos running that summer (remember that one!)

July 2000 stayed at Treasure Island and flew American Airlines. Paid full price for everything cuz we didn't know any better. LOL

The year was 1974. Little Vince was 8 years old and on a car trip with Dad to SoCal from the Midwest. We stayed at the "new" (6 years old) Circus Circus because according to Dad, "It is the only hotel that kids can be in." My memories include scorching hot concrete, sneaking a pull on the dollar slots (they still spit out silver dollars), a view from the strip of the immense Circus Circus tower, and of course, the highlight of the trip - seeing Elvis at the Hilton. I remember staying awake at the show long enough to hear Hound Dog, then curling up in the booth and sleeping on my Dad's knee. One of my happiest memories of my Father. Still hooked on Vegas.

Flamingo Hilton in the spring of 1990.

My first job out of graduate school had me traveling a lot and I had thousands of Hilton Honors points, enough for a "comped" stay -- I used HH points for a 3-4 night stay, which included show tickets -- and have been enjoying LV ever since. I went there with just 200 bucks with which to play and ate at the Flamingo buffet and the McDonald's primarily as my food budget was very limited as well.

I'll never forget playing a $1 coin in a two coin double diamond machine. I got three diamond eggs and won $800. I felt like a millionaire. I called my mother at 3 am EST to tell her that I had won. I remember that moment almost like it was yesterday. I felt like I had so much cash I joked that I would "send for her" and "fly her out" to Vegas. LOL.

Also saw a showgirls show at Flamingo that had topless performers. The show with a cocktail was included in the package I purchased using my HH points. The topless performers threw me off a bit at first but I said to myself "this is part of the Vegas experience!" Interestingly, I was in my mid-20s at the time and even though it was my first trip to Vegas it was a solo trip. I had a blast.

I also remember very clearly taking a craps lesson during the day. After I won the $800, I played craps a bit and was playing like a low roller. Folks were betting with black chips like I was betting with dollar and five-dollar chips. I can't remember how many rolls I had but it was at least 6 or 7. I made a lot of men -- they were all men playing + me -- a LOT of money during that roll. After I completed my final roll, the pit boss came up to me and asked me if I wanted a comp for dinner for later/the next day. It scared me -- yes, him approaching me offering a comp kind of scared me LOL -- I think because I was playing with all men and he was a man walking up to me offering me something "for free." I said no thank you. LOL. Never would today. LOL I did ask, however, for security to walk me to my room with my winnings and he happily arranged it.

Even now I have a certain nostalgia for the Flamingo as that's the place where my love for Vegas began.