I liked, and still do like, some of the bigger and more upscale casinos, but hitting some of the joints much farther down the scale could be fun too.
The Westward Ho was worth at least one visit every time I was in Las Vegas when it was still open. Their snack bar was a Las Vegas institution. I never had one of their 1 pound hot dogs, but their 99-cent strawberry shortcake was one of my favorite snacks. I spent a night in their motel 3 days before they closed the place. Imagine a Super 8 that was so large they had a 6 or 8 seat golf cart that would shuttle motel guests to the casino and back.
Slots-a-Fun actually was fun for a very long time if you wanted to play cheap table games. It used to spread $3 minimum Let-It-Ride. I've never seen than game for less than $5 minimum anywhere else.
Speaking of Let-It-Ride, I was staying at the Circus Circus the first year the game was in Las Vegas, sometime in the mid-1980's. I hit 4oak twice that weekend - one with two cards held and one with all three held....haven't another LIR 4oak since then...
The first casino hotel I stayed at in Las Vegas was the Hacienda. That really was a decent place, something along the lines of the Gold Coast today. Back then, its strip location felt a bit like the South Point does today - it was waaaay down yonder. Long before I stayed at the Hacienda, the casino hotel had their own aircraft landing strip behind it. They used to run a regular schedule of junket flights from California right onto their property. The government (the FAA?) put that to an end when the plane traffic reached a point that they thought the landing strip should be brought up to standards of an actual airport. ....probably a good idea, but the Hacienda didn't want to make that investment.
I played 10-cent roulette at the Klondike, across the street from Mandalay Bay. That joint was a real dive, but it was fun to hit with a group of friends.
I actually stayed one night at Vacation Village. It was the worst motel I've ever stayed at in the USA. I'm probably the only person in the world who has checked out of a comped room at the new Aladdin to check in and pay for a room at Vacation Village. The room rent was $30 for the night. The deposit on the key for the room was $35 cash. In the casino they had a big wheel you could spin for free stuff. One of the slots on that wheel was free airfare. The casino would reimburse you for your plane ticket (up to $300 if I remember right) if your spin landed on that spot - had to spin within 24 hours of your arrival in Las Vegas. A $100 cash out on a video poker machine at the bar was a hand pay jackpot. The night I stayed there I was playing roulette with 50-cent chips and I was THE high roller at that full table - every other player was playing quarters.
I stayed in the old Stardust motel rooms off of Industrial Road a couple times. It was a hike to the casino, but parking in front of your room was convenient. I hate having to schlep my luggage through a casino when checking in or out. I really liked the Stardust. I had consistently better luck there than any other place in Las Vegas back in the day. On my first visit to Las Vegas, I was going to be there for four days/three nights. I brought a bankroll of $160 with me (a lot of money for me in 1976), and I had lost it all before noon of the second day. I was with friends, but was just able to follow them around and watch them gamble after I lost my bankroll. That wasn't much fun. We were at the Stardust that night. My friends were going to see a show. One of them bought me two $2 rolls of nickels, picked a nickel slot machine close to the main entrance to the Stardust, and told me to meet him and our friends there in two hours. They came back two hours later, and my $4 in nickels had grown to $17 in nickels. I cashed out and changed the nickels into dollar bills. They wanted to shoot some craps. That would be my first time at a craps table, but I had some knowledge, albeit limited, of how the game was played. The 4 of us stepped up to the table rails and bought in. I bought in for two $5 chips. I didn't place a bet until the dice came to me. I put one $5 chip on the pass line. I told the friend next to me that I was going to make 5 passes in a row, and I was going to press my pass line bet each time I won. I did exactly what I said I was going to do. I had the dice for maybe 10 minutes. I made quite a few other betters money during that 10 minutes. I pressed that $5 chip into $160 with my fifth win in a row, and waved the dice on to the next shooter. I colored up and walked away with my original Las Vegas bankroll! That was fun!
