Turning Back the Clock: The Dunes

Was never able to visit this hotel. I wondered what is was like inside.

Turning Back the Clock: The Dunes

Never stayed there but was old enough to visit their slice of pizza place when I first started coming to Vegas. Hands down the best pizza in Vegas at the time.

I can only tell you that towards the final few years, it was a gigantic dump.

Someday the Bellagio will be a dump.

At one time, their "Dome of the Sea" gourmet restaurant was one of the best in Vegas. I played my first poker at the Dunes.....a five stud game. I was only used to playing at home games at the time and in home games you didn't check raise. In those days, there was no steady rake, and they raked whatever they could get away with, so when I asked the manager what the rake was, he just shrugged his shoulders and didn't give me an answer. I sat down in the game, and noticed a player I knew from back in Jersey when he played in our home game. Well I got involved in a pot where I got dealt 2 Queens. Well I bet out and two players called. Next card the guy across from me caught a King, but checked his hand. I bet and two players called again. Final card, the King checked again and so did the next guy. I bet out, and the King checked raised me. I paid him off only to see him show me a pair of Kings. I was actually shocked he beat me since he hadn't been betting. Welcome to the world of Vegas poker.

Later on a regular there started to explain the rake to me. He told me a story of how he was sitting next to the dealer one day, and there was a drunk in the game. The dealer whispered to to the guy that he bet he could take 90% of the chips in the pot and the guy wouldn't even know it. Sure enough the drunk won the pot, and almost all the chips wound up in the dealers chip rack while he pushed the rest of the chips in the pot to the drunk. Drunk never knew what happened, and the dealer sure wasn't going to give it back to him. I guess that management didn't give a damn, and actually laughed about it while the game continued. That did it for me as far as playing poker in Vegas went, until they got more legitimate games years later.

Faye told me that she had her first cocktail waitress job at the Dunes when Schenker owned it. She dated his son Arthur. She said that one day when she was serving cocktails and got a terrible migrain. It was so bad that she started to pass out just when she was serving cocktails to the owners wife. She said she dumped the wife's martini all over her as she passed out. The woman was very forgiving as Faye was taken to the emergency room. They even let her keep her job.

Hit my first hand pay slot jackpot at the Dunes...$300. 1987 or '88.
Seemed like a million to me...nickel machine probably.
They still had a lot of the sultan theme around the casino.
My jackpot was 3 sultans of some sort.

Another old joint that I fondly remember, although not quite as well as the Sands and Stardust. Two things stand out from my long ago Dunes visits; played a lot of blackjack there and for some reason usually did pretty well, and, it was in their showroom that I saw my first Las Vegas topless showgirls, considered quite risque at the time.

Learned to play Craps here! Also found out just how damn hot vegas can be in the summer! We played 18 holes at the golf course that they owned behind the property. Was 108 it was hotttttt!

We stayed at the Dunes my first trip to Vegas. It was the 70's and I was underage so didn't do any gambling. And I don't remember much about the room - it was a family trip and my folks were paying. I do remember driving down the strip and seeing all the big names on the marquees - it was heaven!