July 18th, 2020

“We’ll never move to Las Vegas; where would we go on vacation?”

That was the answer I gave to questions for years: “You go to Vegas all the time and stay for weeks on end.  Why don’t you just move there?”

However, we had learned a key principle for successful casino gambling – flexibility.  Casinos are constantly changing.  I always said to never “marry” a casino but just have temporary “affairs.”  Good promotions come – then go.  New good games come in. Old video poker schedules are downgraded.  Helpful hosts retire or move to another casino home.  Casinos bring in new executives with new policies. A wise player has to be evaluating and adjusting constantly. We were finding it difficult to keep up with all the changes when we were doing our in-and-out Vegas visits.

But perhaps more to the point, Brad and I were changing.  When we had started this journey 16 years earlier, we thought staying in hotels for many days a year, with daily maid service and never having to cook, was a glamorous lifestyle.  But now in 1999, at ages 60 and 67, we were getting tired of schlepping our suitcases from hotel to hotel every few days, never knowing in the morning in what drawer to find our underwear. Plus being able to stay put in a friend’s condo the last two winters had shown us the many advantages a local life had over being just a tourist.  One of the best would be the ability to have a wider choice of good play opportunities when we didn’t have to “play for our bed” in the hotel where we were staying.

We looked at our financial situation.  It was very strong thanks to increasing profits as we had slowly progressed from quarter to dollar video poker for the last eight years.  We had enough savings to buy a nice 2-bedroom condo just a couple miles from the Strip – we called it “The House That VP Bought.”

Brad and I rarely make snap decisions.  We looked thoughtfully at all the facts when we switched our core game from BJ to VP.  We were extremely slow in going up in denomination.  And when we decided to buy the Vegas condo, we also decided we would not sell our home in Indianapolis – just in case we found living in Vegas wasn’t as good as we had thought.  Our plan was to stay in Vegas most of the year, but go back to Indy for the summers to escape the Vegas “oven.”

We kept to that plan for one year, but finding it hard to leave “all those good Vegas promotions” when it was time to drive back to Indiana.  And once back, we would hurriedly unpack the car in the evening, repack a small bag so we could start up early the next morning to take advantage of “good plays” on the riverboats in Illinois.  Brad said it would make more financial sense when we came back home if we just stayed at the Hyatt Regency the few days that we were in town rather than keep up a 2^nd place.  So, the next summer when we went back to Indianapolis, we had a huge garage sale and sold that condo.

We never regretted becoming permanent Las Vegas locals. We were in the middle of what I now call the Golden Age of Video Poker.  Comps were gushing from casino play those days, many of them including luxurious travel options. Some Vegas casinos had sister properties in other parts of the country where we would be comped to deluxe accommodations, gourmet dining, and sightseeing experiences.  We could take the family to ski in Tahoe, to throw beads in the Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans, to tour the Memphis home of Elvis.  We could cross the country to visit casinos and sightsee in Chicagoland, Mississippi, and Atlantic City.  And cruises – casinos were giving them away right and left – to Mexico and Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, New England, Alaska.

Back when you really dressed up to attend the Captain’s Cocktail Party on a cruise.

No, moving to Las Vegas didn’t spoil our love for travel.  We were never at a loss for alternate vacation destinations!