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Posted on May 21, 2024May 21, 2024 by LVA — Leave a comment

The Chef Food Truck

Have you seen the 2014 film Chef, starring Jon Favreau and Sofia Vergara, with Scarlett Johannsen, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert Downey, Jr.? If not, the backstory on the Chef Truck, which opened earlier this year at Park MGM, will be lost on you, so here it is.

Actor, screenwriter, and director Jon Favreau collaborated with Roy Choi, celebrity chef and proprietor of the Korean-Mexican fusion restaurant Best Friend, also at Park MGM, to make the movie about a washed-up L.A. chef who restores a food truck in Miami; his somewhat estranged 10-year-old son tags along on the cross-country journey back to southern California, selling specialty Cubano sandwiches and tacos along the way.

Based on the friendship that developed between the two during the Chef experience, 10 years later Favreau and Choi teamed up again to launch the Chef Truck, a true-to-life replica of El Jefe, the truck in the movie, at Park MGM.

It’s a fairly elaborate operation, with the big food truck and its two windows for ordering and pickup, an order taker and two cooks, and a half-dozen tables in an alcove at the back.

Also, two miniature replicas of the truck from the movie are on display in Plexiglas cases, the highly detailed interior created with mirrors.

The menu consists of three Cubanos ($16-$17) and variations on the classic grilled ham-and-cheese between a torta bun; these are chicken and turkey; tofu, eggplant and portobello mushroom; and pork, ham, cheese. The Chef Truck also serves grilled cheese ($12), shrimp tacos ($13 for two), a pork bowl ($16), and plantain-chip nachos ($10). Sides include croissants ($5), mozzarella ($6) or ham and cheese croquettes ($7), and plantain chips ($7), plus four desserts ($6-$8).

We tried the chicken and turkey Cubano and the tacos. The tacos each come in two corn tortillas with a few chunks of pork and lots of julienned radishes and picked onions, and a big slice of lime. The sandwich was a little heavier and greasier than we would’ve preferred. All in all, the food was serviceable, about what you’d expect from a food truck in a casino — pricey, somewhat generic, but plenty of it. With tax and tip, the bill came to $33.

It’s very popular for lunch. We spent perhaps a half-hour checking it out around 2 p.m. on a Thursday and there was a line the whole time. Our order took around 20 minutes to arrive.

Chef Food Truck is located just beyond the casino on the way to the Aria Express tram across from Starbucks. It’s open 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Posted on May 11, 2024May 21, 2024 by LVA Guest — 3 Comments

Free Buffet at the Wynn

[Editor’s Note: This trip report was sent to us by frequent LVA correspondent extraordinaire, Peter B, who took advantage of his Platinum status at the Wynn, which includes a free buffet for two during the month of members’ birthdays. Platinum is the second tier in the Wynn Rewards system (between Red and Black); earn 7,000 tier credits and you’re in. Get the details here. Other Platinum benefits include free self-parking, $10 birthday freeplay, priority seating at the buffet, two Wynn Master Classes for two, and a $100 spa credit.]

I just enjoyed my Wynn birthday-month Platinum comped $150 comp at the buffet. It’s not as big as the Bacchanal at Caesars Palace, but as far as I’m concerned, quality prevails over quantity. There are no big Asian or Latino sections, but that’s not what I’m looking for at at high-end buffet. There’s a salad bar, but who wants to pay $75 for rabbit food? I go for the protein.

The Wynn is generously matching tier with Caesars Platinum (free with no annual fee VISA card) and Fontainebleau Silver. For MGM Pearl (no-annual-fee MasterCard)and Mirage Legend (free for NV locals), you have to make a little detour through Silver, but once you’re on the “upgrade tour,” you’ll be able to figure it out. This is good through the end of May. Here are Wynn’s rules.

The Wynn Platinum card is good until 1/31/2025. To get the birthday-month $150 credit, show your players card and driver’s license at the Rewards desk and tell them where you want to spend it.

The line for walk-ins was long and though the one for people with pre-paid reservations was shorter, flashing my Platinum card allow me to skip both and I got seated almost immediately. Good to be a VIP.

The seafood section was great: cold Maine lobster and Dungeness crab claws, steamed snow crab legs, large cocktail prawns, sushi, and much more. Even cute little caviar thingies. This is my little seafood appetizer with lobster claws, Dungeness crab legs and jumbo prawns.

Carving station has excellent garlic-infused prime rib, filet mignon, leg of lamb, all perfectly cooked. The filet mignon was very tender and lean, one of the best cuts of beef I’ve ever had at a buffet. Ask for medium rare from the center or more done from the end.

These are the cute little caviar bites. The orange is actually salmon roe on an edible spoon.

Tip: Most buffets have little plastic or metal cups for the cocktail sauce, jus, horseradish, salad dressing, drawn butter, etc. at the various stations. Not so much at the Wynn, but you can pick up an empty glass cup at the steamed crab leg station and fill it up from the big container.

I don’t care much about filling up on bread, pasta, and pizza, but it did all look good.

Unlike in previous years, the $150 birthday-month dinner credit now covers only the food, so it’s enough for two at $74.99 apiece (no sales tax on comps). Alcoholic drinks are extra. I opted for the endless pour, which came down to about $40 with tax and tip. When I asked for a drink with the nice birthday dessert surprise tray they gave me, burning candle included, the waitress told me I was two minutes over the two-hour time limit. But she asked her supervisor and got me a big cup of Prosecco to go anyway.

The Wynn is one of those few places where the customer is still king. You can get just about anything, as long as it’s a reasonable request.

At the end, they gave me a birthday dessert platter with gold-like glitters and a burning candle. No singing, fortunately!

Self parking: Insert your Platinum or higher card at the entry gate and it opens, no ticket. Do the same when you exit. Best to park on the second floor, so you don’t have to take an elevator to casino level.

Funny observation: Several guys throughout the place have big signs reading “Knowledge.” Apparently, they’re there to help first-time visitors find their way.

The Lake of Dreams has a bunch of new shows, every half-hour after dark. Not many people know about it. They’re free to watch from the balcony behind the front desk.

Posted on May 6, 2024May 6, 2024 by David Mckee — Leave a comment

DraftKings crushes it, Penn crushed

“King of the beat and raise,” proclaimed Truist Securities analyst Barry Jonas when DraftKings came out with its 1Q24 numbers. Jason Robins’ company “provided a bright spot in an otherwise dim Q1 earnings season so far.” How so? It delivered positive ROI of $22.5 million, which was 3X to 4X of what Wall Street boffins were anticipating. Not even lackluster March Madness hold kept DraftKings down. The company is projecting 3% higher revenue and 9% greater cash flow for the remainder of 2024, with a potential ROI of as much as $540 million.

Posted on April 5, 2024August 22, 2024 by 888 Casino — Leave a comment

WRONG BETTING: A CRAPS PLAYER’S GUIDE TO THE ‘DARK SIDE’

This post is syndicated by the Las Vegas Advisor for the 888 casino group. Anthony Curtis comments on the 888 article introduced and linked to on this page.

AC says:

The focus of this article is betting the don’t side in craps, but the coverage also explains how the pass side works. The main takeaway is that betting the don’t side, even though most crap players bet the other way with the shooter, is usually the way to play with the lowest house edge. The chart clearly makes that point and is a good reference for finding the house edges on those bets. The article doesn’t cover prop bets, which have much higher house edges. Note that there are a couple of editing mistakes. In the fourth paragraph under “Don’t Pass,” it should state that pass bettors lose if the comeout roll is a 12. And in the third paragraph under “Don’t Place or Lay Bets,” the sentence should be completed with … $20 to win $10 against 4 or 10.

This article was written by John Grochowski in association with 888Casino.

WRONG BETTING: A CRAPS PLAYER’S GUIDE TO THE ‘DARK SIDE’

For many players, the prospect of winning together is part of the fun in playing craps and most players bet with the shooter. But some players simply want the best odds for their money and in craps, that comes with betting opposite the shooter.

Wager including don’t pass, don’t come, lay bets, and don’t place bets are collectively known as the “Dark Side,” and those who make them sometimes are called “wrong” bettors as opposed to “right” bettors who bet with the shooter.

If anything, playing the Dark Side is easier for online casino players than for those who play craps at live casinos. Online craps players don’t have to endure taunts or glares from those betting the other way.

Continue reading …

Posted on March 12, 2024March 4, 2024 by Deke Castleman — Leave a comment

Smoke and Mirrors: Las Vegas’ First Non-Tribal Cannabis Consumption Lounge

[Editor’s Note: This review is written by Chris Kudialis, author of our recent book Weed and Loathing in Las Vegas — The Cannabis Economy Comes to Sin City. The book is a fun, colorful, and fast read that explores La Vegas’ explosion over the past several years as the Cannabis Capital of the U.S. It also spotlights the shady politics, regulatory corruption, casino clout, anointed players, and moneybags behind the new billion-dollar business. Chris is one of the leading experts on cannabis politics and practicalities in Nevada, so he was the perfect guy to review Las Vegas’ first state-approved cannabis consumption lounge.]

Smoke and Mirrors, located inside Thrive Dispensary on 2975 S. Sammy Davis Drive just one block west of the Strip, on Feb. 23 became Nevada’s first state-licensed cannabis consumption lounge to open for business.

The new “consumption club” is essentially a more upscale version of the tribal-owned Sky High Lounge (the revamped Vegas Tasting Room) on Las Vegas Paiute land less than a mile north of the Fremont Street Experience; that one opened way back in 2019, not needing state approval, since it’s on the reservation.

Smoke and Mirrors serves more expensive and more elaborate menu items in a better-ventilated venue with more nicely dressed and more courteous staff, better furniture, and less blasting of top 40 music. If Sky High is the PT’s Pub or PT’s Gold of weed lounges, Smoke and Mirrors is the Downtown Cocktail Room. No added frills or stuffiness, per se, S&M just exudes a more peaceful, comfortable, and welcoming vibe.

It has so far made a name for itself, perhaps surprisingly, with its unique variety of 12 THC-infused cocktails — not necessarily its array of more than 20 top-shelf marijuana flower strains to smoke or its four concentrate varieties to dab.

S&M owner Chris LaPorte, a Brooklyn native and the mastermind behind the now-shuttered Insert Coins booze arcade in downtown Las Vegas, named the cocktails after Vegas-linked influencers in both cannabis and music. He credits some of his weed lounge’s early success to that marketing.

“The Godfather” is Smoke & Mirrors’ most popular cocktail and honors weed visionary Tick Segerblom with a Sobreo-brand mixer, blueberry puree, lime and pineapple juice, agave nectar, and basil leaves. The lounge’s next most-popular drink, “Evolve,” salutes Vegas-born pop group Imagine Dragons by combining the elements of an apple pie and a hot toddy with Sobreo cinnamon, apple juice, vanilla syrup, a dehydrated apple, and a cinnamon stick.

The 1,300-square-foot lounge serves its drinks with flavorless THC infusions of up to 10 mg per cocktail. You’ll pay a pretty penny for the max-strength 10 mg, though: $30 (before tip). S&M also offers 5 mg and 2.5 mg THC strengths for $23 and $19, or a virgin option for $15. Flower comes in up to an eighth-ounce for as much as $75, while the four concentrates are all about a seventh of a gram and cost $20 each.

Of course, Smoke and Mirrors is not without its flaws. In my most recent visit, the staff asked me to change my table twice, the cocktails took more than 20 minutes to arrive despite being one of the first orders of the day, and the check took just as long to process; the team’s receipt-printing machine wasn’t working.

LaPorte readily admits Smoke and Mirrors’ first few weeks were anything but perfect, as his team of 20 total employees work to iron out the operational wrinkles that inevitably come with opening a first-of-its-kind business in a one-of-a-kind cannabis regulatory environment. Within a few months, though, he expects “a totally new” experience, hence the name Smoke and Mirrors.

“We want to keep people on their toes, curious and excited, but regularly surprised and never sure what’s coming here next,” he told me.

The lounge is similar to dispensaries, in that only adults 21 and older can enter. LaPorte and company can host up to 80 people at once. S&M doesn’t require a reservation, but LaPorte said they’ve been pushing reservations in the lounge’s early days to help meet demand and ensure walk-ins don’t get turned away. You can’t bring in your own weed and state law prevents Smoke and Mirrors from also serving alcohol.

The team will turn away anyone who its hostesses deem too “messed up” to enter, though LaPorte said they’ve yet to deny any customers for that reason through nearly two weeks of being open. S&M allows patrons who get too stoned on the lounge’s products can leave their cars behind for up to 24 hours in its shared parking lot with Thrive.

S&M opens every day except Monday, from 4 p.m. to midnight on Tuesday and Wednesday and noon to midnight on Thursday through Sunday. LaPorte says those hours will likely soon expand.

Posted on November 23, 2023 by David Mckee — Leave a comment

Giving thanks

BLACKJACK OR PONTOON? UNDERSTANDING THE UNIQUE ASPECTS OF EACH GAME

It’s that time of the year when we give thanks to those in and around the casino industry who make our job that much more gratifying. So, in no particular order …

Las Vegas Golden Knights and Las Vegas Aces: A Stanley Cup and a (second) WNBA championship. ‘Nuff said.

Culinary Union and United Auto Workers: For bringing better standards of living to the Las Vegas Strip and to Detroit.

Posted on October 3, 2022January 25, 2024 by Arnold Snyder — Leave a comment

According to Snyder . . .

The Radical Blackjack Story . . .

I had made my living for more than 25 years from blackjack, primarily by writing about it, but also by playing the game to formulate and test theories, while making money in the process. But I haven’t written a book about blackjack since The Big Book of Blackjack, which was published in 2006.

A good portion of Radical Blackjack was written ten years ago and it was even offered for sale on Amazon in 2013. But I decided to hold off on publishing it, partly because I felt some of the material was too sensitive, and partly because I needed to do a lot of analyses on the rebate material and I didn’t have access to the software I needed to do it.

Radical Blackjack contains a lot of my personal gambling secrets, plus secrets I learned from other pro gamblers. The version of this book that was almost published in 2013 was a much different book from this 2021 version. In fact, the prior unpublished manuscript was a lot less radical. In that version, I used pseudonyms for most of the characters—many of whom are well-known pro players, authors, and experts in the Blackjack Hall of Fame. I was also very careful in that 2013 version of this book not to reveal too much about the actual plays and strategies, many of which had never been published, or at least, not in any great detail. I did write in detail about my own discoveries and experiences, especially with regards to shuffle tracking, loss rebate plays, and online gambling, But I left a lot of details out on plays I was involved in, but had mostly learned from other pros.

But my Huntington Press publisher and longtime friend, Anthony Curtis, encouraged me to go ahead and use the real names of the characters in the stories I told because it would make the book better. He said we could just run everything by those whose names were revealed to make sure we weren’t stepping on anybody’s toes. So, I started changing pseudonyms to real names, and once I started doing that, I figured what the hell, since we’re going to run the whole thing by these guys anyway, I might as well tell a whole lot more of the story, since they would be offered the right to veto anything about them or their strategies they didn’t want in print.

It didn’t surprise me that some players wanted to remain anonymous, requesting pseudonyms. But many said, fine, use my name. What really surprised me was that the players who were vetting this book requested very few cuts regarding the details of the tactics and strategies that we used, many of which have never been exposed in print. So, Radical Blackjack should prove to be one hell of a revelation for many serious students of the game.

Rather than attempt to describe the contents of Radical Blackjack, I’ll just post a version of the Table of Contents here. I put this together by listing the chapter titles, headings and subheadings. Information on purchasing the book follows.

1 Shuffle Tracking

Does Shuffle Tracking Work in Today’s Casinos?
What Is Shuffle Tracking?
Shuffle-Hopping at the Calgary Stampede
One Good Slug
Hammering the Lakeside Inn
Playing for the Camera at the Atlantis in Reno
Outrageous Favors at John Ascuaga’s Nugget
Winning Big and Getting the Boot at Palace Station
Tracking with the Dealer’s Help at the Tropicana in Atlantic City
Dodging the Cutoff Plugs at Paris
Going South
Short-Shoed at a Sawdust Joint

2 Radical Camouflage

Beating High-Tech Surveillance
The Griffin Snitches
Hot Game Reports
Ambush Warning for the Greeks
Cellini: The Ultimate Double Agent
Back to Beating Blackjack Survey Voice
The Insurance Flaw in the Survey Voice Software
The Double-Down Flaw in the Survey Voice Software
Keep Track of Your Camo Costs
Will These Techniques Work Today?

3 Playing with a Partner

Pillaging Aladdin’s London Club
Enter the Rainbow People
Playing Multiple Simultaneous Hands
Using a Partner to Explain Your Nutty Logic
Radical Misplay Camouflage
Let’s Change the Order of the Cards

4 Milking Loss Rebates

The Legend of Don Johnson
The $140,000 Shoe
The Insane Super Bowl Comp
The Comp to Beat All Comps
How to Win by Losing
Rebate Theory (Oversimplified)
Overall Value of Loss Rebates to a Winning Player
The Camouflage Value of Loss Rebates
The Best Rebate Strategy to Maximize Dollar Wins
The Time Factor
The Terrible’s Loss Rebate for Low-Rollers
The Aladdin Rebate Deal
The MGM Grand’s Loss Rebate
The Real World Chart
The Paris Casino’s Two-Tier Loss Rebate
Like Tarzan Swinging from Vine to Vine
Bet-Sizing and Bankroll Requirements for Loss-Rebate Games
Getting a Rebate on a Win at Stratosphere
Loss Rebates at Other Games for Low(er) Rollers

5 Playing on Other People’s Money

Max Sends Me to Play the Tribal Casinos in California
“Mr. F” Backs Me to Attack the Big Rebate Games
The Blackjack Forum Dream Team
Avery Cardoza Backs Me in WSOP Tournaments

6 Hole-Card Play

Illegal Hole Card Strategies
Obsolete Hole-Card Strategies Worth Knowing About
Spooking
Tell Play
Einbinder and Dalben
Steve Forte’s Last Big Play
Playing Warps
Steering Strategies
Legal and Still Viable Hole-card Strategies
Can Hole Carding Be Learned?
“The Turn”—a Legal Hole-Card and Steering Strategy
A Bit of History
Tips on the Turn
Is the Turn Legal at Blackjack?
The Easiest Hole-Card Play of All

7 Beating the Online Casinos

A Better Kind of Loss Rebate Play

8 Off-the-Wall Outtakes, Tangents, and Gossip

How Jesse Morgan Became James Grosjean
Everyone Knows Munchkin
How Henry Tamburin Saved Tommy Hyland’s Teammates from Prison
Why Revere Tricked His Students into Returning for More Lessons
Whatever Happened to Keith Taft’s Computer Shoes?
Jack Newton’s Story About a Big-Money Roulette Play
Wheelin’ and Dealin’ with Ken Uston
The Night Al Francesco Showed Up at My Apartment
Stanford Wong’s Secret Advantage Play on Lodging in Vegas
An Unauthorized Review by Peter Griffin
Bill Benter’s Book Gets Trashed on Amazon
My Dinner with Julian Braun
The Mysterious Ian Andersen
Bob Loeb and the FBI