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Bobby Vegas: Living Well Anywhere Anytime

Bobby Vegas: Friends Don’t Let Friends Play Triple-Zero Roulette

I’m a stone cold Vegas nut and I actually live on Dare Street in Raleigh, North Carolina. Raleigh has been in the top five places to live for the past 25 years. I’ve lived here 23 years and still love it.

We have incredible tree cover (The City of Oaks) and on New Years we drop a giant acorn designed by my artist buddy Dave from Third Place Coffee. My yard is full of birds and squirrels. We have long springs (it’s cool and wet today), long gorgeous falls, and in summer we’re a few hours to some of the best beaches anywhere — Outer Banks, Crystal Coast, and Wrightsville — and the mountains to the west. Our 400-acre Dix park is one of the largest city parks in the USA and right behind it, the State farmers market runs seven days a week.

This holiday I was at the NC State Fairgrounds’ weekly flea market, hunting vintage vinyl (and bought a silver money clip; now THAT’S old school, my friends). I picked up 25 albums for $1 each, such classics as Nat King Cole Live at the Sands, Jackie Wilson Live at the Copa, Diana Ross, Herbert Mann, Dionne Warwick, and many more. Score!

The nearest casino is in Danville, Virginia, 90 minutes away (Caesars … yawwwnn). Which is one of the many reasons I love Las Vegas. We have easy access to an international airport (RDU) with a Wright Bros.-inspired design. Southwest flies nonstops to Vegas, along with American and Delta.

Yes, things are getting pricey there and everywhere. So? Watcha gonna do about it? Complain? Raise backyard chickens? (In Raleigh, you can.)

Or … Myself, I subscribe to “triangle on the cheap.”

Eggs are cheapest at Trader Joes. Yes, we have Aldi, Lidl, and Costco. At Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Tuesday’s are $6 movies. I’m going to see Mission Impossible today. It’s $13 at the Regal.

Besides our original real Southern diners, Watkins Grill and Pam’s Farmhouse restaurant, we have Snoopy’s, where on Tuesdays it’s 2-for-1 hot dogs. Cook Out (our In n Out”) has them every day, with 50 flavors of milkshakes. And how about Fresh Market’s Thursday $5 sushi, $5 shrimp cocktail, and $6 roast chickens?

To top it all off, there’s the amazing $2 half-pound Monday burger deal just 5 blocks from my house and next to our historic 5 Points Raleigh Rialto Theatre, home of Indy movies, comedy, great music, and one of the longest running Rocky Horror Picture Show’s in the U.S., having played at least once a month for decades. It’s been there so long, the children and grandchildren of folks who used to go now go see it. Yeah, we’re that hip … or crazy .. or both.

What local bargain-hunter resources do you enjoy? It would be interesting to have folks comment on their favorite local value play. Tell us about your favorite local deals

Because while you’re waiting on your next Vegas jaunt, ya gotta have a good time, right? And keep your scuffling chops sharp.

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Cruel April for Strip

Baccarat. That was April’s magic word for the Las Vegas Strip, as revenues from the volatile game kept Strip casinos out of the crapper. Baccarat winnings (or losses, if you were a high roller) soared 41% to $108 million on 17% more wagering. That helped mask some very worrisome data as the Strip sagged 3%, its eighth down month out of the last nine.

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Flamingo Go Pool Reopens

The pool complex at the Flamingo, which opened in the mid-’90s after the original four-story Oregon Building was demolished, has reopened following a $20 million overhaul. Given the status of the work in May, we made the over/under June 20 for completion, but credit to CET for getting it done well before that date. The following report comes from Conrad Stanley.

The adults-only Go Pool added two new pools to bring the total to five, with a “wet deck” (shallow pool where sunbathers can lounge on chaises in the water), a cenote-like cave area with a small infinity pool and skylight, plenty of mature palm trees, a wraparound bar, a swim-up bar, and a DJ spinning tunes nonstop. The Family (all ages) Pool remains pretty much the same.

Food is available from the poolside restaurant: granola and yogurt bowl $15, breakfast croissant or burrito $20, chicken Caesar $20, loaded fries or nachos $23, burger $24, and family platters (nachos, tenders, or sliders) $90.

Beers $12.99 each or a bucket of six for $76.99. Most are 16-ounce cans or aluminum bottles, though Corona, Modelo, Pacifica, and a handful of craft beers and seltzers don’t produce 16 ouncers, so the 12 ouncers go for the same price. The best play is Heineken 16-ounce aluminum bottles. Cocktails are $23.99 for a small and $39.99 for a large.

You can reserve daybeds (basically, double chaise lounges under umbrellas) and cabanas at both the Go and Family pools, starting at $65 for a weekday-morning daybed (9-11:30 a.m., four guests) at the Family Pool and going up to $750 for a weekend full-day super cabana (11 a.m.-6 p.m., 10 guests) at VIP pools #2 and #3.

GO Pool joins the Palms pool as the two at major resorts that are free and open to the public; you don’t have to be a Flamingo guest to get in. But definitely show up as early as you can (it opens at 9 a.m.) to secure a free lounge chair, but don’t expect a relaxing afternoon. It’s more of a pool party than a quiet swim. And don’t forget that unless you walk in (or take public or private transportation), you’ll have to pay for parking.

We suspect that these pools will be busier than ever this summer, hitting the maximum according to the fire code very early, then hotel guests at the Flamingo and other Caesars properties will have priority. We’ll keep you posted on those details when or if they develop.

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Missions Impossible

Penn Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden may have played quarterback at Harvard University but when goes up against activist investors he’s out of his league. Specifically, the dissident firm of HG Vora laid out a 115-page beatdown, part of its campaign to gain leverage on Penn’s corporate board. It faulted Penn for “poor strategic decisions, failed transactions and poor execution.” Can’t argue with a word of that.

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A Closer Look at the NSU Puzzler

Bob Dancer

Last week my blog consisted of five mini-blogs. Each of these was about something I wanted to say but none was worth an entire column.

The last of these, changing notation slightly, was that you were playing NSU Deuces Wild and were dealt W45K as your first four cards, where the W represents a deuce and bold italics represent the cards that are suited with each other. Last week I called them all spades. It doesn’t really matter, but I’ll keep that true this week because it will simplify the answer. The question was: Of the possible 48 cards remaining in the deck, how many of them make the proper hold for the hand be exactly W45?

After I prepared that blog, but before it was published, I asked the same question to a couple of player-friends. They each had several answers/guesses and didn’t get the correct answer until I suggested they look it up on computer software. Before going on, I’ll be talking about relatively advanced concepts today. If you’re a beginning player, trying to learn advanced concepts before you have mastered the basics can mess up your learning process. You’ve been warned!

First let me give you how to play each of the 48 possible hands, and then I’ll tell you why. The dollar figures on each line tell you how much of an error it would be if you played W45 and you were playing for dollars, five coins at a time.

9 cards — any spade gives you a five-card flush. $10.31

3 cards — any deuce makes the correct play WW45. $15.65

9 cards — any 4, 5, or K gives you 3-of-a-kind. $4.78

15 cards — any non-spade A, 3, 6, 7, or 8 gives you a hand where the solitary deuce is the correct hold because these cards provide a straight penalty and the original K penalty . Between 9 cents and 20 cents, depending on which card we’re talking about

9 cards — any non-spade 9, J, or Q also gives you a correct hold of the deuce by itself because of “Power of the Pack” reasons and the possibility of a wild royal flush. Between 0.6 cents and 1.5 cents, depending on which card we’re talking about.

3 cards — any non-spade T makes the correct hold W45. Better than the solitary deuce by 0.9 cents. So, the correct answer was 3 out of 48 cards.

Now let’s talk about it. For the first three categories: the flush, 3-of-a-kind, and WW45, I’m not going to discuss any further. They should be obvious to all readers of a video poker column.

The next category, any A, 3, 6, 7, or 8 which are all straight penalties to W45, plus the king of spades which is a flush penalty. In Level 4 strategy on both the Dancer Daily strategy card and the Winner’s Guide, it says hold the deuce itself when there is both a flush and straight penalty. 

The next category, any 9, J, or Q, has Power of the Pack considerations. In the Winner’s Guides, we used the term “Pack” to indicate the remaining cards after the first five have been dealt. Here I’m slightly modifying that to indicate the remaining cards after the first four have been dealt.

When you are considering one or more deuces by themselves, the more cards that are already dealt at the extremes of the A3456789TJQKA continuum, the more likely you are to end up with a straight or straight flush with the cards remaining in the pack.

The king itself is the critical card here. For this rule to apply the cards must specifically be KQ, KJ, or K9, with one of them suited with the W45.

The reason why W45K T has a different play than W45K 9 is that the T interferes with wild royal flushes when you hold the deuce by itself. Out of the 178,365 possible draws from that deuce, 192 of them form a wild royal when you are dealt a T and throw it away compared to 236 of them form a wild royal when you are dealt a 9 and throw it away.

As we already mentioned, the flush and straight penalty cards lead to an error of between 9 cents and 20 cents. For some players, that is too small to worry about. I understand. For recreational players, going through the trouble to learn, memorize, and recall this penalty card situation is more trouble than it’s worth. Especially since it’s a relatively rare hand. Still, to me this a MAJOR ERROR, far larger than I’m willing to voluntarily put up with.

The Power of the Pack considerations at the end are all worth less than two cents. Which is why these corrections were listed in the appendix to the Winner’s Guide while the rule including flush and straight penalties was listed in our Level 4 Advanced strategy. 

Even though it’s not always worth a whole lot, I have all of these rules memorized and apply them whenever they arise. Part of this is because I play for larger stakes than $1, five coins at a time. Part of it is because, in spring 2025, coin-in on this game is probably more than 50% of all my gambling activity. And part of it is just my outlook on gambling — if I’m going to do it, I look for every legal edge I can get.

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Bobby Vegas: Points on Points

Bobby Vegas: Friends Don’t Let Friends Play Triple-Zero Roulette

Want $1,000 for your next Vegas trip? It starts at home with the two of the five P’s — proper planning.

A recent Chase credit card promo for 100,000 points that was featured in LVA just ended. If you caught this, it’s a real winner. Those points are worth $1,000 or more. If you missed it, many promos throughout the year are worth grabbing.

I’m a big fan of Chase rewards points, along with a Chase Southwest card. Together they’ve provided me free flights, rental cars with free insurance, and more. Yeah, rentals are my big splurge, but they’ve paid off many times over. Case in point, I get to drive out to Rainbow and Emerald Island in Henderson, where good values abound.

The Chase promo required $5,000 in charges in three months. Paying food, gas, utilities, and other expenses got me there. Of course, it’s important to pay off your card every month to avoid the vicious interest rates, but if you’re charging basics, like food, gas, utilities, and other routine expenses, it should be easy.

When you book through the Chase travel portal, you get a 25% bonus. Let’s say your flight is $400. You use $300 in points. Nice.

I work the systems to get my one week trip to Vegas, complete with air, car, and hotel, for around $600. Yes, for the whole week. At that point, I’m $1,000 ahead even before I’ve landed.

Some folks like the comp route and if that works for you, fine. As for me, I don’t want to be obligated to a casino for playing several hours a day for comped RFB. I live by “stay where I want to stay and play where I want to play.”

I may stay at the Downtown Grand and play some, but will play more at Four Queens, Plaza, and out to Rainbow or somewhere else where the video poker is richer and the points promos are sweeter.

Downtown, your Southwest boarding pass is worth free matchplays at The D and El Cortez. Southwest has nonstops from my Raleigh airport several times a week and no baggage fee when using your Southwest Chase card.

I often do a one way on points to Vegas (Southwest) and a red eye back on another airline, which I prefer, as I don’t like wasting the whole day in the air. And leaving late gives me that whole last day.

If you missed the Chase $1,000 deal, there are still great offers. I find sites like Points Guy excellent resources to keep up on them.

At least once a year, Southwest has card deals where you can easily qualify for a free companion pass for a year. This amazing bonus can easily run $750 to $1,000 in value and that’s on top of your free points. I used to fly on points and my wife on a free companion pass. Again, we saved $750 to $1,000 before we landed.

So work the systems, folks.

You can create a bankroll from savings with proper planning. It’s a great feeling to be ahead $1,000 before you land.

Enjoy!

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Up in Smoke

Downtown Grand CEO Seth Schorr is nobody’s idea of a stoner. We’ve met him a few times and never observed Schorr to sport Rastafarian dreadlocks nor light up a spliff. But the Downtown Grand boss would rather be blowing smoke than (as his casino is currently doing) sucking wind. Nobody wants to buy the place, even though it’s been on the market for aeons. Nor do they want to go there. If you want some peace and quiet in Las Vegas, try the Grand’s gaming floor.

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An Interesting Slot Club Plus Other Thoughts

Bob Dancer

I received a strange email from a reader. I’m not 100% positive what I’m telling him is correct, but it’s what makes sense to me. Here it is:

I play slots and get weekly free play from MGM Grand and related properties in Las Vegas. If I redeem the free play at the MGM itself, it’s $100. If I redeem it at Park MGM, Aria, or any other MGM property on the west side of Las Vegas Boulevard, it’s $125. What gives?

The most likely explanation for this, in my opinion, is that the MGM Grand itself has looser slots than the other MGM properties. Assuming you’re going to play $20,000 or so through the machine when you come in (in order to keep getting the mailer), they’d rather you do it at the casinos with the tighter slots — so they reward you for doing so.

If you know about beating slots, shade your strike numbers depending on which side of the street you’re playing on. That is, if there was a game where you normally look for the minor being at least 17 before you play, use that number at the MGM Grand and 18 or 19 across the street.

Depending on how much you value your time, it’s probably best if you cash your free play on the west side of the Strip and do the vast majority of your playing at the MGM Grand itself. Even though the properties are right across the street from each other, the casinos are so large it can be a 10- or 15-minute walk to get from one to the other.

So Long to an Old Friend

At the South Point, I’ve played 9/6 Jacks or Better on the Five Play Multi Strike machines for years. Denominated in quarters, it was a 100-coin game, so it took $25 to fully load. It was a 99.8% game. In early April they downgraded these machines to 9/5 Jacks or Better, which makes them too tight to be interesting to me.

Even when they had the good pay schedules, they had nickel and dime games on the same boxes that were much tighter, and even the quarter games other than Jacks or Better were pretty tight. 

There are plenty of other games to play at South Point, but I’m sorry to see these particular ones go.

So Long to Another Old Friend

At the Four Queens in downtown Las Vegas, the dollar 10-7 Double Bonus machines are now gone. They’ve been a fixture at this casino for at least 30 years. Playing 50 cent 9/6 Jacks single line may be the best video poker alternative. It’s still slightly positive with the slot club, mailers, and promotions.

A Seven Stars Perk

One of the benefits of being Seven Stars in the Caesars/Harrah’s/Eldorado system, at least if you’re in Nevada, is that you get a monthly $150 free bet from Caesars Sports Book when you bet $100 or more. You used to be able to use Reward Credits to qualify for this free bet, but no longer.

The free bet is set up so regardless if you win or lose, you do not get the initial wager back. That is, if you bet at -200, which means you should win two-thirds of the time (not counting for the vig), you’ll collect a total of $75 for that $150 free bet. If you only collect that bet two-thirds of the time, that means your free bet is worth $50.

If you bet at +200, which means you should win one-third of the time (not counting for the vig), you’ll collect $300. Collecting $300 one-third of the time means your free bet is worth $100. Much better! And it’s easy to conclude that betting underdogs using free bets is better than betting favorites. I generally find a bet between +250 and +350 for my free bet.

For my initial bet, I find a bet around -200. I’m not sure why, but a sports bettor I respect told me I give up the least vig that way. 

Since these bets are a relatively small part of my monthly betting budget, I can use these quick rules of thumb without knowing a lot about successful sports betting. These markets are efficient enough that, so long as I get the bonus bet, it’s basically a certainty that I’ll profit over time. While I did learn a little about successful sports betting from co-hosting the podcast where we interviewed a number of successful sports bettors, my “expertise” is limited and the rules of thumb presented here are satisfactory enough for me.

If they stop giving away the bonus bet, I’ll continue using RCs to bet. Since I get to bet the RCs at face value, even if I’m only playing a 94% game at the sports book, that’s much better than playing a 50% game by redeeming the RCs for free play. 

When I stay at a Caesars property, which I do when I’m out of town, the hosts must use my accumulated RCs before they are allowed to comp anything. Since I play enough to merit being comped, I zero out my RCs at the sports book before I leave because the RCs would disappear if I didn’t. Some of the bets will win, so I’m virtually guaranteed to profit over time if I do this.

An NSU Puzzler

You’re playing NSU Deuces Wild, and the first four cards dealt on a hand are a deuce, a four, a five, and a king —- all spades. Of the 48 equally likely cards that could be dealt as the fifth card, how many are there where the correct hold is deuce, four, five? 

Rather than give you the answer immediately, I’ll spend an entire column on this puzzler soon.