Anthony and Andrew are joined by casino superhost, Steve Cyr.
LAS VEGAS ADVISOR INTERVIEW – STEVE CYR
BAD CASINO GAMBLING ADVICE FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES
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:
Save for one point, I have no arguments with the advice given here. No betting system will allow you to beat a negative-expectation game. Blackjack basic strategy is the best way to play if you aren’t counting cards or otherwise have information that calls for departures. Most importantly, though, is the emphasis on slowing down play, which usually means playing the games at full tables. When you have an edge, you want speed. When you don’t, then slower is the goal. Bathroom breaks during play, not during the shuffle. Nice. As for the one disagreement mentioned above, I’m not sold on “dice control” as an actionable strategy in the real casino world. But that’s a whole other discussion.
This article was written by Frank Scoblete in association with 888Casino.
BAD CASINO GAMBLING ADVICE FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES
Everything in this article is absolutely true (meaning absolutely false) and the words come from the mouths of casino gamblers – adult casino players, not kids. However, the advice and opinions offered go from just bad to just horrendous and everything in between.
Too many casino players just have totally wrong opinions, and yet on some of these opinions those players just can’t let them go. Indeed, all the more horror for them if they cling to such falsehoods because it costs them a lot more in losses than they need to experience. In general, casinos don’t have such real horrors in their thinking for casinos it is just money in and money in.
LAS VEGAS ADVISOR WEEKLY UPDATE – EP 141
In this weeks video Anthony and Andrew talk about the presidential debate and the bets people are making.
Merry May for Strip, locals; Boardwalk blotter
It was a bouncy May for casinos both on the Las Vegas Strip and locally. The former was up 3.5%, reaching gambling revenue of $742.5 million. Locals casinos hopped 5% for a haul of $277.5 million. The Strip win was particularly impressive given that baccarat was down 6.5% to $122 million. The problem wasn’t hold percentage so much as a 2% dip in action. But other table games leapt 13% to $217.5 million on wagering that was 11% higher. Strip slots saw 6.5% more coin-in, to tally $403 million (+2.5%). Locals slots were up 3% to $229.5 million on 4.5% more action. Locals table win was $48 million, a 17% gain spurred by 16.5% higher wagering.
Continue reading Merry May for Strip, locals; Boardwalk blotterBuffet Update – July 2024
Bellagio – The Buffet at Bellagio: Sat & Sun Brunch is now 8 a.m.-1 p.m. instead of 8 a.m.-11 a.m. for $54.99. Sat & Sun Seafood Dinner is now 1 p.m.-8 p.m. instead of 11 a.m.-8 p.m. for $79.99.
Bellagio is the only MGM property, as of today, to incorporate a new “Line Pass” system. Go online to their website to reserve these dining ‘fast passes’ to skip the line at an increased price point. Pricing ranges from $20 – $30 more expensive than their walk up prices.
Caesars Palace – Bacchanal Buffet: Daily Dinner is now 4 p.m.-10 p.m. instead of 3 p.m.-10 p.m. for $84.99.
Circus Circus – Circus Buffet: This week’s buffet schedule is: Weekend Brunch is Friday-Sunday, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. for $24.95. Weekend Dinner is Friday-Sunday, 4:30 p.m.-10 p.m. for $24.95.
Rampart – Market Place Buffet: Lunch, Brunch, and Thurs-Sun Dinner increased by $1. Champagne Brunch Sat & Sun, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. is now $33.99; Lunch Mon-Fri, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. is now $21.99; Thurs-Sun Dinner is now $32.99. Mon & Tues Dinner increased by $5 and is now 4 p.m.-8 p.m. for $32.99.
Joints Don’t Last Forever
Six months ago, I underwent a total hip replacement. Recovery took some time, but I’m about 90% back. My physical therapy (PT) appointments ended some months ago, but I get plenty of exercise going up and down stairways in parking garages as I go to various casinos.
When I travel to out-of-town casinos, I’ll usually take a walker, both for use in the casino and also for “working” in the airport. If it’s a short trip, my only ‘luggage’ is a backpack. Vegas has a pretty sizeable airport, and for someone like me it takes two hours to check all the slot machines in all of the terminals. Having a walker to carry the backpack is very handy.
If the out-of-town casino is fairly large, using the walker to carry beverages, snacks, and other things is useful. I don’t ‘need’ the walker, but it has advantages I appreciate. I don’t walk up and down staircases when I have it, but I usually walk more than if I didn’t have the walker so that makes up for it somewhat.
Now that the hip is fixed, it’s time to take care of my left shoulder. I had arthroscopic surgery on my rotator cuff on June 18th. I also had pain in the bicep area on the same side. My orthopedist said he’d evaluate that when he had me opened up and would fix it if it needed repair it. Recovery would be longer and more painful if he had to sew up a bicep tear.
Turns out it was ‘only’ a bone spur irritating the bicep, so he fixed that while he was in there. I got lucky.
I’m writing the first draft of this blog about 24 hours after I was released. So far, so good. I need to take hydrocodone-acetaminophen for pain if needed for several weeks and also an antibiotic every six hours for three days. I took the first three doses of the narcotic and skipped the fourth because the pain was manageable, and these drugs have side effects. I still took the amount of Tylenol that was mixed with the narcotic because that’s supposed to help reduce swelling.
They gave me an interscalene nerve block which is supposed to help post-surgical pain. The average length of relief for someone my age/weight/severity of surgery is 12 hours or so, but each patient reacts differently. It might be that the nerve block was still working 20 hours after surgery when I skipped the hydrocodone. If the pain kicks back in, I’ll take a pill. It’ll take 30-60 minutes for the relief to begin. It won’t be a lot of fun, but using the minimum amount of narcotics is a goal that makes tolerating a bit of pain along the way acceptable.
Bonnie was a registered nurse for 40 years and is willing and able to help me with icing the shoulder and whatever else is needed. I won’t shower until 48 hours after the operation, and she’ll need to help me with that and getting dressed afterwards.
My first PT session is 12 hours after that shower, and I’ll be going 3x weekly for some time. Friends who’ve been through this tell me that the diligence required for shoulder PT is more important than for hip PT. I’m planning to do that, but I also realize that I don’t have a perfect track record on keeping with the plan.
I might do a follow-up blog about my shoulder if I feel there’s something interesting to say. Part of this will depend on what responses I get – if any.
Even after I heal as well as I’m going to, I won’t be done. I have arthritis in both thumbs and will see a different orthopedist in early August. I might get out of there with a steroid shot in each hand. It might be more serious. We’ll see.
Breakfast at Peppermill
The iconic and beloved Peppermill Restaurant and Fireside Lounge on the north Strip celebrated its 50th anniversary the day after Christmas 2022. It was one of six restaurants in the U.S. singled out earlier this year by the James Beard Foundation for an America’s Classics Award. The Foundation cited the Peppermill’s “welcoming atmosphere” and the long-time waitresses who know customers’ names. Indeed, the general manager started as a waitress in her teens and has been there for nearly the whole five decades of the restaurant’s history and her son is executive chef.
It’s a pilgrimage site for visiting old-timers who remember when it was one of the in places on the Boulevard and it garnered the number-one spot in two of our recent polls: the best restaurant for first-timers and the best breakfasts in the resort corridor.
Several items remain from the offerings on opening day 51-plus years ago, such as the fabulous fresh fruit salad (that comes with ice cream, house-baked banana-nut bread, and marshmallow sauce), the sinful French toast ambrosia, and of course the half-pound Peppermill burger. The adjoining Fireside Lounge is as cozy as it gets and that 64-ounce Scorpion starts or ends your Vegas party with a sting.
The Vegas Peppermill is one of six in Nevada; the other five are hotel-casinos: the flagship in Reno, Western Village in Sparks, and three in Wendover. They’re unmistakable for their design and décor, including big video screens with scenes from around the world, myriad concrete tree trunks and lush plastic foliage, Tiffany-style lamps, and pink and purple border tubing above the counters and along the walls. This restaurant also has big windows looking out to the Strip.
Even seating 232, it’s unbelievably busy. There are 32 parking spaces in front and 50 in back and they’re almost always full.
We hadn’t eaten there in a while and though we’ve done so countless times, we’d never reviewed it! In honor of the America’s Classics award, we went back for a late breakfast at noon on a Thursday.
It was an hour wait for a table, so we immediately seated ourselves at the 18-seat counter. It wasn’t exactly a relaxing meal, with 10 cooks bustling around the kitchen, eight waitresses rushing to and fro, loading up their hands and arms with a dozen huge heavy plates of food, clanking dishes and scraping silverware, but it sure beat waiting an hour for bacon and eggs.
Prices have crept up over the years, of course, but shrinkflation hasn’t come anywhere near the place; you either take half your meal back to your hotel room or finish for your one splurge of the day. These meals aren’t cheap, and note that the prices on the restaurant menu are different than the ones on the online menu, but if you want huge portions, the Peppermill is the place to get them.
We had the basic breakfast: three eggs, bacon, hash browns, and bagel ($23) and an a la carte raspberry-lemon muffin ($4.95), which came to $29.15 after tax and before tip. Hefty for breakfast for one, but It was also and lunch and dinner was necessarily light.
In 2015 in conjunction with the next-door Riviera closing and imploding, rumors swirled that the Peppermill might be in jeopardy from the LVCVA’s expansion juggernaut. But it was learned that the lease runs through 2027. So it’s not going anywhere anytime soon and there’s plenty of time to experience it anew.
Mad dogs and betting Englishmen
Have you heard about the big election-betting scandal? No, not here, you silly! In Great Britain, where the story’s been gathering more legs than a centipede. It seems that someone at 10 Downing Street shared the date (in advance of its announcement) of the July parliamentary election. And shared it rather indiscreetly. At first one, then two and now four (and counting) Conservative Party officials have been caught with their hands in the insider-tip jar.
Continue reading Mad dogs and betting EnglishmenNeon Museum
The original “boneyard” for broken, defunct, and replaced Las Vegas signs was behind the YESCO plant on Cameron Street just south of Tropicana, where they were forgotten and subject to elements and entropy. In 1996, the city of Las Vegas and the Allied Arts Council of Southern Nevada got together and established the Neon Museum to preserve this unique part of Las Vegas history. Today, the non-profit organization occupies a big piece of property on Las Vegas Blvd. just north of downtown, consisting of the old La Concha Motel lobby from the Strip, the two-acre Neon Boneyard, and the North Gallery.
For many years, we’d intended to review the Neon Museum and finally got around to it.
You check in at the La Concha building, where you can buy tickets or show your pass purchased online. From there, you walk into the main Boneyard, where more than 200 neon signs and other pieces from a couple of hundred Las Vegas properties are collected and displayed. To say that this is a wonderland of symbolic Las Vegas history is an epic understatement. It’s quite a thrill, even overwhelming to start, to lay eyes on these bright slices of the past; small or large, famous or obscure, monochrome or multicolored, they’re all as rare as they are fascinating.
Be sure to access the museum’s app via a sign with the QR code for the self-guided walking tour with 25 stops. The signs start just down the stairs and to the right of the gift shop and under the towering Hard Rock guitar; you walk the loop counterclockwise. In addition, informational signs along the path impart more historical details about what you’re seeing: signs from the Golden Nugget, Moulin Rouge (one of the biggest and brightest), Binion’s, Sassy Sally’s, several motels, a pool hall, a dry cleaners, a dairy (established 1907), the Green Shack restaurant (one of the longest lived in Vegas history), Treasure Island (a lying-down skull), wedding information, the Riviera and Sahara, even an Ugly Duckling (car rental).
It’s a dirt yard covered in gravel and since there’s a lot of wandering involved, it’s best to wear good walking shoes.
You can also pay for a tour led by highly knowledgeable guides. One idea is to do it on your own and perhaps catch some snippets from the guide or guides as you go; then, if you’re really into it, you can came back and take the tour.
Best is to come 20 minutes before sundown to see all the signs, including the ones that won’t be lit up; many aren’t. When it gets dark, you see all the illuminated signs — spectacular against the desert night sky and a new perspective. (You’ll also save by buying the daytime admission and taking it into the night.)
Another attraction at the Neon Museum is “Brilliant,” a 20-minute or so “audiovisual immersion experience” that takes place in the North Gallery. “Brilliant” reanimates 40 more vintage signs via eight projectors housed by the two Champagne-bubble cylinders designed to resemble the one from the original Flamingo; two dozen 3D speakers amplify the soundtrack of classic tunes about gambling and Las Vegas.
You gather in a park across the street from the lobby and at the appointed time, a guide takes you over to the North Gallery. The outside wall has a long mural depicting some historical moments that the guide describes; then he opens the gallery and you file into the first space to see a short video from the artist who put together the show. From there, you walk around to the outdoor “showroom” for the presentation.
After two hours on our feet touring the main Boneyard and waiting for “Brilliant” on a cold and windy early-spring evening, we didn’t enjoy as much as we could or should have. If you have to see everything, you should catch it, but if you don’t, you can probably miss it. (Here’s a link to the video.)
You leave the Neon Museum and drive south back into downtown and the neon night. As you pass all the historical signs installed along Las Vegas Blvd. and the original Glitter Gulch, you can’t help but be thankful that the museum is preserving this important part of Las Vegas’ past.
Daytime admission to the museum is $20 adult, $10 (7-17 years old), and $15 military; evening is $25/$12.50/$20. With the “Brilliant” package, add $17. The guided tour is another $8.
Bobby Vegas: Did Corporations Kill My Video Poker Star?
I almost titled this “My Video Poker Obituary,” but came to a different conclusion.
First, Rainbow cut its point promotion by two-thirds and halved the food-comp program. Okay, the new owners realized they were literally giving away the store, but it’s still a great place to play, eat, and win. Are you earning points for the Vegas Aces and Rod Stewart giveaway June 26th? If not, get cracking!
Now it’s the Downtown Grand.
What a great run. It lasted a few years, as it often does, before they tighten the screws. Which they did. For one, they were running a real Gives Good Gamble program and Anthony and I were fully on board. But now, according to VPfree2, DG pulled the plug on the Furnace Bar progressive. Oh, come on!
I know they were making oodles of money on that game. There were approximately 24 places at the bar, with people pouring in money night and day, especially when the progressives crept up to and past breakeven. But nope. Gone. The other video isn’t great.
My opinion? Plain corporate mistake.
I had a conversation with the general manager as to why they no longer give points on e- roulette, a very high-edge game. I’m one of those who works roulette for comps, part of my program to easily earn half-price prime rib and $7 breakfasts with as little as $25 played. Now? Gone.
The GM’s answer? “Comp cheaters!”
Oy vey. On a 5+% game? Those “comp cheaters” playing high-low, red-black, or odd- even were paying the house 5% to earn 2/10ths of a percent in comps. Cheaters? Seriously? It seems pretty much everyone in this calculation wasn’t playing smart. BTW, when I played for my daily half-price coupon at Freedom Beat, I had an expected loss of $1.25 to $2.50 on a discount worth $7 to $15.
So here we are again, moaning like any other Boom baby for the “good old days” when the music was better and the VP was richer and Giving Good Gamble was what Vegas was all about. But I digress.
What I want you all to know is I researched VPfree2 and found 21 casinos all over Vegas that still offer games from 9/6 Jacks or Better (99.54%) to 100%+ games and I’ll be reporting on them, and the next places I’ll be frequenting — where the games are good, the rooms are reasonable, and the fun is real.
Until then, remember, that “It’s not hard to win. It’s hard to walk away a winner” takes work! Enjoy!