Casino Riviera Implosion

I attended the Riviera farewell early this morning. Fireworks and implosion at 2:30am. Las Vegas makes these into quite a spectacle. (actually it was only the first of two goodbye's as the second implosion of a different part of Riviers will be in August)

I personally didn't have much history with Riviera. I moved to Vegas in 2009 and probably only was there 2-3 times in 6 years before it closed last year. In a dozen trips prior to relocation to Vegas, I also only played at Riv a couple times. There was almost nothing there blackjack-wise in the final years, and that is what would get my interest.

Even though I personally didn't have a real connection with Riviera, I am a huge admirer of "Old Vegas". Vegas before my time. The Vegas of second half of last century. And to that it tugged at my heart to see part of Riviera reduced to rubble and dust. I know Vegas is famous for re-inventing itself. Out with the old...in with the new. But I still hate to see it.

 

Yeah it's a shame only old school place left now is the Flamingo and they are in the process of a 5 year makeover ....
Gone are the good old days, the "new" Vegas I can care less about

 

Let's not forget the Tropicana. It's the second oldest hotel/casino on the strip after Flamingo.

 

I don't know how they can say these kind of things? While I am way to young to have experienced the old Vegas, I am very consumed and interested with Vegas history. We have all seen pictures of the 'old flamingo'. A one story "motel-like" property. Just because the current property sits at the same site and has the same name, it most certainly is not the same property.

BTW: nice to see you here and be able to communicate with you GJ. Hope you are doing well.

 

Yea I agree, when I first went to Vegas I couldn't wait to see the flamingo/ in reality it was just a new casino with not a shred of anything form the past- I think bunions and stardust had / have more history
That being said- I did get to stay in the Elvis suite on the top floor at lvh. That was an amazing experience and soo incredibly over the top

 

I only worked one play at the Riviera. In 2005 I was holed up in Ely, Nevada working a strong play at the Nevada Hotel & Gambling Hall. The play was worth about $1500 a week and it was easy as hell. I had spent over a year in Ely. In isolated spots like that I'm always on the internet at night trying to keep up with what's going on in the gambling world.

I caught two things. Wynn Las Vegas was about to open. And the Riviera had a promotion where new sign-ups got a $500 bonus for $20,000 in action. I knew they had two quarter gamemakers with 10/7 Double Bonus. The $500 bonus would be a 2.5% add-on.

In the days of all the new casinos openings some of us AP's would make every opening. You never knew what you might find. Some of it turned out to be new games that were strong as hell....and if you were the first one on it you would be the one who made the most money before they shut it down.

So I decided to take a break from Ely, fly down and make the Wynn opening just to see what I might find. And the Riviera play was a back-up play.

I get down to Vegas and walk into Wynn 8 hours after they popped the doors. I walked the whole casino floor looking at the inventory. NOT ONE DAMN ACCUMULATOR SLOT ON THE WHOLE DAMN FLOOR!!! So I was dead in the water there. I went over checked out the poker games. The 15-30's looked juicy.

I was in Vegas for a week. I stayed in the Budget Inn behind the Stardust. I went over and worked the Riviera play. I beat the play straight up because i hit 53 quads in 16,000 hands. That's a 302 frequency where I think the normal frequency is like 429.

I spent the rest of my time taking it easy and playing in the 15-30 at Wynn. Then I flew back to my nice little play in Ely.

PS: Steve Wynn had learned his lesson about accumulator slots when he opened Bellagio. It was like 20% of the floor was some kind of accumulor slot that could easily beaten by an AP. He didn't make the same mistake at Wynn.

 

I forgot to add one thing. Back in the early nineties when I was nothing but a lowlife credit hustler on the strip the Riviera was the only casino on the strip that would send a credit hustler to jail. The rest of them just chased you off. So I stayed out of the Riviera.

 

Around 1980, as a rookie card counter, I played at the Riv alot. They had almost all double deck with good rules/S17, DAS, LS - pen was 75% to 90%. Would camp out for hours spreading $5 to $100 with zero heat.

It was one of the nicer casinos at the time.

 

MC, just wondering:

How woudl being a credit hustler, i.e. a guy who wanders around looking for machines with unused credits, be a crime, especially if you put your own money in on top of it?

Seems to me you'd say "Really, I didn't notice that."

Hello, proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

Ask Pennsylvania this. It's a crime to do this in all of their casinos. Numerous signs warning you of this all over the casinos there.

 

Quick notes on the Budget Inn behind the Stardust. I stayed there at least two football seasons. Nice place, plus it was populated by all of the girls who worked the clubs on Industrial, so the pool area often looked like an All-Star camp.

Mickey, do you remember the Convention Center Lodge, directly across the street from the Riviera? I stayed there a number of seasons way back when.

I stumbled into the Riv one morning to check numbers at about 5 or 6 AM. I noticed that the bar area seemed full of people at the time, and they were dressed a bit retro, but it was LV, so I didn't think much of it. I took a few steps and a guy started waving his arms and ran towards me, loudly whispering for me to get back.

They were filming the long walk through scene from Casino. I looked way up to the other end and recognized Rickles. I took one of the Tangiers change cups as a momento.

 

In Las Vegas the casinos' position was any abandoned credits on machines belonged to them. And taking those credits was petty theft. However, you never seen a casino employee going around looking for abandoned credits. They pretty much didn't care if legitimate gamblers sat down on machines that had abandoned credits on them. But credit hustlers were a nuisance. They weren't going to make any money on credit hustlers. It was a big hassle for them to try and get convictions so most of them just ran you off with a trespass reading.

I always put money in the machine to have that "what are you talking about, sir?" working for me. You muddy up the waters when you do that so they can't get a conviction.

But the real problem for a broke ass street tramp in Las Vegas in those days was the D.A.'s office considered the 72 hour preliminary hearing rule to mean 72 working hours. So a broke ass tramp could sit in jail for 8 or 9 days before he even got a preliminary hearing where the charges might be dropped or you got OR'd.

 

Hookers too.

 

Signs alone don't mean it will actually hold up in court. But Pa really does seem to be sweating the small stuff. I know they brought charges against someone for playing on another persons players card. In Vegas this is routine. In my household this is routine. My partner's job is to rack up points and offers on everyone's card in the household.

BTW, the Pa case that I referenced was indeed a team of AP's. Seems like they couldn't get them on anything significant, so they were going to harass them with this nickel and dime charge. It's been a while (probably a year) since the charges were made. I haven't followed the case but will ask around. I'll bet the charges went away.

 

One credit hustling friend of mine told me that in Mississippi, by law, abandoned credits don't belong to the casino, they belong to the public. But just because you can't be charged doesn't mean they won't get rid of you.

Another credit hustling friend told me that in Atlantic City they can only throw you out for 24 hours.

 

For some reason I'm drawing a blank on Convention Center Lodge. But since you've brought up the movie Casino I'm going to start a thread for scenes in the movie and where they were filmed. All of the casino scenes were filmed in the Riviera so that is to easy. I have some screenshots I'll put up in the thread.