Casino The Adventures of MDawg

Time flies when you're having fun (at Vegas, or not in Vegas)!

So I am perhaps planning a trip where I have to be in Vegas for business anyway, and just go in to hit as many tournaments as possible, collect as many gift cards as possible, as many comps as possible, and leave (without even playing). I have done it like that before, and I've also pulled into town with the intention of not playing, and ended up playing anyway.

 

The problem is that your win loss statements from one of the largest casino chains on the strip, where a majority of your play takes place, does not show wins outweighing losses for 2 consecutive years now. And the overall loss is fairly substantial. Now I don't know maybe all your winning has occurred elsewhere, but the places you claim to play most just does not show what you claim.

As for plenty of losing sessions: Your latest trip you reported 8 winning days and 1 losing. And throughout the 3 years or so of you "Mdawg adventures" you have reported similar numbers. 80-90% winning sessions and days.

That is just not the way it works. Whether the casino has an advantage, or the player is playing with a small advantage, neither side wins or losses like that. That is just not the way gambling works. Variance evens things out. You claiming otherwise over such a long period of time....years now, is just bullshit. On top of that Las Vegas casinos will not allow a player to win 80-90 of their sessions and win the kind of money you are talking about, for years now. That is just NOT the way it works dude. It is just fantasy, like in the movies you are so fond of.

I know, I know, you will respond with name calling and attacks. Because that is what you do when anyone questions your fantastical claims that defy math and the way Las Vegas works.

 

These are the semi-old school room keys from Vegas - the Ilco "Marlok" keys which would be punched with a combo of holes under the thin black stripes into a unique key for each stay at the hotel. The lock at the door had to be hard wired to the front desk for the keys to work.


These were in use probably during the 1990s, until the modern key cards came out. Someone pitched these Marlok keys to the C.I.A. as "truly secure" in the mid 1980s.



Before these were around, each door had a unique key, and I have some of those truly old school Vegas keys somewhere too.

 

Bally's (formerly the MGM) became the Horseshoe.



But has anything inside changed much?

 

Blackjack conditions have not changed. Wasn't expecting them to, but am always hopeful.

It really seems like this is just a superficial rebranding. Lipstick on a pig type thing. I would love to be proven wrong.

 

REDietz was asking about how to get around the Strip when there is a lot of traffic or lane closures.

We usually drive into Vegas because my wife brings a lot of luggage.

There are two parallel to the Strip routes, one is Koval, which is east of the Strip (but the word is mostly out on that route so sometimes it is quite congested too especially if there is a lane closure on Koval), or the "Rat Pack" streets, S Sammy Davis Jr. Dr / Dean Martin Dr. west of the Strip.

If those are impacted you may push your route out further in either direction, east to Paradise or west to S Valley View Blvd. but at that point you're adding extra miles that may not translate into saved time.

REDietz mentioned how long it took him to go from Tuscany to Treasure Island: to go from Tuscany to Treasure Island, what I might do is exit the Tuscany on Flamingo and go directly into Howard Hughes Parkway, all the way through to Sands Ave., turn left, and then you go straight through the Strip and turn left into Treasure Island just across from the Fashion Show Mall.

Sometimes you don't care about the delay and want to take in the sights on the Strip, but if you're in a hurry to get from one end of the Strip to the other, above are some suggestions.

If you are on the Strip don't stay behind one of those sandwich board advertising trucks - they drive very slowly.

 

LOL. I was behind one of them during the strip to TI run. Not a 6969 panel, either. At least they're entertaining. I can't believe they have pedestrian crossings on the same time schedules at Harrah's when the strip is one lane each way, but they do.

The west of strip stuff angle isn't really working. Don't tackle west of strip at night. Paradise has some lane closures but just one lane closed and briefly, so it's okay.

It's mega-fight weekend, so bear that in mind, also. Just had two home playoff hockey games in three days -- that didn't help matters.

 

The weather in southern Cal switched from unseasonably cold and rainy to the usual sunny clear '70s (farenheit), so I assumed that Vegas had reversed to better weather too.

If you're in any kind of hurry, traveling the Strip is not the way to go. Versus what you did - going left on Flamingo to the Strip from Tuscany, and then right down the Strip, which even Flamingo may get congested feeding into the Strip especially from the east side, if you had cut across Howard Hughes Parkway and then left on Sands Ave. you would have made it to T.I. rather quickly.

Nighttime the Strip has generally too much traffic no matter the day of the week.

I actually like Tuscany it's a fine place to stay if you're not playing and have no comps coming. Used to stay there some during the years we'd go to Vegas and not play. At that time, in the 2010s you could get a room for as little as $20. a night, and as you know, their rooms are all 650 sq. ft. which is about the same size as a standard room at the Wynn.

 

Actually, sometimes I'll just walk the distance between say, Wynn or Venetian and Cosmo or Caesars and back. It's not much of a walk just you have to keep waiting at the street crossings or take an occasional escalator up and down to cross on a pedestrian bridge.

The east side of the Strip between Paris and Venetian is a little seedier and more homeless littering the sidewalks.

Tuscany to T.I. is a bit of a walk, but walking from Tuscany to say Caesars is nothing.

 

We're talking about casino play - gambling - right, MrV?

First off, in my case, I agree, if I didn't win over all I'd have stopped years ago. For me, there's no fun in losing. But that's just me.

Now, as far as high net worth individuals who choose to gamble away large sums - if they can afford it and that's what gets their juices flowing, then why not? As an extreme example, consider Larry Flynt - the guy had money to burn, and as far as excitement he couldn't be with a woman any longer due his unfortunate paralyzing accident, so, who is to criticize him for getting his kicks from playing blackjack to the limit? And he actually wasn't such a bad player and apparently won about as often as he lost. I view Flynt as an extreme example because due to his paralysis you can't really see him enjoying much of life's normal pleasures, which practically explains why he'd funnel energy into something like gambling.

Now on the other hand, Terrance Watanabe played high stakes to the point of losing over $200M in just a short couple of years - losing his entire fortune and ending up actually in debt - now that can't be justified in any sense, that is just compulsive gambling to the extreme.

You yourself state that you are a net lifetime loser but you view gambling as a relatively harmless vice where you understand that you are trading money for entertainment. If you had say 10X the net worth (or even 100X) and gambled 10 - 100X harder, could you necessarily be criticized?

Now of course there is the question of how that money could be better spent to benefit humanity versus handing it to the casinos, but once a man has achieved a level of success and is okay with risking some of it at the casinos, others aren't necessarily in a position to judge.

 

Parallel Strip routes: I used to live on Kovel which runs parallel to the strip about 3/8 of a mile to the east. Most of the time traffic moved ok. Late afternoons and weekend nights when the strip slowed to a crawl, Kovel would also slow to a craw with the overflow. Southbound seemed to be much worse than northbound. The alternative route would be paradise another 3/4 mile east which runs alt way to the Strat. Both Kovel and Paradise you need to be aware of convention traffic, the sands convention center for Koval, and the big LV convention center for Paradise.

On the west side, the alternative routes are Frank Sinatra between the strip and I-15 and Dean Martin just west of I-15. They run parallel up to about Twain where they merge forming Sammy Davis Drive. (there has to be a rat pack joke in there somewhere). Frank Sinatra backs up based on Strip traffic and especially T-Mobile center events. Dean Martin is better. The times Dean Martin backs up is much more about I-15 than the strip. If you are able to eyeball I-15 and that is at a standstill or barely moving, Dean Martin will soon follow.

If you are cutting through Howard Hughes to get to Sands, which Mdawg suggests, there is a "funny" red light exiting on to sands. Sometimes you can sit there for 10 minutes waiting for your green left turn. If you are the only car you may need to back up and re-position your car as the sensor area that triggers this light is small and finicky.

 

Mdawg, I have questions and comments based on this, and would like to hear your answers, but I only want to engage in a respectful discussion, if you agree and agree to turn down the rhetoric.

 

Yeah, I dropped the rental off at TI and walked back to the Tuscany. No big deal. The room they gave me this time has modern furnishings as opposed to the old rooms with the rustic furniture that looked like it came from a Pocono retreat. I like both, so it doesn't matter to me. Room was fine. I like the Tuscany. Wouldn't be a bad place to live. Typing this from the shaded area next to the pool right now. Raspberry danish from the coffee shop gets my thumbs up. Had two of them today.

 

On my way here, I waited until I knew I would make my DFW connection, then booked a room. Wound up at the Horseshoe. They gave me an end-of-floor room, a suite with the tub in the middle. Not sure of size -- bigger than Rio, I think, but not quite as big as Tuscany. I may be wrong; I tend to let the layout and ceiling height affect my square foot estimates. I'm glad I stayed there -- will try to get that particular room again.

 

After talking to some folks -- horrendous construction and traffic is partly due to preparation for the Formula race in November. Evidently, the roads have to be redesigned and capped with a certain quality of surface. Might be this way for months. The race is supposed to generate more revenue than a Super Bowl.

Add a 100K broadcasters' convention and a mega-fight, and welcome to a mess this week.

 

Yeah, except it is always like this Redietz. Always a big convention, big fight, holiday weekend, some kind if sports tournament.

It is always something and there is always big construction projects that are going to be great when they are finished. And when that project is finally finished there is some other project fucking everything up that "is going to be great when it is finish".

This is the constant state of Las Vegas now.

 

Well no, there are distinct differences in traffic between day and night, weekdays and weekends, and also depending on what's going on that weekend. It may be as bad as say, New Year's Eve where going from the Palazzo to Resorts World (the Strip is open for that stretch at least even on New Year's Eve) could take 1 1/2 hours, to on your average week night nothing going on where a drive from Wynn to Cosmo might take not much time at all.

 

You are talking about driving up and down the strip. I don't know anybody that lives in Vegas that drives up and down the strip with the possible exception of a couple blocks at maybe 10:30 am on a weekday. There are always surrounding surface routes and cut throughs that will get you there faster with less traffic.

Hell when I lived in summerlin, I knew people that never even came near the strip. They avoided it at all costs.

 

The conversation with REDietz was about whether there is always bad traffic on the Strip. There is not.

Just stick to things you have read enough about to be able to comment on without sounding overly contradictory or foolish.

 

See THIS is just very typical Mdawg double talk nonsense. In another thread, Mdawg just posted my address. That isn't what I gave him permission to do, I said he could post my initials. But he doesn't know both initials so he chose to break the rules yet again and post my address. I don't give a fuck. Not like the administrator here will enforce their own rules.

So the address that Mdawg posted, supposedly my address, is a location what a quarter, half mile from the strip? And then in the very next breath he tells me I don't know about traffic patterns on the strip. You seriously just can't make this shit up.

Shades of this punk city person who preceded to tell me that I don't know conditions and how things work in Vegas and then the next breath said he has never been to Las Vegas and when he tried to point Las Vegas out on a map, managed to find Missouri, 1500 miles away.

Can we at least get some competent trolls on this forum.