Casinos / Gambling, Las Vegas

If you are running low and need to get some extra money to gamble on the Strip (or to do otherwise), don't go to the lobby atms at the hotels. They charge $4+ to use plus a possible additional fee from your bank afterwards. Walk out of your hotel and head off to local drug stores, CVS and Walgreens along to the strip for extra funds. You can get up to $35 at CVs, I believe Walgreens offers about or the same amount. Below are addresses of the very convenient stops:

CVS:
(702) 262-9028, 3758 Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, NV 89109

Walgreens:

(702) 369-8166 - 3339 Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, NV
(702) 471-6844 - 1101 Las Vegas Blvd N, Las Vegas, NV (24 hours)
(702) 410-8197 1101 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV

I was really surprised when chatting to fellow travellers before boarding my flight to Vegas, to find out how many people don't know about the casinos' rewards programs.

Nearly all the casinos (and certainly all the large ones) have some sort of rewards program. If you are going to Las Vegas with an intention of doing some gambling, make sure you take out the free membership to your hotel's casino

I stayed at the Flamingo which is part of the Harrah's group; their rewards program is called Total Rewards. On sign-up, you are presented with two membership cards which are a little like credit or bank cards in that they have a magnetic strip on the back.

When you play the slots, put your rewards card in the slot and it will log your play and your rewards will start building up. When you're at any of the table games (craps, roulette, blackjack, etc.), simply hand over your card to the croupier with your cash when you start to play and they will have it logged in and will 'rate your play'. Little by little your gambling will be monitored and your comps (complimentary) value will start notching up. It may not be tons but certainly at the Flamingo you can offset any charges to your room with your comps value when you check out.

Many of the large casinos belong to a conglomerate of some sort so your rewards card can be used in all the member casinos and keep notching up the value.

If you have any intention of returning to Las Vegas, be sure to keep your cards for future use and further comps!

*Update June 2008 : I can only re-emphasise this tip. I used my Total Rewards card to logon to the Harrahs website to book my room for a return trip (3rd trip to Vegas now) in October this year. I have just got 4 nights at the Imperial Palace (which is also part of the Harrahs group) and paid less than US$90 for the 4 nights (because I was comp'ed for 3 nights, paying only for my Friday night) - a real bargain! I was offered great rates for 50% of the Harrahs hotels for the dates of my stay! *

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Even if Cirque du Soleil shows and other such events are becoming more and more popular, gambling remains the top attraction in Las Vegas. As soon as you get to the airport you are greeted with slot machines, and the first thing you see as you walk into all the big hotels are the gigantic casinos. Since I'm not a huge fan of casinos, I was afraid I'd walk into some really pathetic scenes (people losing money or playing for hours on end), but I was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere there was in most casinos. Except for one girl crying in the restrooms over money she had lost, most people seemed to be there to have a good time and gamble a reasonable amount of money. It was even sort of exciting to walk through the tables and hear people cheering the players on or watch the poker tournament for a while.

As for my personal experience, since I don't know enough about gambling to sit at one of the tables, I put $2 in a slot machine. Since they don't work with coins anymore, I thought it was kinda boring to see the number of credits go up and down without anything special happening so when I saw there was only one credit left, I decided to cash it in - the machine printed out a little coupon which I stuck into another machine, and finally I heard the "ding" of a coin falling and started jumping up and down! I kept the quarter as a souvenir of my Las Vegas gambling experience :o)

Hello fellow vegas visitors. I have visited many times and finally clued in on deals and coupons for use in Vegas. I just wanted to add this tip, please browse for available deals and coupons before visiting to save some money b/c it's going to be a very expensive trip, even if your frugal on your spendings. I searched around for sites and this one was the best I came across: http://www.vegascoupon.org

Cheers to all and have a great trip/vacation, hope you win BIG!, I didn't :(

If you have any concerns or complaints about your hotel room,don't just tell the first employee you come across........
You MUST go to the front desk and ask for a manager otherwise nothing will be done.
Apparently this is the way it works in the USA

April 9, 2005

An update on the new Wynn hotel opening later this month, courtesy of the Everything Las Vegas newsletter, with their permission:

On April 28th, Wynn Las Vegas is opening. The Strip's new pre-eminent luxury mega resort is costing a whopping $2.7 billion. The 45-story hotel is 514-foot tall, arc-shaped, and is a chocolate-colored reflective glass Tower. It will have 2,698 hotel rooms and suites, an 111,000-square-foot casino, 16 restaurants, a three-acre pool, luxury spa, many high-end stores, and the Strip's only 18-hole golf course. It will also house an art gallery.

Each hotel room cost $750,000 to build. Each room will have floor-to-ceiling windows, European linen and flat screen TV's.

There are approximately 8,000 permanent employees, 2,500 of those are present Bellagio and Mirage employees, who previously worked for Steve Wynn, attesting to the high esteem Steve Wynn has.

An eight-story, 100-foot mountain in the front of the property will enclose a three-acre lake.
There will be 16 restaurants on the property.

The water-based, $24 million production show much like "O", will be housed in
the 2,080-seat, $70-million AQUA THEATER.
Water will surround the audience - above, below, and even around their seats.
In another 1,200-seat, $40 million theater, the Tony-award winning, unorthodox, Broadway puppet play "Avenue Q" will be presented.
Four nightclubs will be in the project.
Construction of the whole project is on time and on budget.

Grand opening is April 28th, 2005, which is Elaine Wynn’s birthday and 5 years to the day that Steve Wynn bought the old Desert Inn.
As the total cost has soared to $2.7 billion, -- Gary Loveman, CEO of Harrah’s Entertainment, after a tour of Steve Wynn's Wynn Las Vegas with other casino executives, said "This is the kind of place that God would build if he had the money."

(To receive the free email newsletter Everything Las Vegas, just send a request to mrvegas98@aol.com)

I'll add a photo after my next trip to LV.

Most locals according to my friend who lives there, rarely gamble at the big casinos on the strip.

Two possible reasons:
1. They are tired of tourists.
2 They stand a better chance of winning by playing at casinos away from strip.

Obviously as tourists, we want to go to the big hotels on the strip and we want to gamble there as well... just passing on some advice.

There's one change that is occuring in most casinos in Las Vegas I'm not so sure I like. It's the change from coin machines to ones where you get tickets with your money recorded that you either cash in or stick into another machine in the same casino. Some of the machines (5c and 25c) don't even take coins at all, you have to feed it bills.
Yes, its convenient (usually), and coins are dirty and I hear that sometimes if you hit a jackpot or the machine runs out of money it takes awhile for a casino person to come by and give you your money. (I haven't ever hit a big jackpot)
However, part of the fun for me is having all those coins come clanging out when I cash out, and carrying around a bucket of money when I'm winning. Not as convenient maybe, but more fun. Plus you don't gamble as fast ... it takes awhile to feed all those nickels back in!!! However, the coinless machines are spreading like wildfire, and by my next trip it will probably be hard to find the old fashioned video poker or slot machines.
I also don't like some of the machines that I found last time in some of the nicer casinos that were almost silent. Give me all the bells and whistles ....