A Vegas Fan's Guide to Reno

This will be a combo trip report and a quick guide to getting around in Reno Nevada. Why Reno? Why not! It has always been on my To-Do list, and I finally took CET up on one of their junkets to fly there.

Vegas flights used to be no more than $150 round trip for me out of Chicago back, in the before times that is. Now, they are closer to $400. Fuck that noise! I love me some Vegas, but not when it will run me $400 a head just to get there.

This Reno junket was $35 all in per person. I cant recall the last time I gambled at a Caesars joint. I know we are now into June 2022 as of this report, and I have zero tier credits this year. So it has been awhile since I put my Total Rewards, sorry, my Caesars Rewards card to good use. I am Platinum somehow from whatever gambling I did in 2021. So there is that.

The catch to all this? No flights out of my Chicagoland airports. I had to haul the team, which was made up of my Brother and Dad, up to Milwaukee Wisconsin to catch a flight out of town. Some chartered flight called Sun Country. Never heard of them.

Looking around the folks on the flight, and Reno looks to be an older persons place. A lot of blue hairs on our plane.

The Reno airport is not much to look at. We landed on a Sunday evening and most of the shops and the handful of eatiers were closed. Some slots were on, others were not. We were greeted by the crew from the "Row", which is what they call their 3 connected casinos in downtown Reno.

Grabbed a flyer with info on the pickup from the hotel in 4 days, and hopped on our waiting bus.

Well, there were two buses. One to take half our flight to Reno, and the other to take the rest to Lake Tahoe. Reno is a 10 minute drive from the airport, Tahoe is over an hour. Sucks for them.

Check-in at the Silver Legacy, where we were staying, was smooth as silk. We could have grabbed our room keys from the valet area, had we known. But we ended up in the lobby and picked up a set there instead.

The lobby is nice enough. It reminds me of the Golden Nugget on Fremont Street in Vegas. Marble, brass and dark wood tones. I guess the theme here is late 1800's fanciness.

The view from our small, but workable room, was the dome that housed the mining rig in the casino. That is the Epcot ball below. My Brother and I shared a room, and Dad was left on his own.

Not the suites I am used to when I gamble, but good enough. I can say as much for most of what you will find in Reno. Not Vegas, but good enough.

The Row has our hotel, Silver Legacy, in between Circus Circus and Eldorado Casino. IMO, the Silver Legacy casino is the nicest of the three.

It is made up of a few smaller gambling areas on the second floor, and a decent sized main casino under that. This picture is on the second floor, looking over to the entrance of the Eldorado.

First machine up to bat, a good old Mystic Lamp. She is on the endangered list for sure, with only a handful still out in the wild. A $250 bonus game, and we get the party started!

Below is the mining rig I mentioned earlier. It has bellows, some drive wheels and random moving parts. It doesn't do much of anything really, but still cool to look at. And you all know how much I like me a good theme in a resort.

I managed to shit away the $300 TITO I had after playing mystic lamp, and was down to $2.00 left on my last spin below. For a $9.00 bet, and hitting triple red 7's not once but twice, I expected more than $140. But I will take what I can get.

Being the gambling nerd that I am, and knowing Reno has some of the best returns around. I have high hopes for this trip. If Vegas has a 90% return on nickle slots, that is a 10% hold. Here in Reno, it is like a 5% hold. That is 50% less being lost than in Vegas. At least that is what the math says. Variance is a bitch, and I'm down $500 by now. Just an hour off the bus.

Still, I am here to do two things. Hang out with my family, and slot. I have money to lose, and lose I was.

I had an OK run on the below Heavenly Riches, with hits of $108 & $148. I cashed out up over a hundo on those.

And I was holding my own on this weird Dragon game below. I was down to like $60 of that $229 TITO, when I hit for $322. Up and down for awhile, until I cashed out $466. A solid run indeed!

Later on, this game would be my undoing. It seemed fast loose this time, and all it did after that was shit on me.

As for the rest of the night, nothing to report. We ate dinner at the Cafe in Silver Legacy, one of only a handful of places open here. Which sucks. When I went to Vegas last Spring, so much was closed due to the Pandemic. Here we are two and a half years later, and still dealing with cut backs and closures.

This placed had a lot of places we wanted to eat at. The buffet is now boarded up and no more. Canters Deli in the casino, is now an employee cafeteria. It was pretty much the Cafe or chips from the gift shop.We chose the cafe.

The cafe was fine. Typically overpriced, as you'd expect. But we ate our fill. We pressed our luck just a bit more before calling it a night, and nothing but more losing for all three of us. I cant speak for them, but I donked a good grand already. I did earn just over 1,000 Tier Credits, which gets me a 1,000 bonus. So there is that. But that is twice the loss that I expected for $5K coin in.

Day 2

Up and at em early, as my body doesn't care that Reno is 2 hours ahead of Chicago. I let the two of them sleep, and I head off to grind some points.

The plan for today is to do Downtown Reno. We have the 3 main casinos in the Row, and it turns out there is a handful more scattered around the area we can easily get to on foot.

The below is a great grinder for me, and another tough game to find now. No huge hits, and only a $2.00 max bet. But I can sit on one of these slots for a good 45 mins on a Benny.

Here is what Circus Circus looks like at 6AM... SOrt of creepy, with only some lights on.

Unlike CC in Vegas, you have to go through the arcade here to get to the casino. Which adds a layer of whimsy that I appreciate. The casino itself leaves a lot to be desired.

The slots are scattered pretty far from each other, the casino is dark and the ceilings are low. And outside of some security guards, I am the only one in here.

But a treasure trove of old IGT games are everywhere!

I nearly double my buyin on this rare Cleo game below after a $145 bonus game.

$111 win on a $5.00 bet on Aliens in the bonus, which I picked the shit out of to win.

Next up, Moneystorm. And I bonused for $238. Just like that, I got back a third of my losses from last night.

No. Fucking. Way... Munsters! This was my jam in Vegas 20 years ago! At $6.75 a spin, I was balls deep before I finally got the bonus on it. And I ended up finding Herman, which is the best you can do on this stupid game. $187, and a bunch of points already. THIS is the Reno I was expecting!

$4.50 bets on I dream of Jeannie, and I pick the best one in the mini bonus game for $100. I up my bet to $6.75, and get the mini bonus again, and pick the best once more. But it was only worth $90 this time.

I finally get the real bonus, and I pick like a chump for just $90 once more. Still, Ill take it. I have been gambling alone for a good hour by now. I ran through a few grand, and I am up like a hundred bucks. That is more like it. I don't expect to win, just give me some play.

I get the text from Dad that he is up, and I text my Brother to get his big butt in gear. I head back to the Legacy to meet up with them.

There are a bunch of different gambling nooks here. Small areas of slots tucked into random places. I head to the one closet to the hotel elevators to greet my team, and almost pissed away that $100 I was up. But I landed an OK bonus on the below for $102.

We finally make our way over to the Eldorado. This is the little casino company that was able to swallow up the much larger Caesars Entertainment.

I really do not know how to explain their theme. Liberace's living room? Gaudy fountains, brass chandeliers and the like. It was kinda cool, but sort of strange. It reminded me of the old Barbary Coast on the Strip, which became Bills Gambling hall, which was gutted to become the Cromwell.

Here is a shot of their casino. We ended up gambling through here a bit, on our way out to explore downtown Reno.

But who can walk through a casino and not gamble? Certainly not us! I gave back the $100 I was up this morning, and a few hundred more. Before I hit a bonus on Power Wheel for $118. I took that over to the oldest $1.00 Denom game I saw, and hit a scatter pay for $200.

I played another version of the same game, and landed another line hit for a hundo. I'd like to say I cashed out there, but I didn't. I lost that as well.

Now I am firmly $500 in the hole for today, and down $1,500 for the trip. And it has only been like 12 hours since we landed.

As it turns out, there is not much going on in Downtown Reno. I mean, they have a car and art museum not too far away. But as far as gambling goes, it is mostly places that used to be casinos or hotels, but now sit abandoned.

They do have some art up around town, and I hear their river walk is a good way to see more. But we aren't here for the art!

Behind this marshmallow tree, is the Sands Regency. The name is much more regal than the actual resort.

We decided to hit Mel's Diner of American Graffiti fame. It was good, reasonably priced and we all left full.

The casino was a factory of sadness. It is about 10AM on a Monday, and I didn't expect the place to be hopping. But it was downright dead. Not many older treasures to be found either, as it was mostly the same newer generic games that can be played everywhere else.

But even with that, I still managed to lose $140.

And who knew the same Lincoln Highway that runs behind my house in Illinois, takes you directly to Reno. Just 1,780 miles away, which is only about 26 hours by car. I'll keep that in mind if I decide to road trip in the future.

And there she is, the famous Reno Arch. Or at least one of them for all I know. It was the only one we saw though.

Across from that is the Whitney Hotel. I think this used to be Fitzgerald's casino once upon a time. It has a rock climbing wall on it for some reason. So far, we have really only seen old people in town. Not sure how often this climbing wall gets used. But I doubt the geriatric crowd we have seen is much into it.

Here are some more casinos that used to be. Horseshoe, which is now a mosque and convenience store. Harrahs, which is now nothing. And the Pioneer, which s now a Pawn Shop. We did go into Siri's casino, and quickly left. A handful of games, some homeless people eyeballing us and nothing at all in there for us.

Seeing downtown, I totally get all the Reno jokes. I guess once the California Casinos starting popping up, not many Cali folk would drive to Reno. And much of it sits as a time capsule and a glimpse at what it once was back in the 80s.

I am not shitting on Reno. But unlike Fremont Street in Vegas, which still has its charm warts and all. Downtown Reno, from what we saw, was a string of closed shops, Pawn Shops, and just a bunch of what was. You can tell at one time it was something. But that time is no longer now.

We ended up at the Cal Neva.

It reminded me of the way most casinos on Fremont used to be. Lots of mirrors and low ceilings. Games packed in tight.

Well, my money isnt going to lose itself you know. I play $5.00 a spin on an old Rainbow Riches slot, and get a bonus for $137. My $100 buyin is now up to $185

Next up to bat, Texas Tina. $10 a spin on this one, and I bonus for $370! Now I am up to $423, which is most of the money I lost this morning.

Kind of a weird layout for a casino, as it has an arcade circling it from the second row. Are arcades a Reno thing? Seems like every casino has at least one of them here.

I cashed out my $400 ticket, and my Brother dupes me into playing Game of Thrones with him. And wouldn't you know it, a $179 hit. Fuck, I should only gamble at the Cal Neva. I am still down my grand from last night, but now I am actually up for the day thanks to them.

The place might look like shit, but the casino seemed fair!

And that was your tour of downtown Reno. Not very exciting. They seem to have issues with their homeless population, as we saw a bunch of bums pretty much everywhere we went. To be fair, they didn't bother us any.

Back through Eldo...

And through Silver Legacy for the boys to finally check out Circus Circus.

We all played here, but no one won anything. And I am no longer up for the day. Shit happens.

We go back to Eldo, as they do have a nice mix of older and newer slots. I win $243 on this old Triple 7's one.

I nearly shit all of that away on this Ice or Fire game I have never played before. But I managed to catch a good $270 bonus on it.

And I had that TITO all the way down to $47, before finally getting a solid hit on Cash Eddy. $300 is $300, but by now that barley put a dent in my bankroll, as I hit the hay down yet another $1,000.

That is 2 Grand for those of you playing at home. But I did manage to get over 2,500 tier credits, which earned me a 5,000 TC bonus. Those 2500 credits represents $12,500 played through. I cant fault CET for my losing, as I am just playing a ton. Just no real big wins to get me over the hump, even though I am swinging $9.00-$15.00 bets here and there.

Day 3

Today is going to be the real exploration day. We rented a car, and the plan is to hit Virginia City, and see the big 3 Las Vegas style casinos in Reno.

The day started off well, as I won $205 in a Quick Hits bonus game, on just a $1.50 max bet. Took that over to Mystic Lamp, and won $180 on a $4.50 bet.

Then another $140 on Lamp and another $155 on Quick Hits. I was able to grind my $100 into $300 by the time the crew finally came together.

Today we opted for Starbucks breakfast in Eldo. We need to kill about 4 hours before we can pick up the rental car at 1PM. I pissed away a few hundred bucks before getting the below $100 hit on this dragon game.

And started a mini comeback with $160 & $192 hits on the below. But I pissed that away before we could get the car as well.

Finally, it is off to Virginia City. Looking at where we are, and where VC is. I cant figure out why the GPS is showing its a 45 minute drive away. Looks more like 15 minutes to me.

Turns out, Virginia City is over 6,000' above sea level. We got there in 20 mins, but it was nearly a half hour of slowly climbing our way up the mountains to actually get to where the fun stuff is.

Virginia City is pretty much what we expected. It was pretty cool, and we easily spent a good 4 hours wandering through what we could. The town doesn't actually open until 11AM during the week, but there were plenty of tourists walking around.

You could easily spend the day here if you wanted to. They have a few different museums, some train rides and old mines you can explore. A lot of it is just tourist shit, like candy shops, T Shirt shops, rock shops and the like. I did gamble in the Bucket of Blood Saloon, just to say I did. To be honest, it was kinda weird. The bartender looked at us funny when we came in to take pictures. And there were some old farts dancing near a stage.

We ended up getting hotdogs at the Silver Queen. I assume this places isn't all that popular, as we were the only ones in there. $3.00 for a microwaved hotdog. Which is a good deal here, as the place down the street wanted $9.00 for one with a bag of chips.

There was still a bunch of places in town we would have liked to explore, but they were only open on weekends or whatever. Like the Delta Saloon and Piper's Opera House.

Dad really wanted to do the Ghost Tour at the Old Washoe Club. It was $10 a head, which was pretty steep for what you got. There claim to fame was that Ghost Adventures investigated here, and "proved" it was indeed haunted.

Not sure what we were expecting, but it was a guided tour through an old dilapidated building. The tour guide, who was just a kid, had pictures of ghosts supposedly captured in different areas. And would pass his phone around the group as proof.

I am not slamming the tour, as it was cool to see such an old building. And if we did see a ghost, spook or specter it would have been $10 well spent! But it just wasn't very scary in a group, in the middle of the day.

You can see Dad trying hard to capture a ghostly image of his own here. As well as my brother with a bag full of fudge he bought in town.

Above is our tour guide. And he did well explaining what was going on back in the day from room to room. I think they would have been better served by hanging some drapes to dim the light and playing some creepy music or something to add some ambiance.

Virginia City was cool, and it was my first old timey wild west town. I liked it, but we all agreed that since we saw it, there was no need to come back. Next time, we would hit Carson City, which seems more of the same.

And with that, we head off to the major casinos back near downtown Reno. First on the list, is the Atlantis.

I am going to be honest here, it was pretty fucking cool. I think the theme was Atlantis before it sunk into the ocean. You gambled behind waterfalls or inside rock caves and such. I have never seen anything like it before.

The slot selection was fantastic. A ton of older games, some I have never even seen before. With plenty of new ones we hadn't seen elsewhere until now.

We actually drew players club cards here, as they were having a new player promo. The players desk agents absolutely sucked explaining things to us. They couldn't say what it took to earn a point, as I assume it is based on theo. One said it took "about" $20 to get a point. But once we got enough of them, we can spin a prize wheel and get a free buffet.

I lost a little, and got that back on Conan below with a $180 win.

More craziness in themeing below, with table games situated under these giant umbrella canopies.

We all spun the wheel, and my brother and I got accelerated earnings on any points. IE, worthless. My Dad got $10 in food comp. And we all got the free buffet.

The buffet was nice! Bright clean space, and good vittles to be had. Well worth our efforts, and I wish we could have spent more time here. Not just at the buffet, but at the resort itself. All in all, we did stay and play for almost 2 hours, and we still have two more casinos to check out tonight.

One last game before we leave, and I hit for $240 on a Texas Tea slot. Which means I didn't lose anything much here at all. THIS is how I expected Reno to be. And perhaps how it is, when excluding the 3 CET casinos we were stuck at.

Next on the list, and pretty much right across from Atlantis, is the Peppermill.

And it was love at first sight! Great casinos, great layout and great games. I have played at nearly 100 different casinos from coast to coast, and this is my favorite one of all!

I did lose a couple hundred when we walked in, but made most of that up in the high limit room below.

What makes this casino so awesome? Everything! Not sure what the theming is, but it was elegant without being precocious. Soaring ceilings, great lighting, they have these big video boards everywhere that were playing scenes from mountain tops, streams or fields. It was all very soothing and exciting at the same time.

And that was my take, before I started winning here! So that says a lot! I was expecting gaudy neon and mirrors, as that is what it looked like online when I was doing some pretrip recon. I guess they redid everything.

I had a good $300 bonus on this Congo Cash game I have never seen before.

And an even better $786 bonus on whatever the fuck this game is below. Why I played it, I cant say. It is not something I typically sit on.

More fancy casino to explore! Games were scattered everywhere, which I like. I hate the Costco Casinos, where everything is laid out in a box like the new Resorts World casino in Vegas.

There were secluded niches with slots here and there, and it seemed liked each were well thought out. Like the section with nothing but older IGT slots. Or a grouping of dollar slots or what have you. We all loved everything about it.

It was like being high as we kept playing, and winning in here. The horniness of being new. The unknown behind every corner. The fact that I am walking around with a TITO worth over $1,300 is all just too much to soak in.

I finally cash out, and get a card like I should have when we walked in. I would LOVE to stay at this casino for a few days, instead of the shithole we will be going back to tonight. THIS is the Reno I was hoping for. I know for sure I left here up, and the below $451 progressive on Zoltar added more fuel to my fire. My Brother is up too, and maybe even Dad. I took about a grand off them.

But it is getting late, and it is 10PM their time, which is midnight our time. And we still have one more casino to go.

Last stop, the Grand Sierra. What was MGM Grand in the 70's. Ballys in the 80's. The Hilton in the 90s. And finally Grand Sierra now. You would never have guessed this place was about 50 years old. It looked, smelled and tasted like a brand new resort to us.

No theme, or at least not one I picked up on. It was just like Bellagio. Not a very exciting space, but very high end.

The casino was pretty much the Costco box in the middle, with the modern placement of restaurants and higher end shops around the parameter.

I managed a $114 win on the below, after losing a few hundred bucks on other things.

And I rolled that into $163 on the below hit. But that was pretty much it for me. I was up about a grand after hitting these last 3 casinos, which I really needed by now. Dad was holding his own, and my fucking brother picked up like $2,500 in total profit this round. I wish we were spending the rest of our trip gambling at these 3 casinos, instead of heading back home to the Row.

My knees were weak from all this walking, and I am beyond tired by the time we get back at nearly 1AM their time, 3AM our time. And I still need to hit my daily points at home base. A few hundred more gambled through should get me to 1,000 tier credits, and I just squeak that with the below 2 hits before passing out.

Even with the epic run at the 3 other local casinos, I still managed to drop almost another grand today. That is $3K by the end of day 3.

Day 4

Last full day in town, as we need to be up at 6AM to catch the shuttle for our 8AM flight out tomorrow. All day, still at the Row. Had we known how awesome the other casinos would be, we might have kept the card for one more day. But renting a car is pretty pricey, and we just dropped $150 on the lone day we had one.

This morning, I will be going it alone. My Dad and Brother booked an escape room for themselves, and I'd much rather be gambling than doing that.

I start off at Eldorado, and manage a couple of good hits below, but I was much more invested in them than I took out.

I walked my way all the way over to Circus Circus, and went on the best heater I have had at the Row.

$308 bonus game on just a $250 max bet on Mustang Fortune.

I invested that ticket, into this old ass U-Spin Cash Wheel with just a $2.00 max bet, and eventually bonused for $142. I now have this hundo up to $426.

Spun around to play my older IGT games, and took $442 off Davinci Diamonds, and now I am up to $896 on this heater. Just a few more grand to go, and I'd be back to even!

Not wanting to kill a heater, I was max betting at $10 a spin on Texas Tina, and landed a bonus for $138, then a line hit for $102.

And ended the heater with a $218 first spin bonus on Beavers above. All sort of shit wins, considering I was betting $10. I was hoping for at least one hand pay to right the ship. Nope.

Still a ton of play, and the tier credits were adding up fast. I started to slow my roll with the big bets, as that is what kept getting me in trouble all trip.

I ended up sitting on this Dragon Dynasty game for awhile, so I could order a beer and wait for the dingus twins to finish up their escape room.

And then, it happened. They came back, we finished out the day gambling at the Row and I lost the last of my money. I ran through another 2,500 points and got yet another 5,000 point bonus. I assume the bounce back offers should be good, as I did nearly $40,000 coin in over 4 nights. I shot past base Diamond with their club, and I am now under 5,000 Tier Credits away from fancy Diamond, or whatever the fuck they call it now.

MY CURRENT TIER

DIAMOND

Until January 31st, 2024

MY TIER SCORE®

20,357

Resets annually on January 1st 2024

On $40K coin at just the CET joints, $4K is my expected loss (10%). So I didn't get ripped off. Just no big hit to pull me back to even. Not sure what good being Diamond is, as I hit Platinum with MGM last year and have yet to be back to any of their casinos to use those perks.

We wander around Circus Circus for a bit, and soak in the ambiance before one last meal at the Cafe in Silver Legacy, where we all ordered the exact same thing we did on the first night.

Did I like Reno? Yeah, I like any place I can gamble at, for the most part. I think 2 nights at the Row would have been plenty, but we were tied to 4 nights because of the junket. If I could do a night at Atlantis and a night (or two) at Peppermill next time, I am all for it!

Is Reno like Vegas? No, outside of having slot machines there is really no comparison. Outside of the Row, which is all pretty much the same place, there is no option to hop to another casino easily and try your luck there like you can in Vegas.

No malls, clubs, shows, a plethora of dining options and attractions like you have in Vegas either. Yes, there is a show here or there, but not like the dozens you can pick and chose in LV. The headliners in town when we were there, was Weird Al on Sunday night and some Mexican band at Grand Sierra.

I liked Reno, and I am glad I went. But as far as gambling regions go, they are below Vegas and Atlantic City for me. I'd come back for sure, as it was great seeing so many older games still in operation. I just doubt I would do so, with having to kill 4 nights all at the Row.