k July 2015 The Trop Stop

I've taken plenty of family trips to Vegas since I became a breeder 2 years ago. But every now and then I like to get back to my roots as a degenerate gambler and head out on a boys trip. This is such a trip. The players are two, Grid and his Kid Brother. The mission is simple. Just how many comps and tier credits can we rack up in just 3.5 days.

Never leaving home without a plan or purpose, this trip had plenty of up front comps to give us both a head start.

Grid:

2 nights comped at the Tropicana + $350.00 in Free Play.

2 nights comped at the Luxor + a $500 buyin (comped) slot tournament + $50.00 in Free Play

$350.00 in Free Play at the Plaza under a match offer, no stay required.

2 MyVegas Breakfast Buffets + 2 MyVegas Dinner Buffets.

The Kid

2 nights comped at the Venetian + $100 in Free Play

2 nights comped at the Luxor + $25 in Free Play.

2 MyVegas Breakfast Buffets + 2 MyVegas Dinner Buffets.

Day 1

We both take off a little early from work and hop a train to the airport. Yes we fly cheap and Spirit Air is about as cheap as you can get. O'Hare Airport in Chicago is a top notch facility. But the Spirit terminal looks like something out of the movie Ishtar. For the 64 people in this world that actually saw that piece of shit movie the reference is very funny. For the rest of you, picture chickens and children running around with garbage everywhere and mayhem all around you.

The 3:45 to Las Vegas isn't posted on any of the boards in the terminal. The gate we should be at is showing Fort Lauderdale. We hear a scratchy announcement that the Las Vegas flight will be boarding at gate 11. But the terminal ends at gate 10. Luckily some crafty traveler saw a sign over an emergency exit, written with Sharpie, on a hunk of ripped cardboard (I kid you not) that said 11.

Surely this must be the place! We hand our tickets overs and walk through the fire door, down a flight of stairs, and end up on the runway where it certainly feels like people should not be. We see an airplane and assume its good enough. Oh Spirit, you never cease to amaze me. The plane left on time and before you can say "Why is my chair so sticky?" we were in Vegas!

Get to the cab line around 5:30PM and for the 1st time ever I was asked if I wanted the cash discount. Always looking for a discount I agree. I tell the cabby we are going to the Tropicana and he says that's $30 normally but $20 in cash. I tell him it should be just $15 but I'd give him a $5.00 tip anyway and we agree to disagree. But $20 it is.

I never really thought about staying at the Tropicana again. The wife and I stayed there once about 10 years ago. It was disgusting. Our room had giant dead moths in it and when I called the front desk about our broken patio door (2nd floor and it didn't lock) they sent an engineer up with a stick for us to use when we leave the room. The stick worked but these giant bugs kept getting in. I collected about 4 of them in the maid's tip envelope and brought them down to the front desk. They gave us a better room but the place was still the pits.

But knowing they had a decent renovation, and the fact that Total Rewards is still shitting on me with their piss poor offers after filing for bankruptcy I was testing the free agent market. Found a super nice host over there thanks to a friend on the Vegas Messages boards and he agreed to match my Treasure Island offer. It was good enough to get me in the door.

Before heading up to the room I tried my luck on Beetlejuice. It was the right move. With only $7 bucks left on my hundy I hit for $130.

Took that $137 TITO right next door to Monopoly and bonused for $100. Now I have more money!

I walked the kid out to the buss where he bought a 24 hour pass. He left for the Venetian and I went up to check on the digs. Club suite. Very nice. Little bar, big bathroom. A good sized living room and a super comfy bed. Strip views but with those stupid window wraps its hard to see anything really.

Time to dip into my free play. After only playing 3 games (I also played Can-Can and won $87.00) I was up $300 and everything was looking good. I started off shitting away my free play playing a $5.00 Top Dollar machine. I lost $50 in a blink. Switched to $2.00 ($4 per spin) and got the bonus. For just $40.00

I took that kick in the nuts and moved over to $1 Pinball. Hit an OK bonus for $105.00 So far I spent $250.00 in Free Play and turned that into $188.00. Not ideal but whatever. Played a few more random things with the last $100 and I ended up converting $350 into $240 real money. Decent enough.

So I'm up about $350.00 with my hits from earlier in the day and it isn't even 7PM yet! What could go wrong? In short everything. I always max bet and I know the swings are huge going that route but I couldn't seem to get out of a funk here.

The signs are everywhere proclaiming the "loosest slots on the strip" but I'm getting hammered. I lose that $350.00 in about 30 minutes. So I pull out another hundo and another. By 10PM I lost over $1,500.00. Fuck. How can I go on tilt so quickly? I don't have an ATM card, by design, so I'm stuck nearly broke within hours of landing. I hate being such a dumb shit like this.

Well, only one thing to do when you are in a hole. Gamble your way out! If you dig deep enough you gotta come out somewhere right?

Hit this for $116 so I'm starting to do something. Its not like I wasn't getting bonus games earlier it was just that they were sucking. Winning $25.00 on a $3.00 or $5.00 bet isn't winning at all.

Finally! Something decent. When all was said and done I turned that last $100 into $500 but I still dropped $1,000 here. I check my card and it looks like I only got $4,500 coin-in on my $1K loss. Not very good at all.

Day 2

The plan today is to take the Deuce down to the Venetian and pickup the kid.

From there we will climb back on the bus and head downtown. I have $350.00 in free play at the Plaza so hopefully I can rebound with that. My host over there seems pretty interested in getting me back. I have nothing against the Plaza. I would play in there even back in the days of hobos and hookers running wild. The fact that its shiny and newer makes things even better.

My old host jumped ship on them and headed to the Stratosphere. But with this enticing offer to get me back in the building its enough for us to leave the safety and security of the Strip.

Ahh good old Fremont!

Walk right over to the Plaza and I can still see it as Biff's Place from Back to the Future. Plenty of fun to be had!

The smell is still there. Kinda like an Old Lady and a diaper. My host says that they are working on that as we speak and come August it should be corrected. I guess a lot of people bitch about their odor. It hits you the moment you walk in. BUT it just seemed to be over whelming in the check in & food court area. Perhaps they toned it down in the casino? I didn't notice it much at all while I played and it certainly didn't smell bad in there.

The casino is nice, modern and open. Well laid out with a great mix of old and new slots. Unlike most places downtown you actually have room to kick your feet up and play without having someone squished in next to you. It was a Thursday morning so the place wasn't jumping just yet but that gave us a chance to get a good look around. The remodel was very well done. The carpet spotless. The ashtrays all clean. The dealers smiled and said hello as we walked by and I didn't see a single bum sitting anywhere bothering people.

Now the bad. Since I actually knew my host he loaded my "Match" offer on my card before I got there. So I just picked up a copy of my card and off I went.

I took my brother along, who was actually Diamond with CET and a decent player himself. He remembers seeing some email before on this promo and since he was booked at the Venetian this trip he just so happened to have his offer from them in hand. The players club desk tells the kid he has to see a host about getting his "Free Play Match" loaded. And that's where the trip took a turn for the worst.

There were two people in the host lounge. Some guy named Jim looked up at the kid when he walked in and just said "Yeah?" The kid explained that the desk told him to come in with his offer and someone would match it. Jim says "Did you get the mailer from us" and the kid says "I think I got an email but my brother got his Free Play matched before he got here" His host said just to show up with my free play offer to get it matched"

Jim: "You don’t have a mailer though? Let me see your ID." He hands over his ID and asked “Would it be easier if I just waited for my brothers host? I don’t want to get anybody in trouble if this is a big deal”.

Jim: “No, I need to get to the bottom of this. You’re not supposed to get ANY matching offers without the mailer, but some people like to make up their OWN FUCKING RULES! Even though I have to follow the rules” He continued scrolling through the computer not saying a word or even acknowledging him any more. After about 10 minutes he just said “You’re Oscars offer, do you have your card?” He then grabbed his players card made some photocopies and told the lady at the players club booth to load the money onto the card and then went back to his office without saying a word to the poor kid.

He had to stand there and listen to this tirade from Jim for a good 10 minutes before he agreed it was to be loaded on his card. So it probably took 20 minutes in all before he could go gamble. The kid was embarrassed that they talked down to him and even though he got his $100 in free play he didn't want to stick around. This Jim guy laid into him pretty rough and he didn't even want to play there with me after that. I only gambled through $500 of coin before he walked out of the hosts office and just said lets go.

With all that drama going on with the poor kid I was actually kicking ass in the casino. $50 bucks won here, $50 there. After taking the dick kick from the Trop yesterday this was more like it. I ended up walking out of there with $460.00

Since I just got back 1/2 of my losses from the night before we gamble on! I hit the below on the 1st game I play at Binions.

Play a little at each place, without using our cards obviously. I ended up leaving Fremont with $600 more than I came with and the kid was up too. Which helped since I heard that the Venetian roughed him up pretty good last night as well.

I hate having to double book. But I had to in order to get in on the Luxor's slot tourney. It was capped at 150 people and the top 50 get $500 or more. Grand prize was $25K in cash. It was a good deal. All I had to do was place in the top 1/3rd and I was money.

We get checked in and grab our free buffets. I used to like the buffet here but now its pretty shitty. The food was cold or under cooked. The servers seemed surly. The soda fountains were more water than soda. Everything was wrong. Sadly we lived off this shitty food for the next few days since we had so many of them thanks to MyVegas. While we didn't die we certainly weren't happy and neither were our anuses.

Getting off our assholes and back on topic... I had about 30 minutes to kill before the registration opened for the tourney. The plan was to register and play a little since I was booked anyway. But still go back to the nice room at the Trop and play up that card all night. After all I would feel like a shit heal if I asked for a comp and burned my host. Back to gambling!

So I slip in some money on the below. Man did I kill that bonus round. I turned my $6.25 bet into $938.75. Add in my $600 from earlier and I'm actually up! And that's how you gamble out of a hole!

Now I'm flush with cash! The kid heads back to the V/P on the buss (those 24 hour passes are a great deal) and I walked over to the Trop.

Sadly its more of the same. I end up losing almost another grand, it was brutal. I get a text from the kid around 7PM saying he cant hit shit at the V and he is just going to crash in the room. I tell him piss on these places! Check out early and meet me at Luxor. Lets go where we know we wont get killed. At least not as fast.

The Trop is a nice place. The casino is smaller than I would like and they don't have many older games. I was always alone in the High Limit room but the folks that worked in there were very friendly. I hate burning a host but I dropped $2,000 here and I barely got any play for my money so I was out of there. That last $1K only netted me this one hit below. My total coin in there over 2 days was just $6K. Pitiful. I know its all luck but I had some very bad luck there.

We regroup and head over to Mandalay Bay. I quickly caught fire. I had a host tell me before if I ever wanted a fighting chance playing slots I should always look for the oldest machine in the house. "Back in the day" a casino could only order a machine that was 90% payback or better. usually $1.00 machines were set to 94-96%. Today's modern penny machines can be set as low as 80% in Nevada and I'm pretty sure that's the only way CET buys them. The theory goes if an older machine can last on the floor for so long that means enough people are playing them still. And if people keep playing the same machine for over 20 years it must be a "good" machine.

So that's your tip of the day from Grid. Look for something old and shitty. Get a hit and run away. The system works! MB has plenty of older dollar games for me and I do very well on them. I'm not getting rich but I'm not losing either. I'm slowly building up my credit meter and my coin-in is climbing as well.

After the above I hit these on some Monte Carlo slots.

I cashed out that TITO and gave LOTR a spin and I should have won more with 12 free spins but I'm still happy.

Not bad at all. I'm doing pretty well here.

After that run at Mandalay Bay I end up pretty close to even for the trip. No thanks to the Tropicana.

Day 3

Since we are both together now we kill some time before the 1st slot tourney starts at 11:30AM. We are still on Chicago time anyway and we are up and at'em starting at 8AM.

I bust some ghosts before playing my 1st round which I sucked ass on.

I didn't get the best of the tournament but I did win a little at the Luxor before heading over to NY NY.

As soon as we walk into New York I drop $200 playing the Sons of Anarchy slot. I hate it. I was only playing it since the kid wanted to. We both were insulted. I ran for the safety of my beloved dollar slots and win $175.00 by landing the elusive Triple Spin

Being back to even I deiced to play some more Beetlejuice. I Beetlejuiced the shit out of this machine!

We head over to MGM and I bitch that I NEVER win there and yet like a moth to a flame here I am. Those dicks owed me one and I finally got the best of them. I took $250 off their After Shock machine. If you follow my blog these things are like an ATM. You just have to cash out right after getting the random shock or else it gets even with ya.

I try my luck on their Blazing 7's and win.

We leave MGM up and head back to Luxor for the 2nd round of my tournament at 3:30. While waiting for that round I take $183 off them.

I sucked at the tourney once more so we head back through the crappy castle & NY NY and pop out at Monte Carlo. Those stupid slanted stairs they put in seem to be a death trap! It looks nice out front but I can see someone twisting an ankle if they aren't paying attention. And in vegas who pays attention to anything? Apparently the Monte saw this as well and put planted flower pots on the edges of the stairs to keep people from tipping off one.

I was down $300 here and was going to cash out a TITO for $60.00 when I spotted my old friend. A Giant Instant Spin. Had a decent bonus for almost $200 and cashed out nearly even for here.

We take the monorail over to Bellagio and walk through their atrium. I guess this months flavor is Under the Sea.

I have a few decent bonuses...

Up a little we head over to the Mirage. I have no idea what game I was playing. It was a dollar slot with some carnival bonus game and that's right up my alley. 5 free spins and the 1st 4 netted me $22.00 but the last spin was $400 so now we are cooking with gas!

Head back to Luxor for the night and I hit for $200 after being down $300.

The kid goes off to bed since his allowance was spent for the day and I head back to Mandalay Bay. This slot looks old and shitty so it must pay off well. I slip in a hundo and get a solid hit.

Play some Spin and win behind it and land an OK bonus.

I play on through the night, probably a good 3 more hours and head up to bed around 2AM (4AM Chicago time) down for the trip just $300.

Day 4

Today is going to be a longggg day. Our flight leaves at 12:45AM Sunday so the plan is to gamble all day and just head to the airport around 11PM. I still have most of my cash but the kid is getting light. We have time to kill before my last slot tournament starts at 11:30 and without a monster session I'm sunk.

We head over to Mandalay Bay and I show the kid this new machine that I sat on for over an hour. I was never down more than $20 but never up more that $40 either. Full points, which for anything new at an Mlife property is pretty rare. The game is super boring but I want to make Platinum again and carrying around a Gold card is pretty embarrassing. So I need the tier credits and this machine is helping me get them. I actually hit for over $100 as soon as I sat down.

Play around a little and lose $100 before finding the below.

Back to "Old and Shitty" for another solid hit!

It was pretty much downhill for the next hour or so. I was still up $200 here but I was up $400 at one time. I spot this Haywire slot on our way out and feed it a couple 20's. It was the right move.

Play my last round in the tournament and by seeing what everyone else had done I'm pretty sure I wasn't going to place. I'll find out for sure in 6 hours when they announce the winners.

But who needs their Free Play when I can just win my own money? We head over to NY NY and I take a nice bonus off them.

Slip into Monte Carlo and play some new slot for $4.50 per spin. I end up with 18 free games with all super stacks paying 10X. I win a grand total of $28.00. After that insult I hit a decent bonus on a Miss Liberty machine for $134.00

We walk through Aria, but all we get was sad. No hits and we both lose. I took a beating there which is pretty unusual since I normally do well in their casino. Hop on the monorail and over to Bellagio.

I started off hot but gave that back. Between the B and Aria I went from up on the day to down $600. Good thing I found this Quick Hits! That put my bankroll close to normal once more.

We head back to Luxor to see if I won anything in the tournament. I placed 98 and wasn't even close to the top 50. BUT good thing I still showed up. They had a raffle for $500 to one of the 150 people that played. And that winner was me! I couldn't beat 50 other people to place in the tourney but I beat everyone in the raffle.

I piss that away pretty fast. As with most Free Play I couldn't seem to win much on it. I ended up turning it into $300.00 of real money and I headed over to Mandalay Bay for one final push before we head home.

While I did score these below 3 hits that night I never got a jackpot.

Final tally for the trip was Grid down $360.00 and the kid down everything he brought. That $6K of coin-in from the Trop that cost me $2,000 was nothing compared to what I did with Mlife.

I ended up at just over 7,000 points after 2.5 days of gambling. That equates to $3.00 per point on regular slots and $10 per on specialty slots. My coin-in should have been about $24,000 total. Pretty solid play and I ended up with just over $1,000 profit in their casinos. Add in the $600 win from Fremont and I would have come home with a nice trip. Take out that $2K loss from the Trop and here I am a loser once more.

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All images on this site are original content and taken by us, you may not use any of our images without our written approval. The Grid.