Day 7
July 18, 2000
Slept in a little later today since I got a little more sunburn yesterday at the pool and needed a break from the sun. While I was lying around deciding what to do for the day I got a phone call from my buddy T. We talked for a few minutes and I told her of my luck so far. After that I got out of bed and pulled the curtains open. I looked down at the pool and there was a girl in the pool on a float in the smallest little thong with her top undone. Unfortunately she was face down on the float so there wasn’t much of a show but damn, why isn’t there ever anything like that when I go to the pool?
After I got ready I headed downtown. There was a meet at the Golden Nugget Lounge at 1pm that was organized on the Las Vegas Talk discussion board. I made a quick stop at Walgreen’s on the corner of Charleston and The Strip to drop off my film from the pictures I had taken so far. I got to the Golden Nugget early so I wandered around downtown for a little while. I did notice there were quite a few $3 blackjack tables open though. While I was walking through the casino I saw a $1 slot machine that had a rack in the tray. But what I saw behind it was 2 one-dollar tokens leaned up against the back of the tray. Those quickly became mine. I walked over to the 4 Queens and took my shot on the free play machine. I lost. What a surprise that was. It was meet time so I headed back over to the Golden Nugget. There were quite a few people at this meet including Carl from LV, Dixie, Dru, VG, Dusty, Frank the Webmaster, Jane in OK, and her sister Delisa. The meet lasted for a while and VG peddled the trinkets he sells on his VG Enterprises site. Today's hot item was a Las Vegas mouse pad
After the meet I went over to Binion’s Horseshoe to play some Blackjack. I played for about 1 hour and cashed out up $300. I was up over $500 but a new dealer and the changing of the cards and the whole table turned bad. Since the coffee shop was now closed I got a comp for the buffet. This buffet isn’t that good. Comped it’s ok though. They had all of your basic selections. They also had a sandwich counter where you could order any type of deli sandwich you wanted. The dessert selection was terrible here. There were only about 5 or 6 items on it.
While I was eating one of the waitresses was talking to another customer. She said she couldn’t believe all that’s going on there. She said she would have never thought that the coffee shop would ever close. That tells me that it’s not closed for renovations like has been talked about but rather that it’s closed for good. She also said there is such a large turn over of employees that when she comes back from her days off she doesn’t know half of the people. Hopefully things will get better here because in the last year they’ve really gone downhill.
After dinner I walked down to the Plaza to join their new slot club the #1 Main Club. I’m not a big fan of the Plaza because it’s kind of a dump but it looks like they are trying to clean the place up a bit. Just a bit though. Just for joining you get 2,500 free points and while you play you get 1 point for every dollar won. They use a coin-out system here just like the Coast Casinos do. I played some 50-play video poker and lost my ass. I couldn’t hit anything. I racked up another 5,000 points.
I was now down for the day and headed back over to Binion’s for some more Blackjack. I was doing well here betting between $50 and $100 a hand. On 4 different occasions the deck got very positive which doesn’t happen that much on a single deck game because they shuffle so often. When this happened I slammed up $150-$200 and got a blackjack everytime. I was also winning all of my double downs and splits. After a while I bumped up to $100-$150 bets. I eventually cashed out with a $1,800 win. I tipped the dealer for being friendly and went to the cage to get my money. On my way out I walked past the slot club booth and figured I might as well join. This is also where Ted Binion’s safe is located. There is a sign on it giving some of the history of the safe such as past owners and also says that it’s believed that the same people that were responsible for his murder stole the contents Ted had in the safe. After getting my card I played $40 on a 9/6 Jacks or Better Triple Play machine. I lost pretty quickly.
I went back to the Stardust after all of this and made a quick stop at Walgreen’s again to pick up the pictures I had dropped off earlier in the day. On the way back one of the radio stations was having a contest and the prize was a 2-night stay at the Del-Mar Motel. If you’re not familiar with this place it’s one of those dives on Las Vegas Blvd. They feature mirrored ceilings and adult movies. When I got back to the Stardust I took a walk down the strip and took some pictures. I walked down to Circus-Circus and the Riviera and then back up to the Desert Inn to take a few pictures of that before it closed.
Back at the Stardust and stopped at the gift shop to pick up a snack. There was a lady that had a screaming kid in the casino well after midnight. This is the kind of crap that needs to stop. Kids shouldn’t be in casinos to begin with, let alone at friggen midnight.
On the way back to the room I walked past a Flip-It machine. I know these are a big rip off but they are kind of fun. I had 3 quarters in my pocket so popped them in. I got 2 back so played them again. On the first coin I got 2 more quarters and on the next one the coin went flying all over the place and must have gone into one of the tiny hoops. Quarters started dispensing into the tray. I had just won $10 playing Flip-It. I scooped up my winnings and ran away from that machine as fast as I could. Who would have ever thought I could win 10 bucks on Flip-It? After this I went back up to the room to eat my snack and then called it a night.
Total win/loss for the day $950
Total comps for the day $ 55