Day 13
Monday December 24, 2001
I got up a little later than I had hoped and I had a surprise. I had a cold. Every time I stay at Sam’s Town I seem to get a cold. Maybe that’s another good reason to stay away from here. After I got ready I checked out of the Suncoast. From here I made a few stops at some of the locals casinos to pick up some chips. The first stop was next door at the JW Marriot Resort (formerly the Resort at Summerlin and Regent Las Vegas) to see it and get some chips. This place is really nice and has a circular layout similar to the Hard Rock. The only downfall is it was dead. I don’t think there were 50 people in this place. That’s amazing since right next door at the Suncoast the place is packed. So packed they are going to expend it already. My next stop was Arizona Charlie’s West. I didn’t really care for this place too much. Seemed really dark and dreary in here.

From here I went over to the Rancho area and stopped at the Fiesta. I had 2 things to do here. The first was to combine my old Fiesta Amigo account with my new Fiesta Henderson account. This actually went smooth and combined I have over 400,000 points. These go back to the days when the Reserve used to run 4x points on the weekends and when the Fiesta used to run triple and 5x points.

My next stop was the Baja Beach Café for lunch. I ordered the BBQ beef sandwich. I was expecting a shredded beef sandwich but that’s not what I got. All this sandwich really was is roast beef with BBQ sauce dumped all over it. It was ok, just not what I was expecting. The service in the coffee shop really sucked. There were plenty of people there but it seemed like all they were interested in doing was standing around talking instead of doing what they were supposed to.

After lunch I decided to play a little video poker since they were running a 5x points promotion. I was going to start off with some $1 deuces wild. They aren’t full pay but the straight flush and higher are all progressives and the deuces were well over $1,100. I put my money in and got no credits. 20 minutes later an attendant finally showed up to fix the problem. I started playing and not 5 minutes later the guy next to me hit the wild royal and the deuces so I cashed out even.

From here I moved over to the FPDW half-dollar machines. The first machine sucked up my $100 in no time at all. I don’t think I saw very many deuces and only had about 4-5 quads. I moved to the machine next to it and hit the deuces for $500 right away. I cashed out shortly after winning $300 at Fiesta Rancho.

After I left the Fiesta I went over to Texas Station. I had never been in here before and I actually liked it. It has a cowboy theme and reminded me of the Wild Wild West Casino at Bally’s Atlantic City. My next stop was Santa Fe Station. I hadn’t been out here since before Stations took it over. It still looks pretty much the same just with a whole lot less full pay video poker than there used to be. My next stop was to Sam’s Town to move myself in. This is my last move this trip and I’ll be here for the next week.

After I got settled in I rested for a while and then went down to the casino. Not wanting to gamble here tonight I went down to the bowling center and bowled a few games. I’m not very good but it’s a lot cheaper to kill time bowling than to gamble!

After I was finished bowling I went back up to the casino. I decided to take a shot with some blackjack. This was a mistake. I sat at a single deck table and did nothing but lose. I won only 4 hands the whole time I was there (which wasn’t very long) 1 of those hands was a double, one was a blackjack and 2 others I beat the dealer on points. The whole time I was there the dealer didn’t bust at all. I couldn’t even win with a blackjack. I had lost everything I won at Fiesta Rancho and went up to the room really pissed off. I can’t believe how bad my luck with blackjack has been. It’s been so bad it actually makes me wonder if they are dealing honest games at these places. I’m sure they are but I just can’t imagine losing so much so fast ever before. I’ve had losing days where I can’t do anything right but I’ve only had 1 blackjack win since I’ve been here and it wasn’t even a great win.

Now I’m up in my room at 9:30, sick, and pissed off about the way the blackjack game went. I guess I can use the extra rest and hopefully will get up early tomorrow.

Total win/loss for the day $0
Total comps for the day $48