Vegas Hotel/Casino Review

Since I'm already tired of the Real World/Tribe blogs, I thought that I would start a thread that will probably interest everyone on this degenerate-laden site: gambling, and specifically, Vegas hotels/casinos. I'll try to post something every day or so and have everyone comment on it. I'll start with the Mirage, and since I never leave the Mirage, the meat of most of the rest of the posts will be up to you guys.

THE MIRAGE

-My Background
You have to realize that I have gone to Vegas every year for the last 6-7 years during the first weekend of the NCAA basketball tourney. The reason I go is to gamble. I'm married, so I'm not really looking to hook up with some cougar LA slut (although I'm happy to drunkenly ogle your enormous fake breasts from across the craps table while you pull 100's out of your meathead boyfriend's pocket). I'm also not really interested in the club scene that Real World Las Vegas has made so popular (see Ghost Bar, Rain, etc). Thanks, but I get my fill of douchebag meatheads with too much shit in their hair in tight Abercrombie t-shirts and $150 jeans here in DC. So for me, the Mirage is a pretty good fit.

-The Scene
Opened Nov 22, 1989, the Mirage was the first of it's kind. Financed with newly-invented junk bonds, the Mirage was one of the first (if not the first) themed hotels. However, it is showing it's age. You enter into a vanilla-scented lobby and must pass through an enoumous enclosed rain forest to enter the gaming area. The ceilings tend to be a little low, and the Polynesian theme is dated compared to today's casinos. This in turn keeps the demographics of the patrons a decidedly mixed lot. It certainly skews older and male, probably upper-middle class or so. I've seen everyone from "construction executives" pulling wads of 100's from their Sergio Tacchini track suits to Mike Fratello, the "Czar of the Telestrater" to Kevin James (one of the guys from CBS's Yes, Dear). The low end of the weekend table limits tend to be $25-$50, high enough to keep much of the trash out, but low enough to keep it an interesting mix.

-The Dealers
The dealers tend to be a little bit older, which means that you can't ask them what place is hot on a Thursday night. But it'a a small tradeoff for someone who actually can converse with you on the odds of playing a certain hand, why to do it and it what situations it is called for. They've also seen a lot and have generally been around for a while, so they "get it". The dealers generally have a pretty good rapport with the pit boss(es) and can get things for you. Whether it's vouching for you in getting comps, getting a hand fixed when you make a mistake after 14 vodka & sodas, or holding your spot while you run to put bets down on the upcoming Lady Blue Devils game, an experienced dealer has much more sway with a pit boss. Something that the 25 yr old blackjack dealer who just quit her job at Friday's will never have (although she has the perfect tits busting out of her shirt that my guy will never have) .

-The Gaming
The Mirage is moving more and more towards automated shufflers which is a sad thing for the players. Gambling always involves a great deal of superstition, karma, and misc other voodoo and players feel that the machines serve to kill any type of good run that you might have. I know that the cards are random, but any gambler will agree with me. Give him a choice between a table with an automatic shuffler and a shoe, and 99% of gamblers will take the shoe.

The Mirage also has a good range of table games, baccarat and mini-bac, enough craps tables to usually get on a table, blackjack galore (auto shuffler and shoes), pai gow (tiles for us Asians and poker for you round-eyes), roulette (for chicks, gay guys, and Derek), and all the randoms where you throw away the money you may have won from the last 17 hours of poker (Casino War, the Money Wheel, 3-Card Poker, Caribbean Stud, Let it Ride, etc).

The Mirage poker room is probably one of the better rooms in Vegas. It's pretty big, with a good mix of players, and a good range of games (in terms of types of poker and minimum bets), with plasmas everywhere. I'm not much of a poker player, but from what I hear, it's pretty good.

-Sports Book
Another aspect where the Mirage shines, in my opinion. It's a huge room that houses both the race and sports book. During the tournament, people camp out for seats in the book, literally sleeping in their chairs for the opportunity to sit and watch games in my idea of heaven. The Mirage sports book is big enough to handle the crush of people betting on every game, but not so big to where it gets impersonal and cavernous.

Possibly the best two things about the first weekend of the NCAA tourney are when the CBS music comes on at 9am Vegas time on Thursday, and at the end of any big upset. It's unlike any other place I've been and something you really have to experience to understand.

-Other (Pool, Shows, Clubs, etc)
One of the places where the Mirage really shows it's age is the lack of clubs and the lack of a pool scene. Today's hotels feature one or more clubs and actually derive a rapidly diminishing portion of their revenues from gaming (usually now under 50%, down from over 70% just a few years ago). Also, places like the Palms and the Hard Rock are known to stock their pools with strippers. Literally. They will often give the girls rooms, comps, free access to the gym, or food and beverage to use the pool. I went to the Mirage pool once (3-4 years ago) and there was no such thing. I guess that I don't really care since it keeps the meathead factor down and I'm never at the pool anyway.

I don't care about shows either, but for the sake of completeness, the Mirage features Danny Gans and hosts rotating performers (David Spade, Wayne Brady, Ray Romano, Jay Leno, etc) in the old Sigfried and Roy theater. I think that it's only a matter of time until they turn the S&R theater into a club of some kind in order to get in line with the rest of the Vegas places.

NEXT EPISODE: Hard Rock and The Palms