Vegas Recap

Well I'm back. Very tired for some reason. Onto the diary.

Trip to Vegas: Made it in 4 hours. Ugh. Terrible. Especially when leaving at 5:45am. Had two worthless stops and I was driving in a logo'd Farmers car, so I couldn't make up the time by going 90. Had to stop once in Barstow because the bran kicked in. Then I stopped on the NV-CA border at Buffalo Bills Casino. I thought I had purchased my winning Women's Ole Miss basketball ticket at Buffalo Bills back in March. So my plan was to stop there, cash the ticket and bet the A's game since it was starting at 10:00am. So I get there around 9:20, run inside and as I was handing the winning ticket to the man behind the counter I noticed that the ticket had the weird Mirage palm trees on it. WTF? I went to the wrong casino!! Fuck!!!! So I jumped into the logo car, and drove about 85 to the Mirage so to cash the ticket and bet the game before 10:00am. Just barely made it.

So after cashing the ticket and placing my morning bet at the Mirage, I had to cash a check at Bank of America and then check in at the New York New York. The room was very nice. 29th floor. Nice view of MGM and the Hooters Casinos. Take my time, freshen up, and go downstairs to begin the day of gambling. Now Eric, Lee, and I were discussing where I should go that day to gamble. Lee and I both thought that I should go to all of the places were I lost a shitload of money and try to avenge my losses. Eric, on the other hand, thought that we were absolutely stupid and I should continue to go where I've had some luck. If that was the case I would be spending the entire afternoon at the Sahara and the Frontier.

Anyway, I decided to just hang out at New York New York for a while and gamble there and watch the A's Yanks game. Wait? What day is it? Saturday? Crap, no games until the evening because of Fox. So I saddle up to a roulette table and promptly get my ass handed to me. Down a quick $200. I'm out of here. Stopped by the book first to place some additional baseball wagers. Took the Brewers, O's, and Indians Under. Went two out of three on those. Then went 0-2 on a 4 team parlay and the Dodgers.

Head over to the Monte to play some $5 craps. No $5s, but I do find a wide open $10 table. Hop on and have a decent roll. Then another guy joins in and he has a decent roll. Two semi attractive women join in and they have a decent roll. I end up picking up after a hour back to even. Strange thing though. Whenever the one dealer would talk to me, the next roll was a 7. I started to yell at the guy not to talk to me at the end.

Head over to Planet Hollywood, aka Aladdin. Not too bad. I was just going to play some BJ there, but couldn't find an open table. Ohh, what is that? A $5 craps table? Don't mind if I do. Stay there for about 45 minutes and made $50. I did get tipped by two older ladies who I think were 75 year old lesbians, for hitting there hard 8 twice. Walk around some more, pretty small place, pretty bland, so I decide to head over to the Mirage.

Arrive at the Mirage and find another $5 craps table. Stayed there for at least one hour with a very nice older man and an older lady from Australia. Those Mirage craps dealers are real dicks sometimes. I got a solid attitude from Skip the second I came up the table. It wasn't after I rolled once and was there for a little bit before he cut me some slack. Up another hundred so I decided to leave there to go cash my A's ticket.

I end up dicking around for the next hour at Pai Gow and some more roulette. I believe I won some more there. So I decided to go find a nice BJ table and watch the rest of the baseball games. Walk around to the $25 tables by the Beatles bar, and all the TVs are gone now. I asked one of the pit bosses where the TVs went and he looked at me like I was crazy. "You know, the TVs that were here back in March?" "Oh, they are gone now. We only have them for the tournament." Stupid idea guys, bring back the TVs.

So I end up joining a guy at a $25 BJ table who seems pretty nice. At this point I'm starting to get a little tipsy. OK, I'm borderline hammered. I'm struggling to put down my umpteenth Absolute and Soda. Problem with playing a lot of craps is that you end up pounding drinks. And you know how much I love an afternoon buzz. So I end up sitting down, and breaking out the BJ card, and the dealer calls me out on it. Ass. The other guy tells me he used to use it, but has it memorized. OK, seems like a decent table. Well I go on getting crushed. Ass Raped might be the correct word. I have to pick up only after about 20 minutes of playing. Down $500. I decide to go back to the New York New York to grab some pizza, take a shower and relax before my evening comeback. But for some reason I don't take a cab and decide to walk back. In 120 degree heat.

As my contacts melt into my eyes, I end up buying a $1 water bottle on the street and tip the girl $4. Why? That's how drunk I was. So I pass Caesars, and now I enter into the hated Belagio. I decide that I will walk through the Belagio, hit the men's room to piss, check out the scores of the game and exit on the opposite end of the casino, cutting down on some of my outside time. Well as I'm leaving the sportsbook I pass by the craps table. I stop, JUST FOR A SECOND, to watch what's going on at the $10 table and an older guy brushes by me to get a spot at the table and throws (and I mean throws) a wad of money at the pit boss. It wasn't in a mean way, just in a weird I have a 6 inch wad of $100 type of way. And he is yelling at them saying that he wants bets on this current roll, despite them trying to count the money. $500 on the pass, $2000 odds, $500 come, $100 on the hardways, $500 9. And to top it off, he asks for the money back, breaks out an equal size roll out of his other pocket and chucked it to pit boss. I think he had at least $15,000. I really don't know how the dealer and the pit boss stayed so cool and did everything correct. Plus they now had to deal with my $300 coming into the game. How could I not play next to this guy? As we were all waiting for our chips, two very young, but hot girls walk right past us, with the guy saying, "I could buy them you know." What does that mean? I'm so out of my league right now. I'm still wearing shorts and a tee shirt. My eyes are blood shot due to the drinking and the heat on my contacts. Anyway, this guy has a strong French accent. So the table is very choppy and the next guy to roll looks like a king loser. He just looks beaten down and has 6 out written all over him. I mumble to the French guy next to me "Hmmm, you know what would be perfect right now", and he looks at me with a smile and says, "Yup". We both started to bet the Don't Pass line. With my $10 and his $100, the guy rolls a 6. For some reason I put full odds on the Don't Pass and then laid another wager on the Don't Come. The Frenchmen follows. Out go the dice.....9. OK, not too bad. We put max odds on that one and we just wait. Out go the dice.....10. Whatever. Out go the dice....7 out! The Frenchmen and I both smile, make a little chirp, and both say at the same time "No celebrating." We then go back on the passline and everything is fine for the next 10 minutes. The table gets choppy again and the same guy comes back up to roll. Without even looking at each other, the Frenchmen and I were on the Don't Pass. I'm going to shorten this up a little for the blog, so I was betting $10 with full odds on the don't pass and come lines. So was the Frenchmen, but with $100 and full odds. And then the train was derailed with a roll of 11,7,7,6,4,10,9,8, 6,8, 4,10,9,7. Now there were a few other numbers in between, but it started off bad, and it ended even worse with this guy putting out a shitload of numbers and bringing them ALL back in. I was flat broke since I kept on going into my pocket to cover the odds on the don't come. The Frenchmen? Slammed his hand on the rail, picked up his remaining chips and stormed away from the table. Not even a goodbye??

At this point, I'm hammered, and down pretty bad for the day. I grab some pizza, watch the Indians cover the over (ugh), and then I go shower to make an evening comeback. It is now 8:00pm and I'm really tired. I go downstairs, play some more craps and do pretty well. Combine that with a decent run at roulette and somehow I'm only down $400. Head upstairs to watch the rest of the Dodger game and fall asleep.

Wake up at 5:30am, and I'm downstairs by 6:00am to get a cup a coffee and find out the morning odds. The sportsbook is closed and no updated odds. Walk over to the craps table and find an empty $5 table. Don't mind if I do. Go on a pretty solid run and I'm up $200. I'm having a great time by myself and listening to the pit boss and one of the dealers talk about this new war computer game. Then all of a sudden I get this drunk guy who comes up right next to me with about $1600 in chips (he colored up at my table and then decided to play) who is just babbling about something that happened at the other table. Right as he gets his money on the board I hit a 7. Ha!! So its his turn to roll. Umm. Apparently not. The pit boss from the other table comes over and whispers something into my pit boss's ear and then their boss comes over and says "You have been banned from rolling." Well here is what happens next:

Drunk: I told Frank I didn't mean to hit him with the dice.
Floor Sup: That isn't what he said. I'm sorry, but you are banned.
Drunk: That's bullshit. It was an accident. I can't believe this. This is bullshit.
Frank (pit boss from the other table): You hit me in the head with the dice John. You're drunk and you knew exactly what was going on.
Drunk: Get the fuck out of here, blah, blah, blah
Derek: Two dollar any
Dealer: That's a bet
Derek: Can I roll yet?

So I sat there and listened to this drunk guy yell at two pit bosses and a Floor Supervisor and he wasn't tossed, just was banned from rolling. I think only Billy Nogle and this guy have ever been banned from rolling.

Well, that's about it. A lot of fun and I think I could do this again by myself. Had a nice run there for a while with craps. I will post some more on my other comments on Vegas tomorrow. And Curr, I'm not lying.