Las Vegas Trip Report: One of Many Days I am a Degenerate Gambler in Las Vegas

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 – Day Six of Eleven

[This is part six of an eleven part Las Vegas trip report.  If you want to start at the beginning, go here.]

My trip is officially half over and very unlike me; I haven’t been obsessing about this every day.

I am up and out at 8:19.  The slot club here at Golden Gate does not open until 9:00 so I can’t give them my Las Vegas Advisor multiplier yet.  I figure I’ll have breakfast first.  I have about $50 in comps here, so here it is I shall eat!

The Golden Gate diner has a menu item named Snickers Hot Cakes, which are pancakes with Snickers baked in them.  Sounds delicious.  It turns out to taste just like regular pancakes, only every now and then you get a mashed up peanut in a bite.  Disappointing.

I go to pay and give my card to swipe as I’ve done in the past.  This is when I’m told they don’t do that anymore.  You have to get a comp slip.  Excuse me, what?  I ate here BECAUSE I have comps and I can’t use my comps?  I am told “Well you can go to the slot club and get one.”  No I can’t because they don’t open until nine and it’s not nine yet.  Then I start whining and I cut myself off because it’s not her fault so why am I whining at her.  Then she goes on to say that this comp system is actually really great.  I ask her “If it’s so great, then why am I paying for a meal when I have over five times enough comps to cover it?”  She didn’t have an answer for me.

Again, I make myself stop talking because it’s not her fault at all that this is the new system or that I was unaware of it.

I pay cash for my meal (grrrrrrrrr) and walk over to Dunkin Donuts to get some iced coffee.  Come back and try my Diamond Spinner slot machine with the $298 progressive again.  I sit my iced coffee down, put money in the machine, light a post-meal cigarette and put my player’s club card in.  The machine can’t read my card.  Now I’m mad all over again.

I go to the stupid slot club booth, which is now open.   I almost yell at the poor boothling “my freaking card won’t work.”  She looks me up, prints out a new card, and hands it to me.  It’s gold.  I have moved up a tier.  I’m not entirely sure what that means, but that gold card worked like a pacifier on a screaming baby and I shut up immediately and walked away happy.

Back to Diamond Spinner.  I lose $20.  I have $5 promo play on my card.  I don’t know how this works but it seems every other day or so some free slot play would pop up on it.  It’s not points converted to slot play, but promo slot play.   I don’t really know what was going on there, but if you are playing at the Golden Gate, check your free play balance daily.

I go degenerate after this and lose $150.  I head to my room at 10:15 AM, all mad at myself.

I check out and move to the California.  I’m in degenerate mode.  I haven’t showered because I’d prefer to shower at the California than at the Golden Gate.  I’m still all pissy about paying for my meal (GET OVER IT ALREADY.)   I try to check in and I’m told my room is vacated but it’s not cleaned.  So I have to come back later for my key.

Fine.

I find a Vibrant 7’s slot machine with a progressive of $332.  I play and get up a little bit, but never hit it.

I kept great notes this time.  I always seem to do better with note keeping when I’m broke.

This is what it looks like for this round on Diamond Spinner:

$10- $15
$10- $30
$10- $15

Cash out

$10- 0
$10- 0

Switch machines

$10 – 0
$10 – $30
$10 – 0

Cash out

$10 – 20 (woman hovering over me, watching me as she is chewing like a cow)
$10 – 0
$10 – 0

Change machines

$10 – $15
$10 – 0
$10 – 0
$10 – 0
$10 – 0
$15 – 0

Time to break another $100.

I lose the $100.

I played quarter Double Double Bonus video poker, nickel Supertimes Pay video poker, and my Diamond Spinner slot machine.  I win nothing.

I take a break at the California coffee shop and get some Eggs Benedict.  I am on vacation, I can eat breakfast for every meal if I want to.

I should go to my room now and recover.  But I don’t.  Instead, I decide it will be more fun to lose one more $100 bill.

It wasn’t.

I lost $400 today.  Gross.

I get room 1337.  I didn’t take pictures of the room because it looks just like the last two rooms I had here.

I go right to bed.   I’m woken up at 8:00 pm by a text.   I know I should stay in my room and call it a night but I don’t.

I lose $100 at Main Street Station.  I go back to the Golden Gate, where it seems I last saw my luck.  I eat at the Golden Gate diner for the second time today.  This time stopping to get a comp slip first.  I have learned my lesson.

Once I’m done, I go over to Fremont and play quarter Supertimes Pay video poker.  Honestly, at this point, why not.

I turn my first $40 into $80.

Turn my next $40 into $360!  Look at that!  Sixes with a 5x.  This is probably the best hand I’ve ever had with a multiplier.  Ever.  AND IT’S ON QUARTERS.

stp sixes with 5x 4-29-09

As I’m all psyched on my hand, the dude behind me is playing a ten play fifty cent machine.  He is dealt aces, and picks up some kickers.  I didn’t want to stare so I couldn’t see how many kickers but his jackpot was $7400.  Imagine? I wanted to take a picture of his win and post it here and claim it as mine, but then I remembered I am not a liar.  He was all psyched as hell and you could tell he was just dying to scream “LOOK EVERYONE!  LOOK AT WHAT I HIT!!!!”

I went to cash out and someone took my machine.  Understandable. But she is wearing open toed shoes and has her gross feet up on the ledge, touching the machine I am now stuck with.  EW.  I hate people so much.

She is also playing nickels and is playing one per line.  On Supertimes Pay.

I am dealt a full house (still on quarters) so I cash that out at $60.  I go to redeem my TITO ticket (Oh yeah, that plan I had days ago to hoard all my TITO tickets?  Yeah, not so much.)  When I come back, gross rude bare feet touching my machine slob is gone.  I lose.  She broke my machine.  Filthy pig.

I go over to Fremont’s Vibrant 7’s slot machine and put some money in.  Wouldn’t ya know it?  The chick next to me has taken off her flip flops and is now barefoot and has her bare foot up on the ledge, touching my machine.  When did this become acceptable to have your DISGUSTING feet bare and all over things?  I don’t get it.  I don’t.

Then she hits the sevens, which seems a LOT more impossible to do than it was when I first played this game.  She would have hit the progressive, but she doesn’t have the extra bet enabled so she doesn’t get the bonus.   Neener neener karma you filthy pig PUT YOUR SHOES BACK ON OR TAKE YOUR FILTHY FEET OFF THE FREAKING LEDGE.  PEOPLE PUT DRINKS THERE YOU PIG.

New rule:  If you feel it’s okay to put your bare feet up on the ledge so they are in my sight and touching my machine, I feel it’s okay to light a cigarette in hopes it will make you go AWAY.

Okay.  Where was I?  Oh yeah.  I had just wandered over to the Vibrant 7’s game at Fremont, where I immediately lost my mask of sanity over someone’s bare foot touching my machine.

Here is what I did:

$10 – $0
$10 – $15
$10 – $25

This allows me to go again.

$10 – $0
$10 – $0

And I stop.

I walk around to the other side of the bank and play a game called “Rawhide Marshall’s bounty”.

I do this:

$10 – $0
$10 – $10
$10 – $0
$10 – $25

Let’s go again.

$10 – $0
$10 – $0

Fine, I’ll stop.

I walk to the other side of the casino and find Viva Monopoly slot machine.  I turn one ten into $15 and then next two to zerooooooo.

I do a money check and see that I broke ONE hundred dollar bill for tonight’s gambling pleasures and I now have THREE hundred dollar bills, plus an extra $80.  Pretty sweet.

I am dyyyyyyyying to play quarter Supertimes Pay video poker again.  It’s right there, hello – hi!  Hello!  But I’ve been really lucky with winning after losing twice my daily budget earlier in the day so I don’t push it.

I settle on playing Treasure Chest video poker.  I get 8’s and pick the treasure chest with 180 quarters in it.  I cash out at $50.

I put $10 in a Happy Days slot machine, nothing.  Same with a Dirty Harry slot machine.  Twice.  I make the mistake of touching not one but TWO pennies on tails.  They were on the ledge on the side of the Dirty Harry machine.   But it was dark and I couldn’t see if they were on heads or tails. so I touched them to pull them out into the light and they were tails.  Bad luck coming your way….?

I decide to get OUT of here and make my way back to the California.  On the way I see some guy getting arrested but I do not see what for.

I stop at the Golden Gate to play a bit.  I lose $10 in an Invaders From the Planet Moolah slot machine, and lose $10 in Crystal Forest.  I realize I have enough points for $5 free slot play and in addition to that, there is yet another $5 mystery promo play on my card.  What is this?  What causes it to happen?  It’s NOT my points; it’s in addition to my points. It just keeps popping up sporadically.  I reiterate: if you play at the Golden Gate, check your free play daily.

Oh. I lost the $5 promo and the $5 points play.

NOW I’m really going back to the California.  I walk through Las Vegas Club and take a quick trip on their room elevators to the 9th floor to buy a Diet Pepsi from the vending machine.  California is a Coca Cola hotel.  Brilliant, eh?  I picked the 9th floor solely because it’s my favorite number.

Back at the California, I agree to let myself play $25 more.  I lose it on some really dumb penny game called something.  Starts with a G.  I didn’t write it because I swore I’d remember it.  I guess I was wrong.

Now that I’ve lost what I allowed myself, I still have to put a $20 in the progressive Double Double Bonus video poker.   I hit tens.

This nets me a $30 profit (oh I didn’t mention I had put a $100 in to play the $20?)

I take the $30 profit and lose $20 in a Super Double Bonus vider poker game and $10 in a Vibrant 7’s slot machine.   I get zero from both.

Although today sucked and I lost a lot of money, I’m still only down $540 from when I left work.  Not too bad for day six.  It’s not good, but at least I’m ahead of my budget.

Bed at 2:00 am.

Want to read more?  You can find the rest of the chapters here: seveneightnineten and eleven!

6 thoughts on “Las Vegas Trip Report: One of Many Days I am a Degenerate Gambler in Las Vegas

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