So I love gambling.   If you are unaware of this, then this must be your first time here.  Welcome!

I wanted to take one last trip to Atlantic City as once March hits, I have way too many travel plans that I will not be able to fit a gambling trip in until September at the earliest.  This does not include the fact that I will be in MACAU in May.  But that will not be a true gambling trip since you know, I should actually see the city.

So I picked the dates I wanted to go – next weekend.   Oh hey what is the one weekend that is not coming up comped for me?  That’s right, next weekend.  Fine, I will gladly go this weekend then.

I left work early and went to Port Authority to catch the bus.   As I typically do, I happen to find a penny on heads in Port Authority.  I am really good at finding pennies on heads when I am gambling.  This particular penny happened to be next to a dime on tails.  I couldn’t decide if picking up the dime would undo the penny’s luck.  But I am a cheapo weirdo who must pick up ALL CHANGE EVER (except pennies on tails obviously) so I grab that too.

The bus ride was not so bad.  I remember way back when I could not handle the bus ride to Atlantic City because it was too long.  Now that 2.5 hours seems like a breeze.

I have to get off at Caesars, even though I am staying at Trump Plaza.  There are no longer buses to Trump Plaza.   When I arrive, it is freezing outside.  It was likely single digits with the wind chill.   If you have never been to Atlantic City, the casinos and hotels are on the beach boardwalk.  They are not near the beach, they are on the beach.   So you have that frozen ocean air to deal with as well.

The last time I was here, I had a horrible time trying to buy a bottle of water.  The Trump Plaza gift shop had closed at 5:00 (really).  When I went next door to Caesars, the gift shop was behind a roped off area for late night cleaning.  I could not buy water.  It was ridiculous.

So this time, lesson learned.  I walked from the Caesars bus depot to a gas station two blocks away and got my drinks for the room.  Then back past Caesars to Trump Plaza to check in.  As I was walking, I said out loud to my cute little stuffed dog, who was in my suitcase, “I wonder if I could stay in that tower” and pointed to the tower that I have never been given a room in.

Oh yeah, I talk to my cute little stuffed dog.  Some may find this insane.  I personally find it a great pleasure versus talking to actual people.  That THAT human race.

I go to check in.   Now you know how smoking is gross and disgusting?  Well I love cigarettes.  I have battled with quitting for 3.5 years now.  Sometimes I do well, sometimes I don’t.

Once I started planning my upcoming China trip, I decided that this was it – it’s crunch time.  In addition to the expense of this trip, I am going to be in Tibet.  The high altitude makes it very hard for anyone to breathe.  Why on earth would I want to add smoker’s lungs to that equation?   So I quit for real.  But then I decided that if I was going to have one last gambling hurrah, I was also going to have one last smoking hurrah.  So I ask for a smoking room.

There are no smoking rooms.

So I do the thing that I have learned from being told many times in my past that there are no smoking rooms, and I simply say nothing.  Once you say “fine, okay, I will take a non smoking room” the conversation ends with you getting a key to a non smoking room.  But when you say absolutely nothing, the check-in-ling types a bit and manages to find you a room that they promise you “it’s the last smoking room we have available”.   I have been given every “last smoking room available” from a room with a Murphy bed (why do you even have these?) to a room with cement walls that was so dark that even with EVERY LIGHT IN THE ROOM TURNED ON, I could not make out the pages of the book I brought.  I have also been given a room with a ginormous whirlpool tub in the middle of the room and a high roller suite.

Tonight’s “last smoking room available” is in the East Tower.  Oh hey, I was just saying to my dog that I wonder if I will be given a room in the East Tower!  I don’t tell the guy this though.  Because you know, well you just know.

I go to my room.  My view is of a building wall.   It’s very hard to get a room in Atlantic City without a good view.  In one direction is the beach, in the other is more pretty water views.  I got the one room without a good view.   But I can smoke, so who cares?

My room is on the fourth floor.  You need to swipe your key card to select your floor.  I would estimate about 50% of the time, the elevator took about 23894723897438374 swipes to read my card to allow me to select my floor.  Each and every one of these times, I could not get it to go until we were past the fourth floor.  So I would have to continue up until every other person got off on their floor, and then go back down to my floor.

My plans are:  Starbucks for a Green Tea Frappucino, then to Caesars to play the $25 credit I got for taking the bus, then back to Trump to play my $20 free play and then to bed.  Do I do this?  Well yeah.  Except for the bed part.  Because you know, degenerate gambler,

(Side note here: I am actually proud that if you Google “degenerate gambler” my blog comes up on the first page.  WOO HOO I AM WORLD WIDE BABY!)

So Caesars.  I want to play the $25 in Double Super Times Pay video poker, but it’s taken.  So I try Ultimate X Double Double Bonus video poker, nickels.  I lose the $25 and attempt to head out but now Double Super Times Pay is open.  Son of a BITCH.  So I have to play with my own money.  At one point, I am dealt four to the royal flush and on the top line, I get the fucking 9 for a straight flush.  I hate when that happens.  This gives me $12.50.  Had it been an Ace, it would have been $200.

Back over to Trump.  I am going to play my $20 free play in Cleopatra Keno.  Someone is on my machine.  Oh fucking christ.  So I play the only other Cleopatra Keno machine in here.  This one mostly hates me.  But there was ONE night it paid me well.  I download my free play and get going.  I hit a bonus relatively quick but the numbers are off.   Oh fuck I am playing ten numbers instead of my normal nine.   So the win amounts are different.  Once the bonus is over, I can correct this but I have an OCD rule that you cannot change ANYTHING while you have credits in the machine.  You have to be on a brand new bill.  So I keep playing and then hit zero at the exact same time the guy on MY machine gets up and walks away.

Well now I have to play it with my own money.  It is MY machine after all.

I play and I turn $20 into $40.  Slot machine time!

There is a slot called “One Red Cent” that I like a lot and didn’t get to really play the last time I was here.  So I go there and am doing very well.   Then I hit a progressive for $117.  This gives me the green light to keep going.

I walk over to a bank of video poker.  I decide I want to play THAT machine.   I go and get a clean ashtray, sit down and put my card in.  I realize I have earned 40 points tonight.  If you get 20 points, you can do Trumps $25,000 Macy’s promotion.   I didn’t understand exactly HOW you won at this point.  I just knew if you hit 20 points, you have to go to a Player’s Club kiosk and print a voucher.  So I get up and go do that.  Then I come back and someone is next to MY machine that I just picked and set up with a clean ashtray.  I left only to print the Macys promotion voucher DAMMIT.

In theory, I can still play MY machine.  But I hate when I am playing in a bank where there are empty machines but someone chooses to sit right next to me.  So I extend the courtesy of not being an asshole and I do not play MY machine.  I play next to it, leaving open space between me and this person.

I lose $20 at the same time this person loses their money.  I should get up and stop playing since I am playing with my real money and I am not supposed to be.  But see, I want to play MY machine and now I can. So I am going to.

I put in $20.  I play.  The game deals me a pair of 8’s for like the first ten hands and never gives me anything else.  I am mad.   Then all of a sudden, I hold two Clubs.  I hit “draw” and get a flush.   But the credits keep going.  What the hell.  The screen is so full of glare I can’t really see the cards (always good when playing video poker mind you) so I stand up to see if I hit a straight flush.  No, no I did not.  I hit a ROYAL FLUSH.  My first ever Royal Flush on quarters.  ONE THOUSAND BUCKS.

I don’t even really get excited or anything because I am mostly in shock.  I am typing this up three days later and I can tell you that I never once felt excitement since hitting this.  I did feel relief in knowing that I now have a huge cushion for my upcoming trip to China.   This came at a perfect time since the expenses for that trip are really adding up.

I kept playing until I was down to $1000 even and cashed out.  I then figured I had a green light to put the rest of my weekend’s budget into machines, because even if I lost it all, I would still have $1000.

So I did that.

I lost the rest of my money and went up to my room with $1000.  I considered packing and going home immediately to make sure I went home with my entire win.  But I was too tired to go home.  So I went to bed.

Woke up Saturday and realized I am a complete asshole.  Sure, I have a thousand dollars.  But I didn’t leave myself any gambling budget.  So I have to either leave NOW or dip into my $1000 to play today.  What do you think I picked?  That’s right. I took $100 of my winnings out with me.

Breakfast was at Trump 24 Central Cafe.  It was barely okay.  Next stop was Starbucks.  Then I walked to the Tropicana.  I have not been here in many years and decided I should try my luck here.

The line for the Player’s Club was LONG.  I waited on it, got my card and got going.

I played some Double Double Bonus Video Poker.  The pay tables her are horrible but I got three four of a kinds, vs ZERO four of a kinds on my play on games with better pay tables so far at Caesars and Trump.

Then I moved to a new (to me) slot machine called Goldang. It is a new version of Invaders From the Planet Moolah.  As I got down to almost nothing, I got the bonus and got up over $100.  Played down to $100 and ran.

I tried some other slots, I wish I could remember the name of one of them.  It gave me $80 on my first try.

I went back to Trump with $280.  This lets me replace the $100 I took out of my Royal Flush winnings and still have $180 left over.

Again I consider going home with my winnings in tact.   Again I continue on not going home with my winnings in tact.

After dinner, I play a bit.  I cannot catch a damned thing at Trump.   I walk over to Caesars and play Ultimate X video poker.  I love this game but it is very volatile.   If you can get it going, you can have so much fun.  If you cannot, you end up wanting to kill yourself for being stupid enough to ever think you could win on here.

Twice I got dealt flushes that were four to the Royal Flush.  Here is the problem.   On a normal game, I would probably go for the Royal.  But on Ultimate X, you are given multipliers based on the hands you have.  So for a regular dealt flush, your next game will have an 8x multiplier on every hand you ended your current game on a flush.  So then if I did not draw the fifth card, I would lose not only the dealt win for each hand, but the possibility of 8x on each hand of the next game.

I struggled with this both times.  And both times I kept the flush.

Overall, I did well. My favorite hand was this one:

That’s a $120 win.

Eventually I ran out of cash and had to cash in my TITO tickets.  I had $200.  I didn’t want to give up my machine.  The TITO machine is maybe fifteen feet away.  I decide to light a cigarette and leave it burning in the ashtray (Atlantic City has designated smoking sections, there was no fear of a non smoker having to stumble across this)  Hopefully that + leaving my card in the machine + only going fifteen feet away will mean I can do this.

WRONG.

Some man swoops in, moves my ashtray to the empty machine next to it and starts playing my machine.  This is happening as I am on my way back, like ten feet from the machine.  I ask him if that is my card in the machine.  He then seems to realize that oh – someone was playing this machine.  I think he started to offer to get up and give it back.  I want my machine back but I am just aggravated because I know if I take it back, I will lose and then curse myself because here was the opportunity to walk away.  So I walk away.  And lose elsewhere.

Then the dude leaves and I go back.  I am still convinced that my machine will be jinxed if I take it, so I take the still empty one next to it.  I could have just done this with the guy sitting at MY machine, but I did not want to be close enough to see what he was doing on MY machine.

The guy on my right is playing ten hands on dimes.  This game is ten credits per hand.  So ten hands = 100 credits.  At dimes, this is $10/hand.   I continue playing three hands on nickels = 30 credits per game = $1.50.

I am doing okay.  I am not really winning but I am not losing either.  Most importantly, I am playing.

The next thing I know, the guy next to me throws his hands up in the air in what looks like frustration.  I look over and see his screen.  Jesus Christ.  This guy is playing ten hands.  He has multipliers on all of them, the bottom line has a 12x multiplier.  He has been dealt a four of a kind – I believe it was Jacks.  As I watch, he hits “draw” and BAM “Hand Pay $1200 – Call Attendant”

Sigh.

I eventually cash out and head back to my room.  AGAIN I consider going home.  But it is 11:30 on a Saturday night.  I am fearful I will be trapped on a bus with party people.  It is so weird to me to see young adults using Atlantic City like Las Vegas.

So I agree to stay for one more night and go home early in the morning.

I set the alarm for 5:00 am to get some gambling in before I leave.  In retrospect, this was stupid because Starbucks does not open until 6:00 am.

Over to Caesars and Ultimate X video poker.  I am doing really well.  I didn’t take any pictures because I had left my phone in my room.  But first I got Aces on the bottom line (800 credits on nickels = $40)  Then I hit Aces with a 3x multiplier = $120.  Then I got Aces with a kicker with no multiplier (whine) for $100.

I got so many four of a kinds with multipliers.  I got my $40 all the way over $200.

Then someone comes and sits next to me.  I can tell without even looking that it’s the $1200 winner from last night.  I recognize the scent of his cigar.

He starts playing ten hands on dimes.  Not long into this, he does that thing where he appears to be putting his hands up in frustration.  I look over.   It appears he had been dealt a flush on his previous hand because every hand on this current play has an 8x multiplier.  He was dealt four of a kind Queens = $2000 hand pay.  Way to go.

It is now time for me to leave.  But I say fuck it and run $100 through dollar video poker.  Of course the machine I pick has buttons that are all stuck.  I cannot cash out and go to a different one because my OCD will not allow it.  So I play and am miserable because of the stupid buttons.  I lose the $100 quickly and go.  Yet I am out of the casino with my $1000 in tact.  Whew.

I just missed my intended 8:30 bus home.   That’s okay.  There is one next door at 9:15.  That never shows up.  As we are standing in line at a gate that is COVERED in pigeon poop.  Maybe I should have gotten vaccinated before coming to Atlantic City.

This is not my bag, that is not a design.   It is someone’s bag sitting on a ton of pigeon poop.

The 9:15 bus simply never shows up.  Fuck you Greyhound.   The next bus is 9:40.  There are now over 100 people waiting.  Everyone intending to take the 9:15 are at the front of the line, the poor people intending for the 9:40 are at the back.  The 9:40 bus shows up at 10:00 and a whole lot of people got left behind.

I spent my entire ride home Googling China information.  I discover that some of the vaccines I need are expensive and not covered by health insurance.  This is news to me.  There is one for Japanese Encephaliltis where the only prices I could find were from someone who posted information back in 2011 – the cheapest option being $425.  I don’t know exactly what vaccinations I will be getting since I have not yet been to see my doctor.  Even so, my $1000 win seems a lot smaller than it did just a couple of hours ago.