Every once in a while I find a new game or slot that I especially like. There are a few recent finds that I want to mention. First of all, at MGM Grand there is a slot called Pong. Yes, Pong, like 1980’s flashback. It’s a fairly regular electronic slot game until you get the bonus, which happens to be playing Pong against the computer. There is a little dial that you use to move your paddle and try to out play the computer. I just giggled all the way through it. Of course, I didn’t beat it, but hey, it’s been like 20 years…
Another game that I liked was an electronic roulette game at the Wynn. Most roulette games have a fairly high minimum bet, usually 15 dollars at the low end. And you get regular chips to place on the board. I hate that you generally have to reach across people just to get your chips on the board. I usually don’t like them anyway, because in order to get a decent chance at winning, you have to spend more than I am willing, then I still usually lose. This game however, still uses a traditional roulette wheel and ball, but the players get a little station with an electronic touch screen and a lower minimum bet. I think it was $10. You give the guy your money, in my case $40, and your screen shows your balance, almost like a slot machine would. Then you just touch the screen to select your numbers. When you win, it automatically credits your balance on your screen. Then to leave, you just cash out and you receive your winnings in chips, like you would at any table game. I walked away with $130.
The last game I especially like, even though I haven’t won on it, is the new Monopoly game. There are many Monopoly games, by the way. This one, though has a cool looking screen. It looks like a computer monitor with ever changing graphics but with a 5 column cut-out for the slot reels to display behind. My husband likes that sometimes it displays graphics and other times appears transparent. Just the look of this machine is cool. They must know that people will play for that reason alone, because I have never seen anyone win much on it, yet they are always popular. You can find it at most casinos. It is called the Super Cash Grab or something similar.

Saturday, January 19, 2008 was the official Grand opening of the Palazzo Hotel and Casino. It had been open before that, but the big names, Wayne Brady, Aretha Franklin, etc showed up for some Grand Opening hoopla. My husband and I were in town so we decided to check it out. Not surprisingly, it looks very much like the Venetian, but with less extravagance, like murals on the ceilings, and more simple elegance. The casino was nice, similar to the Venetian. There were only a few restaurants open while we were there, but I have heard that many more are forthcoming. Names such as Mario Batali, Wolfgang Puck, Charlie Trotter, and Emeril Lagasse will have restaurants there. Also, rapper Jay Z has his 40/40 Club there.

The most appealing elements were the lobby and atrium. The atrium is a grand area with beautiful, huge skylights, a waterfall, various potted greenery, and escalators to the shopping level.
The shopping level is sort of a mix of the Wynn’s Esplanade with their high end names, and the Venetian’s Grand Canal Shoppes, sans canal. It actually attaches to the Venetian Grand Canal, but the gondolas do not venture in to the Palazzo shops. The most remarkable store is certainly the beautiful Barney’s New York. The décor inside is similar to that of an art museum. It is almost completely white, open and has a beautiful spiral staircase in the center. As you would expect of Barney’s, there are various designer clothes and shoes to lust over. Don’t worry about your husband, there are many comfy chairs to sit in and play solitaire on his Blackberry.
The remaining shops include names such as Jimmy Choo, Coach, Chloe, Tory Burch, Christian Louboutin, Diane Von Furstenberg, Van Cleef & Arpels, Anya Hindmarch, Poleci, Lambertson Truex, Phillipe Charriol, Edidi, Piaget and Michael Kors, among many others. Less than half of the shops appeared to be open, with many displaying “Opening Spring 2008” signs on their windows.

As far as the suites, which I have only seen pictures of, they appear to be very similar to those at the Venetian’s Venezia Suites. That is to say, they are nice, but nothing we have not seen before. Even though it is being marketed as it’s own new hotel, it’s actually sort of like THE HOTEL at Mandalay Bay vs Mandalay Bay, it is really just an extension of the Venetian. They even share the same players card, called Club Grazie.
So if you are a fan of the Venetian, you might as well check it out. I’m glad I went, since it’s always nice to check out a new property, but I wasn’t wowed like I was the first time I saw the Wynn.

I always preach that you should try to eat, drink, and see shows at your own hotels and then charge them to your room. This helps you earn more comps because the casino can see how much you send at their facility. I just wanted to link to this site that I find useful. It has a map of every property of note in Las Vegas. It’s handy to see what is at each casino as well as to see exactly how big they are. http://www.lvcasinoinfo.com/propmap1.html

I wrote a previous article on comps. That article is more of a primer on comps and the benefits. This article will give you some more information and perspective on comps and how to start maximizing them. So once you have been to Las Vegas, and you are planning a return trip, this is when you should try a tactic to get more comps. The first thing you should do is to call Casino Marketing to book your room. You can find this phone number on the back of your Players card, which you should have signed up for on your last trip. This is usually an 800 number. When you call you can give them your players card number and the dates you hope to visit. They can then possibly give you a better rate based on your account activity. That means how much you gamble and spend when you visit one of their properties. This is why it is so important to get a players card and to use it. Using it means that you book your room through Casino Marketing or directly through the casino/hotel rather than a budget website.

I know I have backed budget websites such as www.kayak.com or www.lasvegas.com, but if you are looking for comps, you are better off booking through the hotel itself. If you are a one time or first time Vegas visitor, those budget sites are great.

You also need to make sure that when you eat at a restaurant you charge it to your room, which is linked to your account. Also, you can get show tickets right through the concierge or ticket office in the hotel. That also works if you are seeing a show at a sister property, you can charge that to your room as well. I know I have also backed discount, same-day, ticket brokers and I still do, especially if the show is not at one of hotels sister properties. Remember, this article is about how to maximize comps. If you would rather save the money because you are not spending much otherwise at your hotel, go ahead and use a discount ticket seller.

My husband and I go to Vegas frequently enough that we now try to patronize the hotel that we are staying at for all of our meals and entertainment. We also charge absolutely everything to the room, from shopping, to eating, to spas, to shows. We also have both of our players card linked to each other and always use our players cards at card tables and slot machines. Then the night before we check out, and when we’re pretty much done spending, we go to the players card desk and ask them to analyze our spending patterns. They in turn call the front desk so that when we check out the next morning, we will have some spending comped, usually in the form of food and beverage credit. That means they just deduct that amount off of our bill. We have to check out at the front desk, rather than using express checkout, but hey, it’s worth it.

Staying at the Wynn is definitely something that I would advise you to do. Often touted as the most luxurious hotel on the strip, staying there just might make you think that your normal life sucks. My husband and I stayed at the Wynn in August of 2007 because of a promotion that was mailed to us through the Red Card program, aka, casino marketing. The deal was a Resort Room (their basic room, hah! basic!) for $239 per night Friday and Saturday night. If you think that’s steep, you should know that the Resort Room we ended up with was going for $700 per night that weekend without the promotional price. While I ‘m not sure I could justify spending $1400 to stay there for two nights, I am delighted with what my $500 got me.

We began our experience by trying the “give the check-in person 20 bucks trick”. It worked. He glanced down at the $20 tucked between the credit card and the ID, and by the time we asked if any upgrades were available, he replied, “I’ve already taken care of it, you will have a great view of the fountain show.” Score. Our room was on the 29th floor (amazingly, they have 60 floors!) with a floor to ceiling plate glass window overlooking the Venetian and Treasure Island. The strip view is slightly blocked by the new Palazzo tower at the Venetian, but I am not complaining. We also looked down into the Water and Light show that the Wynn has. The funny thing about that show is that it is for guests only. You can’t enjoy it from the outside in general public areas. You actually have to be in the hotel or on their verandas to see it. I thought that was kind of nifty. Anyhow, the room was very spacious, with a very comfortable bed. There is a nice couch and footstool, a desk, a wet bar and mini-fridge, 3 phones, and even an electronic panel to open and close the curtains. It was, duh, very clean and nicely decorated. Bathrobes were provided as well as cute little complimentary slippers. The bathroom was great. There were dual sinks, a sit down vanity, deep single person jet tub, separate toilet room, and a large marble shower. The bathroom toiletries were awesome. My hair was like silk after using the shampoo. Another neat thing about the hotel is that when you get off the elevators and are walking to your room, you can sense the curvature of the hotel as you look down the hallway.

The pools are very nice. My husband and I ate breakfast overlooking the Tower Suites VIP pool from Tableau, a great restaurant. Then later on Saturday, we swam and sipped expensive alcoholic concoctions at the main pool. If you look at a map of the property, you can see that this pool is shaped like a long dumbbell. There were a lot of people in it, It is August in Vegas after all, but we didn’t feel too crowded. We stayed at the shady end of the dumbbell. The sunnier end, near the poolside cabana bar was much busier with young people seeing and being seen. It was a little bit tricky finding a lounge chair, since people that have left will leave their towels on the chairs and make them appear occupied. In my opinion, they should have cleaned the chairs off quicker, but that’s a pretty small complaint overall. For the most part, the service at this hotel is amazing.
For example, we went to the Terrace Point Café late Friday night after we arrived. It was something like 10:00pm. We were really hungry for fresh berries with crème fraiche and a smoked salmon plate that we usually order off of the breakfast menu. Even though it was not on the evening menu, we asked. The waitress said she would check, and sure enough, satisfied our cravings. That is the kind of thing that at many other places, you would hear “we don’t have that at night” and if you have a polite server, ”sorry”.

My husband and I used the concierge, via the telephone in our room, to reserve dinner at Okada and tickets to Spamalot. They were very helpful, and allowed us to pick up the tickets at the concierge desk rather than waiting in the box office line, which in my experience, is usually long. Okada is the Wynn’s Japanese restaurant and it was very good. I’ll write more in a future article. But let me say, if you like sushi, this place carries OhToro and ChuToro. It’s fatty tuna for you non-sushi-lovers, and it’s awesome. Spamalot was also a good show if you are suitably inebriated and a Monthy Python disciple. I’ll also write more about that in a future article.
So, if you feel like living the high life for a few days, check out the Wynn. Try on some Manolo Blahniks at one of the only two north American stores, shop for a Rolex, buy a $300 La Perla Bra, sip expensive drinks while floating in paradise, laugh at ultra cheesy songs in Spamalot, lay around in a divine hotel room all day, or shop for a Maserati, no a Ferrari. Oh, decisions…. Whatever it is you choose to do at the Wynn, I’m guessing you will enjoy it.

Blackjack is a popular table game in Las Vegas. Other than Craps, it is one of the best odds that a player can get against the house. But only if you play a certain way. And it’s really not as intimidating as it looks. The first time I sat down, it seemed like everyone knew what to do except me. Here’s a tip; get a friendly dealer. The cranky ones can make you feel stupid and you won’t enjoy yourself. Most dealers will actually help you out a little. I know, they work for the enemy, but hey, they want tips from you.

There are some things to watch out for, however. One is the automatic shuffler at the table. I’m not talking about the shuffler that shuffles the entire shoe when the dealer is finished with it. That is OK. This is the always-shuffling mega-shuffler. That’s not the technical terminology… This is the shuffler that after each hand the dealer immediately puts that cards back in to be reshuffled. If you know how to count cards, you will understand why. Since it is being constantly shuffled and all the cards except the current hand are in the shuffler, the shoe remains at the initial count value ALL THE TIME. If you don’t count cards here is a basic primer for this problem; Cards are assigned positive, neutral and negative values in the deck. The initial state of the deck has a bias towards the house. Only as you progress through the deck, or shoe of decks can the overall count or value of the cards swing into the players favor by getting rid of low cards. When the shoe or deck swings to players favor, you are much more likely to win. The giant mega shuffler forbids this from ever happening and keeps the bias of the cards in the house favor all the time.

Another important aspect of playing Blackjack is knowing the terminology.
Here’s a primer:
Hit (point down or scratch your cards on the table if you are playing where the cards are private)- give me one more card
Stay (wave your hand parallel across your cards, or tuck them under your bet if you are playing with private cards) - no more cards for me
Bust - Damn! I went over 21.
Push - I tied the dealer. No money lost, but none gained either.
Split - Ooh, my cards are the same number and I would like to turn them each into their own hand of one card, then be able to take more cards for each. For example, if I get 2 Aces, I could stay with the 12 that I have. But no, I will Split them. I will turn them into two hands that each get an Ace. Then I hope that I get 10’s on each of them. I can hit as many times as I want after I have split. ALWAYS split aces and eights!
Double Down - I will double my original bet and I will get only one more card. This is often done when I get like a 7 and a 4. That gives me 11. Of course, there are more 10’s (value-wise) in a deck than any other value. So I match my original bet hoping that my one card will be a 10. Of course, I usually get a 3.

Here is a very basic card counting strategy that you can use and probably not get caught. If you completely change your betting style when the cards are in your favor, that may become obvious and you will get caught, so you are forewarned. You assign the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 a value of -1 in your head, and 10, J, Q, K, A a +1 in your head. 7, 8, 9 have values of zero in this counting method, so you ignore them. Each time you see any card played, whether it is yours, the dealers, or another person’s at your table, you silently, in your head keep a tally of the “score”. So, if you get 10 (+1) , 9 (0), your neighbor gets 2 (-1), 4 (-1), 8 (0), and the dealer gets Q (+1), K (+1); the tally would be +1. OK, what does that mean? Well, as the positive value increases, so should your bets. So a +3 is favorable to you. Most strategies say, that on a + 3, you should bet 3 times your normal wager. I say, that is a sure way to get caught and kicked out. This is a helpful website explaining some counting strategies. Card Counting Site. The bottom line is: the more 10, J Q, K, A that exist in the deck, the better your odds. If they all come out at the beginning, lay it low with your betting until after the shuffle.

If you want to know what the minimum bet is, well that depends on the casino. Any major casino on the strip will pretty much have a $10 minimum. It will likely go up to $15 on a Friday and Saturday night. Casinos like the Wynn, Bellagio, Venetian and Cesear’s will likely only have $25 minimums at that time and $15 otherwise. Gone are the days of the $5 tables. You can find $5 and $3 and even $1 at some places off the strip and downtown on Fremont, however.

You may even want to buy a blackjack strategy card. I have one listed on the side bar to the left on this page. The basic strategy is a system that has been mathematically proven to be the best way to play in all situations. Dealers know it by heart, beause they offer the best advice to players, so they can increase their tips. This is a universal system and is ackowledged by everyone as the way to play. They are about the size of a credit card and can help you decide what to do in every situation. For example if you have 13 and the dealer has a 6, you are actually supposed to stay. A 6 for the dealer holds one of the highest probabilities of them busting, since most casinos have to hit on 16 and under and the card under the 6 is likely to be a ten/face. Casinos allow players to keep strategy cards with them and use them as they play. My advice is to buy the strategy card, and use the counting strategy together.

The Luxor is famous for it’s ultra bright spotlight and sleek black pyramid. What you may not realize, is that they actually house some really cool authentic Egyptian artifacts. There is a King Tut Museum that you walk through to see what a sarcophagus would have looked like in a real tomb. -Luxor King Tut Museum

The museum was actually pretty cool. The rooms are sized to scale form the notes of the guy who found Tut’s tomb in 1922. It is primarily reproductions, but accurately displayed. There are hieroglyphics on the walls, and shabtis (pronounced shwob tee) placed around the tomb. Those little statues were supposed to represent the slaves that would help the deceased in the after life. You’ll learn all sorts of nifty facts like that in some of the shops and exhibits. I know, you don’t generally go to Vegas to learn anything, but trust me, sometimes, learning can be fun. Ugh, I sound like a teacher.

You will probably spend about 15 – 20 minutes walking through the exhibit and another 5 or 10 in the gift shop at the end. You might even find yourself buying a book about ancient Egyptian legends. In the Gaza Galleria there is a store that sells Authentic Egyptian artifacts. In here you could drop well over $1,000 for an authentic shabti or artifact turned jewelry piece. Myself, I bought the replicas. I have to save my money for the one armed bandits.

A cool aspect to the Las Vegas casinos is the themes that each hotel has. New York New York is one of my favorites. From the outside it has the look of the Manhattan skyline. Those building are actually the hotel rooms. I like to try to figure out which “building” I am staying in when I am a guest there. There is a small scale of the Brooklyn Bridge as a sidewalk, the Statue of Liberty, and even a small NYFD tugboat fountain. Inside, its high roller gaming area is a play on the Tavern on the Green ritzy restaurant in the real New York City. The dealers even wear jerseys from New York Sports teams. There is a pizzeria, an Irish Pub (Nine Fine Irishmen), Gallagher’s Steakhouse, and an ESPN zone restaurant. On the second floor of the ESPN Zone, there is a cool little arcade. They have air hockey, ski ball, video games, small ball bowling, a basketball game, and various other amusements.

If you’ve got a crink to work out of your neck, you could ride the roller coaster that weaves around the buildings outside. It is painted like a checkered cab, and is a good way to waste a few bucks and 20 minutes of your life. It’s not a bad coaster, but a little pricey. There is also another arcade up there near where you get your coaster tickets. This one is bigger than the ESPN Zone one.

As you find yourself wandering through the casino floor, you will see a big red apple, a bridge over a stream just like the one in Central Park, city building facades, and even a steaming manhole cover near the box office window. If there were bums and trash, I’d think I was in Manhattan.

Another nice thing about the NY NY is its proximity to the MGM Grand. There is a bridge that crosses Las Vegas Boulevard, connecting the two, door to door. This bridge is also one of the best spots in Vegas for a photo facing north. NY NY also has a bridge / walkway to the Excalibur, which is just to the south.