3/18-3/21 Aria

This trip was an early anniversary/adult spring break trip. Since my kids had an earlier spring break than my ML she was off all week and we were able to sneak away for a during the week trip for two. It has been 6 trips since we have been without anyone tagging along and it was great change of pace.

Tuesday 3/18
Dropped the kids at school and made our way to DFW for a direct flight on AA. The flight was on time and the food & drink in the front were a perfect way to start the trip. Uneventful fight and we managed to drink all the champagne. We met our driver (Al) at baggage claim and in no time were on the way to Aria sky suites check in. Our room was not ready at 11am but they took my cell number and said they would call when we could check in. They gave us some keys so we could access the sky suite for food and drink. I hand the DW her daily bankroll and we split up to inflict maxim damage. My plan of attack was to go big on the first day and parlay if I won & low play the rest of the trip if I lost. I started out on a super times poker at the dollar level. This was my 1st time playing these machines and I cashed out even after 20 minutes of play. I moved over to the $10 DBB and bought in for 2K. After 15 minutes of play, I am more interested in spotting a CW than I am playing the game. I have a brilliant thought of cashing out and moving just inside the high limits room as I know the drink service will be good. I cash out -400 and after setting at a $25 DBB game, I decide my 1600 TITO is joke for this level and settle on a $10 Top Dollar. I play for 8 seconds and decided to take my remaining 500 TITO to the nearest bar and pay for beer. I should know by now not to play my wife’s slots without her present. On my way to the bar I see a craps table with a few players having fun so I forgo the bar and jump on the table. I buy in for 800 and proceed to go up and down for the next hour. Aria called at some point to say the room is ready. My wife is not ready to leave her BJ table so I color up and go get us checked in. We are in the main tower in a corner panoramic suite. We have stayed at Aria 15 times and have only stayed in this type of room. We love being the last room on the hallway, despite the long walk from the elevator, we know the way to the room even in our shiniest moments. After getting everything squared away in the room, I am ready to pick back up at the craps table. Not so fast! Now the cards have started to run cold for the DW and she is hungry, almost drunk & broke. We head to lemongrass for a late lunch, that turns out to be lunch and dinner. We start with the potstickers & chicken satay. DW thinks now will be a good time to have a martini so I stick with a beer just to be safe. She orders the chicken yellow curry with spice level 2. I have the pad thai level 4. I seem to make the same mistake every time we eat here. Level 3 is more than enough heat. Another beer for me and the DW has a glass of cab with her meal. Total comes to 84 before tip and I sign it to the room. After lunch we separate again. Me back to the craps table, DW goes to find sex in the city slot. After an hour she is back at the craps table showing me her $260 hit on the shoes bonus. She watches long enough to cool the table off and get another drink before heading back to the BJ table. I spend the next 2 hours bouncing from table to table, looking for a few good shooters. DW finds me and shows off her $500 chip and informs me she has had enough for day one and is retiring to bed. I stick it out for another 1.5 hours but just can’t seem to get anything going. I call it a night at midnight -300 for this crap session -1800 for the day. There was a don’t pass player that would hop from table to table all night. He would bet 500-1500 on the don’t pass but would never take odds. At one point he stood next to me and we chatted. He lost a 1100 don’t and then emptied his wallet for 1500 and lost it. I watched him head for the door but 30 minutes later he as back and his wallet was full. I was talking to the pit boss and he said he is a local regular. He was a nice guy and took some unwarranted heat from other players when he would shoot the dice while betting the don’t. I felt bad for the guy but one dealer said he was a politician and has been called much worse.

3/19

We were able to sleep in until 9 and had room services. It was 10 before we were out the door. We made our way to Cosmo via Crystals. I was able to escape Louis Vuitton & Jimmy Choo’s with no damage to the bankroll. I consider this a win. Cosmo is slow and DW wants to do a fitting at rent the runway but can’t get in until 12. I hit the craps table, while DW heads for the BJ table. She does her fitting & returns empty handed so my shopping luck is on fire. DW is standing next to me as I am solo on my side of the table. The shooter throws a two 5’s in a row and DW said you should bet on the 5. The dealer tells her to throw him 10 dollars. He places the 5 for her and it comes up 5 two more times. Now the dealer is taking her winnings and giving her a 6 & 8. A few more rolls and he 7 out’s but she made a few dollars. Its my roll and I hit 4 numbers but cant make a point. The dealer makes my DW throw the dice but she is afraid to do something wrong and is terrified she will throw the dice off the table. She rolls for 10 minutes making 3 points and hitting lots of numbers. I have my 6 pressed up to 150 when she craps out. I make a small profit of 400 and DW makes 100. She now wants us to play craps together at least once a trip. We decided to take a walk over to check out the Quad. We make a mistake and cross over from Bellagio to Bally’s but the second walkway is closed so we settle on checking out Bally’s. This is the 1st hotel we stayed at 16 years ago and we have not played here since. We make our way to the high limit room and DW plays top dollar while I set down at a 5 DDB. I don’t have a card and the crew tells me I need to go to total rewards to get a new one made. I play a few hands without a card and then decide to just give up when I hit a full house to get +200. I give the $5 craps game a try here but it’s slow and not very fun. I stroll around to find the DW playing 3 card poker and buy in for 200. I place 15 in each betting circle and before the cards are dealt, a pit boss is there asking if I have a card. I tell him no & that I don’t want to stand in line to have a new one made. He takes both of our DL and is back in a flash. For some reason, I am given a gold card even though I don’t play very often at TR properties. Super fun crew and table. I play for an hour and decide to bet my winnings on one hand. It does not work out and the dealer can’t make anything with all 6 cards so I walk even. We cab it over to the old IP and can’t get our bearings. It’s hard to believe how much that place has changed. We don’t play, just stroll through looking before heading to Caesars. Once again we don’t play just have a look around and then cab it back to Aria. We have 2 hours before I need to get ready for dinner at Craftsteak. I play craps and grind out a +400 profit. We make it to MGM with no time to play Lion’s share but see there is someone playing anyway. This dinner was my anniversary gift to myself. I wanted to try A5 wagyu for the first time. DW decided that we should both have it, so why not get the chef 3 course meal for $295 per person. The waiter said we can’t both have filets that they only serve 1 filet and 1 strip. After checking with the kitchen they are able to accommodate our request. We have no idea what the other courses will be but we are game. We opt for the red wine pairing for $60pp. Our 1st course is 4 dishes. 2 Sea scallops, Wagyu tartare, Caesar salad & Persian cucumber. All were excellent and we are full! The main course was 2 8oz A5 wagyu filets medium rare, puree potatoes, brussels sprouts (I hate brussels sprouts but you mix in bacon and I thought they were great) & a mushroom assortment. I gave it all I had but we could only eat 1 steak between the two of us. I never picked up my knife. I cut everything with a fork. It was like eating a stick of butter. It was so tender it melted in your mouth but was super rich. By far the best steak I have ever had. There was a college boy setting next to us who had finished off a ribeye then his dates meal and it took all I had not to ask him if he wanted to try a $260 filet. DW said it would be in bad form to offer food to the table next to us so I bit my tongue and stayed quiet. The waiter asked if I would like a to go bag and I had to decline but asked if he could take it to his dog. No luck, they are not allowed to take food out but he assured me that the pigs would enjoy it so I will pretend the next piece of bacon I eat was my A5 fed pig. By this time we are in a food coma but out comes 4 desserts. Monkey bread with cinnamon ice cream, chocolate cake with ice cream, lemon sorbet & fresh fruit. I got the monkey bread down and tried everything else but I was sick. The wine pairing was the way to go. The 6 glasses we had come out to 1.5 bottles so a great value for Vegas wine. We transferred the remaining wine into casino approved wine glasses to take with us. The final bill was 816 plus 200 tip & I have my 1st $1,000 dinner for 2. Total time was almost 2 hours for dinner and was worth every penny. We will do it again but it will have to be a solo trip as I don’t think my friends would spend that kind of money for dinner. After dinner we waddle over to Lion’s share and there is a line of 5 people waiting to play. There had to be 15 people around the machine. I waived to the machine as we passed by and hope to see it in October. Back at Aria, DW headed to the room after 1 hour at the BJ table. I bought in at craps and started to drink beer. At one point I had 6 empty bottles on the ledge so I was feeling no pain. I was playing next to two professional card players and they were a blast. We hit a few hot shooters but only 1 of the card players and I were making money. There were lots of repeaters and we were pressing and getting paid. I gave it up at 12:30 +1800 for the session. Total for the trip is +1000

3/20

We are able to sleep in until 9. Neither of us are moving fast this morning so we pass on room service and decide pizza is for breakfast. I head down while the DW finishes getting ready for the day. I head to the 5 DBB machine and proceed to blow though the -1000 profit. No 3OAK, no full house, no flush, no more credits. The DW shows up just as I am counting out another grand to chase my losses and makes me go eat. We grab a few slices from Five50 and head to the sky suites lounge as March madness is in full swing and there are no seats to be had. We get a few strange looks having pizza at 10:30am as most people in here are having coffee. DW wants to try craps again but only at Cosmo, so we head out the back door of sky suites and enter cosmo from the taxi drop off area. (not sure if this is the front or back of Cosmo) The crap tables are full so the DW is too intimidated to play so off she goes to find sex in the city. I buy in for 700 & this table is ice cold. 6 shooters in a row set a point and then 7 out. I rebuy for 500 as I am just getting the dice for the 1st time. I do raise the bar to set a point & throw 2 numbers before crapping out. The next shooter goes point out and I throw out the edict one more of those and I am going to the dark side. Next roller and I am now playing the don’t pass after reloading with 700. The table has complete turned over at this point and I am slowly making my money back on the don’t with full odds. After 3 winners in a row for me I start playing the don’t come with full odds also. I win the first shooter with 1 number and the 2nd shooter with 2 numbers. I like the vibe of this table now. Next shooter stops me in my tracks as he hits 3 points and almost every number. I know the odds are in my favor so I stick to playing don’t pass & 3 don’t come all with full odds. He finally craps out but not before picking of 3 numbers. I stick it out for 2 more shooters but cut my losses at -700. We move to Bellagio, where I have no luck on craps again. Point out, seems to be the way my day is going. I lose my -500 buy in after 20 minutes and I am ready to go back to Aria. Back at Aria, I find an open 25 crap table with no one else playing. I am gun shy so I want to be able to play either side with just me shooting. First roll, I make $10. No point but enough numbers to cover my bets. Second roll I lose 30 but another player has joined the game. He gets the dice & I decide to only play even numbers, no pass line bet. So I have $110 evens only, including the point.
Shooter rolls some numbers and makes a point. I have my 105 back in the rack so its time to go. I press the 6 from 30-60-120-150-210-300-450-600 and have 900 on the layout before he gives the dice up. I have 1400 on the layout when the 7 comes out. I only wanted 2 more 6’s. I pass the dice right back to him, hoping he can produce the same magic. He throws a few numbers but just enough to get my original 110 back. When he colors up, I decided to do the same and make a $2000 profit. Dealers get the extra 155 as a tip for 15 minutes of work. We are headed downtown for dinner at Hugo’s Cellar tonight so I take a short break to shower & change clothes but I am back at the tables in less than an hour. I have a good feeling so I buy in for 900 and go down to nothing before my DF can make it down from the room. I reload and am up 300 on the second buy in so my DF thinks my luck is still running hot. After cashing out, I tell her that was a -600 loss not a win. On the cab ride to the 4 queens, I remembered that I did not make reservations. I call and the earliest they have for 2 is 9:00. It is almost 7 now & we have not eaten anything since our pizza breakfast. Cab driver tells us about the Binions steakhouse and how good she thinks it is. I had just finished reading American roulette by Richard Marcus and how the Classon boys had been invited to dine there after getting caught past posting chips. We stopped by Hugo’s and were told to come back at 8:15 & see if anyone no showed there reservation. DW knows I want to see Binions so she suggests we walk over and at least have a drink in the bar. We show up with no reservation and are told it will be 45 minutes. That is 30 minutes faster than Hugo’s so we put on name on the list and head for the bar. Before we can receive our 1st round they are showing us to a table. The waiter has been here for 31 years so the service is not speedy but we enjoy a nice meal in a fine restaurant. The view from the 24th floor is cool. I have never stayed downtown so this was my 1st aril view. We both had the 8oz filet MR, loaded baked potato & grilled asparagus. I had the caser salad to start while the DW had lobster bisque. All was very good. Wine list was reasonable so we added a 65 cab and the total bill was $155 round up to 200 with tip as I really enjoyed myself. I will have to try this place again just to make sure it was not the nostalgia that I loved. We take the leftover wine out to Fremont street and make our way to the Golden gate. I hit craps while DW try’s 3 card poker. The pit boss notices that she is carrying our unfished wine from dinner and informs her that “she may not pour her own wine into an empty glass” and send security over to stand right behind her to prove a point. Well too can play that game Mr pit boss, just to make sure security stayed close she kept the bottle in her lap. She did not intend to drink the wine out of a plastic so she was not drinking it here anyways. I hit the craps table for 20 minutes and make a quick +400. Retrieve DW who is just playing mind games with pit boss and her personal security guard before she gets shown the door. Cab it back to Aria where I get on the craps table for almost 4 hours. I bounced around from table to table grinding out small wins for 2 hours. I find a 25 table with a few drunk guys that I had been playing with earlier. They are also from Dallas & one of the group had shot well earlier in the day so I take the open spot. The dice are on the opposite end from me. Nothing great but a few shooters make me some money. The table is packed and 4 don’t players are on the other side. I get the dice and proceed to hit the all small, all tall & all while making 9 points in a row. I started with $110 on the even’s with a point of 5. I made the 5 as my point 4 out of the 9 points. I had the 10 up to 1.5K with $100 on the hard 10 as I had thrown 3 hard tens. I had the 6-8 up to $900 & 4 up to 1K. The last few rolls, I was getting a 500 chip every time I was paid. I could not make the 5th point of 5. The 7 out was the only one I rolled, I did not roll a YO or a crap on any come out roll. Needless to say all of the don’t players were broke but one did stay for the entire roll and came up to me after and said nice job. I stayed for 3 more shooters but the energy was gone so I colored up. +4900 so I tip the crew $300. They also made 400 on the 2 way hard ways from me. I call it a night at 1:15. I talked to the Dallas boys the next morning and they stayed and gave all of the profits back, plus more.


3/21

After my win last night, DW has decided that Jimmy Choo’s are a must to remember it by, as we are leaving at 1:30 today. While she heads over to Crystals, I set down at $5 DBB. It starts off better this morning hitting a few 3OAK & flushes. After 20 minutes, I hold 3 K’s and draw the 4th for a 1250 hand pay. This is the same machine I hit for 10K last July. When I hit 10K, I was waiting to get paid 2K on the machine right next door, due to the early morning there were no slot attendance or cocktail servers. I set there for a few minutes and become ADHD so I take out my card and play the other machine and what to you know 2K become 12K in minutes.


Well this time the machines are reverse and I think why not. No one here to unlock my machine let’s play the one next door. Right after the attend shows up to start the process on the 4K’s, I hold 3 A’s and draw the 4th but no kicker this time so only 4K. Slot attendant is very excited that he was there to see me win again & suggests that I play the other 2 machines in this row. I decline as I need to text the DW and tell her I will come pay cash for the JC’s. I play one more hand on each machine & I am exactly at my buy in on both so I take this as a sign to call it quits. DW texts back that it’s too late to pay cash but she would be happy to go purchase another pair.




Instead I want to take revenge on the 10 Top Dollar in the high limits room. I have a TITO for 1K so off we go. We did get one bonus but it was only for 400 and Top Dollar took another 1K from me. Limo drops us off at the airport and we board right on time. I am counting my winnings and smiling ear to ear. When the pilot announces the plane took a lighting strike so maintenance must clear the aircraft, everyone off for at least 1.5 hours. DW suggests we just stay 1 more night and try again tomorrow. I have already booked a win, I want to go home. Luckily it was only 1.5 delay and we got home safe and sound.

Total for the trip +8900

Aria Craps- 20.5 hours at $179 average bet (I don’t think I was rated high enough on my long rolls but I didn’t think to ask before leaving the table)

Thanks for reading!

 

Nice TR. Seems like you're every bit of a craps junkie as I am. The dice calls my name every casino I walk into. Sorry you missed dining at Hugo's. We hit it and Binions the last time out (steak at both). Our party thought Hugo's was the winner hands down and being from the DFW area I didn't think either could hold a candle to Del Friscos (Fort Worth).

 

Nice report, thanks for posting! And FYI, Total Rewards levels go Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Seven Stars. Hence, the gold card.

 

How he plays VP/slots/craps though, he could easily change that color if he wanted to.

Nice wins!

 

Thanks for posting. Congrats on the gambling comeback.

later, GVJ

 

20.5 hours of Craps - impressive!!!! Enjoyed the report and the action!

 

damn nice vp wins on the morning of leaving gotta love trips like that where you are guranteed to take the $ home with ya