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Bulletpoints: MGM + an engagement + bad gambling decisions

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by Kickin, Aug 12, 2014.

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  1. Kickin

    Kickin Flea

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    My Trip Report

    This will be a brief summary of some things.

    I'm sitting on a computer at the Centurion Lounge at McCarran right now early for my redeye flight back to NYC. I had the car booked to leave later but just wanted to get out. What started as a good trip and stayed a good trip turned ugly the last night and day.

    • Proposed to my girlfriend and am now engaged.
    • Went to Vancouver where her family lives for a couple days, flew to Vegas from there on Friday.
    • Her best friend was also going to meet us in Vegas on Sat for 2 nights.
    • Her friend stayed at Paris in a comp room I got (I know it blows my ADT, I don't care and I probably ended up giving them enough action anwyay).
    • We stayed at MGM in a comped executive suite - basically a bigger room but nice and comfortable.
    • Saw Jay Leno on Friday night at Mirage. Comp tix in gold circle seating, great seats and great show. I love standup but wasn't really sure how Leno would be. The guy is a crack-up. Humor was similar to his TV schtick which focuses on commentary on things in the news but he was also a bit more racy which was cool.
    • Went to the Linq afterwards while it was very busy. Cool place I guess but kind of ornery I thought.
    • Went on High Roller on Monday with comp tix from booking the Paris room. It was pretty much as expected. No real stunning views from that vantage point in my opinion but still nice views nonetheless. We went right during sundown so got to see both day and night. It was super empty, they have a line system set up for thousands of people it seems but it was a ghost town when we went - granted it was a Monday evening.
    • Went to Cromwell. Beautiful place, probably one of the nicest casino floors and full of attractive employees. Got killed in BJ there even just playing green chips.
    • Gambling was ok to very good for the first 3 days. I was only slightly down at one point but was usually up for the trip. Last night was awful.
    • Almost all my gambling was done at MGM. I played a little at Bellagio and won there. Made a bad decision to go to Cosmo while my fiancee and her friend went shopping. Dropped like 5k there somehow starting on lower limit play but going on tilt to higher limits and then to $10 VP. I hit one small handpay and walked out of there down 4k.
    • After that I was still up a little overall though. Kept doing well at MGM, 100% of my table play was BJ and I won almost every session.
    • I made my typical dumb mistake of throwing some of that away on higher limit VP though every day.
    • Monday night was pure carnage. I couldn't catch a hand to save my life. By this point all the dealers and pit bosses in the $100 pit on the main floor and in Whiskey Down knew me well and were even suggesting I cut my losses. But I wouldn't listen. I wasn't even supposed to gamble that night. It was our last night so I told my fiancee I'd only play for a bit. Yeah right.
    • When I was down over half my LOC I decided I would just blow all of it. That didn't happen but I came close at one point before a minor comeback that left me down exactly half.
    • All f&b charges comped and also had VIP check-in, Leno tickets, a 6pm checkout, and limo rides both ways. So that was nice.

    I have very very detailed stats on my gambling. I'll post the summary after I land and can give more detail on the way its broken down in their system if anyone cares. Basically mine was around 15 hrs of play at $290 avg and ~90k coin-in on VP. On Monday night when I got killed my average was a little higher, it was $375. But sometimes it was lower, just depended on what the table min was and how things were going.

    Will go get a buzz and eat some grub in this lounge so I can hopefully pass out on the flight.
     
  2. broncofn

    broncofn VIP Whale

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    Have a safe flight home and congrats on your engagement!
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2014
  3. FXT

    FXT VIP Whale

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    Congrats on the engagement and sorry to hear it was a terrible gambling trip at the end.
     
  4. NCAAHoops

    NCAAHoops VIP Whale

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    Kickin congtats on your engagement. Sorry to hear about the bad results at the end of the trip
     
  5. JosieCat

    JosieCat VIP Whale

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    Congratulations on your engagement! Sorry the trip ended up on a low as far as the gambling went.
     
  6. mdm4sfest

    mdm4sfest VIP Whale

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    #toughlife
     
  7. thecarve

    thecarve Misanthrope

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    Congrats on the engagement. Sorry about the beat down on the last night. Nothing worse than turning a winner into a loser like that. Seems to be my MO lately as well.

    There’s been some talk about Whiskey Down on here lately. If you write up more, please include your thoughts on it.
     
  8. dannyocean

    dannyocean High-Roller

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    Great report and congrats on a great trip! Sometimes the tables go that way ... which sucks. But, hey, sounds fantastic otherwise. On a side note -- how sweet is that Centurion Lounge? Love it.
     
  9. breanna61

    breanna61 Super Moderator

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    Congrats on your engagement. Sorry the trip went south in the end!
     
  10. Kickin

    Kickin Flea

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    Thanks for the congrats on the engagement everyone. It is funny how everyone who hears about it now starts talking to me about wedding planning ideas. I thought after getting engaged I'd get a little break from people constantly talking to me about getting married. Oh well...

    Whiskey Down is a lot like the high limit room at Aria, in that its a lounge with some gaming tables. Its not a high limit room per se, but the limits were almost always at least $100 though there was one time on Monday afternoon I think where a shoe game was at $50 and was of course full with 3 or 4 guys while every other table was empty. They had 1 double deck game and the rest were shoes. The video poker is GOD AWFUL. I just looked at Bonus Poker because its my current choice of crack and it was all 6/5 at every denomination including $5. I think I looked at JoB as well and it was 7/5 but can't remember that clearly.

    Service there is great. As soon as you sit down a hot waitress will ask you for your drink order. They don't use the same CWs as the rest of MGM, these are waitresses just for Whiskey Down who are more like bottle girls at the clubs. The bartender at the bar was cool too. I was there checking the paytables on the machines, shocked that they were so bad and kept checking each one to see if there was diamond in the rough, when he asked me what I'd like to drink. I told him I didn't think I was going to play and he said no problem, he recognizes me from playing at the tables and drinks would be complimentary. I thought that was kind of nice.

    I played in Whiskey Down only on Sunday and Monday though when it was more quiet. On Friday and Saturday night the place was super loud and maybe I'm just getting old but it was too much for me.

    The Centurion Lounge at LAS is nice. The food and drinks were great and it was a lot more serene than most other airport lounges I've been in. I thought it would be a lot busier since its free to anyone with a Platinum card but it wasn't crowded at all. It was full of nice lounging chairs and daybeds, different types of refreshing drinks everywhere, a nice bar, and genuine chef prepared foods. Not the crackers and hummus junk you find in some of the domestic airline lounges these days.

    I will post some of the gaming stats in the next post.
     
  11. Kickin

    Kickin Flea

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    Ok, here are my gaming stats. My trip was from 8/8 to 8/12 (Fri to Tues) and I got these stats on Tues late afternoon, but I played a couple hours more after that before my flight which won't be included in these numbers.

    All numbers direct from MGM:

    Slots / VP:
    90,582 coin-in
    84,101 coin-out (ugh)
    $2596 theo
    $647 comps earned
    12300 POINTPlay earned

    - Note: This coin-in was virtually 100% VP and specifically 7/5 BP which is the best MGM offers at $5 which is what I mostly played. I played a tiny bit of slots here and there but it was negligible. So the $2596 theo on 90,582 coin-in suggests they use a 2.86% HA on that game. The actual HA is around 2% so I am surprised the number they use is that low. Also you can see that the comps earned are only 25% of the theo. If you factor in $123 worth of POINTPlay it is 30% of theo. I do not know if ECs were in that number or not, but I do not think they were.

    Tables (100% BJ):
    13 hours 15 minutes @ $289 average bet
    60,358 TCs earned from tables
    $2012 theo
    $705 comps earned

    - Note: As you can see the theo works out to 52.5% of my average bet per hour which is what we've seen over and over. Also the TCs come to exactly 30 per $1 theo. Comps earned were 35% of theo.

    Here are some interesting things I saw on the screen. First of all next to this trips info was a column with my average trip's info. The average trip numbers begin with trips going back to July 2005 in my case. So I don't know if they use that roughly 10 year time period for everyone, or if its based on a number of trips or what. But I was surprised it went that far back.

    Also this was listed as a 5 day trip. There was some posting on here before that MGM considers a 4 night/5 day trip as a 4 night trip for ADT purposes. I reposted that as well. But it is in fact a 5 day trip. This factors into another stat listed which was the "4 Hour Conv" which basically took my average bet and converted it to what the equivalent would be if I played 4 hours per day for 5 days. In my case since I only played 13 hours 15 minutes (at that point) it worked out to $192 - i.e. [(13.25/20) * 289].

    I didn't ask but I assume they look at this 4 hour "equivalent" number just to get a quick idea of what your table play warrants and how it compares to others and to your own past play.

    I just saw the one screen, there were several, and it had a lot of interesting info including things like their overall income from you, different comp guideline numbers, your overall buy-ins (mine were $48k in chips and $10k in net markers, $15k in total markers, 0 in cash but I did buy-in with cash at the end after I got these numbers).
     
  12. pphold

    pphold pp Park Place Degenerate

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    wow you got to see all that?? I never get to see the screen. I check at the host desk and they always check an the only thing i have is the Room comped Everything else I either use express comps (MLIFE) or my reward points (CET) so i'm pretty easy.

    Wynn and Cosmo are the only two i have room charges sometimes but most times i just pay up front.

    Congrats on the engagement sorry to about the losing trip. still a great TR.
     
  13. DeMoN2318

    DeMoN2318 The DERS

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    DANG!!! Great info!!!

    You da man Kickin!!!
     
  14. Suekel

    Suekel VIP Whale

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    Congratulations on your engagement!! Hopefully your future wife understands, or even shares, your Vegas love!
     
  15. dannyocean

    dannyocean High-Roller

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    This is fantastic info on your gambling. Helps shed light on what's usually a black box for info!
     
  16. kramer99

    kramer99 Tourist

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    Nice trip and report

    How are you calculating this?
     
  17. DeMoN2318

    DeMoN2318 The DERS

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    Seriously???? its all 2 lines about the line you quoted

    X * $289 * 13.25 = $2012

    Solve for X...
     
  18. kramer99

    kramer99 Tourist

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    Got it thanks. No need to be snippy
     
  19. Kickin

    Kickin Flea

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    A couple other things to note:

    • I did play the Lion's Share machine. I was planning to dedicate 1k to it and walk away until I either lost it or hit the jackpot. Well I put $100 in to start and kept hitting small hands. After around 30 mins or so I was just getting bored and people were waiting behind me chit-chatting really loud in Mandarin and I just wanted to leave so I cashed out at $200 (I had to put in a single).

    • I didn't know this but if you get VIP check-in at MGM and you have the VIP key you can use the little check-in lounge any time of day. Its no Sky Suites lounge but they have coffee, soda, water, and some small continental type snacks in the morning. I've had VIP check-in many times before but I thought of that place as just as room to check-in or check-out from.

    • I got the room at Paris for my fiancee's friend and I checked it out before she came in and it was really nice. It was a Red Room Luxury I think, I didn't expect much from it but I liked it and I would stay there in the future. It definitely tilts towards a more classical design in contrast to the trend of hipper designs. Both can be nice if they are done right and I think Paris does theirs right especially considering its a mid-range property.

    • I love the vibe at MGM on the weekend nights with the Hakkasan scene. Enjoying that reminds me that I'm still young. But I did have some reminders that I'm not that young anymore. One was thinking Whiskey Down was way too loud for gambling on Fri-Sat night. The other was telling a group of guys to put shirts on when they were in the elevator going down to the pool. I told them it was also hotel policy. To their credit they sort of apologized and went back upstairs ... probably thinking I was a dickhead, which I guess I sort of was. :evillaugh

    • This was the first trip out of LAS where I had my Global Entry/TSA Precheck but continuing with the bad luck from the end of the trip the Precheck line was closed on Tues night. The lady working the line told me to just use the first class line (I was flying Jetblue, the utopian one-class airline) but the first class line was worse than the regular line because she kept shuttling people into it. Fortunately the guys at security saw my Precheck and told me not to worry about my shoes, belt, etc. and just patted me down for 2 secs instead.
     
  20. RockyBalboa

    RockyBalboa Front Line Winner

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    Congrats on the engagement and great info provided...thanks!
     
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