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NCAA Final Four TR - April 2014 (Better late than never)

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by Craps13, May 19, 2015.

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  1. Craps13

    Craps13 Tourist

    Joined:
    Oct 10, 2012
    Messages:
    26
    Location:
    Canada
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    10

    My Trip Report

    I'm heading out for my annual trip to vegas in a few days so as I think more and more about vegas thought I would post this. I'm a long time lurker but don't post too much and I originally drafted the majority of this a year ago with intentions to post it but life got in the way and I forgot about it. Just finished it off now and thought there has got to be someone out there who would enjoy reading it. Some of the details are a bit hazy and I think the verb tenses and grammar could use some work but whatever. Will post day by day…

    Prologue

    This is my 4th annual trip to vegas. The usual crew is me and two of my university roommates from back in the day. Last year and this year one of the guys hasn't been able to make the trip due to budget constraints and an extra tight leash courtesy of his girlfriend. We are all roughly 35 years young and go to vegas to get away from real life. That means leaving the wife / kids / job / email / sobriety at home. We are big basketball fans and unfortunately I have a job that doesn't allow me to take vacation in March. This year we got lucky with the timing of the NCAA final four and we were able to go to vegas for a weekend in April and still see the final four and the championship game. That's April 4th to 8th for those looking at a calendar.

    Friday

    Flight out at 10:45am, hit the Air Canada business class lounge beforehand but unfortunately no booze was available until 11am. I tried to sweet talk the lady working there into at least getting us a few ceasars to get the morning going (a Canadian superior version of the bloody mary). I thought my sweet words had her convinced and it seemed promising but the lady never delivered. We jumped on the plane, and were sitting 2nd row from the back. When drink service finally got to us, we grabbed a beer and that was the last time we saw the drink service people (aka flight attendants). Not sure if you can order more than one drink at a time on a plane, but will have to do that in the future. The rest of the flight was uneventful other than singing happy birthday to a girl sitting beside us who was turning 30. Also someone took a crap in the toilet at the back of the plane and it stunk up the entire back few rows. I was recovering from a cold and a bit congested so I couldn’t really smell anything but we had a big group of girls around us and they were all going crazy. You should never take a dump on a plane. I was in the window seat and I wasn’t paying attention to who was going in and out of the bathroom, but thought it would have been pretty funny if it was one of the girls sitting near us that had dropped the bomb.

    We arrived in vegas on time and high tailed it out to the cab line (no checked bags, we aren't rookies) and amazingly there was no line at all. Unbelievable, first win! Jumped in a cab and told him “Planet Hollywood via Swenson” and he responds “that’s the way I always go”, sure it is. Last year in vegas it cost us almost $30 to get to PH. This time around cab fare was $13 or so and we tossed him a $20, everyone wins. Got in to PH and again no line up. I don't understand why there are no lines, it was supposed to be busy because of the NAB conference but we aren't seeing it. Can't complain though, walk up to the desk and give the clerk my passport and credit card and he asks if I am interested in any upgrades. I take a 20 out and tell him I’d love an upgrade, what can he do for me. He sees the 20 and asks if I need change and I suggest we talk about upgrades first and then we’ll see if I need change. He is not dumb and I’m upgraded to a resort room, give him the $20 and we are on our way.

    Dropped our stuff in the room which by the way was way better (bigger) than the regular room which we stayed in last year. By this time its around 2:30pm and we haven’t eaten since breakfast so hit up Earl of Sandwich for some lunch. Love this place. Great value, great food. Killed our sandwiches and then we hit the casino. Nothing really memorable happened other than my friend and I both lost money. I think mostly on craps but also some blackjack. We had a dinner reservation at Ramsay’s steak place at Paris for 8:30 so sometime around 7:30 I think we made our way over to Paris. By this time we are both down around $400 so we decide to slow play the bubble craps thing until dinner. Manage to play for 45 mins or so going up and down and cash out even. Good drink service though, at least 3 drinks in that time span so we’ll call it a win. Head to Ramsay’s for a steak. First time eating there and was not disappointed. Split an appy, 2 sides (green beans and potatoes) and then my buddy and I both opted for the bone in rib eye. Everything was delicious including the bottle of wine recommended by the waiter. By the time I was done the steak I could barely even move I was so full. I was looking forward to the toffee pudding or whatever the famous desert is that everyone raves about, but no way could I eat another bite of food. Will have to go back again another time and save some room. All in dinner was a little over $300 for the two of us.

    Its getting hazy, but I think at this point we decide we are both so full we need to walk it off a bit. We head to walgreens beside PH for some supplies. Obviously not a far walk and I’m not counting it as exercise but it’s better than nothing and delays the time before I get my next drink and lose my next dollar. Load up on supplies (Gatorade, water, beer, munchies) and head back up to our room to drop it off.

    I’m guessing, but I think by this time its about 11:30 and we are back down at the casino in PH looking for something to play. I recall being really disappointed with options. Neither my friend nor I are high rollers, we will play $10 craps and $15 BJ (refuse to play 6:5 of any variety), but we could not find a single table at PH within these limits. All BJ was minimum $25 and craps was at least $15. I think Pai Gow was $25 which is also too rich for my blood. I can’t remember the exact sequence of events but I’m pretty sure we went over to Cosmo to check out the scenery and then headed through Aria as well. I think we may have played some slots at Cosmo, but there were no table games at either Cosmo or Aria to our liking (i.e. cheap enough). Made our way back to PH eventually and settled down at a $25 BJ table which is outside my limits and pissed me off but I wanted to play something. I bought in for $200 while my friend watched because he is a pussy (i.e. smarter than me). I know $200 is too low of a buy in given the limits but I had it up to about $400 or so and was keeping it in that range before my friend got some balls and also bought in. Not sure how long we played for but we were both up a pretty good margin before my cards went cold. I’d been drinking all day at this point and I started to get pissed off that my cards were so crappy and my friend was still killing it (I’m a competitive gambler, is that a thing?). I got down to my $200 buy in and decided to increase my bets. We have probably all played out or at least seen this story before but I upped my bet to $75 and lost, and then had $125 left so bet that on the next hand. Obviously lost that one too and I was done for the night. My friend eventually cashed out up somewhere around $300 so at least he did well and managed to contain his losses for the day. Called it a night sometime around 3:30am I think which is kinda early for a first night in vegas but I have kids at home and if I’m going to give away my money at least I’m going to get some sleep while I’m away from home. I think if you are doing math I’m down probably $700 or so for day one which is not the start I wanted. Maybe I should mention my total bankroll for the trip was about $2500 for 4 nights. I don’t do envelopes or anything like that, I just try not to lose it all at once.
     
  2. Craps13

    Craps13 Tourist

    Joined:
    Oct 10, 2012
    Messages:
    26
    Location:
    Canada
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    10
    Saturday

    So the friend that I came to vegas with snores like crazy. I knew this going in and last year I brought some good wax earplugs which worked well. This year I couldn’t find them and was disorganized so just thought what the hell and didn’t bring anything. I got drunk enough at night that I could sleep through pretty much anything, but I guess as the booze wore off, my brain started noticing what was going on around me in the room. By about 8am I can’t take it anymore and I’m up and heading out the door to see how the gambling gods will treat me today. I was still pissed off about the previous night and losing $200 on 2 stupid hands of black jack, but I’ll get over it. On my way from the elevator I pass a young couple (guessing low 20s) who talking amongst themselves loudly proclaim that they just had sex in a public bathroom for the first time. They high five’d each other, and I started laughing. It looked like they were heading up to their room, and I probably would have picked a hotel room over a dirty vegas bathroom, but when its go time you have to do what you have to do. At 8am on a Saturday the casino was completely dead, so the bathroom would have been fairly private, then again maybe they wanted an audience.

    Walk by the craps tables at PH and the limits are $5. I can’t turn that down so buy in for $200. Dice come to me and I throw down a good roll. Hit 4 points and the fire bet pays out $25 on my $1 investment. Stick around for a bit and leave the table up $100. I should have been up more after hitting 4 points and some numbers but I was betting scared so I’ll just take the $100 profit without complaining. At about this time my friend shows up and we hit the sports book to get some bets in on the final four games for the day. I actually got my bets in the night before and I took Florida and Kentucky to cover. The spread I got on Kentucky was -1.5, and now this morning the spread is down to -1 which it turns out would make a big difference. My buddy takes the same teams as me and he throws down an NHL parlay and not to be outdone I come up with an amazing 5 team NBA parlay which I’m sure is a winner. Spoiler alert, my NBA parlay was garbage. I think pretty much every game turned out opposite from what I thought would happen.

    We hit the strip and walk through Bellagio then over to Caesars. Gamble a bit in there and we are holding steady. At about 10:30am we decide to make our way over to Monte Carlo where we planned on watching the NCAA final four games at the Pub. Take the Tram from Bellagio and immediately hit McDs for some breakfast / lunch. Can’t go wrong with a two cheeseburger meal for breakfast! Being fully replenished we are ready to get our gamble / drinking on again. A quick stop at the MC sports book just to see what it is like and we decide to put in a bunch of prop bets on the final 4 games, first to 15, first free throw, who hits more 3s, first to score. We were only betting about $10 per bet, just enough to give us something to cheer for during the game. Bets made, we now have a bunch of time to kill before the games start at 3pm. We head to the best game for sitting and killing time, to the Pai Gow table! $10 limit at MC and we are in business. Turns out it was a great decision. My friend and I both do very well. He is betting $5 on the bonus and getting a lot of bonus hands, straights, flushes, 3 of a kind etc. I only bet $1 on the bonus where I’m not really hitting anything, but I’m basically winning every hand anyways. I had so many hands with 3 pair it was ridiculous. We must have played for 2 hours or so and by the time we leave, I cash out my $60 buy in for something like $250. My friend cashes out roughly up $100. The only downside was that for the first hour there wasn’t a drink lady to be found. Everyone was complaining about it and the pit boss came over and said something about switching shifts. Anyways, eventually someone showed up and she played catch up for a while but then managed to keep it fairly steady.

    Head over to the Pub for the games. I had never been here but it was a good place to watch. It could have been a bit busier and the crowd a bit more rowdy but we had good seats and there is a great beer menu here. It was full by the end, but there were less degenerate gamblers than what I was expecting. Love the fact that there is a betting window in the actual restaurant. Didn’t love the fact that at halftime of the second game the window was closed. I didn’t have the energy to run to the MC sports book to put in half time bets. My friend made the run and brought the lines back, but there wasn’t anything that I thought was worthwhile going back to bet on. The games were amazing, unfortunately my betting was atrocious. Overall I must have been down $100 or more on my sports bets for the day. My best decision was to take Wisconsin to make more 3s than Kentucky. I had $10 on it, not sure why I didn’t put $500 on it. Looking back at it that was a gimme (foreshadowing, its not a gimme for the final). My friend did much better with his bets, and turns out he is some kind of NHL savant so his NHL parlay also hit and he made about $300 off a $20 bet on his parlay. I don’t really remember what we did for the rest of the night. I think we went back and gambled at Monte Carlo for awhile and also went through NYNY and played there. Nothing memorable and eventually made our way back to PH and then went and donated some money to some college funds at Cheetahs. I’m not sure what the deciding factor was to go to Cheetahs, but I’ll never go back. Must have been my friends idea because I wouldn’t have an idea that terrible. I’ve been to some of the larger strip joints in vegas which were great but expensive, we were told this place was still good but a bit cheaper. It is cheaper, but you get what you pay for, lesson learned. Gambling for the day I think I’m plus or minus $100 of breaking even so that’s pretty much a win although if you are doing math I gave a bit back over the end of the day.
     
  3. Craps13

    Craps13 Tourist

    Joined:
    Oct 10, 2012
    Messages:
    26
    Location:
    Canada
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    10
    Sunday

    My friend’s snoring is a bit better, I think I manage to sleep in until 9am. I get up early in real life so waking up anytime after 6:00am is a gift from god, 9am is great despite not going to bed until late. Out the door and to the casino! Today is also moving day where we move from PH over to Cosmo for 2 nights (comped!). Given my luck on Pai Gow the day before I decide to see if I’ve still got it. I do! I think it was a $10 minimum table and this time I decide I’ll raise my bet by $5 every time I win a hand. I also manned up and put $5 on the bonus instead of my usual $1. I think my buddy came and found me in the casino around 10:30 and at that point I was up to a $50 bet and was up another $200 or $250 for the session. Of course I lose that hand and a couple more after that, but still cash out up $200.

    We grab all our stuff from the room, and drag it over to Cosmo where we have a Terrace studio 2 queen courtesy of Cosmo. I don’t play big enough to get comped anything, so I think I was just lucky because I did the lose a $100 get $100 free play deal the year before. Technically the offer was for a 1 bed terrace room but being two dudes that doesn’t work so well so we upgraded to the 2 queen for something like $30 per night, still a great deal (and even better as they never ended up charging me). Resort fees also comped. As expected our room isn’t ready (its like 11:30 when we checked in) so we drop our bags with the bellman. We also had two grocery bags full of 2 bottles of Gatorade and two massive bottles of water which the bellman says he can’t store for us. Don’t know why and a bit annoying but I’m in vegas so really not much to complain about. Chug as much Gatorade as possible and say good bye to everything. Next stop secret pizza for some breakfast and then we take off down the strip and wait for Cosmo to text me that our room is ready. Wander through Bellagio, and stop and play some blackjack, maybe break even. Head across the street and the goal is to gamble our way to Wynn. I’m not sure how long it took us but there was at least one memorable stop along the way. We walk into Harrah’s and they have that craps table that is right at the door and it’s a $5 limit and there are a couple spaces right at the end for my friend and I. I can’t remember the sequence of events but the dice get around to me and I manage to throw a few points and get the place bets pressed up a bit and the drinks are coming quickly (surprising because its Harrahs and I just assumed it would be shitty). I can’t drink coronas as fast as the lady is bringing them. I’ve now been rolling for awhile and the point is 8. The table is getting pretty lively and everyone and their dog is betting the hard 8 and they are all screaming at me to roll the hard 8. I’m throwing down hop bets on the hard 8 every roll because I can feel it coming. I lay off the hop bet for one roll and wouldn’t you know it I hit the hard 8. Table goes crazy, confetti rains down from the sky and fireworks go off behind me. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but I did hit the hard 8. Shortly after seven out but I think that was another 4 point firebet and I was pressing a bit so I’m up a bit more than last time. For the record I love the firebet. I will play at least $1 everytime, if I’m feeling crazy, I’ll make it $2. My friend is much more aggressive on the firebet. He started the trip playing $5 everytime but after me yelling at him for how much of an idiot he is for a couple hours he finally laid off and brought it down to $1 (i.e. he was losing too much money). I like the firebet much more than the all tall / small bet. The fact that the all tall / small bet resets everytime there is a seven annoys me. I know it hits more often and I’m not sure on the actual odds, but I consider the $1 a donation to the casino on both the all small/tall and the firebet, and I like to keep my donations to a minimum. In my lifetime I’ve been part of many 4 point fire bets, was at a table once for a 5 point fire bet when I had nothing on it but have never seen the full 6 point payout. Back to Harrahs… I think I cashed out up at least $300 if not a bit more, my friend would have been something similar. Our bets on craps are always fairly similar. I probably press a bit more aggressively (you’ll see this later) but generally speaking our returns on craps are always fairly similar. By this point I’ve got a pretty good day drunk going on, I forgot to mention that back at the cosmo we hit up book and stage for a few fancy cocktails before we left. Technically “comped”, but the $40 I lost on video poker and the $5 tip suggest “comp” is a loose term. So cash out at Harrahs and keep it moving. Walk directly past the Venetian / Palazzo, I won’t even go inside knowing that all BJ is 6:5. Finally arrive at Wynn. Beautiful property but the casino is dead and we find a craps table that just has 1 other person playing so we buy in. We didn’t play any BJ here but I thought I looked at the rules and there was some $25 3:2 but I didn’t see anything lower than that. Given my success at Harrah’s and my liquid courage, I’ve now decided that I’m actually really good at craps and despite everything the casino does to make it random, I can beat the odds, and I’m especially good at rolling hardways. So I start loading up the hardways, $5 each rather than my usual $1 and I start hitting them. Make a bit of money and seven out. Dice go to my friend who immediately sevens out and we decide that he is equally bad at craps as I am good. The other guy leaves the table and it is just me and my friend now and the dice are with me. Load up the hardways again and hit 1 or 2 and seven out. Dice go to my friend, and as we now know he sucks at craps, so we start betting the don’t. We are the only ones at the table so we are actively cheering for a seven and being dumb and obnoxious. I wouldn’t do this if there were others playing at the table, but it was just us so no harm done. My friend proves his lack of craps skill and sevens out and we are winners. I load up the hardways again seven out immediately. Time to move on. I think I cash out up roughly $200 on what was a pretty quick hit and run and mostly due to me being great at throwing hardways and my friend being awful. Off to Encore and we find another empty craps table and do the same thing. We weren’t quite as successful here but I think I still made $100. Its now 5:30 or so and the cosmo still hasn’t texted me to tell me my room is ready. Being lazy and drunk its too far to walk back so we hop a cab back to cosmo and I go to reception to complain. When I finally get to speak to someone, the lady tells me my room is ready and she doesn’t know why they didn’t text me, but thanks for being patient. Quickly up to the room and we drop our stuff and admire the view of NYNY and whatever else is in that direction. No doubt the rooms here are quite nice and much better than what I’m used to in vegas. I tried to get a fountain view but they were going to charge me another $35 per night and after already paying $30 per night to upgrade to the two queens room, my comped hotel was quickly becoming un-comped so decided to skip the fountain view. I will save that for a time with the wife when we can appreciate it a bit more and really enjoy the view and the balcony. I decide to take a quick power nap for 15 minutes but my friend wakes me up because he is hungry for some dinner so we went down to Holsteins for some burgers and shakes. Good food but I have to say the shake was a bit much. I had something with reese peanut butter cups in it and by the end I could barely drink it because it was so sweet and rich. Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious, but I had trouble finishing it (of course I finished it, I’m just saying I had trouble doing it).

    After dinner we jumped in a cab and headed downtown. If this is my 4th annual trip to vegas, on the 1st one 4 years ago we went downtown on our last night in Vegas and had an epic night. Our flight out the next day left at 8am I think and that flight was one of the worst experiences of my life. On the 2nd trip we went back downtown and it was a bit of a letdown. For whatever reason we didn’t make it back downtown last year but this year we had nothing planned and decided to get out and see if we could low roll for a night and limit our losses (even though we are having a pretty good day gambling wise). IN the past, most of my time downtown has been spent at the golden gate but I have also at least stopped at most of the casinos on freemont. I’m probably going against the grain here as I think downtown is gaining in popularity, but it just didn’t do it for me this year and I don’t think I’ll go back unless I have a really good reason. There are probably lots of things that contribute to that opinion mostly that I was extremely tired and I had gone from a pretty good level of drunk to basically sober and I had lost the will to keep drinking. Anyways, quick synopsis of the trip downtown… Started at Golden Nugget, actually sat down at a roulette table and played more than one or two spins for the first time ever. After about 45mins I was up $50 and called it a day. Switched to freebet blackjack which was actually pretty fun. I could see this game being awesome if you get the right cards and get a big run of splits and doubles. Was up a bit at this game and then went on a losing streak and when I got back to even I walked away. After that we hit freemont. Went through a couple places, including the downtown grand which is pretty new which I wasn’t overly impressed with. I guess I was expecting a big strip property and thats just not what exists downtown. Eventually ended up at the Golden Gate. Played some craps and blackjack there. Lost $200 playing craps and then made about $100 playing blackjack. At this point I was just totally exhausted, I think it was a little after 1am, which I know is early by vegas standards but I hit a wall. My friend was doing better than me energy wise but he wasn’t feeling downtown either. We jumped in a cab so I could go to bed and my buddy could continue gambling and roaming the strip. Got back to the cosmo and on the way to my room I passed a $5 craps table that I couldn’t resist. Bought in for $200 and ended up playing for 2 hours. Was up a decent amount at the beginning but of course lost it all by the end. A couple interesting things happened… 1) Saw my first ever male cocktail person in las vegas. There is nothing wrong with it, but was just really weird as I had never seen a male doing that job before. The drink service was great by the way. 2) A really dressed up attractive girl bought in beside me. I immediately pegged her as a lady of the night but thought it was interesting a hooker would be wasting money gambling. Obviously a hooker can spend her money however she wants but for whatever reason I found it odd. Turns out I was way wrong. A girl who I thought was going to be the most pretentious stuck up person ever was one of the nicest to the point where when I finally ran out of money she started giving me money she was winning just so I would keep playing. We were trying to decide who would get to keep the million dollars I was about to win playing craps but it wasn’t to be and I lost all my money and some of hers as well. 3) At the opposite end of the table was a guy playing higher limits than everyone else. I think he may have bought in for about $2k and him and his girlfriend (who was stunning by the way. Probably the most attractive girl I saw in vegas) were throwing lots of bets around. They were cool people, when I was rolling they were throwing the hard ways up for me (I never hit them). Anyways, when he got the dice he put $100 on hard 10 (compared to his usually hardway bet of $10). First roll he hits hard 10. After that it was a forgettable roll and the dice slowly moved around the table and got back to him. Again throws $100 on hard 10, this time took him maybe 3 or 4 rolls to hit it. Crazy. I called it a night somewhere around 4am. Best guess I was up a couple hundred on the day and maybe down $500 for the trip if you add everything together.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Monday – Money Day!

    Cosmo beds are nice and my friend’s snoring isn’t terrible. Probably sleep in until 10. My friend has a couple free buffets at Bellagio courtesy of My Vegas so we head there for some breakfast. I think we timed it perfectly as we show up and grab breakfast and then they immediately switch everything to lunch. We hang around for awhile and eat too much food which really wasn’t that good. In my younger days I could eat forever, but I’m actually pretty reasonable now when it comes to eating. Anyways, tip our waitress and we are off to the sportsbook to check out the lines and make our bets for the NCAA championship. My wife gave me shit that I took florida over uconn in the semis so I call her and ask her who she likes. She likes Uconn again so I’m going all in. Lay a bunch of prop bets again as well as uconn to win and put some money on the over as well as uconn to hit at least two 3 pointers more than Kentucky. My most savy bet was probably uconn to win the half and uconn to win the game, which had odds of either 5-1 or 4-1. All our bets are in and its time to do a heat check at pai gow.

    We sit down at a pai gow table which has a $10 limit. Before we even start playing the limit is raised from $10 to $25. Pretty steep increase but doesn’t matter as we are grandfathered in. My friend gets his ass kicked. He can’t win anything while I tread water and manage to come out even. Over to black jack. I think sort of treading water at a $10 table and I decide to start pressing my bets. I get up to $25 per hand and get 2 aces, I think dealer was showing a 6. I split them and ask the dealer to give me my cards face down. Says he can’t do it because what if I get another ace. I didn’t know you could resplit aces but what do you know, I get another ace so I split that one as well. I’ve got $75 on the table now and I think my hands are something like 17, 18, 19. Thankfully the dealer pulls a bunch of 10s and I win all my bets, awesome. I continue pressing my bets and get up to $50 per hand. At this point at the table there is my buddy and I, a couple beside me and then another guy playing anchor. The anchor is not playing basic strategy. He is doing dumb things, like staying on a 16 vs a dealer 7, or hitting on a 16 vs a dealer 2. They were all dumb moves, but I didn’t think they were absolutely terrible. I’m not one to bitch at people for playing right so I didn’t mind too much. It helped that I was winning. The lady beside me, she didn’t feel the same way. She wasn’t winning, and this guy is driving her crazy. So I’ve got my $50 bet out and I get a shitty 15 or something and dealer is showing a 3. I stand. The lady beside me has a 17 and she decides she is going to hit a 17 against a 3 because she is so pissed that the guy at the end of the table isn’t playing basic strategy so she doesn’t want to play basic strategy either. To be honest I wasn’t really paying that much attention until the dealer yells out “hitting 17”. You know you are making a ridiculous play when the dealer has to yell it out so that everyone knows it was the players call and not the dealer’s mistake. As you would expect, this retarded woman pulls a 10, the anchor doesn’t take a card (which was the right move) and the dealer turns a 10 for 13 and then pulls a 6 for 19 and I lose my $50. I couldn’t believe how much of a cow this lady is, to ruin my $50 hand which would have been a winner. I’m super pissed which is pretty obvious and my friend and I cash out and I save all the expletives until after we leave the table. I know the cards are random and all that but I would have won that 1 hand which was all that mattered at the time. I’m also a $10 - $15 player betting $50 a hand so losing when I’m betting so much sucks. The pain was decreased by the fact that I made about $200 at the table. Obviously I’m over reacting, but I was frustrated at the time. I don’t gamble what I can’t afford to lose, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be happy when I do lose it.

    As we walk away from the BJ table we happen upon an open craps table. I get in for $200 and keep one black in my pocket (my original buy in from pai gow earlier in the day – I’m playing with house money). My friend and I are up and down. We are betting the don’t on my friend but he is suddenly a better craps player and he is actually hitting his points so we are losing and I’m not hitting anything when we are betting the pass line. Some lady rolls up to the other side of the table and the dice go to her. She sets a point, and I’ve got $10 pass line, max odds, $12 on the 6/8 and a $25 chip left in my rack. $25 isn’t going to win me anything so I toss it on the table and put it on the 4 I think. What happened next will likely never be reenacted and will live on as legend between my friend and I, but this lady went on a tear. I had nothing in my rack so I pressed hard at first and got all the numbers covered. This lady started hitting point after point and number after number. I went from a $12 6/8 to something like $150 on 6 and over $200 on 8. I had at least $100 on every number. My rack went from completely empty to the top rack being full of green chips with a few blacks and the bottom being almost full of red chips. I don’t know how long this lady rolled for or how many points she hit, but it was a lot. I pressed hard right away and my friend was playing conservatively until he saw that I was just destroying the table and he started pressing. The table wasn’t busy so the dice were coming quickly and I couldn’t even keep track of how I was pressing my bets, I was just telling the dealer to keep pressing. The lady didn’t roll a single 7 until the final seven out at which point I think I must have had close to $1000 on the table. We are dumb so my friend and I both rolled again after her with terrible results and I probably lost $200 but I colored up with just over $2400 which is quite a profit on my buy in of $200. Its also the first time I’ve ever received a $1000 chip at a casino, and I got two of them! My friend cashed out at about $1500 on his $200 buy in. I’m not sure how much the lady who was rolling actually made, she was betting passline with low odds and I don’t think she had any other money on the table so she didn’t make that much. When we colored up the lady who was rolling asked us to buy her dinner, we said great shooting and thanks a lot and walked away. We didn’t tip her, I’m not sure what etiquette says and maybe we should have but she could have made just as much cash as us. I would feel better about tipping her if I was a black chip player and she was a red chip player, but because I bought in for what I consider to be pretty much the lowest reasonable buy in, I didn’t feel bad about not tipping her, she could have pressed her bets the same as we did. I took more risk by pressing all my bets, I’m glad it paid off, but should I have to tip her because she played conservatively? If I pressed my bets and lost all my money she wouldn’t cover any of my losses. Just for the record, my friend and I were playing the hardways like crazy for the dealers (and winning) and when we cashed out I gave them I think $20 in reds that I had left. My friend didn’t have any reds and I can’t remember if he had any $25s or not but he said sorry to the dealer who was super nice and said “no problem, you bet a lot for us, we won as well”. Maybe not the best tip on a $2400 cash out but I wasn’t about to tip them $100 because I’m cheap and I bet for them while I was playing.

    To the cashier with all my chips! I pulled the hidden black out of my pocket and cashed in $2500 in chips. There is so much money it doesn’t fit in my wallet so the lady gives me an elastic band, is this what all you high rollers do? How do you carry your cash because I was completely uncomfortable carrying this much money around. Back to Cosmo to drop my new found wealth in the safe as I’ve now got over $3000 on my person including the other cash I was carrying, which is way too much for me. Stop at book and stage and get a $45 cocktail. At this point we are trying to decide where to watch the NCAA final. My friend made reservations at Blondies but we aren’t sure we want to watch the game there. Anyways, my friend has to go call someone or go to the bathroom or something so I sit down at a $15 BJ table. He comes back 10 mins later and I’m up another $100. What a day this is turning out to be. We debate watching the game at book and stage but think we will drink too much and it will be too expensive (I’m trying to lock in the win already!), so we go check out twin peaks which we weren’t overly impressed with and then head to blondies to check it out. Pretty decent set up at blondies with big screens and tvs everywhere and I now find out my buddy had to put up $50 just to get us a reservation. Its all good and we decide to stay here. The game is awesome, Ucon wins and I even make some cash on my bets (although not the over and not the 3 pointer bet). We had some snacks at Blondies as well as a shit ton of beer but we have been holding off getting any real food as we want to go somewhere nice to spend our winnings. We had picked up a couple souvenirs along the way and decide to drop them in our room and check out China Poblano for dinner. By the time we get there it is after 10pm, it is ridiculously busy and we have a flight that leaves at 7am the next morning. We figure dinner is probably at least a 1.5 hr affair so in order to maximize gambling time on our last night we say screw it and hit secret pizza.

    After pizza its off to Bellagio to cash in our sports bets. I was up a small amount, my friend did better as he wasn’t dumb enough to bet any of the overs. After cashing in we head back to the craps table that was growing yellow chips earlier in the day. Unfortunately all the $10 tables are packed so we decided to head across the street to Paris. I like craps at Paris and we haven’t played there much or at all this trip. Luck would have it there is a fairly empty $10 table and we buy in for $200 each. We played for quite awhile and were doing pretty decent staying even. The table was basically full, made up mostly of low rolling people like myself and then one guy who is heavy betting the don’t. I’m not sure exactly what he was betting, but in multiples of $100s in odds. He wouldn’t play anything other than 1 don’t bet with what I think is full odds or close to it. I think if he had 100 on the don’t full odds would have been $600 and I think that sounds about right. I’m just to the right of the stick man, my buddy is beside me and there is a group of about 4 people in LV for some kind of conference next to him rounding out the end of the table. The big don’t player is on the other end. The dice get to maybe the middle person in the group to the right of my friend and the guy went on a mini heater. For whatever reason I started betting the come and this guy was hitting it. I think he only hit 2 points, but I made a good chunk of change off the come bets to the point where I was now up about $350 at the table. Before the dice get back to me I lose about $150 of that so I’m only up $200 when I get the dice back. My friend is a little underwater as he didn’t get as lucky playing the come bets as I did. Before I shoot he throws down a $5 firebet which I immediately tell him is ridiculous and he should pick it up. At this point we are getting tired, its well into the early hours of the morning, we have an early flight and our drinking has slowed to a nursing pace. We decide its our last stand and then we are heading back to the room. Once I set the point I say fuck it and toss $100 to the stick man (house money!) and tell him to put me up on the hardways. This is a ridiculous bet for me but I’ve already locked in a win for the trip so what the hell. First throw after I set the point and I hit a hard 8! Made back my hardways and prove that I didn’t just waste $100 so I’m feeling pretty good. Generally my strategy with hardways when I’m playing them (basically all the time) is to press the bet up one unit. So I took my 8 up to $50 and pocket the rest. I don’t remember the specifics but I proceed to hit 4 separate points and at least 1 more hardway with a $25 bet on it (If a hardway went down with a $25 bet I was only putting back up $5). I had a 6/8 place bet and hardways and that’s it. When I seven’ed out, I coloured up about $1600! My buddy doesn’t quite match me but still pulls about $900 out of the table and is happy to tell me to STFU about trash talking his firebet which paid him $125 compared to the $25 that I got for my $1 bet. That’s the ball game, back to the room by about 4am in what will likely go down as my best gambling day ever as well as my best gambling trip ever. At the end of the day I came back with around $5k in cash which is a big ass profit for me!
     
  4. BayouBengal

    BayouBengal VIP Whale

    Joined:
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    So I'm not the only one that's seen the mythical $5 craps table at the Cosmo. Good to hear it still exists.
     
  5. TIMSPEED

    TIMSPEED Money’s on the way, with CashNetUSA

    Joined:
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    Holy Wall of Text, Batman!
     
  6. RockyBalboa

    RockyBalboa Front Line Winner

    Joined:
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    I really enjoyed this report - thanks for sharing.

    I dig TRs that have a lot of craps stories in them
     
  7. Superpocky

    Superpocky VIP Whale

    Joined:
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    Wall of text is damned right, but I still read through it, that's how much I love Vegas.

    Nice details, thanks for sharing. This year's trip should be close yeah?
     
  8. Craps13

    Craps13 Tourist

    Joined:
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    Holy crap. Looked better in word. Have to dial down the word count!
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2015
  9. jlee1224

    jlee1224 Tourist

    Joined:
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    Baltimore, MD
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    Word count isn't the issue, at least for me. Frequent paragraphs is helpful though when reading. Pictures help a lot!
     
  10. Craps13

    Craps13 Tourist

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    There is a reason I don't write books for a living!
     
  11. tringlomane

    tringlomane STP Addicted Beer Snob

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    Yeah my last report was lengthy because I hate leaving things out, over 10k words for 7 days. But most paragraphs weren't much longer than 4 sentences. And a ton of pics broke up the text a bit too.

    But nice detailed memory craps! When I first read it, I glossed over the 2014 part and first assumed it was this past year's final four! My details would be shot if I waited that long to do a write up!
     
  12. spicole

    spicole No shirt, no shoes... NO DICE!

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    Great trip report! Congrats on the win!
     
  13. Tonez78

    Tonez78 Low-Roller

    Joined:
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    Great Craps report since that is basically all I play when I am in LV. Nice winnings for the trip home! Thanks again for sharing.

    Tony
     
  14. thestugot

    thestugot Low-Roller

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    Chicago
    Love those types of rolls.
     
  15. Fafa2e

    Fafa2e High-Roller

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Florida
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    Nice report! Wordy, but I like all the details.
     
    My Longest Trip Ever
  16. G-DUB

    G-DUB Tourist

    Joined:
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    Thanks for posting!!
     
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