And so it ended

I spent 8 nights in Vegas, and it all went by in a hurry. It always does. 

Let's start with a recount of my final night in Vegas.

Most of my time was split with two friends. Thomas, my podcast producer, was there first. Dave, my college friend, came second. Their stays in Vegas overlapped one night. 

Dave took a red-eye flight home on Thursday, and I wasn't leaving until Friday afternoon, so I was on my own for the final night. After dropping Dave off at the airport, I drove straight to The Orleans, a place I have stayed many times.

Normally I'd park in the ramp, head in and hit the tables when visiting The Orleans. Instead I parked in the front corner lot, far from the door. There weren't many cars in the area. I was closer to Tropicana Avenue than I was to the front doors of The Orleans. 

I stood there looking at everything from a distance for at least five minutes, wondering if it was my last time at The Orleans. My future in Vegas had been on my mind periodically during this trip, as I noted in my previous blog entry.

It's the roadside sign for The Orleans, the casino I have stayed at multiple times over the past decade.
I have found myself sitting in a quiet corner of its parking lot for a few minutes the past few trips, contemplating life as I know it. 

I took a picture of the giant Orleans sign out front and finally headed inside to try my luck at cards.  

I spent a couple of hours playing Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em. I didn't win money. I lost about $65 during my time on the table. It was a mostly forgettable night of cards, save for two things. 

A dude, probably younger than me, but hard to tell for sure, ended up right next to me. This dude was wearing a track suit, and had an East Coast accent. He referenced being from Boston at one point. And he also mentioned something about being comped at the casino, suggesting he was not a Vegas transplant. 

His distinct look is not what I will remember most. It wasn't his incessant table talk that I will remember most. It was his cash that I will remember most. 

I don't walk the tables at Bellagio, Wynn or other swanky casinos. I suspect I'd see a lot of cash on some of those tables if I did. I see people with hundreds of dollars in chips sit down at Orleans tables periodically, but I don't recall having ever noticed anyone with $5,000 in chips seated anywhere on the floor. I'm sure I have, but it doesn't fascinate me enough to remember it happening.

Mr. Track Suit didn't have a huge stack of chips in his possession as he sat down, but he had a fistful of black chips. It looked like $1,200 or $1,300. That's a lot for a $5 Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em table, but not obscene. And he played $25 hands every time, talking up a storm and trying to decide whether or not to bet his 9 high pocket card following the river. Seriously, the guy talked a lot. Given I talk a lot, that's saying something. 

The thing that struck me as odd about his presence was the cash he was carrying around. I'm sure a lot of people are carrying more cash than I would guess. But Mr. Track Suit had a strap of $100 bills tucked into one of his pockets. I didn't gawk at it, but he pulled it out on two different occasions, looked at it briefly, and somewhat discretely, then put it back wherever he had it tucked. 

I suppose it could have been a single $100 bill on top of a stack of $1 bills, but I doubt it. I'm guessing they were all $100 bills, and it sure looked like $10,000 to me. Perhaps there was a little less in it, given he had more than $1,000 in chips on the table.

I'm sure most longtime gamblers have seen big stacks of cash flashed somewhere, but I don't recall ever seeing it, and I never would have bet on the place where it happened being The Orleans. 

I was lucky that night. As I said, I lost about $65. Hardly a disastrous night. But I was set to drop $170. No big deal, given I was up for the week. But I took home an extra $100 thanks to an error. 

Dealers make mistakes. It happens. I had noticed earlier in the evening, after the hand was done, that I was shorted $10 on a full house payout. I knew it didn't seem quite right at the time of the payout, but I wasn't sharp enough to catch why as I studied the payout.

Cards were scooped up, I pulled chips back, here comes the next hand. Then it hit me. I was paid even money on my "blind" bet, when I should have been paid 3:1. It seemed a little late to call for a check of the payouts, so I accepted it as a dealer error that went against me. Sometimes the dealer errs in the player's favor. That has happened plenty of times. So this one went against me. It likely wasn't the first time, but in this case, I realized it after the fact. 

So as the night goes on, my luck swings back and forth. I'm never ahead at the table, and as midnight passes, I'm down on my luck again. I need to check out of my room at 10 a.m. Friday anyway, and I'm betting with my last chips. There would not be another buy in. 

The dealer made an improbable queen-high straight, killing the table. Me, too, I think. I'm pretty sure that despite the king in my pocket cards, I don't have a straight. She looked at it for a moment, and I realized she was trying to analyze it. I almost told her I didn't have it, as I am certain I didn't. Then she paid my hand and cleared my cards. 

Nobody said anything, not even Mr. Track Suit. We all sat there in silence for a second, then I lamented how the dealer's 9 in her pocket killed everyone else at the table. Onto the next hand, I'm still in the game.

I certainly didn't try to mislead the dealer, or suggest I had a winning hand, as Mr. Track Suit liked doing periodically. I'm 99% certain, based upon the cards I was seeing past midnight, that I didn't win. The silence at the table certainly suggested to me that I didn't, otherwise the other players would have commented about my nice hand. 

Was I wrong for not sharing my doubt about having a winning hand? Perhaps. You could argue it was unethical. If I'd had a straight, and she scooped my chips, I'd be quick to point that out, of course. 

On the other hand, I am confident a dealer mistake earlier that evening cost me $10. It's not an even mistake, I came out ahead, but until that point, I was shorted $10 by the house for more than an hour. 

I'm not losing sleep over this. 

I played a bit longer. I played the next hand, and put a $1 tip on the "trips" bet for the dealer. Given the gift it appeared I had just received, I figured I could offer a modest tip for the dealer. And on the very next hand I hit a full house. A nice little win for me, and a $9 tip for the dealer. 

I tipped a buck on the "trips" bet again during the next hand, but my luck had run out. After another modest win and a loss, I was ready to call it a night. I colored up for $100 that I shouldn't have had and made my way to the door. 

It was time to go back to my room at the Holiday Inn Club Vacations at Desert Club Resort. That's the name that shows up on Google, anyway. 

It's a timeshare joint on Koval Lane, behind the High Roller wheel at the Linq, and next to the MSG Sphere that's under construction. It's a decent place, and like many non-casino hotels, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Dave owns timeshares. Yes, more than one. He bought them on the cheap from disgruntled owners, and seems to like the perks and benefits he gets as a result. We paid for five nights at the Desert Club, we weren't using his "owned" week, or whatever he has. It was $200 for five nights, just a short walk down the street from Ellis Island. 

I spent five nights at the Desert Club Resort on Koval Lane. From the north boundary of the property you can get a good look at the fantastic MSG Sphere. A concert venue behind the strip? Why not, it works for T-Mobile Arena, although access to MSG Sphere won't be as slick. 

I returned to the Desert Club to begin packing and preparing for my Friday departure. I didn't have a ton of packing to do, but I did run a load of laundry before going to bed. Having a washer and dryer in your vacation unit is nice. 

Perhaps I'll elaborate on the pros and cons of the Desert Club in the future. 

My Friday morning was highly uneventful. I played a little pinball before returning my rental vehicle and heading to the airport, wondering when, or if, I'll have an appetite to do it all again. 

A Las Vegas obituary

I went to see the Las Vegas Aviators on June 14. That's a minor league baseball team, which plays in a fancy new ballpark near Red Rock Casino in Summerlin. The visiting Reno Aces defeated the Aviators 21-16 that night. Yes, it was a baseball game. 

I don't know what major media organizations do nowadays, but there was a time when they wrote early obituaries. 

Before the internet and TMZ made our world a better place, your major news sources had obituaries ready to go, in case word broke that a major celebrity or public figure died with little advance warning. Some form of that practice probably remains in place. When former president Jimmy Carter dies, you'll see information pouring out in rapid succession, Perhaps some of that will be the result of news aggregation, but I suspect there will be a few base pieces that were put together long ago in anticipation of the day.

What does this have to do with Vegas? 

It's too early to say my Vegas career is dead, but I really had to wonder when I left town this time. 

I just spent a week in Vegas. I had a good time, and enjoyed a lot of the things I did. 

At the same time, the things I enjoyed didn't seem to warm my heart quite the same way. 

I have been traveling to Vegas for 24 years. A lot changes during any 24-year period. And like all those who bemoan how Vegas was better when the mob ran the casinos, I'm starting to think Vegas was more enjoyable for me back in my glory days, too. I just can't thank the mob for that. 

I stayed on the strip almost every time I visited Vegas during those early years. I was young, and didn't have a ton of money, but that didn't seem to prevent me from enjoying the Vegas strip. I could play all the $5 blackjack I wanted, and there were plenty of cheap places to eat and drink. I was far less discerning back then, and had an iron gut, so that helped the cause. 

For the past 10-12 years I have been staying either downtown or off the strip. The Orleans has been a frequent destination when staying off-strip. There was no single reason I gravitated away from the strip, but there were a few contributing factors. 

I don't think my off-strip exploration had anything to do with higher minimums on the strip for table games. That became a factor in cementing my departure, but there were still $5 games to be had circa 2009, when I started making my move off the strip, as I recall. 

I think my disenchantment with the strip was driven primarily by two things: Low rollers were finding fewer options on the strip and the casinos became dull. 

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you're playing blackjack in Egypt, New York, Paris or under a circus tent, it's the game that matters. But I, like many, found the less colorful casino decor and abandoned themes to be less entertaining than their predecessors. 

Take away low roller gambling, make the casinos less fascinating and keep increasing prices of everything else in and around your casino... suddenly downtown Las Vegas looks far more appealing. 

Downtown became my savior, despite its lack of entertainment alternatives. There was no observation tower, fake volcano or sky parade to entertain the masses, but downtown casinos still valued those folks who don't need to burn through a C-note in 10 minutes to feel as if they're entertained. 

The days of the cheap table games, and cheap yard drinks, at Slots-A-Fun are long gone. (As are those 99-cent half-pound hot dogs I stopped eating in 2000.) And the $5 Spanish 21 tables up and down the strip are a dim memory. But I found a lot of replacements for those days, and I found them everywhere but on the strip. And that was fine. 

Two years ago my alternate-universe Vegas, the one that contrasted greatly from 1997 Vegas, was still a lot of fun. Vegas 2019 is gone, too, and what I'm left with has me wondering if there's a lot of Vegas in my future. 

I blame some of it on the pandemic. The pandemic forced casinos to raise their table game minimums, due to the limited capacity at each table under social distancing guidelines. Now that tables are full, the minimums are not going down. There's no shortage of players willing to drop their cash at a $15 minimum blackjack table, so why would a casino offer $5 tables? 

Sure, there are still 25-cent video poker machines and machines offering nickel-based wagering, but for those who like the table games, you'd better be happy with stadium gaming or a fully computerized experience. Some of that was coming, regardless of the table minimums. Automation and technology have long reduced labor costs for casinos, and such corners will be cut as often as possible. 

So is it simply the fact I can't spend an evening playing $5 blackjack at The Orleans that has me soured on Vegas? No. 

I never found that an evening spent listening to free cover bands on Fremont Street, elbow to elbow with drunk strangers, was an important part of my life. I'll listen to a little music, sure, but dancing around like I'm having the greatest night of my life as Zowie Bowie pretends to rap "O.P.P." is beyond preposterous. And the light show up above Fremont Street is pretty impressive, but after a couple of trips downtown, it's not all that fascinating.

And my disinterest in downtown is not just at night. On a recent Sunday afternoon they had a "dancing DJ" or whatever it is they're selling, cranking out the tunes for those walking by. I didn't have to shout in order for my friend to hear me, but I didn't need a dance party at that time of day, either. 

Couple that with the buskers and homeless clogging up Fremont street, between kiosks selling crap I want no part of, and Fremont Street is a big disappointment to me. And nothing pisses me off more than the "circle jerks" whose dance crew, bucket drumming or audience-participation spectacle creates a choke point on Fremont. Yeah, it's the pedestrians that create the circle, not the performers, but their spectacles aren't cut out for the performance circles that were intended for showgirls, creepy KISS dudes and Star Wars rejects.

Fremont Street has lost me, too. 

I can find plenty of favorite places and activities to visit in Vegas that still make it a great city to visit. And it's still a low-cost city, if you want it to be. But after nearly 25 years, I have walked away from Vegas wondering why I'll be in a hurry to go back. 

So I'm not saying I'm done with Vegas. But it really feels like my Vegas days are numbered. And I'm not interested in going back right now. That tells me a lot. 

Some people really don't like the Pinball Hall of Fame's new home on the Las Vegas Strip, I learned on June 18.