From time to time I do something crazy... like get in my car and drive to Vegas to play some craps for a couple of hours, and then drive back home.
About ten years ago my son and I would do this on Wednesday nights. We'd leave Santa Clarita (north of LA) at about 9pm, arrive at Caesars around 1am, play till 3am, and drive back in time for me to get in the shower then head off to work. I would sleep in the car.
Last night (Tuesday night) I decided it was time for something crazy and I invited forum member ke6cdh to join me. After a pit stop for gas and food at Carl's Jr we left at about 10pm, arriving at Caesars shortly after 2am this morning.
I drove. As we approached Victorville I saw a brilliant shooting star and said to John -- that's a sign that this is going to be a winning trip. Yes, I am superstitious. Just like the time a bird flew into my windshield along the I-15 going to Vegas and I knew it was going to be a miserable trip -- and it was.
I arrived at Caesars with exactly $16 in my wallet. This is normal for me. I rarely bring more than $100 to Vegas, and that's because "markers" are the best way to get money in Vegas.
We found a $10 craps table at Caesars (four were open at 2am) and I took a marker for $1,000. After about an hour or so, I was down $370 and went to the cage to cash in the chips.
Then to video poker. with a $300 initial buy-in. ke6cdh couldn't understand why I would play 7/5 Bonus with its poor paytable but I explained to him that I rarely hit full houses so the 7/5 pay table didn't matter to me. Well guess what? I had a full house tidal wave -- full house after full house either dealt or drawn with trips on the deal. It got crazy. And all I could think about was how Dan Druff would say "see -- you should have played 8/5."
But then the quads came. And I was playing $2/coin. Hit quad 3s three times with each paying $400. And quad queens twice, quad jacks once, quad kings once, quad 6s twice, quad 8s twice. I cashed out more than $2000. Went to the cage, paid off my $1,000 marker and had plenty of "walking around money."
It was now about 4am and we wanted to get something to eat. We headed for Central. I knew Central wouldn't accept my TR gift card but that didn't matter. I was going to spring for breakfast.
But surprisingly Central was closed for "cleaning" the hostess told us. So what was open? The Hash House in the Quad -- and they did accept the TR gift card. Perfect. Steak and eggs for ke6cdh and I had some kind of egg concoction with extra avocado (doctor's orders to eat avocado on a daily basis).
The quad casino is pretty nice. Video poker pay tables suck -- like 6/5 bonus. But the Quad has $5 craps on a small table with a light bounce that was just perfect to play on. Unfortunately no luck there. I lost $300. ke6cdh also lost a bit.
So back to Caesars where I took out another $1,000 marker at the craps table and then things caught fire -- as in the Fire Bet. A shooter hit five different numbers for a $2,500 payoff plus I won about $1,800 on his roll after paying back the $1,000 marker.
I loved going to the cashier with a little more than $4400 in chips.
Then it was time for one more try at video poker -- and back to the same machine but this time playing only $1/coin. I hit more quads, more full houses and then quad aces. The photo below shows my peak on the credit meter -- $970. I now adjusted my "stop loss" to $800 and when I fell back to $800 I hit the cash out button for another $500 profit.
It was time to leave. It really was time to leave -- it was about 10am this morning. Clients were already calling me and I was booking TV spots and shoots. But as we were walking out I had to stop in to the hosts' office to say hello to my host on this surprise visit.
She surprised me and ke6cdh by offering DISCRETIONARY COMPED BREAKFAST for $100. First time ever since Total Rewards started did a host offer a discretionary comp without my asking and without asking me to use my Reward Credits.
We had breakfast at Central. Steak and eggs again for ke6cdh and a Denver omelette for me with a double order of avocado. The check actually came to $96 and I left the tip in cash.
It's actually a good thing the Central breakfast was comped. It appears that all of my play over about 6+ hours only got me about $30 worth of Reward Credits. And that's crazy but true. There were no "bonus reward credits" showing on the video poker machine screen.
We left Vegas at about 11am and shared the driving home -- because neither of us could have stayed awake for the entire ride.
It was a hoot of a time. Keep looking for shooting stars. Avoid running into low flying birds.