It feels good to be home after having spent a few days in Las Vegas. While the weather wasn’t outstanding, it was warm enough to lay out by the pool and get a little bit of a sunburn. I was hoping to get a nice tan while I was down there but I ended up only tanning my liver. Lot’s of delicious drinks and way too much gambling. Needless to say, I really did help out the local economy while we were there.
I’d say the highlight of the trip was dinner on Monday night. My wife, sister, brother in law and his sister and brother in law all went down to Vegas together and we went out to dinner on Monday night in the New York, New York casino. We went to a nice asian restaurant that was off to the side of the casino. The food was delicious (although I’m convinced food always tastes a little better after you’ve been drinking). As we were eating, I decided that I’d cover the entire drink tab during dinner and we encouraged everyone to order whatever they wanted over the course of a couple hours. As we sat there eating and drinking, my brother in law said, “What have you done with my brother in law?” His point was that it was very out of character for me to spend so freely and I have to agree that it was slightly out of character for me. Do I have any regret from that evening? Absolutely not. I think that it’s through the many frugal actions I’ve taken over the years that has given me the ability to spend a couple hundred dollars on drinks for my family without having regret, or concern about how I would pay for it. Life is definitely about moderation and this was one of those extreme moments for me that is tempered by many of the other more conservative actions I’ve taken with our finances.
So, I’m back and the wallet is definitely a little lighter. We spent time playing the slots more than anything and statistically, I think they are basically just reverse ATM machines that benefit the casinos. I also played a bit of Blackjack but my luck didn’t change there either.
Interestingly enough, one of my best experiences while we were there in the casinos was watching a man playing craps with his girlfriend. This man was there with his girlfriend and was on an incredible winning streak. When I walked up he had roughly $20,000 in chips sitting along the edge of the table and was betting about $5000 at a time. A man that had been there much longer than I had been leaned over to tell me that this guy had walked up with $100 and had built that up to over $20K. The atmosphere at the table was very tense and the casino had two supervisors, the Director of Security, and 4 workers running the table. I think this may have had something to do with the amount of money this guy was betting, but it was even more likely that it was due to his mannerisms and overall demeanor. This guy was African American, thin, and dressed in a white shirt, dark pants and very large white leather shoes. The shoes looked like your classic leather dress shoe but they were white and I would bet he had a good 4 inches of open space between the ends of his toes and the front of his shoes. Anyway, his girlfriend was a thin, short haired blonde woman and was visibly nervous about how things were going. While the girlfriend was very quiet, the man was anything but quiet. He was yelling at his girlfriend, the guys working the Craps table, and anyone else that was within 100 feet. The man had decided that his girlfriend was bringing him the most luck so he had her stand at the end of the craps table and toss the dice each time. Things were exciting and loud as he had a pretty long winning streak and was very vocal. After I had been standing there for about 10 minutes the man’s luck started to change. He started getting upset as he was losing $3000 to $4000 each time his girlfriend rolled a 7. I could sense things going down hill and decided to drift back a little further as the man started scolding his girlfriend because she wasn’t using the exact motions that he had previously instructed her to use. He kept telling her to shake her hand back and forth X amount of times and then be sure that the dice were thrown directly up the middle of the table. I felt sorry for her as I could see her hands were trembling due to her being so scared that she wouldn’t throw the dice just right.
Finally, as things continued to go south, the man decided that what he needed to do was exchange all his $100 chips for $500 chips. He yelled at the guys working the table to change all his chips. They counted up all the black chips, had the supervisor review the counts and then counted out about $20,000 in white $500 chips. Amazingly, as he started playing again, he started to win. When I walked away he was probably back up to about $25,000. Anyway, it was very interesting to watch and the best part was that it was free entertainment.