Trips to Vegas

Sunday, October 30, 1994

This trip was very similar to the previous trip, at least from a mechanical point of view. Mike and I left his house at 12:00 PDT on Saturday night (October 29). We got to Vegas at 3:30 a.m. PST (note the change from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time) and played at Rio and Harrah's until about 10:00 a.m. Then we got a room and slept till about 1:00 p.m.

Before we went to sleep, the dice were hot and cold. At one point Mike was down to his last $50.00 out of $3,600.00, but he had a nice comeback.

After we woke up, it was a different story. We were on fire. Every table we went to we won. Our biggest hit came at the Flamingo. We cashed in for about $1,600.00 and cashed out for about $3,700.00. We had a lot of place and buy bets that kept hitting, especially the fours and tens. By the end of the trip we were each up $3,000.00.

Mike and I left his house at 11:15 on Saturday night (October 1). We got to Vegas at 3:30 a.m. and played at Imperial Palace and Harrah's until about 8:00. Then we slept until 11:15 a.m.

At Harrah's, Mike had a $5.00 hard four. It hit, and Mike told them to parlay (so the bet became $40.00 on the hard four.) A little while later, it hit again. He was paid $280.00, and he tossed an additional $60.00 onto the hard four so now his bet was $100.00. The very next roll was another hard four; payoff: $700.00.

It was up and down like crazy until, on our way home, Mike lost a ton at Stateline. He was down about $3,000.00 and ready to leave. I convinced him to come with me to the McDonald's next door and have a burger. He sat there in the restaurant fuming, but it gave him a chance to consider going back to the casino to try to win his money back. He decided to take $300.00 and make two $150.00 place bets, one on the six, one on the eight. Well, Mike parlayed those bets into the $3000.00 he was down. When we left Stateline it was 10:30 Sunday night.

The table limit on the crap tables in Stateline was only $500.00, and at one point Mike had a $600.00 place bet on the six.

This was actually part of Sherry's and my cross-country trip. We stopped in Vegas for a few hours and I lost a couple hundred dollars at Caesars Palace.

The first night we were there, every one of us lost all the money he or she came with.

It was a losing trip overall. However, on the way home, Mike got four-of-a-kind while playing Caribbean Stud Poker in the car.

Sherry and Julie stayed at the Golden Nugget, Mike and I stayed at the Four Queens.

Sherry and Julie ended up winning for the weekend by playing pass line and two come bets. Mike and I ended up losing 'cause we're stupid.

We were playing at the Golden Nugget and Sherry was rolling. A high roller had a bet on eleven. Sherry rolled an eleven, and the high roller said, "Can you do that again?" Sherry nodded yes, and sure enough, she rolled another eleven. The high roller tossed her a $100.00 chip.

I was able to get reservations at Imperial Palace, but the woman over the phone told me it would be $175.00 for two nights. That didn't seem right, especially since I supposedly had a rating there. Sherry and I decided that instead we would try to get a room at one of the casinos south of Vegas on I 15… but when we got there they were all sold out. Good thing too, because when we finally acquiesced and went to Imperial Palace, the rate was $45.00 a night.

Waking up Sunday morning I was ahead about $20.00 for the trip. What I was hoping to do was win enough to pay Sherry the $100.00 I owed her as well as pay for the hotel room. So I played some craps, and just lost, lost, lost. Finally, I lost all the money I had (about $600.00). At about 5:00 p.m., I went to the ATM and got out another $80.00, the most I could. I went back to the crap table at Imperial Palace and got on a monster hand (in fact I was the one rolling). I won back everything, as well as $100.00 for Sherry and $100.00 for the room.

Sherry picked up on blackjack very quickly, to the point where she could go to a table and play by herself (she had never played the game before). She also caught on to the basics of craps very fast.