Sam's Town Vegas
April 29th, 2017 at 6:45:43 PM
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I am not a high roller. I don't even think of myself as moderate roller. But Sam's sent me a "3 free nights" offer 6 weeks ago, and I used it April 25th through the 28th.
Flew from Columbus OH nonstop on SW, which is my preferred airline. Every seat sold, but the flight itself was uneventful. Not much to see, since from the Indianapolis area to Lake Powell the sky was pure cloud. Starting breaking up about 40 mins outside Vegas, so we did get some nice views from my side of the plane of Lake Powell, Lake Mead and Hoover dam.
Picked up a rental car and since it was lunch time, headed out to Henderson and Green Valley Ranch. Pizza Rock has a food court option there called Slices I believe, and usually it's very good. Not so much this time. I think the pizza had been standing out just a bit too long and the crust was a bit dry/almost stale.
GVR has plenty of full pay deuces and DB video poker, which is also why I stopped. Went right to the machines and proceeded to lose roughly $75. VP has not been very good to me this year and this trip was no exception. I think I had one 4Q on DB and never sniffed 4 deuces on deuces wild. May have had four hands where I was dealt 4 to a royal over the 4 days I was there, but nothing came of them.
Stopped in the sports book for maybe an hour to watch bases, but made no bets, just chilled.
Then it was on to Sam's. If memory serves me correctly, this was the first "locals" casino I visited when my friends Pam and Jerry took me there 31 years ago. Back then I don't think it had rooms. It ain't the Ritz, but it ain't the worst either. The rooms are average size, the furniture is dated. But the bathroom is fine and everything was clean. There's a fridge and a coffeemaker as well. Best of all...IT WAS FREE. No taxes or fees, I paid nothing.
Boyd has not put a lot of money in this place and I always hear or read rumors about its future. As you may have heard, Boyd completed its purchase of the Eastside Cannery, about a quarter mile up Boulder Highway, earlier this year. EC is much newer and the rooms are much nicer, but the casino was always empty. It will be interesting to see what Boyd does with both these properties in the coming months. I'd love to get offers to stay at EC since the rooms are so nice.
Back to Sam's. The casino is OK in many respects. Nothing out of the ordinary as far as slots are concerned. One recent upgrade: Management finally got rid of the old flat top full pay VP machines near the Dunkin Donuts and replaced them with more up to date upright machines. Still full pay. Still paid me nothing.
Went to bed relatively early and woke up Wednesday before 5 a.m. and went straight down to the casino. Played maybe 15 mins of VP then headed to the craps table. Two reasons for me to be at Sam's: Free rooms and fair deal at craps. In fact, I don't think there is a fairer table for my type of bankroll. $5 minimum all day and all night, sometimes at one of the tables they'll drop it to $3. 20x odds, and for most people that's more than enough. 12 pays triple in the field, so the field bet is not awful. And the one "fun bet" they offer has reasonable odds: All Tall or All Small pays 35 to 1, Hit 'em All pays 175 to 1. There have been complaints in the forums on this site that strip facilities and others-including GVR-have reduced their payouts on these bets. So far, Sam's has resisted. For me, it's about this best craps option in Vegas.
Dealers can be hit or miss. Some are smart and experienced. Others, well...
There may have been one other player on this Wednesday, I bought in for $300 and generally played my preferred strategy: Cover the 5, 6, 8 and field and don't get greedy. Pull those bets down after they've hit a few times. No science to it, either you do it at the right time or you don't. It really depends on one thing, and that's not getting many 7s in the first roll or two after a point is established. On this morning, I was lucky. May have had a quick 7-out once. I played for about an hour and left up just under $200.
It was a comfortable morning, so I walked up Boulder Highway about a mile and stuck my head in Arizona Charlies, which I had not visited in at least 10 years. Craps table didn't open until 10 so I stuck around long enough to win a couple bucks on a slot machine. Then I walked back down to Sam's.
Freshened up, then drove down for my one visit to the strip, and the Mirage. $10 for parking! But I was in the mood for Carnegie Deli so had to pay it.
The sandwiches are huge, good, and tremendously over priced. I consider the turkey club from Carnegie to be one of my guilty pleasures. Wish I had a picture to post, but if you've ever been to the Carnegie or the State while they were in existence in New York, you know what I'm talking about. Sat down with my papers and took about an hour to eat the entire thing,.
Then I just wandered around the property and it brought back a lot of memories. I can remember Pam taking me down to the Golden Nugget, which Steve Wynn owned at the time, and showing me the model of the Mirage. I remember the moving walkway, with Steve Wynn's voice welcoming you on to the property, then entering and seeing the white tiger habitat. The property, while still clean, doesn't look like the ground-breaking Vegas attraction that it was when it opened about 3 decades ago...just another strip property now.
My walk down memory lane completed, I grabbed the car and headed to the Orleans. Not the greatest casino in the world, but man there's usually at least one cocktail server who's a 9. A lot of these ladies have been here for years now, and are no longer the sweet young things they were when they started. But most are pleasant and attractive, and like I said, there's usually one or two that really takes the pain out of losing. And losing is what i did here at the VP machines and keno. Yes, I know keno is a loser game, but I can't help it. I call it crack-o.
I hung around the Orleans long enough to hit the craps table, which is nothing special: 3-4-5 odds. But my strategy continued to serve me well as I pick up another $90.
I'm not much on night life any more, so after rush hour traffic settled down I headed back to Sam's, checked in at the sportsbook and watched baseball. Since I hadn't slept well the night before, I was ready to hit it relatively early.
That's it for the first two days. I'll try to wrap this up in Part 2 a bit later on.
Flew from Columbus OH nonstop on SW, which is my preferred airline. Every seat sold, but the flight itself was uneventful. Not much to see, since from the Indianapolis area to Lake Powell the sky was pure cloud. Starting breaking up about 40 mins outside Vegas, so we did get some nice views from my side of the plane of Lake Powell, Lake Mead and Hoover dam.
Picked up a rental car and since it was lunch time, headed out to Henderson and Green Valley Ranch. Pizza Rock has a food court option there called Slices I believe, and usually it's very good. Not so much this time. I think the pizza had been standing out just a bit too long and the crust was a bit dry/almost stale.
GVR has plenty of full pay deuces and DB video poker, which is also why I stopped. Went right to the machines and proceeded to lose roughly $75. VP has not been very good to me this year and this trip was no exception. I think I had one 4Q on DB and never sniffed 4 deuces on deuces wild. May have had four hands where I was dealt 4 to a royal over the 4 days I was there, but nothing came of them.
Stopped in the sports book for maybe an hour to watch bases, but made no bets, just chilled.
Then it was on to Sam's. If memory serves me correctly, this was the first "locals" casino I visited when my friends Pam and Jerry took me there 31 years ago. Back then I don't think it had rooms. It ain't the Ritz, but it ain't the worst either. The rooms are average size, the furniture is dated. But the bathroom is fine and everything was clean. There's a fridge and a coffeemaker as well. Best of all...IT WAS FREE. No taxes or fees, I paid nothing.
Boyd has not put a lot of money in this place and I always hear or read rumors about its future. As you may have heard, Boyd completed its purchase of the Eastside Cannery, about a quarter mile up Boulder Highway, earlier this year. EC is much newer and the rooms are much nicer, but the casino was always empty. It will be interesting to see what Boyd does with both these properties in the coming months. I'd love to get offers to stay at EC since the rooms are so nice.
Back to Sam's. The casino is OK in many respects. Nothing out of the ordinary as far as slots are concerned. One recent upgrade: Management finally got rid of the old flat top full pay VP machines near the Dunkin Donuts and replaced them with more up to date upright machines. Still full pay. Still paid me nothing.
Went to bed relatively early and woke up Wednesday before 5 a.m. and went straight down to the casino. Played maybe 15 mins of VP then headed to the craps table. Two reasons for me to be at Sam's: Free rooms and fair deal at craps. In fact, I don't think there is a fairer table for my type of bankroll. $5 minimum all day and all night, sometimes at one of the tables they'll drop it to $3. 20x odds, and for most people that's more than enough. 12 pays triple in the field, so the field bet is not awful. And the one "fun bet" they offer has reasonable odds: All Tall or All Small pays 35 to 1, Hit 'em All pays 175 to 1. There have been complaints in the forums on this site that strip facilities and others-including GVR-have reduced their payouts on these bets. So far, Sam's has resisted. For me, it's about this best craps option in Vegas.
Dealers can be hit or miss. Some are smart and experienced. Others, well...
There may have been one other player on this Wednesday, I bought in for $300 and generally played my preferred strategy: Cover the 5, 6, 8 and field and don't get greedy. Pull those bets down after they've hit a few times. No science to it, either you do it at the right time or you don't. It really depends on one thing, and that's not getting many 7s in the first roll or two after a point is established. On this morning, I was lucky. May have had a quick 7-out once. I played for about an hour and left up just under $200.
It was a comfortable morning, so I walked up Boulder Highway about a mile and stuck my head in Arizona Charlies, which I had not visited in at least 10 years. Craps table didn't open until 10 so I stuck around long enough to win a couple bucks on a slot machine. Then I walked back down to Sam's.
Freshened up, then drove down for my one visit to the strip, and the Mirage. $10 for parking! But I was in the mood for Carnegie Deli so had to pay it.
The sandwiches are huge, good, and tremendously over priced. I consider the turkey club from Carnegie to be one of my guilty pleasures. Wish I had a picture to post, but if you've ever been to the Carnegie or the State while they were in existence in New York, you know what I'm talking about. Sat down with my papers and took about an hour to eat the entire thing,.
Then I just wandered around the property and it brought back a lot of memories. I can remember Pam taking me down to the Golden Nugget, which Steve Wynn owned at the time, and showing me the model of the Mirage. I remember the moving walkway, with Steve Wynn's voice welcoming you on to the property, then entering and seeing the white tiger habitat. The property, while still clean, doesn't look like the ground-breaking Vegas attraction that it was when it opened about 3 decades ago...just another strip property now.
My walk down memory lane completed, I grabbed the car and headed to the Orleans. Not the greatest casino in the world, but man there's usually at least one cocktail server who's a 9. A lot of these ladies have been here for years now, and are no longer the sweet young things they were when they started. But most are pleasant and attractive, and like I said, there's usually one or two that really takes the pain out of losing. And losing is what i did here at the VP machines and keno. Yes, I know keno is a loser game, but I can't help it. I call it crack-o.
I hung around the Orleans long enough to hit the craps table, which is nothing special: 3-4-5 odds. But my strategy continued to serve me well as I pick up another $90.
I'm not much on night life any more, so after rush hour traffic settled down I headed back to Sam's, checked in at the sportsbook and watched baseball. Since I hadn't slept well the night before, I was ready to hit it relatively early.
That's it for the first two days. I'll try to wrap this up in Part 2 a bit later on.
