Shreveport, LA trip report

Shreveport Trip Review

I went on a gambling trip to Shreveport this weekend. Stayed at the Horseshoe, and dropped by the El Dorado and Sams Town.

I love the Shreveport casinos for their overall gambling value and better odds than LV. But I will admit that the casinos are getting a bit run down, with basic things like felt layouts not being regularly replaced, the parking garages starting to smell like urine, and significant amounts of cigarette ash on the tables without maintenance. Then there’s the overall decline in food quality.

Got a room for five nights at the Shoe. Room was comped, but resort fee was $15/night.

I immediately went to the craps table and within 45 minutes, I was up $9,000, betting $10 plus max odds. However for the next hour, the table was very cold or choppy at best. No one made two points in a row. My $9000 win was gone and I was down around $4000. I was down to my final three orange chips and some loose green and red chips, so I split the chips into two bets and bet $15 pass and $15 come plus max odds. Both numbers hit and I pressed the bets to $30 come plus $2500 odds, on the 9 and 4.

Floor said, you’re not at max, so I added $500 more to my odds. I was on my 6th chilled Belvedere Martini, dirty, in a rocks glass, with 3 olives on a wooden toothpick. My drink of choice. So I was a little woozy.

Immediately, the 4 hits, paying $6000. Then the 9 hits for $4500. And I had the numbers stay up bc they were off and on with a come bet.

The shooter is shooting from the Don’t. Lol.

Same guy keeps shooting and he’s repeatedly hitting the 4 and 9, both numbers off and on. I’ll unequivocally state that, other than a hot chick in stockings, nothing is sexier than getting paid 6 orange chips four times on a off and on 4.

Then he hits the point of 5, but I had hedged my point and only had $10+max odds.

Next roll, he rolls a point, and I look down on my rack and see 33 orange chips and some loose chips. I count the come bets + odds and see my odds bet on the Pass, and see that with those orange chips, I would equal an even $40,000 plus loose change.

So I immediately pick up my pass odds and tell the dealer odds off!! This was as the dice were about to be shot by the shooter.

Dealer acknowledged it. Box said, we’re gonna laugh if it hits.

7 out!

Table groaned, I let out a F*CK YEA!!!! Like I was playing the don’t.

Six orange chips saved and sent home to my rack.

I color up and this is the result...



The guy didn’t even roll for that long. He only made one point and then sevened out.

Figuring that things can only go downhill from there, I decided that all my serious gambling was over and decided to deposit my chips as front money with the cage so that I didn’t gamble it.

Deposited safely where I wouldn’t play it...or so I thought...



For the next 4 hours, I’m betting $12 6, $12 8. It’s fun to watch dice roll while enjoying free drinks.

Just doing this, I ended up losing $500, which was the purple chip in the pic. It had been a really cold table all night long, compounded by pressing the $12 to $24. I think I hit a $24 press like twice. Really cold.

So in a story about why one should never gamble when heavily intoxicated, I go on tilt after losing the entire purple chip and tell the box, I want $40,000 (which I had deposited into the cage earlier). They cut out the $40,000. I make what I think is a $10 pass bet with the intention of making a $1000 odds bet in an attempt to win back my lost purple. The box says, you’re not at max odds, since I had been betting max all night. Turns out I had put down two green chips. In a split second, I decide I’ll do it, and if I win, I’ll show some discipline for the rest of the trip. So I put down $5000. Winner 8! Instantly.

Would I have done this sober? Honestly, probably not.

So this is the part where I don’t appreciate. I then pick up my chips, walk over to the cage to deposit the $40,000 (so that I wouldn’t gamble it), and then the frikkin cage girl has a bad attitude and calls the floor or someone, and she says to the person on the phone, ‘he just got this from the table five minutes ago, now he wants to deposit it back. He played one hand?” So I get nasty with her and tell her to just deposit the dam money and shut up, and that I’ll take my gambling to the El Dorado. Seriously and totally unprofessional on their part; you don’t criticize a guest if he wants to play one hand or 1000 hands. So now, I’m really done seriously gambling at the Shoe for this trip. The floor comes up and apologizes and has me sign the slip, since I hadn’t signed it yet.

So I take my $6000 winning from that final roll and decide that the $6000 is going to be my bankroll for the rest of the trip, although I’m not one to ever think of it as ‘house money’ because once its mine, its mine.

Next day I wake up with a serious hangover. Host tells me that I’ve been entered into their free Bacc Tournament.

I stop by the host station and get my comp for the cafe, called 8oz Cafe, since the lunch buffet is only OK.

The cafe has seriously gone downhill. I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, which was the $24 Angus steak. It came out, and this was the $24 steak. Like seriously, this is a steak that’s served with eggs for breakfast and costs $5.




So I tell the waiter that the steak is crap, and he takes it back. I then order the most expensive burger on the menu, something called the million dollar burger. The burger comes out with overly dry patties with a cold bun. I take a bite and throw it away.

This is the burger...looks good, but was poorly executed.



I spent the rest of the day playing the $12 6 and $12 8. For some sick reason, I enjoy watching the dice roll. During this time, I ask the dealer if she knows of a Pai Gow poker game in town, since the Shoe pulled theirs. The box says the only Pai Gow poker game in town is at the El Dorado. I then catch the stick shaking his head at the box and saying, “No, I don’t think there is”, and very subtly shaking his head no. He leans over to the box and very subtly reprimands the box for telling a player to go to another casino. TBH, I very much admire this stick as an employee. That’s called being loyal to your company.

Later that night, I head to the Baccarat tournament, which is free for select guests. First prize is $8000. Winner of this table then heads to the final table later that night. So based on those numbers, there are a max of 100 players.

I sit down and theres a guy betting the min bet on every hand. He’s watching to see if anyone busts out or gets too far ahead. The tournament is comprised of 15 hands, and everyone gets to make one secret bet. I’m also betting the minimum.

Then one guy wins five hands in a row and has a significant lead, with like 7 hands to go. So the guy who is betting the minimum, when the button passes him (button goes first), goes all in for the tie. And the result is a tie 6-6. Ah dam it. So now I’m forced to go all in, because if I don’t do it now, since I’m out of position to the chip leader, all the chip leader has to do is match my bet for the rest of the remaining hands.

I bet tie all in and lose.

My next stop is the Four Winds restaurant. The Shoe has two high end restaurants, one being the Four Winds, the other being Jack Binions Steakhouse.

This is what I ordered...



The Peking duck at an authentic Asian restaurant is much better. The prawns were very good though, if not a bit overly sweet.

I then head over to the El Dorado, which has really really gone downhill.

The El Dorado has a Pai Gow poker table. That is confirmed. But it is packed, and with a couple of people behind them waiting for a seat to open.

So while I’m waiting for Pai Gow to open, I witness a very attractive skinny Asian girl, in her early 20s, betting $1000-$2000 a hand at mini Bacc, which btw is the version where the players do not handle the cards. When I see alluringly dressed, very attractive, heavily made up young women playing high stakes gambling games, I always wonder what they do for a living. Rich parents? High end...uh...nvm...Successful entrepreneur at the age of 22?

All games at the El Dorado are $10 minimum. It used to the the low roller joint with $5 games.

Since I had never played a hand of crapless craps, I decided to place a bet, just to say I had done it. On the one hand I play, the come out roll is a point of 12. I take a pic to preserve the memory, since I’ll never play this monstrosity again. I didn’t win.

Hey at least I didn’t lose on the come out.




The Pai Gow table never opened up, and the people playing are betting the minimum $10 bet and have at least $400 in front of them.

While I’m a the El Dorado, there’s a guy betting $6000 across on the craps game. I’m only betting $12 6 and $12 8. I tell him, why don’t you do a put bet, add $10 to each bet across and you’ll see it pays much better (since some people can’t get over the mental hump of the fallacy that you have to hit the same number twice on a come + odds). A light goes on in his head and that’s what he starts doing. I tell him, ‘see for $10 more, instead of being paid $1400 on your 9 and 5, you get $1500’. When he actually starts winning the numbers, he’s a total convert. Now effectively to buy the 4 and 10 only costs $10 per $1000.

I saved a whale. You’re welcome, Greenpeace.

To add clarification to the above paragraph, Shreveport craps is traditionally 100x odds, in case that wasn’t clear.

On a related side note, put bets are not allowed at the Shoe. I tried giving this same advice to another whale at the Shoe, but was shot down by the dealer, thereby answering the question why some casinos don’t allow put bets.

While still at the El Dorado, I witnessed a lady betting $20 a number on roulette. I counted her bets, and she has $400+ in total bets per spin. She hits a $20 number, paying $700. She gets excited like she just hit the lottery, perhaps not realizing that she didn’t even make even money across all bets. She then tips the dealer $25 per win. I just don’t understand roulette. The house edge is extreme. But this lady got excited whenever the dealer would put the winning marker on top of her 20 stack. I guess that was her thrill, and she was paying for it.

There is a lot of single deck 6:5 BJ at the El Dorado, and every 6:5 table was packed.

The El Dorado has a strange mix of very low income persons who are gambling with older racists and some rich guys. The El Dorado just isn’t as friendly as the Shoe overall, and The El Dorado garage is packed with beaten up cars and smells like urine.

I mean seriously, should this person really be gambling?



So I end up back to the Shoe and I decided to spend $100 on the slots. The Shoe has some tight ass slots. I didn’t see anyone winning, and within the $100 worth of spins, I didn’t get a single bonus round. I moved from machine to machine, spending $10 per machine. At one machine that I sat down to, a lady sat down next to me and on her first spin, hit a bonus round and won $60. She smartly cashed out after one spin.

This was the result of my $100, since I didn’t have enough for another spin at 60 cents.



I cashed out my spare change and threw it into my pocket, where they will be imprisoned in my five gallon water jug at home.

Next day was uneventful. I played craps during the day at the Shoe, where they now lowered the minimum to $5. So I bet $5 plus 5x odds. Around 4 PM, they raised the minimum to $10, and I decided that my gambling was done. I was up $85 for the day.

I had their buffet a couple of times. The day to go for their buffet is Friday for dinner, where they have a seafood extravaganza. After 4pm though, everyday, they have Jonah crab claws, which are the cheaper version of stone crab. Still petty tasty though.

The buffet has really gone down hill. You can tell of overall quality by how the staff pays attention to small details...such as the plethora of plates that had food stains on them that the dishwasher did not remove...



The dessert bar was delicious. That part undebatable.





That was the end of my gambling trip. The only real gambling was when I first arrived at the Shoe. I hate the feeling of being up big, and losing it all back, so I wasn’t going to let that happen, at least not this trip. So I cheaped out the rest of the trip.

Overall, a good trip that was a lot of fun.

Quote: klimate10

Shreveport Trip Review

So I tell the waiter that the steak is crap, and he takes it back. I then order the most expensive burger on the menu, something called the million dollar burger. The burger comes out with overly dry patties with a cold bun. I take a bite and throw it away.

This is the burger...looks good, but was poorly executed.

Million peso burger maybe. That does not look pleasing to the eye.

Quite frankly I do not favor any casino that places obstacles in the way of a player going to a different casino. Directions, existence of a shuttle, etc. should all be promptly supplied. A dealer can say 'we do spread a certain game' or we used to and I can page the Director of Table Games to find out if we still do but overtly discouraging someone to take their action elsewhere is not proper. Reeks too much of a sweat the money joint.

How did you determine some of the El Dorado customers are "older racists"?

Thanks for the report. Sounds like a fun trip.

Quote: Johnzimbo

How did you determine some of the El Dorado customers are "older racists"?

Some of the comments made were quite explicit.

Good report, klimate! Thanks!

No interest in Margaritaville?

Quote: beachbumbabs

Good report, klimate! Thanks!

No interest in Margaritaville?

Not this trip. The host said she would call me back to confirm a reservation but the Shoe host beat her to it.

Actually, now that you mention Margaritaville, the Margaritaville host never called me back at all.

I think I did a Margaritaville review in the past. If I go back, I would only go back to see if they still have $5 games, for when I’m in super low roller mode. Sometimes it’s fun to drink and play $5 blackjack and count.

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I might stick with the pizza slices at the gas station, lol.