Living out of Hotel Rooms

Considering trying this for an extended period. Like seeing if I could go for a year living out of Las Vegas hotels. Main reason is if I think I could do it a lot cheaper than any other housing. Based on offers I usually see I think it should be possible to do Sunday – Thursday for no more than $100 most weeks. Friday and Saturday nights make things tough. Perfectly fine not having a place for a night: take some stimulants and get stuff done – gym, shopping, gamble all night, midnight movie, find a Starbucks and catch up on Wizard of Vegas. Could even do that two to three times every week. But consecutive nights without a reasonable place to stay would be tough.

Other than weekend prices, the added fees are just ridiculous. Got a letter in the mail offering me a night at Aria for $29, go online to book a room for a random slow Tuesday to see what will happen and it would cost over $80. I’m sure that’s considered a great value, but not the type of thing I’m looking for. Have an offer from Fiesta that says if I stay one night, second night is free. Would be $62 for two nights. Not bad, but if that’s the very best I can do I may as well stick with the living arrangements I’ve already got. Best standard rates I could find online is the Longhorn at about $31 per night during the week.

Obviously the completely complimentary nights would be the best and what I would be looking for. Unfortunately, I usually use those comped rooms a few times per year and then don't gamble, so they dry up very quickly. Currently only have two completely comped room available (Cannery and Four Queens). Since I’m still a ways away from giving up my current situation, could have some time to ‘replenish’ these offers, but not so sure it would really be all that much without anything close to full-time play – which I’m not going to do until it’s time to start actually doing this. For starting off without any comps, any ideas on the best way to earn the cheapest places to stay?

On the plus side, I have enough dining comps to eat two meals everyday for about two months – and can probably replace the points as fast as I spend them. So eating budget is completely taken care of.

Would obviously like to maintain earning a living. Currently earn only about $500 per month from casinos on part time play. Could easily double that with more hours. Moving past that would take a lot more risk / work than I’ve ever done with casino games. A very flexible workforce opportunity might be great. Would have to be better working conditions than sign spinning for me to bother with it. Have one or two ideas that might work.

Doubtful I’ll try it, but could be a good Vegas-degenerate discussion. Anyone with any ideas, tips, or theories. How would you do it if you were to come up with a plan to live out of Vegas hotels for a year?

Some other thoughts:
-paying less than $100 per year for LVAC, so always have showers available in emergency
-What to do about laundry?
-Laughlin, Mesquite, Pahrum, Primm, should offer some great options

there is a time lag between your 'action' and your room comps.

get a list of places that are acceptable to you.

learn to travel light. don't lug everything with you, ship/mail things to casino convenience centers,

learn travel time but don't sleep on busses or the like.

if you want weekend room comps your weekend action has to merit it.

The hard part will be keeping up enough adt to keep the offers coming. Probably can cycle mgm/czr/stations/boyd once or twice. But after that things will get tough.

I think the real question comes down to what is your bankroll? I would think with a $10k bankroll it would be pretty easy to generate room comps at the locals casinos. Could probably do it with a smaller bankroll but the volatility might catch up with you.

Quote: FleaStiff

get a list of places that are acceptable to you.

Four walls and a bed in Southern Nevada. If it meets that criteria, it probably has a TV and wi-fi.

Quote: FleaStiff

learn to travel light. don't lug everything with you, ship/mail things to casino convenience centers,

A couple weeks worth of clothes in the back seat of the car, nothing much else

Quote: FleaStiff

if you want weekend room comps your weekend action has to merit it.

The Holy Grail: Doing that as cheaply as possible.

Quote: rdw4potus

The hard part will be keeping up enough adt to keep the offers coming. Probably can cycle mgm/czr/stations/boyd once or twice. But after that things will get tough.

Absolutely. So how to best the adt (or even just total action / theoretical) high enough? One theory I want to look into is that it requires very little to get discounted rates. I have very low adt, but see decent enough discounts all the time

Quote: DRich

I think the real question comes down to what is your bankroll? I would think with a $10k bankroll it would be pretty easy to generate room comps at the locals casinos. Could probably do it with a smaller bankroll but the volatility might catch up with you.

I love hearing that. Let's say it's equal to one year living expenses, including rent/mortgage, food, car, clothes, incidentals. Now, is there a way to eliminate a lot of those expenses from the casinos and then earn a profit on top of that.

You could do it on cruise ships for sure. Last minute deals are killer. I was going to go to Disneyvworld once when I was visiting my son in Georgia. We checked for cruises the next day. $140 for 3 nights, which includes unlimited food and room.

I've since done the same thing in California. I've heard retired people do it as their primary residence. It's cheaper than rent/electricity/water/food, etc. And you get to travel.


ZCore13

you need quality sleep, no bugs, no loud music. Decent showers, decent breakfast.

you might consider those auctions of rooms with a view of the elevator shaft at Southsomething. I think they still open up the booking site four times a year and close it in ten minutes. Twenty dollar rooms but good food and good gambling and good comps.

cars and tires depreciate no matter where you sleep.

electric razor or blades? You might be living like a bum but you can't look like one. Dealers have ankle wallets, you might need to use one too. towellettes, deodorant, etc.

Make some friends that are local that get offers at CET; they make you check in to get the offer. CET waives resort fees for diamond and above I think. I never paid a resort fee ever staying at CET.

MGM however is different. I was a platinum and had to work with the check in person to waive my resort fee. Wasn't worth the hassle so I stopped staying there.

Anyone with a pulse should be getting free rooms at Laughlin. Same for Primm. Dunno about Mesquite or Pahrump. It's like $19 a day in Laughlin on weekdays.

I actually knew a guy downtown that lived out of hotel rooms. He found a laundry place and kept degening on them machines lol.

I dunno what your bankroll is like but play on multiplier days to lessen the cost or bring it to break-even. Try to snipe some progressive slots to get some non VP coin in. Obvious but stick to low-roller joints; you're not likely to get even a weekday comp at the Wynn or something.

Another thing to consider is that if you stay at the casino, you have more accessibility to vulture UX throughout your stay. I made an easy 35 bucks or so on an Ocean Magic at the airport returning from a trip. Competition is fierce tho, I was playing VP at a place and saw like 6 people in a few hours checking the high limit slots for wilds.

Many places with poker rooms have a poker rate I think. It's not free but if you can't find anything else, it might be worthwhile to play for a few hours to satisfy the requirements of the reduced rate. That's assuming you know how to play somewhat well.

If I remember right you're a sports bettor. The only place I know that offers comps for sportsbooks is the South Point, although that might just be for the horsebook. Either way their web site has a listing of how much you need to wager to get a room. As for machines this month they are running the gift card promo (earn $250 in points, get $500 in amazon gift cards). If your bankroll can handle that put in like 10k a day on the NSUD and see what they can do for you through the slot host. You could sell the amazon cards close to 100% of the value.

TBH if you check the big progressives in town (5k must hit bys and such) you could sell the action to someone with the condition your card will be used. I'm not sure on the specifics but slot play > video poker play for the most part.

Quote: Zcore13

You could do it on cruise ships for sure. Last minute deals are killer. I was going to go to Disneyvworld once when I was visiting my son in Georgia. We checked for cruises the next day. $140 for 3 nights, which includes unlimited food and room.

Cheapest I see out of California is over $300 for four nights. I'm sure stuff like parking and other fees might add to it. A great vacation, especially if split two ways. Great retirement. Not a great fit for what I'm looking for for living arrangements, but definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Quote: djatc

Anyone with a pulse should be getting free rooms at Laughlin. Same for Primm. Dunno about Mesquite or Pahrump. It's like $19 a day in Laughlin on weekdays.

Used to get lots of good offers from Mesquite. But then I went three times earlier this year just for shows and to go to Utah, no gambling, so I'll be digging out of a hole there, but do know it can be done. Just checked out Laughlin, which has standard week rooms starting at $25, taxes and resort fees included. So that could be the best place of all. Primm has less competition and starts at $40. Too bad Gold Strike in Jean changed owners, that was $15 per weeknight for everything with only about $1,000 in action per day. That was before the tax increase, though. These stadium taxes are definitely noticeable, and it has to be effecting some people's decision to visit or their length of stay.

Quote: djatc

If I remember right you're a sports bettor. The only place I know that offers comps for sportsbooks is the South Point, although that might just be for the horsebook. Either way their web site has a listing of how much you need to wager to get a room. As for machines this month they are running the gift card promo (earn $250 in points, get $500 in amazon gift cards). If your bankroll can handle that put in like 10k a day on the NSUD and see what they can do for you through the slot host. You could sell the amazon cards close to 100% of the value.

I usually think of South Point as the best place for treating the ~99-100% VP players. The gift card promotion is essentially 2x points. Cool that it's everyday, otherwise only ok.

As an exercise, let's say I play 99.7% deuces wild with 0.3% cashback at $5 per hand. What bankroll would be sufficient to play $10,000 every day for one month? How about with 0.6% cashback?

Stations is giving 0.1%+ back on their sports app. I'm looking for that to help easily cover all dining costs. They also mail me credit card offers, looks ok, but not as good as I would like. If if was a bit stronger with the status credits and higher levels got better hotel discounts, could probably live there pretty easily. I know of MLife Mastercard, any other casino credit cards to check out?

Poker is a no-go for me, but blackjack is a likely option, just have to be willing to study the game again.

Quote: djatc

TBH if you check the big progressives in town (5k must hit bys and such) you could sell the action to someone with the condition your card will be used. I'm not sure on the specifics but slot play > video poker play for the most part.

One way to make it work is to be really good at casino games. The other is to have some really good connections. I'm at the bottom in both, but not looking to attempt anything like this until middle of next year, so quite a bit of time to figure things out if I decide to go this route

It's an interesting hypothetical. I'm sure a lot of us have entertained the idea. Especially if you like to travel, for work or fun. I pay for an empty apartment for probably 2 months a year at this point.

It might be cheating, but I'd consider DJ's angle of getting offers from friends. In some cases, they might just give you a room, particularly if you are in a pinch. But you might also be able to work out arrangements so that you aren't imposing on them via the hassle of checking in. I'm sure plenty of people get more rooms than they want, but would trade it for food.

It could easily be at the same place. Perhaps there is a play at Pirate Joe's Crazy Gamblin Saloonery that gives you a $75 food comp and 2 free nights every two weeks. If you* used your food comp on a dinner with me, it would certainly be a fair exchange for me to walk 80 feet to the front desk and use my rooms, then hand you the keys.

* Not you per se. But some hypothetical person I might actually enjoy having dinner with.***

Or maybe you say to somebody, "Hey I found this play worth x and I'll show it to you, I just ask that you let me use your rooms."

but, at the end of the day, I'm not sure how much you'd really save vs. a cheap living situation like renting a modest room in someone's house. If you just want 4 walls, TV and internet, you can get it pretty cheaply.

It would take a lot of time and energy to keep track of and plan all the offers. You have to check in and travel. There is a significant cost just driving to places like Laughlin. You're going to have to do all this while doing things like handling your mail via a P.O. box and constantly packing. Not only paying for but traveling to laundromats and sitting around with your thumb up your butt while the machines run. To save, what, $600/mo?

Just for example, at Bally's poker room, you get $1/hr in comps and 17 tier credits/hr. If you play 4 hours you get a free buffet at Paris. 15 hours every 2 weeks gets you into a free roll that's worth about $250-300 for a competent player. (The regs are hilarious nits, which damages the cash games but makes the tourney very easy) 18 hours gives you a bigger starting stack.

The games are so so and they rake for the promo, though it's heavily subsidized by tourists. So let's say you make $10/hr in the games, which is not a very lofty goal.

You play 4 sessions every 2 week period totaling 18 hours. 36 hours a month = $360. 2 freerolls = $500. 8 free buffets at a pretty good buffetery. 612 teir credits a month, which gets you half way to diamond. $36 in comps.

Playing poker is also probably more fun and less draining than running around checking into hotels, taking showers at gyms, doing laundry and making spreadsheets of room offers and so forth.

***I kid, I kid! We should have dinner sometime.