Howdy my dear, degenerate gamblin’ friends.  Your ol’ pal Pittsburgh Gil here had quite the proud moment earlier this month.  As you well know, I call Pittsburgh my tried and true hometown.  Pennsylvania legalized the opening of a minimal amount of state-governed casinos a few years ago and the Pittsburgh entry, The Rivers Casino, opened this past August.  While excited that a casino now exists in downtown Pittsburgh, my interest was not overly high.  I would try to check it out on my next visit home but I wouldn’t go out of my way to and I certainly wouldn’t plan a trip around it.  Why you ask?  Simply put…slots only. 

I do enjoy a limited amount of slot play, but table games are the bee’s knees and I never frequent a slots only casino.  Slots are a good temporary distraction after a couple of hours rollin’ the dice or taking blackjack hits.  In that capacity, they’re fine.  But they’re no main event!  It would be like going to a live WWF event in 1988 with a 2-match card consisting of Leaping Lanny Poffo vs. Mr. Perfect followed by The Killer Bees vs. The Bushwhackers.  Fun?  Sure, to a degree.  But without Hulk, the Macho Man, or the Ultimate Warrior…what’s the point?

Well loyal readers, problem solved!  This past Thursday, January 7th, the PA State House passed Senate Bill 711 and, after Governor Ed Rendell’s signature, table games are now legal in the state of Pennsylvania!

On the surface, the benefits of this are vast.  First and foremost, the legalization of the games and the revenue they’re planned to generate will prevent the Governor from having to layoff about 1,000 state employees in order to balance the state budget.  Secondly, it will of course create jobs.  The Rivers Casino alone is planning approximately 80 tables games which will require the hiring of an additional 300-350 employees.  And finally, interest in the casinos should skyrocket to a new level, especially to the table game enthusiasts such as myself.

The Rivers already has about 3,000 slots and initial reviews have appeared very positive in terms of the facility being a fun, flashy Vegas style environment.  That’s great but many (not all, mind you) customer testimonies have complained about those slots being too tight.  While there may be a shred of truth to this, I”m a believer in that most people who take the time and effort to go online and write a review of an establishment do so because of being stung by a bad experience.  Those people may have valid points, but most people who have pleasant ones tend to not write these reviews.  Therefore, a collection of reviews tends to look overwhelmingly negative at times when, in fact, it’s an inaccurate picture of experiences by all customers.  But hey, even if true, the addition of table games makes this irrelevant anyway.

With its perfectly located downtown spot, I can’t wait to make it back home to check out The Rivers.  I will detail an ideal gambling-oriented Pittsburgh trip in an upcoming post, but we’ll be rollin’ craps, dealing blackjack, spinning the roulette wheel, and buying into poker tourneys in Pittsburgh sometime between July and September when the tables open.  Bring it!

You son of a bitch! I’m talking to you! Yeah you, Las Vegas! You and your alluring siren call. Why must you do this to me? I’m not Odysseus asail on the Greek seas. I’m merely a simple man. A man who loves Vegas. Just when I think I”m out, Vegas pulls me back in…

Ok, I’ll stop.

As we all know, we’re in a nationwide state of economic instability. That means people have less disposable income. Less disposable income means less spending on non-essentials. Less spending on non-essentials means less traveling and fewer vacations for people across America. As a result, tourism in Vegas is down to its lowest point in years.

Sure, this is bad for the city itself and its inhabitants, but not for us! With less people coming to Vegas, hotels are more and more in need of ways to attract gaming patrons into their glitzy doors. That, coupled with the recent opening of CityCenter and its 5,000 total rooms, makes this the best time in years to cash in on casino comps, especially when it comes to scoring free rooms.

I recently received a flyer in the ol’ mailbox from The Venetian and its Club Grazie program. Grazie is just like Harrah’s and MGM’s player’s clubs but exclusively for The Venetian and its sister property, The Palazzo. The flyer outlined a great offer: 2-4 free nights in a suite at either property!

If you’ve never been to either of these sites, they are a must when in Vegas. The Venetian has somehow taken a dip in notoriety over the last few years, but it is simply a gorgeous resort chock full of great gaming, dining, and amenities. Personally, I prefer it to its upper-echelon competition, Wynn and Bellagio. It has all the same luxury, but is a little less pretentious and offers more options for the middle class visitors and non-whales.

I checked out the offer online by logging in at clubgrazie and was pleasantly pleased to see many available nights to take advantage of this offer between January and March. Never having a free suite offer before, I decided to just book one well knowing that I could cancel it if I could not actually make it out. I expected just Sunday – Thursday nights of availability here, but I even had some weekends! I booked Saturday Jan 23rd to Mon the 25th. A free Saturday at a suite at The Venetian?! This was by far the best room offer I’ve ever had.

I have had the pleasure of staying at The Venetian once on my very first trip to Vegas in 2005. The rooms are simply stunning. All are suites that are at least 700 square feet, have 2 flatscreens, a fold out sofa in the sunken living room, and remarkable marble bathrooms with separate tub/shower and water closet. Simply put, these are the lap of luxury and typically worth every penny. The fact that I could stay in one of these for free is quite the shock. And here’s why…

The craziest part about this offer is that I even received it in the first place. On my very first visit to The Venetian in ’05, I knew nothing of gambling or casinos yet. Therefore, I did not sign up for Club Grazie at the time. It wasn’t until my last trip out this past September that I did. Once signed up, I played blackjack for maybe 45 minutes at a $10 table and played a penny Sopranos slot for maybe 20 minutes. That’s it.

One visit, slightly over an hour of low-limit play (including on a penny slot!), and a free suite as a result. Hell, I even won during that session. I ended up about $25 on the slot and broke even at the table. This is undoubtedly a product of many empty rooms, but hey, fine by me! Fact is, I didn’t give The Venetian a dime of my money and they are still giving me a free suite. That, my friends, is stellar.

Unfortunately, I should NOT take advantage of this offer. I’m closing on my first house in early February and have my money tied up in that and all the things involved. I also likely can’t find a travel mate for this one on such short notice.

My mind and wallet say “hell no”…..but my heart says “Yes! Do it.”

I’m really having a tough time passing this offer up. I should. I likely will. But we’ll see…

What do our loyal readers think?

Hello to my VegasChronicles Peeps! It’s been a minute since our last post and really all I can say is that life has gotten in the way.  Lori messed up her knee playing football on a company field day (uggh), and I have been traveling like a fiend so the posts have been thin lately.

Not to worry, we will get back into the swing of things and all will be right with the world.  Vegas Baby!

I will preface the following image by saying, if this happened in the real world I would have killed myself.

I was just playing a random game of my favorite iPhone app, 21 Pro, when it goes and deals the above hand…in real life to me this is worse than losing a hand. I would have been using Hedge Economics, I would have been jumping for joy to pull trip 21, and then only to watch no-one win… what an epic FAIL.

Well for those of you that have been to Vegas with us or have read some of our other posts, you undoubtedly know that “The Wheel of Fortune” is my favorite slot machine.   This was my first and everlasting mechanical crush.  I think this is mainly the case because it was the first machine that I ever played and on the about the 3 spin I had hit a crazy jackpot and won over $450.  It would also mark one of the last times that we ever went to the Luxor and certainly one of the last times we ever won anything from there.  But that’s another story.

While on our last trip to Vegas a few weeks ago I did something that I never thought I would do, I turned my back on “The Wheel of Fortune” just for a minute. Don and I had about 15 minutes to spare before playing in one of our poker tournaments and I decided I wanted to play the slots for a bit.  If you have been to Harrah’s before you know that the $1 “Wheel of Fortune” can be found on the back wall by the poker room. As Don and I headed towards the wheel I decide I wanted to try a new slot.  I told Don I wanted to try a new slot and ask him to find me one with good odds. Of course he looked at me puzzled; I think he was more shocked than anything, but after a few moments he did find me a machine. It was $1 Red, White, and Blue machine with a 10x multiplier, so I sat down with $100.  After the first $50 I starting wondering if this was a good idea, it was kind of boring because there was no wheel bonus spin to look forward to spinning. I continued to play through the last $50. I get down to my last few spins and I hit a ridiculous 10x payout. It was craziness, I had already written that hundo off as a lost cause, but instead I ended up winning $400.  I do have to admit that “Wheel of Fortune” is still my favorite; I mean nothing beats the bonus “Spin”.  However trying a new machine every once in a while is fun and can pay off.  The payout from the slot was just the beginning of me pimping Harrah’s that day.  Read about that poker tournament and you will see what I am talking about.