Vegas!

In Las Vegas, the House Always Wins

My brother-in-law had been studying gambling systems for slot machines and roulette on YouTube. Watching the players on the screen, you would think they could hardly lose money.

My sister and her husband were visiting from Ireland. My wife and I took them to Vegas for three nights from our home in San Diego County. On Tuesday, we climbed through Cajon Pass, the mountain route between the Los Angeles basin and the desert. On the other side of the freeway, trucks, SUVs and cars were stuck in traffic.

We continued towards Vegas without delay. About five hours in the car. Not too bad.

At New York-New York, our room had no fridge or coffee maker. There wasn’t even a bottle of water, and we were in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Coffee, water and everything else under the sun were available in the hotel, but they weren’t free. An Americano at the casino’s Starbucks would set you back an extraordinary $10. But that’s Vegas nowadays.

We had a great meal that first evening at Chin Chin, a Chinese restaurant in the hotel. Then my brother-in-law had his chance to try the gambling systems he had studied.

My sister and her husband had been to Las Vegas years earlier, but the city had changed considerably since then. In the past, you could play a slot machine for as little as 25 cents, compared with $5 nowadays. Servers used to offer you drinks all the time. That rarely happens now.

The machines are much bigger. More lights, bigger screens, more elaborate games. And they eat your money without mercy.

We watched three people at adjacent digital slot machines. Each had almost a hundred dollars in credit.

One man doubled and tripled his bets. He barely lasted a minute. The other two lasted only a few minutes.

All three balances were soon gone.

My brother-in-law had set aside a gambling budget for each evening. On Tuesday night, he put his money into the roulette machine without a win.

The second night, much the same.

Many of the old inexpensive buffets closed during COVID and never reopened. Elegant restaurants took their place. Expensive restaurants, mostly.

Nowadays, only about a quarter of the revenue at the casinos on the Vegas Strip comes from gambling. The rest comes from rooms, food, entertainment and other spending.

It was the same for us. We spent most of our money on rooms, meals and shows rather than gambling.

On the second night, we went to the Australian Bee Gees show. Videos and photographs on the screen behind the singers took us back to other years and places, particularly England in the sixties and seventies.

The singer tried to reach Barry Gibb’s impossible high notes. He was no Barry Gibb. But it didn’t matter. By the end of the show, everyone was dancing.

We also drove through Red Rock Canyon, a beautiful park a short drive from the city. Halfway through, the weather turned. We drove the rest of the loop without stopping. The flash-flood warnings were enough for us.

Even so, my sister said the trip to Red Rock Canyon was what she enjoyed most in the area.

On our last evening, we had another great meal, this time at an Italian restaurant called Il Fornaio.

That final night, my brother-in-law had a small win in the casino and cashed out. It didn’t cover his losses from the first two nights, but it was better than nothing.

He said there was a good chance the influencers on YouTube were in the casinos’ pockets.

He’d had enough of Vegas, and we were all ready to go home.

On Friday, we stopped at an abandoned town called Calico Ghost Town on the way back.

In the former silver-mining town, my wife and sister browsed the old-fashioned shops that were open. My brother-in-law and I pushed open the saloon’s half doors and went inside.

The temperature was over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. I asked the barman for an ice cream.

His response was so gruff that I felt I had asked something foolish. I settled for a soda.

As it happened, there was an ice-cream shop near the saloon. But the barman hadn’t said a word about it.

Thanks a million, cowboy.

Later, my brother-in-law and I sat outside on a shaded bench, sipping our drinks. Two tourists from Eastern Europe spotted us. One came over, sat beside me and put her arm around me. Then her friend took a photograph.

“You’re coming to Eastern Europe with us,” the woman said, both of them laughing.

Before I knew what to do, the photograph had been taken and they had disappeared from sight.

After Calico, we came down through Cajon Pass without delay. We were certainly lucky.

We had eaten well and enjoyed the music in Vegas. My sister had loved Red Rock. But some of the old Vegas we had gone looking for was gone.

I came home with the flu.

At least there was no extra charge for that.