Las Vegas, Nevada Trip Report

Item!  The average age of players at the Omaha Hi/Lo $4/8 table in the Venetian, the only hotel and casino on the strip that spreads the game on a regular basis, is like 85 years old. To step up from the table is to trip over a tangled mess of oxygen cords and colostomy bags. I know you’re thinking “Sweet! Easy as befriending a childless elderly as a Hospice volunteer and cashing in on their last will and testament!” but you’d be wrong. These sharp, old codgers bet into nut draws with the reckless abandon of a person with a finite number of hours left to play. To them, no matter what time of day or night, it’s the 4am Sunday morning of their lives. The vacuums are whining, the cocktail waitresses have switched to coffee, the craps tables are empty, and the time is neigh for the final trudge back up to their room. Ruth, if you are reading this, I knew you were bluffing, but felt bad for you, so there was absolutely no reason to show it to the table.

Item!  United airlines, because they are staffed at the corporate level by fucking halfwits, have decided to shut down their check-in kiosks, for travelers without baggage at the Las Vegas airport, 45 minutes prior to the flight taking off. I arrived, sans baggage to check, 44 minutes prior to my flight back to Los Angeles, a conservative time based on past experience. Had I printed off a ticket at the Flamingo kiosk, I would have been two beers deep by the time my 7:20am flight took off. Instead, I was told I could not jump the queue in the baggage line, and would have to wait while everyone checked their baggage for flights departing after me. I waited. For twenty-some minutes, then sprinted like a madman to my flight, arriving five minutes before take off, and five minutes after they had already closed the doors. I missed the next flight on standby, and asked an official United Airline Jackass what my odds were on getting on a flight some time in the near future. She responded that it didn’t look good until a 9:30pm flight that evening.


I pictured myself stuffing her fool head into the turbines of one of their aging piece of shit jets. I logged onto my computer-machine and purchased a one way on US Airways. I took the tram back to ticketing. I printed off my new boarding pass. I waited again in line through security. I had a pocket knife confiscated that didn’t catch the attention of security the first time through. I arrived at work, ran the hamster wheel, took a nap, woke up, and the thought occurred to me had I not bought the ticket I would still be in Las Vegas, no doubt broke from the 80% returns at the airport slot machines. Fuck you, United Airlines!

Item!  The Bellagio buffet, while pricey at $38, will still give you the runs if you overindulge on their sashimi.

Item!  $200 for three nights at the Flamingo, given its close proximity to the most famous midget in Las Vegas, is a still, regardless of the non-functioning clock radio and the stopped up bathroom sink, a good deal.

Do I sound like I am complaining? Are you thinking I spent too much time playing Omaha Hi/Lo and am now scared shitless that the Democrats are going to take my prescription medication and cancel reruns of Murder She Wrote? If this is what you think, you are qualified for one of these jobs...

Because on this trip, I parlayed my tremendous knowledge of the National Football League into mouthfuls of cash-money.

If the Los Angeles Clippers game taught me anything, it’s that people respect a baller, no matter what kind car he drives, or doesn’t drive due to his ride in the shop with a busted fuel pump and oil leak.

On Saturday morning, Tru (NOT pictured above.  The picture above, incidentally, is from one of my Facebook friends), a massively successful old college friend of mine, sat down with me for breakfast at the Flamingo dirty spoon, and together we hashed out strategy. We agreed that to optimize our good time, we would have to come to a general consensus on the games so that we would not spend the day rooting against each other and celebrating at each other’s financial loss. We would hang together, or we would hang separately. We bent down and studied the lines. Minutes flow by like seconds. The rest of the world fell away as we poured over the statistics, bounced ideas back and forth, discussed the minutia of weather conditions, injuries, the playoff motivation factor. We had rabid arguments over the intangibles. We nearly came to blows in differences of opinions as to the effect of teams traveling east through a time zone versus west, of the potential El Niño humidity, the perceived interest in the star player’s wives when filmed on the jumbotron in the last week’s game, of injuries, and rumors of injuries, and water boys-cum-moles relaying plays across the field through a complex series of movements. We took into account the zeitgeist. The inevitable collapse of both the health care reform and climate bills. The damage to the psyche of African American males due to the massive failure of the Obama presidency. We questioned each other’s biases, explored deep-seeded childhood events preventing us from rational detachment of emotion. We called old professors and incorporated chaos theory. We utilized the law of attraction. We meditated and prayed for clarity of thought. We created pivot tables. We cross referenced. We polled the diner. We cast the bones. We talked until we were horse and exhausted and breakfast turned into lunch and we were gently urged to leave.  We were bullet proof, like one of those FOX NFL robots. 

My arguments could be summarized as follows:


Chargers:  I knew my brother in law would be rooting for the Chargers, and who am I to root against my brother in law?

Ravens – Purple looks good on evil superheroes, Prince, Acai, and hot football players that beat the spread

Packers – Bears suck, and will suck forever, and it’s time I capitalize on their suckiness

Colts – If every man that walked through my spa door looked like Payton Manning, I would be giving away Manzilians for free

Jets – I just had a feeling on this one, even though I had to fight every instinct (see Eagles) to make this bet.

Vikings – I wish Brett Farve was my father, and when the Vikings win the world series of football he would hoist me on his shoulders and my long blond hair would be pulled into a pony and I would give the camera a “V” for victory just like my Daddy!

Eagles – I hate everybody and everything east of Ohio, but my hatred can be pinpointed to the New York/New Jersey area.  I had to bet on a Penn team, because while close to New Jersey, if I found myself rooting for two New York teams in the same week, I would be forced to admit my complete and utter failure as a human being.

Saints (aka "aints") - They are unstoppable, no matter what the spread.

Texans – Somewhere, Jenna Bush was rooting for the Texans, and we would both be pulling for them together.

I had to differ from Tru somewhat. We were both willing to compromise up to a point, but diverged on three games, and he bet on a few games I sat out on because they were simply too close to call.

During the first set of games, I won every one except for the Saints who let up in the second half, and didn't cover the spread. (Even when the Saints win and I am rooting for them, I still lose.) I was spent with effort, and took a side trip off the strip to the coolest place in the world, the Las Vegas Pinball Museum (aka Pinball Hall of Fame) which is a massive warehouse of pinball machines both old and new, all playable. It was truly sublime. This was turning into a very special, almost magical day.

I called a cab, and even though I was many miles off strip, I walked down the street to see if I could hail one sooner. Five minutes later, a cabbie and I locked eyes, and he picked me up. He was an avid sports better, and we talked football for a few minutes prior to him asking me if I had any action on that evening’s game.

“The Eagles, of course.” I replied. “I’m sure as a cabbie you encounter East Coast assholes all the time, and recognize the complex matrix that informs your betting decisions based on the team's proximity to New York and New Jersey."

He glanced in the rearview mirror and I nodded my head. Solemnly. I knew he wasn’t sure if he could trust me. “Two words,” I said, “Guido Beach.”

With a dramatic screech of rubber, he jerked the cab over to the side of the road and came to a stop. He reached under his seat and pulled out a giant loose leaf binder. He flipped through pages. In an aged voice, he whispered, his eyes bulging from their sockets, “It don’t matter that you already have skin down. Bet the Eagles and parlay the over.”

I nodded deliberately to ensure he knew this was not a knee-jerk response. My nod communicated that this man and I were on the same page, not just with respect to football, but on the same page of life. I paused and said, “Thank you. I will.” He nodded back at me, grunted, and we did not speak for the rest of the ride back to the hotel and casino.

I met back up with Tru, who was listing a bit as he walked, and told him that we would be betting the parlay. We made our way over to ground zero to watch the spectacle. New York, New York hotel and casino, ESPN Zone.

The over was damned near hit in the first half alone in the highest scoring match up between the two teams since they began playing each other. The Eagles cruised to a relatively easy victory netting us both fistfulls of cash. Oh, there were high fives and jeering of New Yorkers and screaming at the bigass flat screens. I hadn’t been so absorbed by a sports game in more than a decade. No matter what happened with the geriatric card sharks, no matter what was to happen with United Fucking Airlines the next day, no matter the clogged sink and the broken clock radios, for a few hours I was downing large mugs of beer, eating tasty fried food, hanging out with an old college friend, and winning in Vegas.