Last time I came to Las Vegas, Siegfried and Roy were breeding white tigers, Mirage just opened, and the Jubilee show was the hottest show. There was no Venetian, Wynn, MGM Grand, or Mandalay Bay. Just the newly opened Luxor pyramid. I think that was more than 20 years ago.
How much I have changed since.
We were young, hungry, cheap, and wanted to make some money. So a bunch of us would cramp into a car and drive over-night (to save a night’s hotel). We would get so excited seeing the Strip from afar. We would hunt for the lowest minimum bet Blackjack tables that were single- or double-deck. Yes, we would have studied basic strategy and practiced Edward Thorp’s techniques beforehand. (What? You have not read Beat the Dealer?)
All of us would crowd into a single hotel room. The only time we went there was to catch a few hours’ shut-eye so that we could get back to the tables again. Of course we would feast on the buffets. Oh, yeah the buffets. We would have studied each casino’s offering, established a strategy of not wasting precious stomach capacity on less delicious foods, and stuffed ourselves real silly each time.
Vegas trips were the high-lights of my student years. We always came back very, very tired and many pounds happier. We would tell the win/loss stories for months while we planned for the next trip. Hey, if we were lucky, we would get to eat, sleep, and have fun for free, or even with few bucks to boast. What can possibly beat that!
Now, the slot machines spit out a voucher, instead of dropping buckets of coins. Anything I play, I first show them my loyalty card to be recorded. I can’t stay awake to take advantage of the lonely card dealers. My weight and cholesterol spike when I even look at the buffet ads. I spend hours in the hotel room all by myself, typing on my computer. Craps and poker are more interesting than blackjack. I gave up card-counting a long time ago.
Sigh.. I out-grew Vegas!
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