The Gold Coast Hotel & Casino is a hotel and casino located in Las Vegas, Nevada. This locals casino is owned an operated by Boyd Gaming Corporation. It’s located about 2 blocks west of the Las Vegas Strip. The hotel has 711 rooms, a 70 lane bowling center open to the public, and a bingo room.
History
Built in 1986, it was the second major resort built on the west side of I-15.
The property received a major upgrade in 2002 that provides additional space for parking, restaurants and gaming.
Also, current singer for the band The Killers, Brandon Flowers, used to work as a bellhop here.
Jeff Tanita also dealt craps there.
Attractions
Shuttle service between the Gold Coast and The Orleans. Approximately every 15 minutes.
The Fremont Hotel & Casino is a hotel and casino located in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada on the Fremont Street Experience. It is one of the casinos owned by Boyd Gaming Corporation. The hotel provides 447 rooms and the casino offers 32,000ft² of space.
History
The Fremont hotel opened on May 18, 1956 as the tallest building in the state of Nevada.
Wayne Newton made his start in Las Vegas at the Fremont.
Film history
Many scenes from the Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn movie Swingers were filmed inside the Fremont, including their games of blackjack, and breakfast in the casino’s Paradise Buffet.
Four QueensFacts and statistics Address: 202 East Fremont Street, Las Vegas, Nevada 89101
Opening date: 1966
Casino type: Land-Based
Theme: Victorian Carnival
Owner: TLC Casino Enterprises, Inc.
No. of rooms: 690
Total gaming space: 50,000 ft²
Signature attractions: Queen’s Machine
Notable restaurants: Hugo’s Cellar,Magnolia’s
Years renovated: 1976, 1977, 1981, 1999
Website: The Four Queens
Coordinates: 36°10’11″N 115°8’37″W
The Four Queens Hotel and Casino is located in downtown Las Vegas on the Fremont Street Experience. Home to the Queen’s Machine, the world’s largest slot machine, the 690 room hotel and 40,000 square foot casino is owned and operated by TLC Enterprises, which acquired the property from the Elsinore Corporation in 2003.
History
Construction began on November 16, 1964, opening in 1966. The casino is named after the builder Ben Goffstein’s four daughters, Faith, Hope, Benita, and Michele. It originally contained only 120 rooms and a 20,000 square foot casino.
In 1976 the casino expanded to 33,000 square feet and changed decor to be warmer.
Today the casino occupies the entire block comprised of Fremont St, Casino Center, Third Street, and Carson Avenue. The Four Queens was also a partner in renovating the downtown area and creating the Fremont Street experience.
In April 2007 the Canyon Club opened at the Four Queens providing the first downtown casino club.
The Flamingo Las Vegas is owned and operated by Harrah’s Entertainment and is located on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. The property offers a 77,000 ft² (7,200 m²) casino along with 3,626 hotel rooms. The hotel is sometimes referred to as the pink hotel from the pink neon on the building similar to the color of flamingos. The 15 ac (61,000 m²) site is landscaped in a Caribbean theme, with the central area housing an exhibit of flamingos and penguins as part of a wildlife habitat.
The Flamingo has a Las Vegas Monorail station at the rear of the property.
History
The Pink Flamingo Hotel & Casino (as it was originally named), had only 77 rooms when it was built and opened by Bugsy Siegel and his partner Meyer Lansky on December 26, 1946. “The Flamingo” was named after the pet name for Virginia Hill, that name given to her by casino dealers in Mexico because of her exibitionist style of dancing; Hill would raise her skirts to show off her long legs while swinging her flaming red hair. Funding for the casino came from mob money and it was conceptualized and its construction was supervised by Bugsy. When it had been discovered that Bugsy was skimming money from the building funds, his death was ordered and management for the casino changed hands. The Flamingo changed names to The Fabulous Flamingo on March 1, 1947.
The Flamingo hotel boasted lavish shows and glorious accommodations for its day. The casino became well known for its comfortable, air conditioned rooms, beautiful gardens and fabulous swimming pools. The Flamingo helped popularize the concept of offering a “complete experience” as opposed to simple gambling.
Kirk Kerkorian acquired the property in 1967.
The hotel was acquired by the Hilton Corporation in 1972 and became the Flamingo Hilton in 1974. The last of the original Flamingo Hotel structure was torn down on December 14, 1993 and the hotel’s garden was built on the site, complete with a plaque to Bugsy Siegel.
In the 1998 spin off of Hilton’s gaming operations ownership was changed to Park Place Entertainment which was renamed to Caesars Entertainment in 2004.
In September 1999 the Flamingo Hilton and its sister property in Laughlin, Nevada ended their long standing relationship with Hilton Hotels. The Hilton name was removed and the property was renamed to Flamingo Las Vegas.
To enhance the hotel’s Caribbean theme, a Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville restaurant was opened in 2004.
In 2005 Harrah’s Entertainment purchased Caesars Entertainment and the property became part of Harrah’s Entertainment company.
Toni Braxton replaced Wayne Newton as the Flamingo’s new headlining act on August 3, 2006. The show, Toni Braxton: Revealed, ran through April 7, 2008. Although scheduled to run until August 2008, the show was canceled early due to Braxton’s health problems.
Film history
The 1960 version of Ocean’s Eleven was filmed here. Also a flashback sequence from the 2001 version of Ocean’s Eleven was filmed at Flamingo.
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Sittman and Pitt of Brooklyn, New York developed a gambling machine in 1891 that could be considered a precursor to the modern slot machine. It contained 5 drums holding a total of 50 card faces and was based on poker. This machine proved extremely popular and soon there was hardly a bar in the city that didn’t have one or more of the machines bar-side. Players would insert a nickel and press a lever, which would spin the drums and the cards they held, the player hoping for a good poker hand. There was no direct payout mechanism, so a pair of Kings might get you a free beer, whereas a Royal Flush could payout cigars or drinks, the prizes wholly dependent on what was on offer at the local establishment. In order to make the odds better for the house, two cards were typically removed from the “deck”: the Ten of Spades and the Jack of Hearts, which cut the odds of winning a Royal Flush by half. The drums could also be re-arranged to further reduce a player’s chance of winning.
The first “one-armed bandit” was invented in 1887 by Charles Fey of San Francisco, California, who devised a much simpler automatic mechanism [1]. Due to the vast number of possible wins with the original poker card-based game, it proved practically impossible to come up with a way to make a machine capable of making an automatic pay-out for all possible winning combinations. Charles Fey devised a machine with three spinning reels containing a total of five symbols – horseshoes, diamonds, spades, hearts and a Liberty Bell, which also gave the machine its name. By replacing ten cards with five symbols and using three reels instead of five drums, the complexity of reading a win was considerably reduced, allowing Fey to devise an effective automatic payout mechanism. Three bells in a row produced the biggest payoff, ten nickels. Liberty Bell was a huge success and spawned a thriving mechanical gaming device industry. Even when the use of these gambling devices was banned in his home State after a few years, Fey still couldn’t keep up with demand for the game elsewhere.
Another early machine gave out winning in the form of fruit flavoured chewing gums with pictures of the flavours as symbols on the reels. The popular cherry and melon symbols derive from this machine. The “BAR” symbol now common in slot machines was derived from an early logo of the Bell-Fruit Gum Company. In 1964, Bally developed the first fully electromechanical slot machine called Money Honey.
The Excalibur Hotel/Casino is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip at 3850 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Las Vegas, Nevada. It is one of the large casinos owned by the Mandalay Resort Group. As of June 2004, the Mandalay Resort Group was purchased by MGM Mirage adding this hotel to its vast array of properties on the Strip.
Excalibur, named for the mythical sword of King Arthur, uses the Arthurian theme in several ways. Its facade is a stylized image of a castle, with a wizardlike figure representing Merlin looking out from a high turret.
The Tropicana – Las Vegas Boulevard intersection, where the property sits, is very busy, so pedestrians are not allowed to cross at street level. Instead, Excalibur is linked by overhead pedestrian bridges to its neighboring casinos to the north (the New York-New York Hotel & Casino, across Tropicana Avenue) and to the east (the Tropicana Resort & Casino, across the Strip). There is also a free tram that connects Excalibur to its sister Mandalay Resort Group hotel-casinos to the south, the Luxor and Mandalay Bay.
History
The Excalibur opened on June 19, 1990. It was one of many new, modern Las Vegas hotels that featured children’s attractions, such as an arcade and a small medieval style roller coaster. Another feature of the Excalibur that is prominent in many of today’s Las Vegas hotels is a large family swimming pool.
In February 2003, the Las Vegas area received over 3 inches of rain. In turn the 18th floor of the Excalibur Hotel was evacuated. The fire alarms were triggered when rain entered the rooms. This is a design flaw of the building. To date this has not been repaired.
On March 21, 2003 the largest Megabucks Jackpot, as of that time, was hit at the Excalibur. The jackpot was for $39,713,982.25.
On April 26, 2005, the Excalibur, along with the other hotels of the Mandalay Resort Group, was purchased by rival MGM Mirage.
Some restaurants and other areas have Arthurian names, such as the Roundtable Buffet, Sir Galahad’s Prime Cuts, The Steakhouse of Camelot, and Regale Italian eatery, or reflect a broader “Merrie Olde England” theme, such as the Sherwood Forest Cafe. A long-running show, the “Tournament of Kings,” features simulated medieval jousting. Regale was originally called “Lance-a-lotta Pasta” and was more family/child oriented than Regale, which is more upscale.
A few years after opening, Excalibur introduced a free nighttime show in the moat near the resort’s main entrance. A dragon would emerge from under the main entryway bridge and do battle with the wizard, Merlin. After a few years of operation, this attraction was discontinued.
In June of 2007, the Dick’s Last Resort chain opened a restaurant in the Excalibur. Accompanying this addition, the iconic figure of Merlin visible from Excalibur’s exterior was replaced by the image of “Slick Dick” from the restaurant chain’s logo.
Like many other hotels on the Strip, the Excalibur features a wedding chapel. The chapel offers themed medieval weddings complete with renaissance period costumes.
The hotel has opened a spa near the pool.
In 2007, the pool area was closed for renovation. Most of the parking area to the east of the parking garage was gated off for the expansion of the pool area. The new pool construction was originally started in fall, 2006 in the hopes of being completed for the summer of 2007 but there were delays so the new pool is now slated to open for summer, 2008. Excalibur recently added on their official website that the pool is now open saying “We’ve doubled the size of our pool, adding cabanas, fire pits, sun decks and a secluded relaxation pool. And our new poolside restaurant, DRENCHED, is the perfect place to quench your thirst, and your appetite.”
Circus Circus Las Vegas is a circus-themed 3,774 room hotel and 101,000 square foot (9,392 m²) casino located in Las Vegas, Nevada on the Las Vegas Strip that is owned and operated by MGM Mirage. Circus Circus features free circus acts on a regular basis throughout the day and the only RV park on the Strip.
History
Opened October 18, 1968 by Jay Sarno.
Became the flagship casino for Circus Circus Enterprises (later Mandalay Resort Group), now part of MGM Mirage.
Underwent major renovations in 1997 that changed the hotels theme from the standard American Circus to a French Cirque du Soleil style Circus. Circus Circus is slated to be renovated to its former self in 2006.
The hotel may be demolished and rebuilt. According an MGMMirage report, the Circus Circus site “does not make economic use of the 44 acres that it sits on, therefore, we feel that demolishing the current property and rebuilding it in a different fashion (while still keeping the Circus Circus name) will be in our best interest.”
Adventuredome Theme Park
Adventuredome seen from inside.
Formerly known as Grand Slam Canyon. Located under the pink top, this 5 acre (20,234 m²) indoor amusement park offers 16 rides and is connected to the hotel. The theme park includes a rock climbing wall, 18-hole miniature golf course, an arcade, and carnival type games. The dome of the park is made up of over 350,000 sq ft. of insulated glass.
Movie history
Performers in the Circus.
The hotel’s famous midway was featured in the 1971 James Bond film “Diamonds Are Forever”.
It is also known to movie goers as Bazooko Circus in the film version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where Raoul Duke (played by Johnny Depp) while in midst of an ether binge utters the line “Bazooka Circus is what the world would be doing every Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This was the Sixth Reich.”
Amenities and Entertainment
In addition to the casino and the Adventuredome Theme Park, Circus Circus also offers:
Convention rooms—space for up to 800 people
Race and Sports Book 80 seats, with 18 big screens
RV park operated by Kampgrounds of America (KOA) offers 399 spaces with full service utility hook-ups
Casino Royale is a small casino and motel located on the East side of the Las Vegas Strip, between Harrah’s Las Vegas and The Venetian. The casino caters to low rollers, and features low table minimums for roulette, craps, and blackjack. The casino often employs people handing out coupons inviting people inside and seems to rely heavily on street traffic for their business. The parking lot behind Casino Royale is a little known secret with some of the most convenient and closest parking to the Las Vegas Strip.
Casino Royale is known for its promotional slot play. Timeshare promotions in Las Vegas typically give out Casino Royale slot play, to be used at specific machines. This slot play can be a fun way to gamble for free, but may also become misleading if misrepresented by the person representing the timeshare resort.
History
The first building on this site was Frank Musso’s Restaurant, located at the time next door to the Sands. It was in business during the 1950′s and 60′s. It later became Joey’s New Yorker Night Club, then the Nob Hill Casino. Nob Hill closed in 1980, and on January 1, 1992 it reopened as Casino Royale. It purchased the adjacent Travelodge and used it as its hotel rooms.
Backgammon is a board game for two players. Each player has fifteen pieces (checkers) which move between twenty-four triangles (points) according to the roll of two dice. The objective of the game is to be first to bear off, that is, to move all fifteen checkers off the board. The oldest recorded game in history, backgammon traces its roots to the ancient Mesopotamian game tabula, which appears in an epigram of Byzantine Emperor Zeno (476–481 A.D.). Further archaeological excavations have placed the possible date of origin of backgammon to 3000 B.C.
Though the gameplay is quite basic—each player is trying to move his checkers to his home board and then bear them off before his opponent is able to do so—backgammon incorporates strategy insofar as with each dice roll, the player must choose between multiple options for movement of the checkers. Furthermore, the doubling cube, which raises the stakes of the present game when a match consists of multiple games, and rules like the Crawford Rule and the Jacoby Rule, introduce more strategic intricacies. Experts have also developed a nomenclature to define commonly used general strategies for play such as the running game and the backgame.
As with chess, backgammon has been significantly interfaced with computer technology. By 1979, Hans Berliner’s BKG 9.8 program had defeated a world champion backgammon player, and since then neural network and other approaches have improved the playing quality of the virtual backgammon opponent. In addition, a number of other computer programs, most notably the backgammon software Snowie, have combined the capabilities of an intelligent opponent with extensive statistical analyses of individual moves and possible outcomes.
History
Medieval tabula players, from the 13th century Carmina Burana
Backgammon is the oldest known recorded game. Traditionally, it was believed to have originated in ancient Mesopotamia, (present-day Iraq), also see Royal Game of Ur. In English, the word backgammon is believed to be derived from “back” plus the Middle English word “gamen” (game).
Medieval backgammon players
Tabula was a form of backgammon played by the ancient Romans. It was called tabula, which means ‘table’ or ‘board’, since it was played on a special board. Tabula bears some similarity to Egyptian Senet, which dates back to at least 3000 BC.
The game of Tabula was similar to modern-day Backgammon in that the same board was used with fifteen pieces alloted to each player with the object of the game being to be the first to bear off all fifteen pieces. It differed in that the game began with no pieces on the board so that these first had to be entered by the roll of the dice. Likewise, three dice were used instead of two. Finally, both players entered the board from the same table and moved around the board in the same counterclockwise direction.
Recent excavations at the “Burnt City” in Iran showed that a form of backgammon existed there around 3000 BC. The artifacts include two dice and 60 pieces. The set is believed to be 100 to 200 years older than the oldest set found in Ur.
Backgammon set, 19th century
Backgammon as a gambling game
Backgammon is often played for money stakes. The most common ways that gamblers play is to set a wager on which player can be first to reach a certain score, achieved over however many games necessary; to assign a monetary value to each game (affected by the doubling die, of course), and to play until a certain score is reached or passed; or to assign a monetary value to each game and play games until either player chooses to stop. Backgammon is also available, though not often, at casinos.
Backgammon Chouette
A backgammon chouette is an adaptation of backgammon for three or more players, generally played for money.
Before beginning, a monetary value is agreed upon as the basic stake for each game. Dice throws determine an initial ranking. One player is in the box, the next is the captain, and the others take their places as members of the captain’s team. The captain, who may take advice from the team, plays against the player in the box. Traditionally, there is one doubling cube. This is controlled by the player in the box and the captain (in the usual way), except that, when the player in the box offers a double, each member of the team may accept or decline independently. Nowadays, however, the team members often operate separate doubling cubes, in which case they may accept, decline and offer doubles independently. Whichever system is employed, a team member who has refused a double drops out of the game and may no longer advise the captain. If the captain drops out of the game, the highest-ranking team member takes over as captain.
At the end of each game, the box settles up with the other players individually. If the player in the box has won, he retains the box and the (original) captain becomes the lowest-ranking team member. If the (final) captain has won, he takes over from the player in the box, who joins the team as its lowest-ranking member. The highest-ranking member of the team becomes its captain for the next game.
[The word 'chouette' is French for any of a seemingly arbitrary collection of species of typical (i.e. non-barn) owls.]
Backgammon in the Middle East and Central Asia
Backgammon is widely played in the Middle East and Central Asia, particularly in cafes. There are four main variants played in the Middle East:
1) the European game as described above and known as ifranjiah (meaning Frankish in Arabic); “Takhte Nard” is the Iranian version.
2) shesh besh (Shesh means six in Persian and Hebrew and Besh means five in Turkish) in Azerbaijan, Israel, and Uzbekistan and tavla in Turkey;
3) mahbusa (meaning ‘imprisoned’)
4) maghribiyya.
The most popular of those is probably mahbusa. In this game each player’s 15 checkers are all initially positioned on his 24-point. When hit, an isolated checker is not placed on the bar. Rather the hitting piece sits on top of the hit piece forming a block, i.e. the same rules apply as if the point was occupied by two or more pieces of the same colour. The checker which has been hit is ‘imprisoned’ and cannot be moved until the opponent removes his piece: hence the name of the game. Sometimes a further rule requires that a player must bring his first checker to the opponent’s home board before moving any other checkers. Whether or not this rule is applied, a rapid advance to the opponent’s side of the board is desirable as imprisoning the opponent’s checkers on his home table is highly advantageous.
An interesting feature of backgammon as played in some Arab countries is that Persian or Kurdish numbers, rather than Arabic ones, are called out by a player announcing his dice rolls.
People in Iranian plateau and Caucasus region, especially in Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, are very fond of playing Narde. In Georgia they play mainly the “short Narde”, a slightly simplified version of ifranjiah. In Iran it is called “Takhte Nard”. In Armenia and Azerbaidjan experienced players prefer to play “long Narde”, which requires more skill and even “knowledge” of some non-written strategic methods. As in ‘mahbusa’ all 15 checkers of a player are initially positioned on his 24-point, but there is a principal difference. One is forbidden to put his checker at a point occupied by opponent’s checker. So there is no “hitting” and no “imprisonment” in the long Narde game. The main strategy is to secure playing “big pairs” by one’s own checkers and prevent as much as possible doing the same by the opponent.
Other variants
Brädspel
A Swedish variant of backgammon, also called Swedish Tables in English.
The main difference compared to other backgammon variants is the method of winning. You can win by bearing off, but there are also several other ways to win, such as to arrange all your checkers in certain pre-determined patterns or by hitting so many checkers that your opponent can not bring them in again.
Brädspel is played without the doubling cube.
Gul Bara
Gul bara is also called ‘Rosespring Backgammon’ or ‘Crazy Narde’ and mistakenly called ‘Gul Bahar’ in some Arab countries.
Old English Rule
This rule limits the number of checkers to a maximum of five on each point, thus restricting some moves that might otherwise be made. This variation of backgammon is popular in England (as well as other regions), and is viewed as making the gameplay more interesting.
Runte Rule
The Runte Rule allows the player to move his checkers both backwards and forwards within his own home board. The player cannot move the checker in such a way that it lands outside of his home board. The rule was created to increase the possibility of scoring backgammons and gammons, because it allows one to trap the opponent for longer.
Tavli
In Greece, backgammon is called tavli (related to the word tavla ‘board, table’, and cognate to the Latin Tabula). It consists of three main styles, Portes, Plakoto and Fevga. Portes resembles the standard game, with minor variations: There is no doubling cube and backgammon counts as a gammon (called diplo – greek word for a double). Plakoto is very similar to mahbusa or Tapa, while Fevga is similar to Narde or the Turkish variant Moultezim. The three are normally played consecutively, one after another, in matches of three, five or seven points.
Tabla
In Republic of Macedonia the game is called tabla (табла, meaning ‘board, table’). It also consists of three main styles, very similar to the Greek tavli: Tabla, Gjul Bara and Tapa. They are played consecutively (in that order) in a match of five. The first game Tabla (Табла) is the standard backgammon, with few differences: there are no doubling cubes and there is no backgammon (it’s the same as gammon). Gjul Bara (Ѓул Бара) and Tapa (Тапа) are played the same way as described before. Gammon is called mars (марс) and it’s the only situation when a player can win 2 points with a single game. Mars is present in all three styles. When starting the match, each player rolls one die, to determine who will start. If it’s a tie, the players roll again. But, unlike the regular backgammon, the already-rolled dice are disregarded and the player that won the first turn, rolls both dice to begin. In the next game in the match, the player that won the previous has the first turn.
LongGammon
LongGammon is a variant of backgammon, the sole difference being that all fifteen of the players’ checkers start on their opponent’s one-point. All other rules of the game are the same as regular backgammon.
Nackgammon
A variation invented by Nack Ballard. It differs from the regular game in its initial setup: each player starts with two checkers on their 24-point, two checkers on their 23-point, three checkers on their 8-point, and five checkers on their 13-point and on their 6-point. This setup places more emphasis on positional play.
Nackgammon is played using the doubling cube and the Jacoby rule, so gammons and backgammons count only if the cube has been turned.
Computer backgammon
The first strong computer opponent was BKG 9.8. It was programmed by Hans Berliner in the late 1970s on a PDP-10 as an experiment in evaluating board positions. Early versions of BKG played badly even against poor players, but Berliner noticed that the critical mistakes the program made were always at phase changes. He applied basic principles of fuzzy logic to smooth out the transition between phase changes, and by July 1979, BKG 9.8 was ready to play against then current world champion Luigi Villa. It won the match, 7-1, becoming the first computer program to defeat a world champion in any game, although this was mostly a matter of luck, as the computer happened to get better dice rolls than its opponent in that match.
Beginning in the late 1980s, creators of backgammon-playing software began to have even more success with a neural network approach. TD-Gammon, developed by Gerald Tesauro of IBM, was the first of these computer programs to play at or near the expert level. This program’s neural network was trained using Temporal Difference learning applied to data generated from self-play.
This line of research has resulted in two modern commercial programs, Jellyfish and Snowie, the shareware BGBlitz (implemented in Java), and the free software GNU Backgammon, that play on a par with the best human players in the world. It is worth noting that without their associated “weights” tables which represent hours or even months of tedious neural net training, these programs play no better than a human child.
It is interesting to compare the development of backgammon software with that of chess software:
For backgammon, neural networks work better than any other methods so far. For chess, brute force searching, with sophisticated pruning and other refinements, works better than neural networks.
Every advance in the power of computer hardware has significantly improved the strength of chess programs. In contrast, additional computing power appears to improve the strength of backgammon software only marginally.
For both backgammon and chess, it is at present unclear whether the best computer or the best human is best overall. For most other games, one or the other is unambiguously stronger.
Real-time on-line play began with the First Internet Backgammon Server on July 19, 1992. This server is active to this day, remains free, and enjoys a strong international community of backgammon players. Several commercial websites also offer on-line real-time backgammon play
Caesars Palace is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. Caesars Palace is owned and operated by Harrah’s Entertainment. Caesars is located on the west side of the Strip, between the Bellagio and the Mirage.
Caesars has 3,348 rooms in five towers: Augustus, Centurion, Forum, Palace, and Roman. The Forum tower features guest suites with 1,000 square feet of space.
History
In 1962, Jay Sarno, a cabana motel owner, used ten million dollars that had been lent to him by the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund to begin plans for a hotel on land owned by Kirk Kerkorian. Sarno would later act as designer of the hotel he planned to construct.
Building of the 14-story Caesars Palace hotel began in 1962. That first tower would have 680 rooms on the 34 acre (138,000 m²) site.
Sarno struggled to decide on a name for the hotel. But he made the decision of calling it Caesars Palace with his thinking that the name Caesar would evoke thoughts of royalty because of Roman general Julius Caesar. Sarno thought that people should feel they were at a king’s home while at his hotel. The name of the hotel is often spelled “Caesar’s Palace”, although the real name is “Caesars Palace”, making everyone that stays there a “Caesar”.
Sarno contracted many companies to build the hotel, from the Roman landscapes it presents, to the water fountains that have been stages of various events and the hotel’s swimming pools.
On August 5, 1966, the hotel was inaugurated, with Andy Williams and Phil Richards providing entertainment; they both played Julius Caesar at a play that night. Two days later, Latin musician Xavier Cugat and salsa dancer Charo became the first couple to marry in the new establishment.
Soon after the hotel’s opening, Sarno bought the land from Kerkorian for five million dollars.
On December 31, 1967, Evel Knievel unsuccessfully tried to jump the hotel’s water fountain with his motorcycle.
On July 15, 1969, executives lay ground on an expansion area of the hotel, and they buried a time capsule in the area, but the time capsule was stolen days later.
In 1973, Del Webb company was contracted to make a 16 story building to add to the Palace’s number of rooms. That project was finished in 1974.
In 1980, Gary Wells gained much media coverage, and much physical suffering, when he unsuccessfully tried to leap over a water fountain at the Caesars Palace. He sustained injuries in many different parts of his body.
By the 1980s, Caesars Palace had become a boxing and gambling Mecca. Joe Louis, the former world Heavyweight champion boxer, worked at Caesars Palace as a greeter until his death in 1981. A statue of him would be erected soon after inside the hotel. Another professional boxer, South Korean Duk Koo Kim, went 14 rounds with Ray Mancini at the Palace in 1982, then collapsed in a coma and died. As a result, the number of rounds in a boxing title match was reduced to 12. Fights were (and still are) particularly beneficial to the casino, with high-rolling boxing fans hitting the gaming tables and slot machines before and after bouts, as well as wagering large sums at Caesars’ large sports book. Among the Caesars Palace’s most famous fights were The Battle of the Little Giants, the Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns fights, the Larry Holmes vs. Gerry Cooney battle, Marvin Hagler versus Thomas Hearns, the fight in which Mike Tyson became world Heavyweight champion by knocking out Trevor Berbick and the fight between Leonard and Hagler. Most boxing fights were held at the hotel’s parking lot. Extra security measurements had to be taken for the fight between Holmes and Cooney, as both the KKK and black groups had threatened to shoot the boxers before the fight began; there were police snipers at the roof of Caesars Palace and adjacent hotels on the fight’s night.
Also during the 1980s, the hotel opened an Atari game room that had over 60 Atari video game arcade machines.
In 1989, Robbie Knievel successfully completed what his father could not do years before.
The hotel’s management wanted it to have a new, family-oriented atmosphere as the 1990s approached, a trend mirrored by many of the big Las Vegas resorts. This move was not strange to Las Vegas hotel owners, as most hotels there were planning to modernize anyway by adding more children features and making Las Vegas hotels seem more family friendly and less gambler oriented. As a consequence, big time boxing was one of the first things to leave Caesars Palace.
In 1992, The Forum Shops at Caesars opened; it was one of the very first venues in the city where shopping, particularly at high-end stores, was an attraction in itself. The fourth phase opened on October 22, 2004. It now has the 2nd built circular escalator in the USA. The other one is at the Westfield San Francisco Centre.
In 1994, the NBC game show Caesar’s Challenge was taped here.
Over the years, the hotel has been owned by various companies, including Sheraton and The Hilton International Corporation. Caesars Entertainment (originally known as Park Place Entertainment) bought the property in 1999, before the merger with Harrah’s.
Caesars has just opened the Roman Plaza, an open-air area with a cafe on the corner, and the Colosseum theater, where Céline Dion and Elton John are regular performers. The Colosseum was specifically built for Dion’s show, “A New Day,” a spectacular produced by former Cirque du Soleil director Franco Dragone. Dion’s show was also notable for having some of the highest ticket prices for any show in the city, with seats as high as $200 each; nonetheless, the show regularly sells out.
Many star performers, such as Liberace, Julio Iglesias, David Copperfield, and Gloria Estefan have performed at the hotel.
On October 2, 2004, big-time boxing returned to the Caesars Palace hotel, as Jeff Lacy, a former Olympic boxer, knocked out Syd Vanderpool in eight rounds in a fight between Super-middleweight world title challengers that was televised on Showtime.
WrestleMania IX, one of the periodic World Wrestling Federation spectacles promoted by Vince McMahon, was held here.
Currently, Caesars is in the process of another expansion, including a new hotel tower.
In 2005, Harrah’s Entertainment acquired Caesars Entertainment and became the owner of Caesars Palace.
On May 4, 2006, Mike Metzger became the first person to ever backflip on a motorcycle over the fountains.
In May of 2007, Bette Midler was announced as Dion’s formal replacement. Midler will reportedly only perform about 100 shows a year, with Elton John continuing to perform his popular Red Piano show 50 nights a year while Midler is on hiatus. After taking a three-year hiatus, Cher, following her Farewell Tour, is also returning to the stage with a three-year contract to perform 200 shows beginning May 6, 2008.
As of December 2007, Harrah’s Entertainment runs some of their corporate offices inside the Caesars Palace Resort.
Future
With the success of the Augustus Tower, Harrah’s Entertainment is planning a $1 billion expansion and upgrade to the famed resort. The expansion will include another hotel tower and a sports complex replacing the events center. The timeline for construction was undisclosed.
New features include:
A new 29-story, 1,017-room hotel tower adjacent to the Palace Tower, which will frame the pool area at the back of the property along with an extension of the existing Convention Center.
An additional 37,000 sq ft (3,400 m²) of casino space and about 110,000 sq ft (10,000 m²) of added retail and restaurants will cover the area closest to the Strip replacing the new outdoor Roman Plaza.
A “pedestrian promenade”, with several decorative fountains surrounded by landscaping which will guide strip-walkers into Caesar’s domain. Underneath the promenade, Caesars will excavate a parking garage, with 389 valet-parking spaces.
Film history
Hells Angels on Wheels 1967
Where It’s At 1969
The Electric Horseman 1979
Pleasure Palace
History of the World, Part I 1981
Oh God, You Devil 1984
You Ruined My Life 1987
Rain Man 1988
Hearts are Wild 1992
Caesars Challenge 1993, a game show
Fools Rush In 1997
Friends 1999
The Strip 1999
Ocean’s Eleven 2001
Rush Hour 2 2001
Dreamgirls 2006
Category 6: Day of Destruction
Iron Man 2008
In the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Caesars Palace appears in the fictional city of Las Venturas, but with the name Caligula’s Palace. The Casino is a major part of the game’s plot, in which the main character must pull off a robbery heist on the casino, which is run by the mafia.
A&E had a reality show called Caesars 24/7 showing behind the scenes at Caesars. The jobs highlighted by the show ranged from security and concierge to “The Grape Goddess” and “Shadow Dancers.” Many visitors were documented as well. The show ran for two seasons.
During The Simpsons episode Viva Ned Flanders, Homer Simpson stays at a place similar to Caesars, but was named Octavions Palace after his adopted son and great-grand nephew.
Amenities and entertainment
Caesars offers additional attractions including:
Exotic cars showroom
Fall of Atlantis — free show
Festival Fountain — free show
Pure Nightclub a 36,000 sq ft (3,300 m²) nightclub
Free shuttle to sister property Rio Hotel and Casino approximately every thirty minutes.
The Pussycat Dolls Lounge, an adjunct of Pure nightclub.
In February of 2006, a section of the casino was themed to match the Pussycat Dolls Nightclub and is called the Pussycat Dolls Casino.
Binion’s Gambling Hall & Hotel is a hotel and casino located in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada on the Fremont Street Experience. The casino is named for its founder, Benny Binion and has 366 rooms, two restaurants and a rooftop pool. It is one of the casinos owned by the MTR Gaming Group.
History
After buying Binion’s Horseshoe, Harrah’s Entertainment sold the property on March 11, 2004 to MTR Gaming Group, which operated the hotel. Harrah’s continued to operate the casino under a temporary contract until March of 2005. Harrah’s retained the rights to the Horseshoe name and the World Series of Poker name.
On March 11, 2005, MTR Gaming Group officially took control of the operation of the casino and it was renamed it Binion’s Gambling Hall & Hotel.
In July of 2005 the hotel hosted the World Series of Poker finals. This was the last time the event would be held at Binion’s and hosted in downtown Las Vegas. The casino still retains a large poker area and features displays on the Poker Hall of Fame as well as previous WSOP Champions.
Other locations
Following Jack’s with his sister, he went on to open highly successful riverboat casinos under the Horseshoe name:
Horseshoe Casino Tunica
Horseshoe Casino Hammond
Horseshoe Casino Bossier City
These casinos went to Harrah’s after the 2004 sale, but remained under the Horseshoe brand. Jack Binion continues to promote the casinos for Harrah’s.
The Howard Hughes Corporation is a major real estate development and management company based in Las Vegas, Nevada, which was founded by Howard Hughes. Later sold to the Rouse Company, it is now a subsidiary of General Growth Properties.
History
Formation as Summa Corporation
Originally known as Summa Corporation, Howard Hughes Corp. was formed in 1972 when the oil tools business of Hughes Tool Company was floated on the New York Stock Exchange under the Hughes Tool name. This forced the remaining busineses of the “original” Hughes Tool to adopt a new corporate name – Summa. The name “Summa”, Latin for “higher”, was adopted without the approval of Hughes himself, who preferred to keep his own name on the business and suggested HRH Properties (for Hughes Resorts and Hotels, and also his own initials), but his executives paid no attention.
Company refocused on real estate
Following the death of Howard Robard Hughes Jr. in 1976 at age 71, most of Summa’s remaining business were sold off. Howard Hughes had ammassed vast holdings of undeveloped land both in Las Vegas and in the desert surrounding the city that had gone unutilized during his lifetime. His successors at Summa refocused the company on real estate development, selling all noncore business holdings.
Holdings sold off were:
Hughes Nevada Mining (sold off in 1977)
KLAS Inc. (holding company for the Las Vegas CBS affiliate, sold to the founders of the Weather Channel in 1979)
Hughes Air Corporation (holding company for Hughes Air West; sold to Republic Airlines in 1979)
Hughes Helicopters Inc. (sold to McDonnell-Douglas in 1984 and renamed McDonnell-Douglas Helicopters)
Hughes Sports Network (a production company specializing in the broadcast of sporting events, sold in the mid 1980s).
Summa also owned a wide array of hotels and casinos, primarily in Las Vegas, that constituted the bulk of Summa’s business in the 1970′s.
Company Renamed and sold off
Hughes’ heirs eventually renamed the company in his honor, Summa became Howard Hughes Corporation in 1994. Hughes’ heirs sold Howard Hughes Corp. to the Rouse Company in 1996, and the company survives as a Rouse subsidiary. Rouse was acquried by General Growth Properties in 2004. Hughes’ heirs, primarily the Lummis family, continue to hold an equity interest in Summerlin, a giant planned residential community being built in stages by Howard Hughes Corp. on the Las Vegas outskirts.
Hotels and casinos formerly owned by Summa
Desert Inn Hotel and Casino (demolished in 2001, replaced by Wynn Las Vegas Resort and Casino)
Sands Hotel and Casino (demolished in 1996, replaced by The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino)
The Landmark Hotel and Casino (demolished in 1993 to expand parking lot of Las Vegas Convention Center)
Castaways hotel and casino (demolished in 1986, replaced by the Mirage and Treasure Island)
Silver Slipper Casino (demolished in 1986 to expand parking lot of Frontier Hotel and Casino)
Frontier Hotel and Casino (demolished in November, 2007, to make way for construction of a new resort that will resemble the Plaza Hotel in New York City)
Xanadu Princess Hotel (Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas)
Britannia Beach Hotel (Paradise Island, Bahamas) – now the Coral Towers Hotel at Atlantis Resort
Development projects
Howard Hughes Corp.’s current projects are Summerlin, a massive master planned community that will eventually house 160,000 residents; Summerlin Centre, a mixed-use town center for Summerlin, and Fashion Show, a giant retail center in downtown Las Vegas currently undergoing a major redevelopment.
Most of Howard Hughes Corp.’s past projects have been business parks in the Las Vegas area, including The Crossings, The Canyons, The Plazas, Corporate Pointe, and Hughes Center.
The Las Vegas 51s (formerly the Las Vegas Stars) is a minor-league baseball team. They are the AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. They play at Cashman Field (capacity 9,334) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The team competes in the Pacific Coast League.
The 51s take their name from Area 51, located “somewhere” in Nevada.
The 51s have won two PCL crowns (originally as the Stars) in 1986 and 1988.
On October 31, 2007, it was announced that the Las Vegas 51s had been sold (pending the regulatory approval of the Pacific Coast League and the Commissioners of Major League and Minor League Baseball) from the Mandalay Group to the Stevens Baseball Group. There are currently no plans to move the team, and talks of building a new stadium have been essentially stagnant for the past seven years. The team has sold about 5,000 tickets per game on average the last few years, but far fewer fans actually attend typical home games. On March 24, 2008 Mandalay Baseball Properties sold the 51s franchise to Stevens Baseball Group.
The new owners have announced that they intend to change the team’s name for the 2009 season, potentially opening the process to a public vote.
Franchise history
Former Names
Las Vegas 51s : 2001 – present
Las Vegas Stars : 1983 – 2000
Spokane Indians : 1973 – 1982
Portland Beavers : 1919 – 1972
Major League Affiliations
2001 – present Los Angeles Dodgers
1983 – 2000 San Diego Padres
Notable alumni
Roberto Alomar
Sandy Alomar, Jr.
Carlos Baerga
Bruce Bochy
Larry Bowa (Manager)
Larry Brown
Chin-Feng Chen
Joey Cora
Éric Gagné
Ozzie Guillén
John Kruk
Russell Martin
Gary Matthews, Jr.
Kevin McReynolds
Brad Mills (Manager)
David Ross
Jerry Royster (Manager)
Benito Santiago
Jolbert Cabrera
Bellagio is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned by MGM Mirage.
Inspired by the Lake Como resort of Bellagio in Italy, Bellagio is famed for its elegance. One of its most notable features is an 8 ac (32,000 m²) artificial lake between the building and the Strip. The fountain shows on the lake are a major free attraction.
Inside Bellagio, Dale Chihuly’s Fiori di Como, composed of over 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers, covers 2,000 ft² (610 m²) of the lobby ceiling. The hotel also contains the Conservatory & Botanical Gardens.
Bellagio was conceived by Steve Wynn and built by his company, Mirage Resorts, Inc. following the purchase and demolition of the legendary Dunes hotel and casino in 1993. Bellagio was designed by Marnell Corrao Associates and Jon Jerde.
Bellagio is home to Cirque du Soleil’s production of “O”, the second permanent production show for the troupe.
History
When it opened on October 15, 1998, it was the most expensive hotel ever built, having cost over $1.5 billion.
In 2000 it became a MGM Mirage property when Mirage Resorts merged with MGM Grand Inc. to create MGM Mirage.
Actor Justin Pierce commited suicide in 2000, by hanging himself in one of the Bellagio’s rooms.
Film History
Bellagio was featured prominently in the film Ocean’s Eleven (2001). The safe for the three casinos that were robbed was located at the Bellagio.
The sex tape that propelled hotel heiress Paris Hilton to stardom was shot in one of the hotel rooms in Bellagio.
Fountain details
The Fountains of Bellagio
The Fountains at Night (oarsman/shooter nozzles visible)
Wet Design, a company specializing in creating intricate water shows, designed an array of underwater pipes with over 1,000 nozzles that makes it possible to stage fountain displays coordinated with over 4,000 lights and music. The Fountains of Bellagio, as the attraction is called, was made using three types of nozzles: “oarsman”, which can swing back and forth to create dancing water; “shooters”, which can shoot water upwards; and “super shooters”, which can send a water blast as high as 250 ft (76 m) in the air. After the success that Wet Design had with the Fountains, Steve Wynn asked them to improve and modify the volcano attraction at sister casino The Mirage.
A casino is a facility that accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are often placed near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships and other vacation attractions. Some casinos are known for hosting live entertainment events, such as concerts and sporting events, especially boxing.
The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Gambling in casinos
In most jurisdictions, gambling is limited to persons over the age of majority (21 years of age in most of the United States and 18 to 20 in most other countries where casinos are permitted). Customers may gamble by playing slot machines or other games of chance (e.g., craps, roulette, baccarat) and some skill (eg., blackjack, poker) [for more see casino games]. Game rules usually have mathematically-determined odds that ensure the house retains an advantage over the players. This advantage is called the edge. Payout is the percentage given to players. In games such as poker, the house takes a commission (a “rake”) on bets players make against each other. Our money refers to the situation where a winning player is placing bets with money that has been won from the casino.
History
Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas (jb).
The term originally meant a small villa, summerhouse or pavilion built for pleasure, usually on the grounds of a larger Italian villa or palazzo. There are examples of such casinos at Villa Giulia and Villa Farnese. During the 19th century, the term casino came to include other more public buildings where pleasurable activities, including gambling and sports, took place. An example of this type of building is the Newport Casino. In modern Italian, this term designates a bordello (also called “casa chiusa”, literally “closed house”), while the gambling house is spelled casinò with an accent.
Security
Traditionally, casinos have had a major concentration on security. Large amounts of currency move through a casino, tempting people to cheat the system. Security today consists of cameras located throughout the property operated by highly trained individuals who attempt to locate cheating and stealing by both players and employees.
Among the most secure and watched areas of a casino are the count rooms and the surveillance room.
Slot machines are commonplace in casinos
Links
The Atrium at the Crown Casino, Melbourne, Australia.
Global Gaming Expo (G2E) is an annual gaming trade show held in Las Vegas, Nevada, generally in November, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The show is one of the two major gaming trade shows.
History
The show has been run by the American Gaming Association since its inception in 2001.
Bally’s
3645 Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Number of rooms
,814
Theme
Cosmopolitan Las Vegas
Gaming space
7,000 ft² (6,224.5 m²)
Permanent show(s)
Jubilee!
Signature attraction(s)
Garden Walkway
Notable restaurant(s)
Al Dente Bally’s Steakhouse Chang’s
Owner
Harrah’s Entertainment
Date opened
973
Casino type
Land-based
Major renovation(s)
981, 1994
Previous name(s)
Bonanza New Bonanza MGM Grand Bally’s Grand
Casino website
Bally’s Website
Bally’s Las Vegas is a hotel and casino located in Las Vegas, Nevada on the Las Vegas Strip. The hotel has 2,814 rooms that are 450 ft² (42 m²) or larger. The hotel has over 175,000 ft² (7,000 m²) of banquet and meeting space. It also has a 67,000 ft² (6,000 m²) casino.
Bally’s is home for the long-running production show Jubilee!.
One of the signature features of this hotel is the neon lighting wrapped around the covered moving sidewalk that brings guests from Las Vegas Boulevard to the entrance of the casino.
The hotel has a Las Vegas Monorail station at the rear of the property.
History
The site was first occupied by the Bonanza Hotel and Casino which opened in July 1963. It was later renamed to the New Bonanza Hotel and Casino shortly before construction on the MGM Grand began.
The 43 ac (174 km²) site opened in 1973 as the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino with 2,084 rooms, the largest hotel in the world at that time. Kirk Kerkorian was the owner. The hotel had a movie theme when it opened.
The MGM Grand Hotel fire on November 21, 1980 killed 87 people.
It suffered a fire in the casino that traveled up into the hotel, killing 87 guests and employees on November 21, 1980. The facility was rebuilt in only eight months. The fire was, and still remains, the largest disaster in Nevada history in terms of loss of life. The fire resulted in a major reform in fire safety codes for the city’s casino resorts, which are now among the strictest in the United States.
The hotel was later sold in 1985 to Bally Entertainment Corporation, and the property’s name was changed to Bally’s. The MGM Grand name was transferred to the former Marina Hotel, now known as the MGM Grand Las Vegas. Bally’s was later taken over by Hilton Corporation. In 1998, Hilton spun off its casino holdings into a new company, Park Place Entertainment, later known as Caesars Entertainment. That company merged with Harrah’s Entertainment in 2003.
At the end of June 2005, Harrah’s Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman announced that the company would consolidate all its properties under a few brand names: Harrah’s, Rio, Caesars, and Horseshoe. This implies that Bally’s will be re-branded in the future.
Film history
In 1993, the hotel was featured in the film Honeymoon in Vegas, starring Nicolas Cage and Sarah Jessica Parker.
It was also featured prominently in the 1995 film Leaving Las Vegas, also starring Cage and Elizabeth Shue.
Video poker is a casino game based on five-card draw poker. It is played on a computerized console which is a similar size to a slot machine.
History
Video poker first became commercially viable when it became economical to combine a television-like monitor with a solid state central processing unit. The earliest models appeared at the same time as the first personal computers were produced, in the mid-1970s, although they were rather primitive by today’s standards.
Video poker became more firmly established when SIRCOMA, which stood for Si Redd’s Coin Machines, and which evolved over time to become International Game Technology introduced Draw Poker in 1979. Throughout the 1980s, video poker became increasingly popular in casinos, as people found the devices less intimidating than playing table games. Today, video poker enjoys a prominent place on the gaming floors of many casinos. The game is especially popular with Las Vegas locals, who tend to patronize locals casinos off the Las Vegas Strip. These local casinos often offer lower denomination machines or better odds.
The Game
Game play begins by placing a bet of one or more credits, by inserting money (or in newer machines, a barcoded paper ticket with credit) into the machine, and then pressing a “Deal” button to draw cards. The player is then given an opportunity to keep or discard one or more of the cards in exchange for a new card drawn from the same virtual deck, after which the machine evaluates the hand and offers a payout if the hand matches one of the winning hands in the posted pay schedule.
On a typical video poker machine, payouts start with a minimum hand of a pair of jacks. Pay schedules allocate the payout for hands based partially upon how rare they are, and also based upon the total theoretical return the game operator chooses to offer.
Some machines offer progressive jackpots for the royal flush, (and sometimes for other rare hands as well), thereby spurring players to both play more coins and to play more frequently.
Regulation
Video poker machines operated in state-regulated jurisdictions are programmed to deal random card sequences. A series of cards is generated for each play; five dealt straight to the hand, the other five dealt in order if requested by player. This is based upon a Nevada regulation, adopted by most other states with a gaming authority, which requires dice and cards used in an electronic game to be as random as the real thing, within computational limits set by the gaming authority. Video poker machines are tested to ensure compliance with this requirement before they may be offered to the public. Video poker games in Nevada are required to simulate a 52 card deck (or a 53 card deck if using a joker).
It is unclear whether all video poker machines at Indian gaming establishments are subject to the same Nevada-style regulations, as Indian casinos are located on reservations that are sovereign to the tribe which holds the gaming license.
Newer versions of the software no longer deal out all 10 cards at once. They now deal out the first five cards, and then when the draw button is pressed, they generate a second set of cards based on the remaining 47 cards in the deck. This was done after players found a way to reverse engineer a random number generator’s cycle from sample hands and were able to predict the hidden cards in advance.
Kinds of video poker
Newer video poker machines may employ variants of the basic five-card draw. Typical variations include: Deuces Wild, where a two can serve as a wild card and a jackpot is paid for four deuces or a natural royal; pay schedule modification, where four aces with a five or smaller kicker pays an enhanced amount (these games usually have some adjective in the title such as “bonus”, “double”, or “triple”); and multi-play poker, where the player starts with a base hand of five cards, and each additional played hand draws from a different set of cards with the base hand removed. (Multi-play games are offered in “Triple Play”, “Five Play”, “Ten Play”, “Fifty Play” and even “One Hundred Play” versions.)
In the non-wild games (games which do not have a wild card) a player who plays five or six hundred hands per hour, on average, may receive the rare four-of-a-kind approximately once per hour, while a player may play for many days or weeks before receiving an extremely rare royal flush.
Full pay games
Full pay video poker machines are games which offer the typical maximum payback percentage for that game type. The payback percentage on a full pay game is typically close to and sometimes over 100% when played with perfect strategy. Full pay Jacks or Better, for example, offers a payback percentage of approximately 99.5% when played with perfect strategy.
Casinos often place full pay machines alongside other machines with pay schedules that offer less attractive payback percentages, leaving it up to the player to identify which video poker machines offer full pay schedules.
Most full pay machines are configured with a pay schedule that is only full pay when the maximum amount of credits is bet. (See the pay schedule tables later in this article for details.)
Jacks or Better
“Jacks or Better” is the most common variation of video poker available. Payoffs begin at a pair of jacks or better. Full pay Jacks or Better is also known as 9/6 Jacks or Better; the 9 refers to the payoff for a full house and the 6 refers to the payoff for a flush. Full pay Jacks or Better has a theoretical return of 99.54% when played with perfect strategy.
Hand
credit
credits
credits
credits
credits
Royal Flush
50
00
50
000
000*
Straight Flush
0
00
50
00
50
Four of a kind
5
0
5
00
25
Full House
8
7
6
5
Flush
2
8
4
0
Straight
2
6
0
Three of a Kind
2
5
Two Pair
0
Jacks or Better
Theoretical Return
8.05%
8.05%
8.05%
8.05%%
9.54%*
*Notice the gap between the payoff for a Natural Royal Flush played with 4 credits vs. one with 5 credits. The payoff schedule for most video poker machines has a gap like this, such that players who do not play with the maximum number of credits at a time are playing with a negative theoretical return.
Deuces Wild
“Deuces Wild” is a variation of video poker in which all two’s are wild. (Wild cards substitute for any other card in the deck in order to make a better poker hand. In Deuces Wild, the payout for a four of a kind makes up approximately 1/3 of the payback percentage of the game, and a four of a kind occurs on average once every 15 hands or so. Deuces Wild can be found with pay schedules that offer a theoretical return as high as 100.762%, when played with perfect strategy. It is also available with other pay schedules that have lesser theoretical returns:
Hand
credit
credits
credits
credits
credits
Natural Royal Flush
00
00
00
200
000*
Four Deuces
00
00
00
00
000
Wild Royal Flush
5
0
5
00
25
Five of a Kind
5
0
5
0
5
Straight Flush
8
7
6
5
Four of a Kind
0
5
0
5
Full House
2
5
Flush
0
Straight
0
Three of a Kind
Theoretical Return
9.679%
9.679%
9.679%
9.679%
00.762%*
*Notice the gap between the payoff for a Natural Royal Flush played with 4 credits vs. one with 5 credits. The payoff schedule for most video poker machines has a gap like this, such that players who do not play with the maximum number of credits at a time are playing with a negative theoretical return.
Double Bonus
“Double Bonus” video poker is a variation of Jacks or Better with a bonus payout for four aces. This variation offers up to a theoretical return of 100.1725%, when played with perfect strategy. It is also available with other pay schedules that have lesser theoretical returns:
Hand
credit
credits
credits
credits
credits
Royal Flush
50
00
50
000
000*
Straight Flush
0
00
50
00
50
Four Aces
60
20
80
40
00
Full House
0
0
0
0
0
Flush
4
1
8
5
Straight
0
5
0
5
Three of a Kind
2
5
Two Pair
Jacks or Better
Theoretical Return
9.1079%
9.1079%
9.1079%
9.1079%
00.1725%*
*Notice the gap between the payoff for a Royal Flush played with 4 credits vs. one with 5 credits. Players who do not play with the maximum number of credits at a time are playing with a negative theoretical return.
Double Double Bonus
“Double Double Bonus” video poker is a variation of Jacks or Better which offers bonus payoffs for different four of a kinds, as seen in the payout table below. Full pay Double Double Bonus can be found with pay schedules that offer up to a theoretical return of 100.067%, when played with perfect strategy. It is also available with other pay schedules that have lesser theoretical returns:
Hand
credit
credits
credits
credits
credits
Royal Flush
50
00
50
000
000*
Straight Flush
0
00
50
00
50
Four Aces w/2, 3, or 4
00
00
200
600
000
Four 2, 3, or 4 w/A-4
60
20
80
40
00
Four Aces
60
20
80
40
00
Four 2, 3, or 4
0
60
40
20
00
Four 5-K
0
00
50
00
50
Full House
0
0
0
0
0
Flush
2
8
4
0
Straight
2
6
0
Three of a Kind
2
5
Two Pair
Jacks or Better
Theoretical Return
8.9154%
8.9154%
8.9154%
8.9154%
00.067%*
*Notice the gap between the payoff for a Royal Flush played with 4 credits vs. one with 5 credits. Players who do not play with the maximum number of credits at a time are playing with a negative theoretical return.
Other positive expectation games
Other kinds of video poker only have positive theoretical returns when the progressive jackpot is high enough. Many establishments advertise with a billboard when the progressive jackpot is high enough.
Locating positive expectation games
Although positive expectation and full pay video poker machines are found in many “locals” casinos (located off the Strip) in the Las Vegas market (and in a few Reno casinos), most Strip casinos and casinos in other markets offer less attractive video poker pay schedules.
Players’ clubs
Many casinos offer free memberships in “player’s clubs” or “slot clubs”, which return a small percentage of the amount of money that is bet in the form of “comps” (complementary food, drinks, hotel rooms, or merchandise), or sometimes as cash back (sometimes with a restriction that the cash be redeemed at a later date). These clubs require that players use a card that is inserted into the video poker machine to allow the casino to track the player’s “action” (how much the player bets and for how long), which is often used to establish a level of play that may make a player eligible for additional comps.
Comps or cash back from these clubs can make a significant difference in the theoretical return when playing video poker over a long period of time. In some cases, usage of a club card can even add enough value to the pay schedule of a video poker game with a negative theoretical return to make that same game have a positive theoretical return.
The Las Vegas Strip (also known as The Strip) is 4 mi (6.7 km) of Las Vegas Boulevard South partly in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, that has been designated an All-American Road. Many of the largest hotel, casino and resort properties in the world are located on The Strip. Over the years, Las Vegas Boulevard South has been called Arrowhead Highway, Salt Lake Highway, U.S. Highway 91, and Los Angeles Highway. The Strip was reportedly named by police officer Guy McAfee, after his hometown’s Sunset Strip, in Los Angeles.
The Strip runs from the Stratosphere at the northern end, to the Mandalay Bay on the southern end. Of the 4 miles, nearly 3.5 miles of it is located in the township of Paradise, Clark County, only a small portion is within the city limits of Las Vegas. McCarran Airport is located at the southern end of The Strip, along with the famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign.
In addition to the large hotels, casinos and resorts, The Strip is home to a few smaller casinos, motels, and other attractions, such as M&M World, Adventure Dome and the Fashion Show Mall. Starting in the mid 1990s, The Strip became a popular New Year’s Eve celebration destination.
History
The first casino to be built on Highway 91 was the Pair-o-Dice Club in 1931.
The first hotel to be built on what is today’s Strip was the El Rancho Vegas, opening on April 3, 1941 with 63 rooms and standing for almost 20 years before being destroyed by fire in 1960. Its success spawned a second hotel on what will become The Strip, the Hotel Last Frontier, in 1942. The Flamingo opened a few years later, on December 26, 1946.
In 1968, Kirk Kerkorian purchased the Flamingo and hired Sahara Hotels Vice President Alex Shoofey as President. Alex Shoofey brought along 33 of Sahara’s top executives. The Flamingo was used to train future employees of the International Hotel, which was under construction. Opening in 1969, the International Hotel with 1,512 rooms, would become the largest hotel in the world, and begin the era of mega-resorts. The International is known as the Las Vegas Hilton today.
1973 added a new resort to The Strip. The (original) MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, also a Kerkorian property, opened with 2,084 rooms, ranking as the number one hotel in the world by number of rooms at that time. On November 21, 1980, the MGM Grand suffered the worst resort fire in the history of Las Vegas, killing 87 people (84 in the fire and three more due to injuries) as a result of electrical problems. It reopened eight months later.
In 1986, Kerkorian sold the MGM Grand to Bally Manufacturing and it was renamed Bally’s.
The opening of The Mirage in 1989 set a new level to the Las Vegas experience, as smaller hotels and casinos made way for the larger mega-resorts. These huge facilities offer entertainment and dining options, as well as gambling and lodging. This change impacted the smaller, well-known and now historic hotels and casinos, like The Dunes and The Sands.
In an effort to attract families, resorts offered more attractions geared toward youth, but had limited success. The (current) MGM Grand opened in 1993 with Grand Adventures amusement park, but it closed in 2000 due to lack of interest. Similarly, in 2003 Treasure Island closed its own video arcade and abandoned the previous pirate theme, adopting the new ti name.
Downtown Las Vegas hotels and casinos suffered heavily from the Strip’s boom. They have funneled money into remodeling the facades of casinos, adding additional security and new attractions, like the Fremont Street Experience and Neonopolis (complete with movie theaters).
Wet and Wild water park, located next to the Sahara hotel, closed permanently at the end of the 2004 season.
Announced in 2004 was Project City Center on the Las Vegas Strip. This 66 acre (600,000 m²), $6 billion, project on the site of the Boardwalk hotel and adjoining land is planned as a multi use project. It is the largest such project announced in the United States. It will consist of hotel, casino, condo, retail and other uses on the site. The first elements of this project are expected to be available in 2009.
On July 8, 2005, news reports (, 2) said that film actors George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt will be working with actress/model Cindy Crawford’s husband Rande Gerber to design and build a new casino hotel in Las Vegas just off the Strip. Gerber is the man behind Green Valley Ranch resort and spa’s Whiskey Sky, so he is already involved in the Las Vegas entertainment market. Groundbreaking is expected to begin in January 2006. Clooney filmed Ocean’s Eleven at the Bellagio, and spends vacation time at the Green Valley Ranch resort and spa. The official announcement came on August 29, 2005. The hotel, condo, and casino property will be called Las Ramblas, and will be built on Harmon Avenue next to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
Getting around
Las Vegas Strip at night with the Aladdin and Paris hotels
While not on The Strip itself, the Las Vegas Monorail runs on the east side of The Strip from Tropicana Avenue to Sahara Road.
Cat Bus provides both a standard route (stops at each resort, 24 hours a day) and an express route (only stops 8-9 times total in 7 miles, 12 hours a day, 5 days a week) bus service on the Strip.
A tourist trolley service travels up and down The Strip and stops at various, but not all, Strip hotels, along with a stop at the Fashion Show Mall. The fare is $1.75 per ride, exact change required. Trolleys are scheduled to arrive every 15 minutes.
Two small light-rail services, referred to as trams, operate on the Strip. One runs between Treasure Island and The Mirage. The other provides service to Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur.
Compared to major roadways in other cities, the Las Vegas Strip is becoming pedestrian-friendly. New casinos design their facades to attract walk-up customers and many of these entrances have become attractions themselves – the Fountains at Bellagio, the volcano at The Mirage, and the Treasure Island (TI) Pirate Show are the most well-known. People gather on the sidewalks in front of the casinos to watch these shows.
To alleviate traffic issues at popular intersections, footbridges have been installed to help pedestrians more safely cross the roads. The Tropicana – Las Vegas Boulevard footbridges were the first to be installed, and based on the success of this project additional footbridges have been built on Las Vegas Boulevard at the Flamingo Road intersection; between The Mirage/Treasure Island and The Venetian; and the latest ones at the Las Vegas Boulevard-Spring Mountain and Sands Avenue intersection connecting the Wynn with the Fashion Show Mall.
Free Shuttles
Between Harrah’s Las Vegas and the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino. Approximately every 30 minutes.
Between Caesars Palace and the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino. Approximately every 30 minutes.
Between Paris/Bally’s and the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino. Approximately every 30 minutes.
Between Barbary Coast and The Orleans. Approximately every 15 minutes.
Between Barbary Coast and Gold Coast. Approximately every 15 minutes.
Between Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and the MGM Grand and the Harley-Davidson Cafe (next to the Aladdin). Leaves the Hard Rock on the hour.
Between Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Fashion Show Mall and the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. Leaves the Hard Rock on the hour.
Major hotels, casinos and resorts on The Strip
Listed from north to south:
Name
Rooms
Opened / Notes
Stratosphere
2000 Las Vegas Blvd. South
2,444
April 30, 1996
Sahara
2535 Las Vegas Blvd. South
1,720
1952
Circus Circus
2880 Las Vegas Blvd. South
3,770
October 18, 1968
Westward Ho
2900 Las Vegas Blvd. South
744
1963 Closed on November 17, 2005
Riviera
2901 Las Vegas Blvd. South
2,100
April 20, 1955
Stardust
3000 Las Vegas Blvd. South
1,500
July 1958
New Frontier
3120 Las Vegas Blvd. South
1,000
October 30, 1942
Wynn Las Vegas
3131 Las Vegas Blvd. South
2,716
April 28, 2005
Treasure Island (TI)
3300 Las Vegas Blvd. South
2,900
October 27, 1993
The Venetian
3355 Las Vegas Blvd. South
4,049
May 3, 1999
The Mirage
3400 Las Vegas Blvd. South
3,049
November 22, 1989
Casino Royale
3411 Las Vegas Blvd. South
152
Nob Hill 1979
Casino Royale 1992
Harrah’s Las Vegas
3475 Las Vegas Blvd. South
2,616
1992 Previously known as the Holiday Casino
Imperial Palace
3535 Las Vegas Blvd. South
2,700
1980 Previously known as the Flamingo Capri
Flamingo
3555 Las Vegas Blvd. South
3,642
1946 – known as the Flamingo Hilton from 1974-99.
Caesars Palace
3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South
3,348
August 5, 1966
Barbary Coast
3595 Las Vegas Blvd. South
200
1979
Bellagio
3600 Las Vegas Blvd. South
3,000
October 15, 1998
Bally’s
3645 Las Vegas Blvd. South
2,814
Bonanza Hotel The factual accuracy of the following date is unclear. Please view Bally’s talk page.
July 5, 1973 as the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, largest in the world with 2,084 rooms.
Sold in 1986 and renamed.
Paris
3655 Las Vegas Blvd. South
1,900
September 1, 1999
Aladdin
3667 Las Vegas Blvd. South
2,567
1963 as the Tally-Ho.
Rebuilt and reopened on August 18, 2000.
Boardwalk
3750 Las Vegas Blvd. South
654
1968.
Rebuilt and enlarged in the 1990s.
Plans being developed to remove this hotel as part of a larger project. Closed on January 9, 2006.
Monte Carlo
3770 Las Vegas Blvd. South
3,002
June 21, 1996
New York-New York
3790 Las Vegas Blvd South
2,024
January 3, 1997
MGM Grand
3799 Las Vegas Blvd. South
5,044
December 18, 1993
Tropicana
3801 Las Vegas Blvd. South
1,800
1957
Excalibur
3850 Las Vegas Blvd. South
4,032
June 19, 1990
Luxor
3900 Las Vegas Blvd. South
4,407
October 15, 1993
THEhotel at Mandalay Bay
3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South
1,117
2004
On November 17, 2005 the hotel started to change the signage to set this hotel apart from the Mandalay Bay.
Mandalay Bay
3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South
3,700
March 2, 1999
Four Seasons
3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South
424
1999
Top four floors of Mandalay Bay’s main building.
Major shopping attractions on The Strip
Name
Description
Bonanza Gift Store
2440 Las Vegas Boulevard South
World’s largest gift store, Purveyors of Las Vegas Pop culture
Fashion Show Mall
3200 Las Vegas Boulevard South
Grand Canal Shoppes
3355 Las Vegas Boulevard South
A canal, with gondolas and singing gondoliers, winds along in front of many of the shops.
Desert Passage
3667 Las Vegas Boulevard South
1.2 miles of shopping with 140 stores, located at the Aladdin. Features an hourly indoor thunderstorm.
Forum Shops at Caesars Palace
Las Vegas Boulevard South
Golf courses
In recent years, all the on-Strip golf courses, except the Desert Inn Golf Course, fell prey to the mega-resorts need for land and were closed. Developer Steve Wynn, founder of previously owned Mirage Resorts, purchased the Desert Inn and golf course for his new company Wynn Resorts. In 2005, he opened Wynn Las Vegas, complete with remodeled golf course providing tee times to hotel guests only.
In 2000, a new public golf course opened just south of Mandalay Bay on the Strip. Catering to a high-end golf enthusiast, the Bali Hai Golf Club is easly seen by drivers on I-15.
Demolished Strip hotels
Desert Inn (and golf course): Demolished, now the Wynn Las Vegas.
The Dunes (and golf course): Demolished, rebuilt as Bellagio
El Rancho Vegas: Burned down in 1960. The Hilton Grand Vacation Club timeshare now exists on the south edge of the site where the resort once stood.
El Rancho (formerly Thunderbird/Silverbird): Demolished, now Turnberry Place condominium complex.
Glass Pool Inn was called Mirage Motel until 1988 when forced to change name due to The Mirage opening down The Strip in 1989.
Hacienda: Demolished, now Mandalay Bay
Marina (hotel and casino): Westward pointing tower (known as the West Wing) of the MGM Grand
The Sands: Demolished, now The Venetian
Vegas World: demolished and rebuilt as the Stratosphere; parts of the old Vegas World still remains.
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Medieval tabula players, from the 13th century Carmina Burana
Medieval backgammon players
Backgammon set, 19th century
The Las Vegas 51s (formerly the Las Vegas Stars) is a minor-league baseball team. They are the AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. They play at Cashman Field (capacity 9,334) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The team competes in the Pacific Coast League.
The Fountains of Bellagio
The Fountains at Night (oarsman/shooter nozzles visible)
The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas (jb).
Slot machines are commonplace in casinos
The Atrium at the Crown Casino, Melbourne, Australia.
The MGM Grand Hotel fire on November 21, 1980 killed 87 people.
Las Vegas Strip at night with the Aladdin and Paris hotels
