Joshua van Aalst’s blog

Las Vegas is without a doubt the worlds most finely tuned money sucking machine. Having spent almost 3 days there I thought I’d write a mini guide so you can be prepared for the onslaught.

1) Beware major price differences between drinks at different casinos.

If your planning to walk through any of the 5 stars like the Belagio or the Wynn e..t.c. do NOT stop to buy drinks or play the pokies. A standard beer like a Budweiser will cost you $8 US. If you walk across the road to the cheaper Casino Royale, you can buy that same Budweiser for $1.50 US!

2) Beware the odds of the pokies!

This is a big one. In Australia the Government controlled odds of winning on the pokies are 80% (I need a precise stat on this). In Las Vegas this is totally not the case. When I mentioned this to pokie girls (they bring drinks to pokie players) at the Belagio, The Luxur and Casino Royale they laughed.

The pokie machines in Las Vegas are tourist machines. The wins are extremely rare. Occassionally someone will win big but that is normally a local who has gambled so much it is somewhat ridiculous.

3) Beware the free drinks if you play the pokies.

One of the hypes of Las Vegas is the…. Free drinks if you play the pokies. This is most definitely true at the bigger casinos. That being said there is normally only 1 girl per 20+ patrons playing the pokies. This means your likely to get 1 drink every 30 minutes max!

Of course you have to play the pokies which even on a 1cent machine delaying the press of the button is loosing you around $20 every 30 minutes.

Head over the road and buy your drinks. It will work out cheaper.

4) Do your sitting down at the hotel room or the pool.

Do not head out tired. There are no seats anywhere other than at pokies! Even if you go to the bathroom the only waiting seats outside are at the pokies.