Easter Local Trip Report

For 31 years Brad and I have been chasing casino promotions.  For many of those years we could count on finding multiple-point bonuses on our video poker play on holidays.  Yesterday’s Easter was no different.  For us it was a slightly weird – but in a nice way –  holiday multiple-points day in Las Vegas.

First, we visited the Gold Coast, where we could get a 7x bonus on our first 10,000 points.  We were playing single-line $2 NSUD (Not-S0-Ugly- Deuces) – side-by-side as we always play, if possible.  Early on I was dealt 4 deuces – hurrah, that $2000 hopefully would give us enough “traveling money” for both of us to reach the max points and at least break even.   The key word here is “hopefully”! 

We continued playing and then I noticed Brad had his 10,000 points – he plays faster than I do and often doesn’t check the card reader.  I mentioned that he was “finished.”  He never likes to quit suddenly so he plays another hand.  He was dealt 3 deuces and then drew the 4th!  After he was paid, he did play one more hand – he doesn’t like to leave a jackpot on the screen – but then he was happy to quit.  I finished soon after and we walked with a $2400 net profit after tips.   Second set of deuces in a session often allows for a profit.  Key word here is “often.”

By this time we were hungry but in no mood for a big meal although we had coupons for $80 in food at any Boyd property.  Let’s blow off our Nutrisystem diet and forget about healthy for one day and celebrate our win with one of the Gold Coast’s hotdogs at the sports book cart.  We love those dogs!

Then it’s off to the Orleans where we can do the same 10,000 points with a 7x multiplier.  We remembered to again swipe our cards first – I’m paranoid about forgetting this since I once forgot to do it and grieved for days.  Here one of the best games is quarter Bonus Poker SpinPoker Dream Card.   Talk about a love/hate relationship with a video poker machine – the volatility here is off the charts – and we have never won on it  the few times we have played it.  But it is so much fun – and we have the bankroll to tackle it for the couple of hours it would take to reach the max points.

So we started playing.  After a quick $900 down the drain, we started questioning whether it was as much fun as we had anticipated – we had a lot of money in our pockets to continue but was our psychological bankroll going to last!  While we were debating whether to go to a less volatile game, Brad hit a couple of quad specials and I got 4 Aces.  Okay we were cutting our losses so we decided to stay on this roller coaster.  Hit a couple of quads and then promptly lose it all back….up and down….up and down.  Then we both hit quads specials and we decided to take stock.  We were both just over 9500 points but we were out of the hole by $8.50.  Should we go ahead and get those last 500 points.  Heck, no – we both were ready to get off this roller coaster.  We could lose several hundred dollars getting those last few points.

We were so happy to pull even this small winning session that we stopped at Baskin-Robbins and bought two ice cream treats (no-sugar-added of course) for $8, again using REAL money…the second time that day.  Yes, the “P” word – pay!

A tourist from the Netherlands was fascinated by my Easter Bunny ears and asked if we minded if he took our pictures.  Of course we didn’t mind.  So here is the picture he snapped, showing us celebrating our 50-cent profit!