I played at Binion’s poker room on a recent trip to Vegas. The downtown casino was the location for some scenes in the recent movie Lucky You starring Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore.
The Vegas trip was really fantastic. Several hundred extra value meals were lost and a great many more were won. The best day by far was winning BIG at the craps table. CK would say having her picture taken with Wilmer Valderrama was the highlight of that day (flurry!). A close second for me was being dealt a spade royal flush in the Luxor poker room and easily winning the 150 dollar hourly high hand jackpot. Woo! Overall the best gambling fun was had inside the Mandalay Bay casino. The blackjack was great there, and so was the poker room. I didn’t get to visit the Peppermint Patty 
– maybe we’ll try that again next time.
Bellagio and Venetian had nice poker rooms. I played in the Bellagio’s “poker sweat shop”; the heat from all the bodies and the constant background noise of chip shuffling was the first thing I noticed. The Bellagio also served some really pretty Strawberry Julius. Mandalay Bay was my favorite room though. Nice and clean and well run. At the aged Binion’s poker room I got in on some of the tightest and well played rounds of poker. Binion’s also gets the distinction of the only casino with a dealer that would openly discuss (guess) my live hand. Luxor has an easy going jackpot in their poker room with hourly payouts to the highest hand. Unfortunately, I would have gotten close to a grand if I hit my monster hand at some other room, like Mandalay. All in all, I would go back to Mandalay Bay over and over again.
This was the best Vegas trip yet. I have other fun stories to tell too (ask me about grumpy Phil Ivey). We had lots of fun with our friends J & H and I personally can’t wait to go back again soon.
