The Flamingo

LV '01 will forever be remembered for the great Freak-Out. We were staying at the Flamingo... me, my brother, Hop and Joel. The four of us took turns getting killed at the tables. One night, my brother and I fared poorly. The next, it was Hop and Joel. Then, me and Hop. Which led to a lot of instances where two people would go do something, while the two who had just gotten raped, would get cheap food and try to kill some time before giving the tables another go.

One the last night, it was Joel's "turn" to stay out and ride the hot streak. While me, Andy and Hop retired to the hotel room. Everyone was sound asleep when Joel came back to the room sometime around 4am or so. I didn't hear him come in, but I did awake to Hop's screaming. He had sat up in his bed and just lost it, becoming his own hotel room-invasion alert. He must've thought Joel was breaking in or something. He just sat up and yelled, "AHHHHHH, AHHHHHHH, AHHHHHHHH, AHHHHHHHH" while everyone else was in stunned amazement. He finally shut up and just laid back down and fell asleep.

The next morning, Hop pretended to not remember. I knew he was lying. Everyone else was laughing so hard they had tears running down their cheeks. We went to the airport and flew home, with Hop flying a different flight than the rest of us, due to his living in Chicago at the time and all. Later, Hop admitted to me that he was afraid to fall asleep on the flight home... he didn't want a repeat Freak Out at 30,000 feet. I would have paid $5,000 to see that happen though. Maybe more.

As for the chips, the house chip was part of the 2004 haul. The others were bought on-line. Not the best chip collecting stories, but I will forever remember the Freak Out.

New York, NY

This chip was part of the Great Casino Chip Grab '04... which was the first trip I made where I consciously decided to start collecting. Starting with the 25th Anniversary Barbary Coast chips, I spent the better part of a day wandering in and out of Strip casinos, getting house chips.

The New York, NY will always be remembered for a couple of things. It was the site for my greatest ass-kicking ever, thanks to a murderous run at $25 blackjack. In fact, I think I have vowed to never play cards there again.

Speaking of New York, NY ass-kickings... Hop and I were wandering back to the the NY one night. About 25 yards in front of us were the front doors, with a bench on the other side of the sidewalk. A teenage kid was sitting on the bench. All of a sudden we hear, "There he is!!" and 4 or 5 other teenagers run from behind us to the bench and start throwing haymakers at the lone kid sitting there. They knock him off the bench, get in a few kicks and are gone as fast as they show up. I think both Hop and I were in shock, as we didn't even have time to make a funny comment. We both just kind of kept going, opened the doors and walked into the casino. That may have been the first fight I ever saw out there, sanctioned or not.

It was also the site for my most bizarre radio show call-in. When I worked at WILX, my boss always liked it when I called his radio show from Vegas. Which meant I had to be up and on a phone by 9am local time. Not always easy. He also liked to have plenty of sports book information, so it always helped if I was near one of those... even though it is illegal to use a cell phone in a sports book. Luckily, the New York, NY sports book has a low wall, so you can stand behind it and be on the phone, yet still see all the day's odds. So I'm sitting at a slot machine behind the wall, waiting for Tim to get out of a commercial or something and this homeless looking guy carrying a trash bag walks up to me. Right as Tim starts to introduce me, the guy walks by and says, "Hey man... you need any ecstasy?" A perfectly legit question at 8am on a Thursday. I declined, started laughing and then answered whatever questions The Dean had for me. But I always wondered if that entire trash bag was filled with ecstasy.

Not specific to any one stay at the New York, NY (I think I've stayed there 3 or 4 times), but I've probably uttered, "Where the fuck is teh Century Tower" at least 100 times. I know casino lay-outs are designed to keep you near the gaming areas, but trying to find your room in that place is nearly impossible.

Stardust

The Stardust was our hotel room of choice for the inaugural LV trip. This one would have been LV '98. Other trips were thusly named LV '99. LV '00. LV '00b. And so on and so forth. Sadly, the casino no longer stands, imploded a little more than a year ago.

The Stardust had a lot of things going for it in 1998. It was the site for some scenes from the movie Swingers, and home to a lot of lower stakes tables we could all be comfortable at. The movie Casino was about the days Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal ran the 'dust (which was called the Tangiers in the movie). Robert DeNiro played Rosenthal's character (renamed Sam "Ace" Rothstein in the movie). Siegfried and Roy got their start at the Stardust. Gay tiger-handlers were finally dealt a blackjack with that move. It was also really close to Slots-A-Fun, which sold the world's best 99cent half-pound hot dog. I preferred to put nacho cheese on mine, but some went with the traditional ketchup and mustard. The Stardust also made it a point to serve beer to people as they waited in line to check-in. A nice touch. It never dawned on me at the time that if they are giving you a drink in line, you are probably going to be there for a while. Live and learn.

I didn't get this chip on that trip, but since then I've added a couple other Stardust chips to my collection... buying them online. And there won't be any more... as Echelon Place is being erected on that site. It's supposed to be open late in 2010.

Island Resort and Casino

The Island Resort and Casino is located in Harris, MI, about 10 minutes from Escanaba. I think it used to be called the Chip-In Casino. Slick name change, what with the casino being on a peninsula and all. It used to have an indoor beach as well, but alas, that is gone, too.

As of January 2005, this place was remarkably the 12th largest casino in the United States (Based on floor space dedicated to gambling). Yes, that's right... the 12th largest. In a town 99.5% of Americans couldn't find on a map if given a 750 mile radius circle to slap down on a map. The other top casinos are predictably from Vegas, Connecticut (Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun), the Eagle (checking in at number 7), AC, and Tunica. Not too hard to figure out which city doesn't belong. In a town of 15,000 they have 135,000 square feet of floor space to gamble on (not too mention another ten or so casinos in the U.P.). That's 9 feet per person. Not too shabby. Of course, my 9 feet always includes 3 chain-smoking 75 year old ladies fresh off the bus... but I guess that's my problem.

On my most recent visit to the U.P., I added the Millennium chip to my collection. I was playing $5 double-deck... and it was being played at a breakneck pace. We got through 3 hands before shuffling. Every time. It started with just 3 of us playing, but before we even got through a round... the table filled up. Most of the players were lugging oxygen machines (yay middle of the day gambling!!). A smokey casino is right where I'd want to be if I were on oxygen, but whatever. The ones that weren't struggling to breathe, were struggling to add. Quite a collection.

As an added bonus, you could only double on a dealt 10 or 11. No doubling on any soft plays. Of course, the sign didn't mention that so when I was dealt Ace-four against a six and doubled, I brought the table to a screeching halt. So sorry to delay your $5 win or loss by another 6 seconds. But, other than that rule... it was a pretty decent set-up, rules-wise. They cut fairly deep (probably half the deck), but I expected that sitting at a double-deck table. It certainly beat the Eagle's devilish continuous shuffle machines.

For the hour or so I played, I ended up $12.50 in the positive. Take that you oxygen lovers.

Soaring Eagle

I visited the Soaring Eagle Casino for the first time in 1995. This was the original house chip, the new one is at the bottom of this post. The older one is a million times better than the new one. Back then, they had a Slots House (which is located across the street from the "new" casino/hotel) and a Card House, which was about 3/4 a mile down the road... really a glorified pole barn with blackjack, roulette and craps. With Glenn being at Central that year, he was able to give us directions to the casino by only using roads that had 27 foot deep ditches on either side of them. And it was always foggy when we went that way.

One of the first trips to the old Card House, we had to make a fake ID for Brandon to get in, who was only 17. We photocopied Joel's ID and Brandon's ID... and put Brandon's picture on Joel's information (thank you 1995 scanner technology) and Voila!!... he was 18. There were two entrances to the Card House, so Joel and Brandon had to go in different doors... lest the Cop ID'ing people recognized the same name on two licenses. It worked, but I had no idea how we would have explained it if Brandon had won big and needed to show ID again.

We also tried to get to the casino faster and faster each trip. Driving normally, it was about an hour trip. I think the record was in the 38 minute area... that one included a lot of "rolled" stops at stop signs. Not the smartest thing with the aforementioned ditches of death on either side of us, but we survived. I also can't believe we never hit a deer on any of those trips, but we were lucky in that regard as well.

Once, while at MSU, we were driving back from a casino trip and one of my roommates (who will remain nameless due to him becoming a police officer) spent a great majority of the time hanging out the passenger front seat window, throwing empty beer bottles at road signs as we sped past. Good times.

Another college trip saw me and Hop going up to Mt. Pleasant one afternoon. Usually we would call ahead and invite Joel and Glenn to come along, but this time, we just drove to Joel's apartment unannounced. He happened to be walking back from class, cutting across a parking lot when we saw him. He apparently didn't recognize the car. As he walked, we kind of stalked him, following him slowly in the car. After he finally figured out what was going on, he said something to the effect of "I had no idea who you were or what you wanted, but I wasn't eager to stick around and find out." I don't remember a rash of day-time parking lot beatings in Mt. Pleasant during that time... but I guess it could have happened. As it happened, the only beatings that day took place on the card table.

Of any non-Strip Casino, I have been to the Eagle the most. But not as much recently, what with their continuous shuffle machines and hour-long waits to play the incredibly exciting 3/6 Limit Hold 'em. But if they ever pump out a third chip, I'll be there in just over 38 minutes.

Stallone

The "Happy Birthday Sly Stallone" chip is a great one. I bought this one off of either eBay or www.oldvegaschips.com. What makes it so great to me is that in early 1996 I had made a bet with Hop on whether or not Stallone was 50 years old. I took the under and he took the over. He was about 2 months shy of his birthday, making me a winner. This was just after I won a bet from Hop... who foolishly bet on OJ to be found guilty. Not his best gambling year. But I'll always know how old Rocky is from now on.

Then... in December of 2005, Hop and I were at the Hopkins-Taylor fight at the Mandalay Bay. After the undercard fights and before the main event, they did some filming for the 6th Rocky movie, Rocky Balboa. Sadly, there were no cutaways of us cheering in the movie. But we were there... for some of it. And I'm sure I made roughly 9,872 Stallone Birthday jokes on the remainder of that trip. Looking forward to his 62nd birthday on July 6th!