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I’m still not sure if this email I had tonight is genuine.
For a start, if Terrible’s really has live poker, I’m quite disappointed that this mailer didn’t come with a picture of Mr Terrible wearing sunglasses and an iPod. They usually make an effort to dress him up whenever possible, and this would be a perfect opportunity.
But let’s assume this is for real (they routinely spell my name wrong on emails this way, so that goes some way to verifying the authenticity).
How on earth did they find space to put in at least one poker table? It’s pretty cozy in there already.
The sportsbook is so small it has about half a dozen seats and the pit is perfectly crammed into the middle of the action so that if you want to play Wheel of Fortune and roulette at the same time, I’m pretty sure you’d be able to. And if there happens to be a line for the cashier (particularly likely on paycheck day) snaking through a tightly arranged grid of video poker machines at least gives you something to lean on while you wait.
They’ve recently moved the player’s club out of the broom cupboard next to the gift shop into a kiosk on the casino floor, but I can’t see that space being any use for poker. It’s not much larger than six feet square.
The mailer says “see casino pit for details”, not “see poker room”. They clearly don’t have any pretensions of being the Bellagio (thank goodness). It might just be one table. And you might have to ask for directions.
There’s just nowhere I can think that even one table could go without needing to get rid of either slot machines, table games or space in the bingo hall, and I can’t see any of those happening for a game that (according to the coupon on this mailing) has a $20 minimum buy in.
That would make it one of only two such recession-busting poker games in Las Vegas (the other is a single $1 blind no-limit Hold’em game at Bill’s). I can’t wait to see what games are on offer, and what kind of clientele it attracts.
I can’t find any other details about this. Nothing on Terrible’s own web site, or any of the usual suspect Las Vegas poker blogs. I might actually be the first to break this massive poker news in the whole of the “blogosphere”.
Oh how I hate that word.
However, to be fair, I’d be surprised if any other bloggers were on Terrible’s mailing list, let alone had ever stopped by for a 99c coffee and Krispy Kreme special.
The mug shot below is definitely not mine, although it definitely should be.
I have no idea who this is. At least it’s a dude, I suppose, but something has gone a little bit awry between taking the photo and sending the postcard.
iTunes had told me there was an update available to the crummy Caesars Palace iPhone app, and as the version had leapt from 1.0 straight to 1.3 you might have expected great things of it.
But you’d be disappointed. In fact the product description still claims this is a “beta” release (which, clearly, is still a pipe dream) and the only change that it brags across three minor version numbers is a “new dining menu”.
Nevertheless, the app did tease me with an exciting new undocumented function: the addition of an “open in Safari” button in the toolbar of on most pages. This would provide users with a way to capture some of its information for later offline viewing (so that, for example, it did not take 30 seconds and incur data roaming charges for overseas guests to view the property map). Guess what? That button actually does nothing.
Still, there was something of an enhancement to the “send a postcard” feature. As you can see above, at least the template now actually has space to fit the photo that you take. That’s a significant improvement on the last version, but however shit it looked before, fixing that should be secondary to making sure the right photo gets sent to the right recipient.
Otherwise it’s just going to be creepy.
I dread to think who ended up with the picture of yours truly, which I took only to test the postcard feature and expecting that nobody other than myself would ever see it. The email comes from a no-name Caesars Palace address and there’s no option to add a personalised message, which might have given them a clue that it was broken. It just says “A special message from your friend”.
Of course, I was pulling a stupid grin when I was playing about with this. I bet I looked pretty special to whoever was unlucky enough to get that postcard.
Actually, given that I sent two of these to myself and they both came through with the same (wrong) picture, I have a suspicion of what’s messing it up.
I bet this feature would work just fine if only one person ever used it. The problem is its immense popularity. As soon as a second user comes along and smiles sweetly for the camera, he overwrites the first photo with his own.
So when you are sent a postcard, you have a small window of opportunity to view it as it was intended. If you’re too slow, you’re in for a surprise.
Check it out if you like. The image URL embedded into both emails I got is: http://ipa.acumob.com/caesars/scripts/images/UQ==.jpg. I thought the “UQ==” part might have been a unique identifier that was assigned to each photo uploaded. That probably would have worked out OK though, because using upper and lower case letters, numbers and a few symbols, even just a four character filename could handle more than 20 million photos before it started overwriting the first one.
But I’ve tried guessing other values and found nothing but “404 Not Found” errors. What I’m expecting, though, is that by the time you click on the URL above, the picture you see will probably be nothing like the one I posted above.
If I’m right, it could be amusing to keep checking back to that link to see what changes over the next few days. Presumably, every time someone sends a postcard from the app, we’ll get to see some stupid pose that they thought was only going to be seen by a close friend.
If anyone catches a good one, either though this or through trying to make a postcard of yourself, send it to me and I’ll add it to the post!
Celine Dion announced this week that she would return to Caesars Palace next year, but she’s in danger of having her thunder stolen by British 80s boy band graduate, Matt Goss.
It’s difficult to argue who is the bigger star.
But even so, it’s Goss’s gig that’s getting attention here in the UK. The news (which was announced nearly two weeks ago) has just started to hit the papers over here, and it even got a mention on Radio 2 last night.
Play the clip below to hear Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie give their critique of his career so far and announce his arrival as the new headliner at Caesars.
That’s if you consider playing in a 165-capacity indoor boat with a novelty rocking, floating dance floor (rather than the 4,296-seater Colosseum under the same roof) to be headlining.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If you can’t be bothered to listen to the clip, here’s the highlight:
“He’s exactly what [Vegas] used to have and lost? What, a bloke with some Doc Martins with Grolsch tops on?”
As the supportive partner of a former Brosette (is that such a thing? Isn’t it like saying “former alcoholic”?) there was little doubt that we’d be seeing this show in April, and I’ve just booked the tickets.
I actually don’t mind and I’m quite looking forward to it. The clips I’ve seen make it look, well, not bad. And it’s definitely a Vegas show (complete with sleazy backing dancers called “Dirty Virgins”) – about as far from a Bros tribute as it could be.
I’ll give anything a go these days, and besides, my tastes are much broader now than they were when I was 14 years old and detested Kylie just as much as I hated Bros. What was I thinking?
Here’s an amazing statistic, coming from the insightful TV commentary leading up to kick off in yesterday’s Super Bowl.
It came after the large no-cash-value metal disc they loosely called a “coin” was flipped into the air and landed on the side they’d decided that today they would refer to as “heads”. I think that side had a helmet on it, so it was close enough.
“The past 13 years the NFC team has won the toss. The odds of one team winning 13 straight are about eighty-one hundred to one”.
Obviously, this kind of revelation is the reason commentators don’t STFU during the pre-match shenanigans and wait for the actual game to start.
In fact, the number he was looking for is closer to eighty-two hundred. Two to the power of thirteen is 8,192, which would give odds (assuming a fair fake coin) of 8,191-1.
The number’s right, but it’s not quite the right context. Indeed, across a series of Super Bowls, the odds of the team from one particular chosen conference to win 13 coin flips is as above, but the probability of one team winning 13 straight is lower.
If we don’t care who wins the first toss (after all, someone has to win it) then whoever does only needs to guess another 12 correctly to make a streak of 13. The odds of that happening are 4095-1.
Still a fairly unlikely occurrence, but it’s half the first number – and I’m sure they’d still have mentioned it if was the AFC team who’d got there.
It would be just as noteworthy – in fact, probably more so – if there was a streak of 13 straight heads or 13 straight tails. The odds of any one of the four streaks I’ve mentioned so far happening brings the price down to a heavily discounted 2047-1.
I began wondering, with all the stats that are thrown about during a typical NFL game, whether a game ever passes that something doesn’t show up that looks vaguely remarkable.
This coin toss streak actually only considers consecutive Super Bowls. It’s much easier to find wonderful patterns if you consider consecutive playoff games, or Monday evening games, or games played in domes, or in the rain, on the West Coast where at least one team is wearing blue. And they do look for this kind of meaningless correlation. All the time.
But in this case it didn’t need any such fudging. I’ve tried to discount it as much as I can, but it’s still a pretty terrific streak of coin flips coming down in the same arbitrary (yet definitely consistent) direction.
It’s one to remember the next time you hear someone complaining about a “sick” (see my air quotes there?) losing streak when playing online poker. Maybe they lost five or six 50/50 races in a row.
They’ll probably try to convince you this never happens in real life. Guess what… it actually does.
For what it’s worth, if you’d bet a dollar on the NFC winning the coin toss in 1998 and parlayed the winnings onto the same bet for the past 13 years at the typical bookmakers odds of 10-11, you’d be in for a whopping payout of $4474.51.
Not too shabby – but that equates to juice of more than 45% when you compare it to the true odds payout of $8192!
If you’ve got any money that needs washing, Stan James are making it insanely easy for you this weekend. Just bet both sides on the SuperBowl – with no juice!
A slightly less nefarious way to take advantage of this is through their £25 free bet offer.
Grab a partner, sign up an account each and bet £25 on each side of the point spread. You can’t lose, and then you’ll both end up with a £25 free bet to play with next week.
There’s usually a way to cash in sports betting bonuses without any risk, but this one makes it pretty easy to explain how it works.
So I thought I would.
Yesterday, quite randomly, I found myself at the London Affiliate Conference.
You’d never know from the modest name, but this event is an expo specifically for affiliates of online gambling sites.
You know what? Other affiliate programs are available.
I wasn’t there for a conference, or as an affiliate – just for a meeting with someone who happened to be in the country because of it.
All the big names were there, which meant I was happy enough wandering around and gawping for a while. These things are usually pretty fun for about twenty minutes, after which they get really annoying. Fortunately I didn’t have to wait too long before my meeting.
I wandered round admiring the usual collection of free giveaway tat. Plenty of pens, t-shirts, calendars… that kind of stuff. The chocolate dice were particularly appealing, although I couldn’t help wondering whether the stand giving away branded cigarette lighters was exhibiting in the wrong decade.
And then I noticed this.
Scotty Nguyen, baby.
There are not many well known poker players that I would stop walking to take a photo of, but Scotty is the man, baby.
But wait, round the corner there was more:
At first I thought this was a looky likey… any dude in a hat could be pretty convincing. But it is your actual Texas Dolly, Doyle Brunson.
The godfather of poker, making a personal appearance because his online poker room has gone down the pan and they’re pushing a casino instead.
Quite a star studded line up for an event that I still haven’t really worked out why it exists.
After all, when your online business does online marketing for an online casino, what is the actual benefit of getting some face time – except to be able to pick up the odd Blue Square stress ball, or something.
You just make a web site that links to another web site and get people to read it, right? And if banner A makes you more money than banner B, you run banner A. You don’t run banner B because a pretty girl who was employed by them – probably just for the day – gave you a free umbrella.
It was only after I heard that one of the people I’d gone to meet – a gaming writer who relies on affiliate commissions to eat – had already interviewed Brunson that it dawned upon me: I was probably the only blogger there who had to sneak around with a camera phone to get pictures of these guys.
But along with that realisation came a reminder that I don’t write this rubbish for anyone other than myself. That’s pretty obvious from the fact I haven’t even bothered trying to put a banner ad on the site in three years. But I’ve come to realise what a world of difference there is between writing for fun versus writing for a living.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that (I’ve been paid to write before – albeit on a small scale, meaning I had plenty of freedom to choose the subject – and would do so again if the right gig came along) but it’s not what this blog is and I quite like it that way.
So to those of you that do actually bother to read this now and again and humour me when I talk crap or rant about things that aren’t really that important, I thank you.
Readers of VegasTripping.com, I’m afraid you are wrong.
The recently announced “Trippies” award non-ceremony included this spiteful slur on what has become my favourite place to play poker in Las Vegas.
They may lose points for having a name with two apostrophes (one of them borrowed from Caesars Palace, no doubt), and yes it is just three small poker tables dumped by the door.
But if you’ve never played poker at O’Shea’s – particularly on Karaoke night – you’ve missed out on the funnest poker experience on the Strip. It always has the best view too.
Voters in this poll took themselves far too seriously and voted for the unwelcoming Bellagio poker room as the best place to play.
Do they have a house band that plays a cover of Tenacious D’s “Fuck Her Gently” (and clientele that know every single word to sing along) over there?
Didn’t think so. Viva O’Shea’s!
A cash prize monies? I assure you sir it is totally legitimate.
Oh come on, I thought that was funny… can I get a LOL?
While I can somewhat understand the sensible reply from the casino’s representative, the last poster clearly thinks I added Harrah’s Laughlin to my Facebook friends by accident. Must happen a lot.
You can’t imagine how excited I was to see an offiical Caesars Palace iPhone app appear on the App Store recently.
It came with a big boast too: “The Caesars Palace Mobile application is a travel companion that can elevate your trip from ordinary to legendary”.
Sadly, I beg to differ. It’s a bit of a turd.
The app weighs in at a tiny 0.4Mb, which tells you it’s going to have to fetch most of its data from the network.
This is good and bad. It’s easy for them to update information when it changes (it’s Vegas – things change frequently) but it alienates iPod touch users and visitors from outside the USA who don’t want to get stung by horrendous data roaming charges, pay extortionate hotel wifi charges, or go to the effort of getting their iPhone unlocked and using a local SIM.
iPod touch users are also screwed over on the included gimmick to put your own photo onto a Caesars Palace sign. It only works with the iPhone’s camera – you can’t use a picture from your photo library. Although it’s a pretty piss poor effort at slapping two photographs together anyway. I tried it with an old friend.
The other information you get is a subset of what you can find on the Caesars web site, thrown together in a style reminiscent of web sites from 1995, except without a hit counter or an animated “men at work” image.
The part I was really interested in though was how I would be able to “use Caesars Palace Mobile to find [my] way around the resort”, like they claimed.
Let’s face it. If someone describes the floor plan at Caesars as “all over the place”, they’re being kind.
For what it’s worth, I actually find that meandering mess of a maze an endearing feature of a property which has evolved and grown in character over more than 40 years. It’s just a nightmare to get to where you want to be.
So, what technological wonders that take advantage of the iPhone platform have they used to help you find your way?
It’s a map.
It’s the same map that you get when you check into the hotel or if you can pick up around the casino.
The user experience is somewhat different, however. When they print maps, they tend to make sure that they’re readable, and they generally print them larger than three inches in size. This is is pretty standard because, well, it just works.
Above is an actual size screenshot. Tell me where Total Rewards is, or how to get to the Augustus Tower from the parking garage.
I’m being a little unkind. You can actually zoom in enough so that the text size is almost the same size as it would be in print. Of course, once the text is readable, you can only see a fraction of the map.
I guess it’s nice to have a map graphic on your phone though. I’ve used that kind of thing before, with zooming and panning and what not. I’d probably use this one too if it actually stayed downloaded to my phone long enough to use it – instead of requiring a significant download every single time you navigate away and come back. It takes a good 5 seconds over wifi and 25-30 seconds on 3G. (I didn’t bother trying over EDGE). They should at least cache it within the app for a couple of hours.
I should probably have seen this coming, when the first thing in the product description is an attempt to claim that this is a “beta” release – despite being publicly available to anyone with an iPhone or iPod touch, and carrying a 1.0 version number.
Disappointing as the app is, it’s even more disappointing that Caesars Palace would put its name on what is clearly a work in progress.
A steal at one pound seventy nine pence. RAM upgrade complete. And I only needed to use two of them.
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