The BIG Winner Was...

...not me on my Atlantic City casino trip yesterday. The thing is though, I did win, just not big. I am figuring that I won a total of $58, most of which was spent on one thing or another before we left AC. Most of the winnings came from me playing Texas Holdem against the dealer on a Black Jack style table. Some came from slot machines that was part of the $35 bonus they gave us. Go figure, the bus ride cost $30 and when we arrived they gave us each a casino card with $35 credit for the slots. I got to actually pull just over $15 of that out of the machine once I realized how to cash in immediately on any win, even if only .10 cents. The thing was you could collect your winnings but not get any credit for any amount left from the card, that had to be gambled. So if we hit for a dollar, we hit the payout button and got a certificate for the buck. Then we used credits from the card, removing any winnings after each spin. I figure winding up with just under half of what they gave us on that card was pretty good luck. After that,I played roulette for a bit, losing $50. Then onto Texas Holdem where I was up $100. 

Then it was onto the Borgata until we hit what seemed like an impassable highway. We wasted 40 to 45 minutes walking there to be told it would take us another 20 minutes on a convoluted route to reach it, so we took a cab for a 5 minute ride for $9.00. The Borgata is where my son plays when he visits AC. It is much more upscale than Resorts from what we could see. We decided to have a late lunch there in their buffet. Because it was after 4PM, we had to have the dinner buffet at about $34 apiece. Lunch would have been about $20. I cannot say it was well worth the price since I have had better buffets at about half the price but most of the food was very good to excellent such as the steamed shrimp, steamed clams, sirloin steak, pot roast, roasted potatoes, and the like. They had sushi on which the rice was dried out and the desserts were fair to terrible and mislabelled at that as far as I could tell. For example they labelled one dessert as chocolate mousse but it seemingly was a chocolate candy shell around pure whipped cream topped with flakes of chocolate. I think there was no mousse at all. They had a chocolate cannoli that, in my opinion, was absolutely stale as was a fortune cookie I tried to enjoy as was a chocolate eclair. Other desserts were similarly terrible in my estimation. So much for upscale.

I gambled a few slots there, after our lunch/dinner but that was it. We had run out of time, we only had 6 hours there before our bus would take off back to NY. We had to get back to our bus pronto so we took a cab for $13.00, the highest price that a metered cab can charge in the city, or so we were told. I never heard of a metered cab with a limit on what could be charged until yesterday in AC. Well, once back at Resorts, I made another bet on roulette for my friend Bob who said to play $10 for him on anything I chose - so it was number 9 on roulette. It lost. Oh well, back to the bus for the ride home.

By the way there was a total of 6 people on the bus going down and going back. It amazes me how they can afford to charge only $30, then give a $35 slot credit to the folks who take the bus trip. All that with only 6 paying customers on the bus. I guess the expenses for fuel, bus maintenance, the casino credit (if you actually win anything) all go toward tax deductions for the casinos. You could tell though that times are tough for AC, the casinos did not have many gamblers, but then it is the off season for AC. Hopefully they will do better as the economy improves after the Republicans win the elections in 2012.

As for our bus ride down to AC, I cannot comment much. I slept most of the way. As for the ride back, we had fun BS'ing with one another, me and Pete. The bus driver later told us he had a pisser listening to us. The driver, Rich, was a nice guy and although this was his first solo trip, being new on the job, he got it all done like a true and class act professional.

I think I may have to make this at least a monthly adventure, it was really fun. Who knows, maybe I will win big next time (or lose my shirt).

All the best,
Glenn