Winning Ways
Take a shot on the slots for 20 grand, or take a chance on a brand-new house
Plus:
• Keep Your Cool: Bet in the Trop's Pool • Hypnotic Hilarity • Free Jazz at the Stardust • June Bingo at the Palms • Three-Time Winner • Mandalay Turning to Tickets
Time to win some money, folks. How does 20 grand sound? That's the first prize in the Imperial Palace's Desert Safari Slot Tournament, June 15-17. The resort will be giving away more than $100,000 in prize money, depending on the number of entrants.
The entry fee of $400 includes four tournament sessions, a special tournament gift, cocktail reception, two brunches, one dinner buffet, gourmet awards banquet and three-night complimentary lodging June 15-17. You and a partner can enter for $430, alternating the four sessions, or, if you want a dual entry (two entrants sharing one room) it will cost you $725.
All entrants play a total of 1,000 credits in each of four rounds on the same type of machine. Maximum credits must be played. Prize money is paid down to 100th place ($200). An additional $500 per session will be awarded via $100 bonus drawings every five minutes for the first 25 minutes of each session.
And check this out. The Cannery -- that's the casino off I-15 on Craig Road in the north part of our town -- is giving away the house ... literally. The casino kicked off its first major promotion, called the "$350,000 Giving Away the House Sweepstakes," on June 1. The casino will award $20,000 in cash and prizes each week throughout June and July, including one prize of 12 mortgage payments. The grand prize drawing for a brand-new home, as well as a total of $50,000 in additional cash prizes, will be Saturday, Aug. 2.
Weekly drawings will be at 7 p.m. each Saturday through July 26. Five winning tickets will be drawn each week, and players can win a year's worth of mortgage payments. In addition, The Cannery will award $10,000 in weekly cash prizes.
The final drawing will be at 7 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 2, when 21 winners will be invited to select a "house key." The player with the key that unlocks the door will be awarded the brand-new home (or a mortgage payoff up to $150,000). Drawing tickets will be awarded for earned points on any slot/video poker games and table games throughout the casino. Players will be able to keep all points earned. Complete rules are posted inside the casino.
Man, wouldn't a house be nice to win?
KEEP YOUR COOL: BET IN THE TROP'S POOL
As you know, we've been having a real heat wave, with temps topping the century mark almost every day, so you shouldn't be surprised when I tell you that the swim-up blackjack tables at the Tropicana are now open. Bet limits are $5-$50. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., plenty of time to get burned -- literally and figuratively.
HYPNOTIC HILARITY
If you like your hypnotist to be ribald and risqué, I've got just the guy for you.
Comedy hypnotist Anthony Cools -- who hails from Canada, that fun land of mad cow disease, SARS, West Nile virus and funny money -- will be performing on weekends at the Stardust beginning June 19-21. (Before you rush to your computers to send me nasty e-mails about my remarks, just know that my mother lives in Canada, as does the beautiful Jennifer, whom I have spoken of in past columns).
Tickets are $29.95 for the 11 p.m. show, but let me tell you just a little bit about what you can expect. Cools, a professional therapist, has earned cult-like popularity through his ability to persuade audience volunteers hypnotically to behave outrageously on stage. He gets them to obey his suggestions to play imaginary musical instruments, engage in dialogue with their own body parts, and make passionate love to furniture.
He somehow does this without going over the top and becoming X-rated. It's lots of fun, both for the audience members who don't participate and the participants themselves, who usually end up buying videos of their antics on stage. Not for kids, but hey, this is Las Vegas.
FREE JAZZ AT THE STARDUST
Here's a real treat for you, and it's free. Internationally known jazz singer Janis Carter, who happens to be from Las Vegas, will be at the Stardust on Friday, June 13, to perform from 8 to 10 p.m. as part of a concert series presented by radio station Oasis 105.7. You don't want to miss it.
JUNE BINGO AT THE PALMS
Listen up, bingo players. The Palms will host June bingo every Thursday -- June 5, 12, 19 and 26 -- in the Key West Room. Session times are 1, 3, 7 and 9 p.m. Players will receive a gift on specified days in June while supplies last.
Now, I have no idea what the following means, but I'm sure you will if bingo's your game.
The 1 p.m. sessions offers double action and two chance coveralls. At 3 p.m. double/triple action is played with a guaranteed coverall. The 7 p.m. sessions feature double pay all the way with a guaranteed coverall. The last session at 9 p.m. is a super-sized, 18-game special which features triple action with a three-chance coverall. There is a Palms progressive bonus ball played at every session. The resort accepts all bingo coupons. Check for rules and restrictions at the bingo cage.
THREE-TIME WINNER
Far be it from me not to cheer for a winner in a casino, but this really bugs me, and it happened at the Palms. Stanley Janus, a local, hit three times in four weeks while playing Five Times Pay for a total of $30,000. I can play 30 days in a row and I'm lucky to win 30 bucks. I know life isn't fair, but I'm a good guy, God. Don't I help little old ladies across the street? Well, maybe not old ladies, but that shouldn't make a difference, should it?
MANDALAY TURNING TO TICKETS
Well, another major casino company has seen the light. Mandalay Resort Group will buy between 2,000 and 3,000 new EZ Pay(TM) gaming machines with ticket printers to expand the Ticket-In Ticket-Out (TITO) system at its casinos.
Mandalay will also retrofit several thousand existing machines to add ticket printers as part of the TITO expansion. The Luxor and Mandalay Bay will be the first casinos targeted to increase the number of machines with ticket printers. The new machine purchases and retrofit program will be completed over a two-year period.
Okay, I've got a reservation to get my haircut at 9:30 this morning, so I'm outta here. My barber, Rob, at the Stardust barber shop, gets a little testy if I'm late. It's no fun walking around with one sideburn an inch shorter than the other.
Good luck, and I'll see you on the Strip!
• • •
If you have a question or a Las Vegas experience you would like to share
with my readers, please e-mail me at lennylv@lvcm.com. Please include your full
name and the city or town where you live.
