Expansion

As the early-80's raced into the mid-80's word began to spread far and wide about the madcap exploits of THE VEGA$ CLUB. Well, not too far and wide, but we attracted the attention of a good friend and co-worker named Leung (pronounced Lang, rhymes with Bang!). Before we could make him a full-fledged member, we had to bring him along on a trip on a probationary basis. On this trip Roger had arranged accommodations at the Hotel Continental. I understand in it's later years that it turned into quite a dump, but at the time (1985ish) it was a perfectly nice place to stay.

We arrived at the hotel, got checked in, relaxed a bit in the room, and gave Leung a brief lesson on what to expect in the casino, and a few pointers in blackjack etiquette so as to not to embarrass himself and us. (don't hand your cash directly to the dealer, one hand only on the cards, pointers on how to slip your cards under your chips without scooting your bet out of the betting circle, tipping, etc. He'd memorized the "basic strategy" card, so we were ready to go!

As luck would have it, there was a dead $2 blackjack table near the entrance to the casino, just beckoning to us! Leung, Roger, Charley, and me took our seats and each placed our $20s in front of us for change. As the first hand was dealt, the waitress appeared and took our orders. At this point I was back to beer. (As of this writing, July 31, 2004, I have yet to have another Greyhound). Leung ordered a Screwdriver, Roger was either in his Fuzzy Navel or Grasshopper phase at this point, and Charley was still trying to get a PLAIN coke. A few hands were dealt, things were progressing fine. Leung was getting the hang of things. The cocktails arrived, and as Leung reached forward to pick up his cards, his arm hit his full Screwdriver spilling it all over his cards, chips, and dripping into the dealers chip rack! "Oh Shit!" said the dealer, yelling over her shoulder for the floor supervisor to bring over a towel. They got things pretty well cleaned up, we got a new deck of cards in play, and the rest of the trip went well. It's just lucky that we're all nice guys, otherwise that little stunt would have forever banished Leung from entering the club.

That may have been the same trip where we discovered that Bob Stupak was a big fat liar. Bob Stupak owned "Vegas World" a hotel/casino barely on the strip, just north of the Sahara, where the Stratosphere now stands. For years he'd been cluttering up all the mailboxes in Southern California (hell, probably the whole U.S.) with vacation offers that seemed too good to be true. The deal was something like this: For only $398 up front, you'd get 3 nights hotel accommodations, plus $400 in casino play, free Keno tickets, free cocktails, and a fabulous gift! For awhile it was billed as "The Free Vacation" then the courts intervened, lawsuits were filed, and it became "The Virtually Free Vacation". Miraculously THE VEGA$ CLUB never took him up on his vacation offer, but we did find ourselves in his outer space themed casino one afternoon. For the walk up customers, he had a lower priced miracle offer. For $80 you'd get $120 in casino play, plus $20 in slot machine tokens, a free deck of cards, and Zsa Zsa Gabor's cocktail ring. "How could that be???" we wondered. We pooled our money and got one entry.

Catch #1-- You weren't given your chips right away, you got $10 per hour over the course of 12 hours!!!
Catch #2-- The slot tokens only worked on "Very Special" jackpot machines, and
Catch #3-- you only got your cards and Zsa Zsa's ring after the 12th hour of being on the property.

To add insult to injury, even the casino play chips were a rip-off! Say you put your $10 worth of chips on a blackjack table, if you lost, they took your chips. If you WON, they took your "special" chips and replaced them with $10 in real chips. "Hey, If I win a $10 hand of Blackjack, shouldn't I end up with $20???" "Sorry kid, not at Vegas World. I'll see you next hour!"

Needless to say, we didn't even make it to hour #2 and Zsa Zsa got to keep her ring!

In the next installment... Hank discovers Craps!