Little Caesar's... R.I.P.

On one of those mid-80's summer trips, the boys of THE VEGA$ CLUB were wandering around mid-strip after attending another breathtaking presentation at Caesars’ IMAX theater. We were walking around in the sweltering heat redeeming coupons at most of the little souvenir shops that used to be abundant in that neighborhood. Those little shops and strip malls have all been torn down now to make room for places like The Monte Carlo, The New Aladdin, and Paris. I understand that the stubborn little Tam ‘o Shanter Motel will soon be a thing of the past as well. Oh well. We were walking through an especially seedy looking strip mall next to Bally’s (Where Paris is now) when we came across Little Caesar’s Casino. You entered through a sliding glass door where someone had wrapped the metal door handle with about 25 layers of duct tape, in an attempt to keep the handle from inflicting 3^rd degree burns on the casino guests. A hand-written sign was taped to the door sternly reminding everyone to close the door behind them! The hard-working air conditioning system succeeded in lowering the indoor temperature by about 10 degrees from the outdoor temperature. Unfortunately on that day it was about 105 outside! I have since learned that Little Caesar’s was nicknamed “The Toilet” (according to legend, during a particularly hot roll at the craps table, the shooter didn’t’ want the dice to cool down if he paused to use the restroom, so he just peed at the table!) On that hot afternoon, with the exception of a bustling craps game, the place was pretty much deserted. Charley had wandered off towards the dingy gift shop, and he called us over, “Hey, look at this! Penny slots!!!” Sure enough, off in the corner were 4 ancient penny slot machines with a top jackpot of $50. I walked over towards the craps game, where there were many unsavory characters 2 deep, and the layout was COVERED with beige chips, which I later discovered were worth 25¢ each! Yes, we had found a quarter craps game! There was also a “double exposure 21” table with no players, and one open blackjack table with no players. Standing behind the other blackjack table was an old man in a $60 rumpled suit that had to be the pit boss. Roger nudged me, “Check out what that old guy’s doing!” We looked closer and discovered that he had a deck of cards spread out across the table and he was wiping each card down with a damp towel! This was astounding to us! We’d all played enough blackjack to know that most places replace the cards with brand new decks every few hours, but at Little Caesar’s, why waste money on new cards, when you can just wash off the old ones! We got the impression that at Little Caesar’s, every dollar counted! On another visit, I saw the pit boss groan in agony, yell the “F” word, and kick his little desk when a guy won a $40 pass line bet.

For reasons unknown to most of my friends, I grew attached to “The Toilet”. Nobody ever wanted to go with me, so I spent a lot of time by myself in there. First off, I liked the idea of 25¢ craps. I felt like a high-roller betting $1 chips, amongst all the 25¢ bets of the degenerate/homeless men gambling around me. One morning I happened to notice that there were no cocktail waitresses, nor was there a bar. I asked the dealer if they served drinks. “Cocktails!” he shouted, raising my hopes. A short heavyset bald man who was also the change person came waddling over to me. “You’re the cocktail waitress?” I asked. He rolled his eyes at me and asked me what I’d like. It was about 9 a.m. so I asked for a Bloody Mary. He actually scoffed at me, then said, “Coffee or beer?”. I’ve never been much of a coffee fan, and I can just imagine how horrible a Little Caesar’s cup of java would be, so I ordered a beer. He went over to a little area next to the cashiers station where apparently they had a keg set up. He brought back an 8 ounce paper Dixie Cup of what I swear had to have been Hamm’s beer. I tipped him the usual $1 chip and got a very polite, “Thank you, sir!” in return. I’m guessing that that was the biggest tip he’d received all week, because the Dixie Cups just kept comin’!

Another reason that I kept going back to LC’s was that I almost always won a few bucks there. The craps game there was something called “Crapless Craps” which I believe he got from Bob Stupak’s Vegas World, which could only mean that it was a total rip-off game. I haven’t studied the statistics of this game, but if it was offered at Vegas World, then it had to have a bigger house percentage than standard craps. The game, as the name implies, has no craps rolls, everything except seven can be a point. Roll snake eyes, and 2 is the point. Roll an eleven, then that’s the point. It was kind of weird to begin with, but you got used to it.

On another night when the craps table was totally full, I decided to try out some $1 blackjack to kill some time until a spot opened up at the craps table. The whole table was losing, but at a buck a hand, it wasn’t too bad. One guy at the table was playing with a stack of $20 bills instead of chips, betting $20 and $40 per hand and losing consistently. After quickly losing his entire stack, he cursed and pulled out two $100 bills, and slapped them in his betting circle. As you can imagine, this kind of action tends to draw the attention of the Pit Boss at a place like LC’s! The very young, non-English speaking break-in dealer nervously glanced over to the supervisor, “Money prays?” and got the nod from the boss. True to form, we were all dealt 15s and 16s, with the dealer showing an Ace. Mr. Big-spender took a hit, busted, cursed and quickly grabbed up his two C notes and started to get up. All hell broke loose! The dealer screamed, “HEY!” the Pit boss clamped his left hand down on the players arm, while pulling out a can of mace with his right hand. The player lamely tried to explain that he wanted to stand, not take a hit, and that the dealer misunderstood him. He looked to the fellow players, “You saw me wave my hand back and forth, right? I wanted to stay!!!” In return, he got four icy stares. The boss increased his grip on the guy’s hand, “Either you put that money back on the table, or you’ll get a face full of pepper spray, and a trip to jail!” It was then that I realized that in addition to not having cocktail waitresses, they also didn’t have any security guards! I also realized that I was probably taking my life into my hands coming into a place like this after dark.

A few years later, I was in town by myself on one of those spur-of-the-moment weekend getaways. I was actually staying 20 miles south of town in Jean, NV. I’d arrived in Jean late Friday night, getting a room at the Gold Strike. Then the next morning I drove into town, deciding to start the day with some quarter craps. I pulled into the strip mall, and there was a white paper placemat scotch taped to the inside of the sliding glass door. With a black Keno crayon, somebody had scrawled “CLOSED”. I can’t say that I was totally surprised, but it was still the end of an era. I stared at the placemat for a few minutes and possibly shed a tear, but at the same time smiling about how fitting the crayon and placemat announcement was for such a place as Little Caesar’s.

In the next intallment... Foxy's Firehouse, midnight steak & eggs, and The Players Club International!