gnoll's Diaryland Diary

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vegas : el cortez

vegas El Cortez

on our way to the strip for the first time our cabbie told us that when he used to gamble he always frequented the "El Cortez" ...though my interest only perked up when he began to describe the calibre of gaming and the clientele. The El Cortez is just south of the "downtown" strip and attracts people with its $2 singledeck blackjack, 10 cent roulette, and 1 cent slots!!! Man, 1 cent slots with a jackpot of 10,000 pennies! must be fun carrying around $10 in pennies.

However, from a savvy drunk perspective the El Cortez is a goldmine. Homeless? No problem, clean yourself off a little and you can drink for free at the El Cortez as long as you have a pocket full of pennies to gamble with. Though i'm sure the waitresses are told to avoid serving the penny and nickel slot areas.

my first visit to the El Cortez lived up to every trashy expectation i had. It was a little on the small side and had low ceilings, and like many of the lesser casinos, had a questionable smell to it. I'm guessing many of the lower end casinos have that smell simply because it's difficult to do any decent cleaning when you're open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, Especially when you're the El Cortez and you cramp every spare foot of space with second rate slot machines. With the dated decor, worn out carpeting and slightly dank smell the El Cortez felt a lot like being in someones basement, and judging by the clientele a basement in Mimico.

I stopped by around 11am and the first guy to take note of me when i walked up to the roulette was already on his 5th or 6th Budweiser. He was pretty friendly though and offered to teach me the "ins and outs". He then started to on about how "five mintutes ago some black dude stole my 1/2 carrat diamond ... he stole it from me faster than i could take a drink from this bottle ... and now they think i'm the bad guy while he goes 'round free as a bird." Supposedly the diamond was a gift from him to his 4th wife, or something along those lines, and the security at the casino thought he was full of shit, as did I. However, he was pretty much the kind of company I had hoped to bump into at this place so I soaked it all in with my nods and smiles.

after 10 or fifteen minutes my new friend decided that he wanted to buy me a drink (despite the fact that they're free), but I accepted graciously, and when our round of drinks arrived the fiasco ensued. He felt very strongly about taking the drinks off of the waitresses tray himself so he could personally hand me mine, and the waitress wasn't going for it, for obvious reasons. She continued to dodge his attempts at grabbing the drinks, which wasn't too difficult because he was good and liquored at this point, though this resulted in him inadvertantly gropping her a fair deal, she didn't like that much. Within a minute or two security came by to sort things out and I wasn't surprised to find out that they knew him on a first name basis. A few minutes later, after he was allowed to cash in his chips, the police showed up to escort him off the premises, of course not before taking down some information from his I.D. which was stored with some other bits of loose paper in a ziplock sandwich baggie which he pulled from his sock!

Up until the arrival of the police I had fully intended on following him outside to get some commentary on video. Filming someone just tossed by the police would have probably been a bad idea.

I ended up staying a while longer, and yes, my roulette system DID pay off there, though at 10cent roulette "pay off" is a relative term. However, $8 will buy you a decent buffet meal, so don't knock it.

23:02:11 - 2000-08-07

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