First casino trip started lifelong hobby

For every casino player, there has to be a first time. But what is it about that first trip to the slots or tables that leads to a second?

I can only speak for myself, though if you care to e-mail your stories to casinoanswerman@casinoanswerman.com, I'd be happy to share them in the coming weeks.

As for my first time, it was a trip to Las Vegas with my wife Marcy in the days before riverboats, barges and Native American casino made blackjack and video poker accessible as a day trip. We bought a package deal, airfare, rental car and room, to stay three nights at Bally's Las Vegas.

Our stay included its misadventures. We missed a show, got lost a time or two, and encountered more than our share of service glitches in the hotel, in casinos and in a restaurant or two.

Yet we went back less than six months later.

Why?

It really came down to one glorious, low-rolling afternoon with the kind of fun you could have only in Las Vegas. Even today, with casinos so widespread, nowhere else matches the kind of low-cost, casino-hopping entertainment we had that day.

Across the street from Bally's, at a little joint called Bourbon Street, we sat down to some quarter video poker. We probably didn't carry more than $100 between us, but I drew a four of a kind, and Marcy had a straight flush. We filled our coin buckets and walked up the Strip with a few dollars more than we had at the start.

Next up was the Barbary Coast, then the Flamingo. I won a few dollars here and lost a few there, and Marcy lost a few there and won a few here - we were holding our own. At the Holiday Casino - now Harrah's Las Vegas - with its riverboat motif, I hit another four of a kind.

Then it was on to the Sands. There, it was Marcy's turn for four of a kind, and we finally decided it was time to get back, freshen up and get something to eat. We took our buckets of quarters to the change booth, and discovered we had a big $60 more than when we started six hours earlier.

"All on quarter poker?" the man at the change booth said. "That's a good afternoon's work."

We weren't expecting to get rich, and we didn't. But we saw new places, new people, and were able to splurge that night at a Japanese steak house with money we hadn't budgeted.

I've had bigger wins and my share of losses since then, gone to bigger, glitzier places, played games, eaten at restaurants and seen sights I couldn't even have imagined on that first trip. But when people ask me what's the most fun I've ever had in the casinos, that stretch of casino-hopping with Marcy is No. 1.

Without that stretch of extended fun on a budget, a return trip to Las Vegas most likely would have been put on the back burner, and you certainly wouldn't be reading this today.

John's Web site is www.casinoanswerman.com. Listen to John's "Beat the Odds" tips Saturdays at 6:20 a.m., 2:50 p.m. and 7:41 p.m. and Sundays at 8:20 a.m., 2:50 p.m. and 10:42 p.m. on WBBM-AM, News Radio 780 in Chicago, streaming online at www.wbbm780.com.