Savings for Tourists in Vegas Your How To Finance Survival Guide and Hacks when Holidaying

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Savings for Tourists in Vegas Your How To Finance Survival Guide and Hacks when Holidaying

Before we headed to Las Vegas to do Poker Pod Radio shows for the WSOP we did a lot of YouTube viewing and article reading on where to go, what to do and how much everything costs. I don’t think that it actually prepared myself and my assistant (and sister) as much as we could have been prepared and what was far worse was the stigma around the cost and the availability of entertainment. It scared us. Most information sources indicated that if you were not a gambler you would get bored very quickly. They also indicated something that sure wont help the city of Las Vegas when it comes to tourists visiting. The following haunting words may or may not be true, in our case the weren’t! “Las Vegas is there to take your money”. We read and heard it over and over.

I have a few friends (to say the least) that frequently visit Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker and some of my closest friends live there. I was so worried about finances to the point I asked one of them if they thought USD$1000.00 personal spending money would be enough for my trip. My friend sharply said that 1k doesn’t last long in Vegas. I gulped! What was I to do? My friend knows me well and he was backing up what all of the information we had read had said to me. On a wing and a prayer, I headed off and cautiously watched every single cent I spent from the minute I left my home in Australia. I expected the holiday from hell with nothing to do, no where to go and no money to eat. I was wrong and I panicked for nothing.

I don't expect everyone to read my article and believe it over the thousands of others out there, or, all of the youtube videos, but if you use it as a base guide and back up what I say with hard evidence (which I will show within the article via links you can click on), I think I can convince you that Vegas is an affordable holiday, an affordable place to frequent and certainly isn’t boring if you choose not to gamble, the very first thing I will start with as a subject when it comes to spending, saving and entertainment. Gambling funds.

Las Vegas is most definitely the gambling city of the world. From the moment you get off your flight and step into the airport you see slot machines all over the place which are a sure fire way to convince you you are going broke in a day. Thank fully there are ways to combat losing your shirt and even was you can gamble half price! As a poker player, you can read in my blog, I don’t gamble. I don’t see poker as a gamble. It is a game with risk like any other sport, there is a gambling element to it. Clearly though, you are doing nothing but gambling on a slot machine! Now, if you are like me and simply don’t have the dollars to be inserting into slot machines, rest assured, you can still gamble and not go bankrupt. Firstly, separate your pockets. Professional gamblers have a left and a right pocket. Draw the line, use common sense and never break the gambling rule, just like the pros. Allocate X$ to your left pocket for gambling and stick to it. Match play bets are going to help when it comes to even doubling your pocket for table games. I mentioned in my last article that you get bonuses by “signing up” to a lot of the casinos. You have a choice of match play bets or drinks as your reward. Choose match play bets, there is a method to my madness. If you choose match play bets you can get free drinks while you sit and play. This means you get both! Free! Remember when you get your match play tickets that they expire, mostly within three days. Be sure to use them in time. Use these for table games such as black jack.

Remember that you can still sportsbet from your online apps (if you plan to bet on football or basketball etc) like you would in your country of origin and the cost will be less as you are not currency converting. Use the free wifi to place your sports bets on your mobile device if you plan on kicking back in a sports bar and watching your bets unroll on TV. Prior to leaving for Las Vegas, take advantage of the many sports betting companies too. They almost all have sign up offers. $50 worth of bonus bets with your first deposit, is an example. Sign up to them all and get ready to load the account to use if you want to. Let me tell you that nothing beats the atmosphere of watching the Basketball Championships as you walk through Vegas (as an example) and betting on it makes it all the more fun, no doubt! I took many pics of the sportsbar TVs, it really is a fab place to watch such things. Not one place you go wont have big screens, you don't even have to sit!

Back to the drink thing! As mentioned, when gambling, waitresses will bring you drinks. You need to of course tip them and the more you tip the more likely they are to bring you drinks often. Do not go to bars and pay $8 (or more) for spirits (well drinks as they are called in the USA), sit at a table or machine and wait for the waitress. I took an even cheaper approach and had pre going out drinks in my motel room. It was much cheaper and a tonne of fun. I took things a little further by taking my liquor pre-mixed with soft-drink when I went walking about the strip only to place it in my handbag when entering casinos etc. Bottles of straight liquor are around $14-$18USD. Buy a voss water and there you have your own portable drinks on tap in a sturdy class drink bottle! Take a large bag or backpack with you. When it comes to pool side drinks always get the refillable containers they have for sale. The first drink is up to $24 and re-fills are only $12. Plus, you get to keep the souvenir and use the cup later.

When it comes to food & eating I would suggest the two for one buffet coupons or discounts you can get via the booklets mentioned in my last article which you can find through the Las Vegas Advisor (rewards list in link) or the MyVegas app (some rewards in link). Sure, we all want to try things that are only available in the USA such as In and Out but you certainly wont be wanting to eat these foods all day every day. The Las Vegas buffets are the bomb! They are fabulous! You get free drinks with all meals and many provide you with free wine or beer also. Did I mention the refills are free? 

Drink to your little hearts desire when you visit! What can be a beautiful lunch of crab legs and prawns can soon turn into the start of your booze binge – sit as long as you like and re-fill those beers for free guys! Take your time with deserts and meals. Chill! The food is mostly A grade. I only had one issue with one buffet the entire time I was there and that was merely my eggs cooked wrong. The cost is around $12 for lunch and dinner and all the drinks in the world if you plan ahead by getting the coupons. McDonalds in the USA is overpriced in comparison to Australia (I am not sure about other countries) so avoid it like the plague! Another great thing we did was venture to Walmart and grab groceries. We filled our bar fridge with them and had cold meat and salads, bread and fruits, juices and milks to consume at any time. It saved us a small fortune! When ordering pizza in the USA do NOT order a large or extra large. You will be sorry, it will feed you for a week. Be sure to check the pizza sizes out. Some are as big as SUV wheels but at only $30 for a pizza the size of a tyre, you sure get your monies worth there too!

When it comes to attractions or sights to see there are a multitude for free and others very cheap. Just to name a few there is the Bellagio Fountain, the Volcano that erupts, light shows and freak shows through Freemont street (old Vegas), beautiful malls / shopping complexes filled with fountains and many, many free things to view in casinos such as the beautiful flower arrangements at Wynn which includes a horse carousel that spins. It will take around four afternoons and nights to see every building and sight so do not think that you are going to be spending money every day for entertainment if you run out of left pocket money or decide to not gamble at all. Things such as helicopter rides over the city or museum entries and rides can be FREE FREE FREE by using MyVegas rewards and others are discounted heavily. Remember using MyVegas rewards you are limited to three in each 30 day period. Again, the voucher books from the Las Vegas Advisor are unlimited usage, you use them till the booklet is empty. This includes concerts, shows and fun packed things such as CSI Investigation, though I would reserve that for children now, though there are many more, of course.

Now, I could go on and on and on about this budget style Vegas Holidaying, I will stop for now though and after I have visited a second time, I will add more. I simply wanted to put it out there that not everyone is going to go broke in Vegas. With that said, who knows what my next Vegas venture will bring!