10 Tips for Visiting Las Vegas With "Las Vegas Advisor" Publisher Anthony Curtis

this video was shot at the gamblers general store in Las Vegas it's the world's largest gambling superstore and they carry a complete selection of poker chips books gambling equipment and much more be sure to stop by when you're in Las Vegas or visit their website at gamblers general store calm I'm here in Las Vegas at the gamblers general store and today we're sitting with Anthony Curtis who is the publisher of the Las Vegas advisor newsletter and I've known Anthony about 20 years I think so and I know you're originally from your publication Las Vegas advisor but also you are have a publishing house hunting to impress right where you publish a gambling book can you tell us a little bit about that and how you got started in it sure well Las Vegas advisor is actually just one of our products we're a full-service publishing house under the name Huntington Press which I got everybody goes what does Huntington Press have to do with Las Vegas are gambling at all and what it has to do with it is that I was on the beach in California Huntington Beach and I said I got a blow this pop stand and go to Vegas and that's what I did I came to Vegas from Huntington Beach so when I started the publishing house I had to have a name and I said where did I get this idea and I hands Huntington press but Huntington press is a full-service publisher of the the newsletter and many books mostly on gambling in Las Vegas but also on the mob some things on you know some fiction we've probably got about a hundred to 125 different products that we've published over the years I never really knew your background and I never asked you your background about gambling because you were interested in gambling it's my understanding you were a professional gambler at one time can you give us a little background on sure what you did and how successful you were at it well that's that's what I came here to do you know I came to Vegas to play I had I was going to college and I was reading books more books on blackjack than I was reading on biology and I was a wrestler in high school in college and I went to various colleges on wrestling scholarships and I went originally to Duke and then to UCLA and as you can see I was getting closer and closer to Vegas so when I turned 21 I did even finish college and I came out to Vegas specifically to play and I did I played for about maybe a decade and a half full time professionally and I played with the blackjack teams like you see on the movie 21 or the book bringing down the house and I knew all those guys from the movie and we played with them and against them and our team and we were quite successful and did very well I got to the point where we did so well that we began to get too well-known and it got to the point where I really couldn't play easily and that's when I swim you know flip the switz in with the publishing but now you still have an interest in gambling I know what may not be blackjack because I think just a couple months ago you want a big sports tournament yeah and I think I've read in the past you won some crap was a crap tournament or a keno tournament or well one just just about every kind of tournament there is because that's that's what my group did we did a lot of tournament play and tournaments are different you know for instance you can't beat a game of craps and you can't beat a game of keno you know the odds are stacked against you but you can beat a crap tournament or you can beat a keno tournament so I've won I've played tournaments in all different in all different games and won in most of them at some point in my career yeah recently I won a I didn't win I took second I was a second place in one of the big football contests here at the Golden Nugget lost in the finals got outplayed so you still keep an interesting gambling I play the things that I'm allowed to play I mean you know because of when I did play and got known I pretty much got 86 from being able to play table games I haven't been kicked out of casinos they let me go in but I'm just not I'm not welcome at the at table games or blackjack specifically so I do the things that they let me to do which is quite a allow me to do which is quite a bit of sports betting some video poker things like things along those lines okay and when did you start the Las Vegas advisor newsletter now for anyone not familiar with it it's a monthly newsletter that comes out and people subscribe to it they can do it online or they can get an actual physical copy of it and maybe you can explain how it started and what sure well the whole idea behind the Las Vegas advisor was when I got out here which was in 1979 you know this is ten years before Las Vegas became the Las Vegas we know today you know which which happened with the opening of the Mirage in 89 so in 1979 I got here and I didn't have much money you know I was just 21 years old and I had to find a way to live you know cheaply and I discovered that I could leave live very well and cheaply out here because of all the values and the bargains and the deals so way back in the early 80s I began thinking it would be really cool I wish I'd have known about these things before I came out and I thought what the heck I'll start my own newsletter someday and I began fiddling around with this newsletter Las Vegas advisor I called it and this is long before desktop publishing you know that didn't exist and I had to do it on mimeograph sand also I was still playing professionally that's where I was making my money but I was goofing around with this idea of the newsletter and so it's actually been going on since since the mid 80s and when you no way shape or form now it's very well-known and you're an expert on Las Vegas you've been quoted in USA Today I've seen you in Trout Travel Channel specials Discovery Channel spending channel Discovery Channel yeah so what we want to do now was get your best advice for people who are traveling to Las Vegas and if you got maybe 10 tips you could give us for a lot of people and your publication goes I know how to get the most value for your money probably one morning yeah well there's there certainly you know when you gamble there are different levels of gambling expertise and the starting level you know you everybody starts off as a beginner or you'd call them we call them squares right they don't know what they're doing and you go all the way up to expert level but where you begin to get good is when you learn what's called basic strategies so these tips that we're going to talk about are going to be pretty much basic strategy these are going to be things that most people can do very easily without too much effort and probably you know save money enhance their experience that sort of things so you want to ask me some questions and I'll give you some answers ah well let's go with is Las Vegas still a bargain or have the high prices everywhere taking the value out of it okay that's a good one that's a good start you know everybody thinks that Las Vegas has changed so much you know I wish I you know I hear this so many times I wish for the good old days I wish for the days of the mob you know I wish for the days when when there were no resort fees you know I wish for their you know on hotel rooms I wish for these these glory days the reality is certainly prices have gone up because Las Vegas has changed its its its stance it's not just all about gambling anymore it's about celebrity chefs and it's about staying in Suites and it's about going to nightclubs and buying $2,000 bottles of booze well in my in my book a $2,000 bottle of anything isn't isn't a bargain it isn't a value but what people don't realize or you know they may not think about is that they're these are just a few places on the strip places on the strip you know the big joints they're going to to be expensive and it's going to be like going on vacation at any other big city but there are so many casinos in Las Vegas maybe between 80 and 90 of them altogether and these values still exist these bargains are still out there the you know the dollar fifty shrimp cocktails and in the $3.00 breakfast and the the six and seven dollar buffets the free the free spectacles the shows on the strip or downtown at the Fremont Street Experience these things still exist so knowing where they are you know that's where things like the Las Vegas adviser come in or you know even the american casino guide your book you tell people about where these things still exist in a town like las vegas so the answer that question is yes absolutely it's still in my opinion is still bargain city it's still the best place cheapest place in the world to have a good time but but reflecting on this just do you think it's just the young people that are buying these accessory i'm saying but as the younger people that are going to the clubs and buying the bottles it's mostly yes mostly i mean you know this is what all of these this clubbing and everything else this is sort of aimed at at new money this is aimed at the young kids but that doesn't mean they're all young kids you know I've been to some of these I've been to some of the clubs and it's an interesting kind of mix you know it's not just all 20 20 some year-olds you've got 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s in there you know anybody who's got money who can pay that you know that tariff is going to be in there and you're going to take they're gonna take it from wherever they can get it from all right well let's go on to where are the best places to find value okay so that's just sort of segues from what we were just talking about essentially you usually want to go off the strip that's what's kind of weird when people go WOW Vegas is expensive because they read a magazine or they see something on TV or they see a you know a TV show or something been shot or even a movie they just shot the one of the Bourne series a Bourne Identity five or whatever the heck it's going to be called with Matt Damon well everything's being shot on the strip so that's what they're used to seeing and that's what they come to and that's what they book with their travel agent or through Expedia or whatever they do you know when they're putting their trip together the value is not necessarily on the strip the value is in places like downtown Las Vegas places that we call the outlier so they're known around town in Vegas as the locals casinos station casinos Coast casinos boid casinos Arizona Charlie's this sort of thing and the place is out on Boulder Highway if you can move out you know that's what I always tell people try to be mobile when you come to Vegas even if you're staying on the strip you'd like to be mobile you'd like to have a car maybe rent a car or drive here so you can get to the places downtown or around the strip not necessarily on the strip all right now when I come years ago I used to go to the strip properties but since then I've learned a little more about it and I concentrate my play and usually an off strip but all always an off strip casino so when I come they'll cut my room for me so and then I'm not I don't have to pay those resort fees which brings me to question number three what's the deal with resort fees and now I understand MGM Resorts is going to introduce paying for parking that's nothing new to the strip well you know what we've been talking about so far is the changing of certain areas in Vegas and mostly the strip a more upscale type of situation where they've built these huge casinos and they spent lots of money bringing in these chefs and you know building these giant shows Cirque du Soleil and whatever you know the recession is not that far removed from where we are now and when they spent all this money and leveraged themselves they got into they got into debt and they all have debts a large debt load and they're trying to make more money and another thing that the recession did is it caused room rates to be depressed because people didn't want to come and spend money anymore so one way that Vegas was able to lure them was with low low room rates they did that by working with groups that are called OTAs that stands for online travel agency that's like an Expedia or a Travelocity or something like that most people when they booked their rooms in Vegas now go through an organization and entity like that who take large percentages of the amount that people pay for rooms so here's where the they didn't want to raise room rates but they wanted to make more money because they were losing too much to the OTAs and here's where the resort fees came in if they put a resort fee on top of a room charge that does not have to be split with the OTAs and it was like holy mackerel you know a bonanza of money coming in and effectively a resort fee is a raising of a room price but if they raising it in a different way so they don't have to split it that's what resort fees are all about what the customer needs to do and a customer hates resort fees you know I mean anybody who's ever paid a resort fee says you know you lousy whatever and so and so's you know you said this room was $40 and it's $15 on top of that so it's really 55 and that's the lousy way to do business well it's people don't like it but you have to look at the entire price if you're getting a 55 dollar room what would you pay for that room somewhere else what would you pay for that room in LA or what would you pay for it in San Francisco or New York or you know who knows Detroit for that matter you look at it all in one package it's still a pretty good value for a room the room rates all together with resort fees are still pretty low but people just don't like the way they're stacked so the custom customer needs to put those things together look at the raid all in one say is that a good rate or not and not think of it and get angry by the fact that they've tax something on in terms of parking yeah just a couple weeks ago MGM Resorts International which has places like the Mirage and MGM Grand and so forth said they're going to start charging for parking everywhere and that includes people that come there to gamble cup people that come there to eat people to come to see a show even people they're staying overnight they're going to charge them somewhere in the area of ten bucks a night so all of a sudden you've got a room rate a resort fee and ten but you know for parking so you got to put all that together it's you know will people stand for paid parking around here I don't know it's always been free in Vegas so we'll be interesting to see but resort fees are probably here to stay but now on this resort fee if you are a member of a Players Club and you gambling that casino do they always charge you that resort fee even though if you're making a comp reservation through the Players Club sometimes we do sprite yeah sometimes they do and sometimes they don't it's really you know comps obviously comps and things that you get back to the players card is an important strategy when you come to Vegas you know something I'm glad you brought that up because you always want to if you're going to gamble at all or even if you aren't you want to get a player's card that used to call my cards they know calling players cards you want to use it and show it whenever you're doing anything in the casino because that's your best route to getting discounts now if you're a gambler who plays to a certain level then you're going to get certain complimentary Zoar comps as we call them and all the casinos treat them differently some will waive a resort for you with the with the comp some will give you a compliment our resort fee anyway some will charge you tax on top of that some will waive the tax it all depends on the policy all right now what would you say is the best time of year to visit I guess that offers I mean in the summer is going to be extremely hot or is is there one time of year where the prices are the best yeah there's two times there's two times a year that are good to visit Vegas reasons being as the prices are going to be the lowest especially room rates room rates are going to be very low at two different times one is July July is the hottest time of you know July and August are the top hottest times in Vegas and people don't want to come to Vegas because it's too hot unless they're absolutely going to lizard it out by the pool you know then they like good the hotter the better but most people don't want to do that they want to wait until the weather is a little more tepid so July is a very good time when you're going to find low rates and special deals coming from the casinos but the best of all without question is December December is a time when everybody's getting ready for the new year they're getting ready for the holidays or they're spending money in other places are getting ready for Christmas that's what we see room rates go low low low the lowest ever for any point of the year we've done this in the Las Vegas Adviser we've done room rate surveys for years and it's never failed to materialise that this is the cheapest time of year to come in especially after the first week and a half of December when the National Finals Rodeo is left town so I say anywhere from about the 12th of December through the 24th right through Christmas Eve is the absolute golden time the bargain time in Vegas all right let's take the the opposite one say the most expensive time which I would guess is New Year's Eve in Super Bowl oh yeah absolutely yeah you know any time that there's a three or four-day holiday in Vegas you want to avoid that the biggest the biggest times of course New Year's Eve probably number one Superbowl probably number two another one could be a March Madness you know when people come from Thursday through Sunday and then the other thing you want to avoid is you want to if you can get on to a website that will tell you when there's big conventions in town my website Las Vegas advisor com we always have a convention calendar so people can check it so you want to avoid things like CES you know when the town is just sold out and all the rumors get jacked up and ratcheted up that way magic you know which is the the clothing thing I think but you want to avoid those big conventions is a no-no all right and what general advice you have for beginning gamblers ok gambling our area of expertise I like to do cheap trim cocktails and big hotdogs for two bucks but gambling is the thing that I came here to do and that's where I spend most of my time and attention and customers are always asking or people or friends are always asking you know how can I win you know that's that's the question they always ask us how can I win well the reality is there's two ways to win one is to get lucky you know and just play away and get lucky and there's no way to make that happen two is to get skilled and that requires work now the problem with that is that most people don't want what they don't want to work they want what I call a magic pill they would like me to tell them how they could walk up take this magic pill not work hard and win at gambling what wouldn't that be nice you know that would be terrific and then there would be no casinos and magic pills wouldn't be valuable because they're no place to win money from so I mean the casinos are here obviously to to win the money there are there are certain things that customers do we spoke or I spoke at the beginning about basic strategies which means learning a little bit about the games that you want to play you know that could be getting a strategy card and carrying it around it tells you how to play blackjack better or to play video poker better it could mean actually devoting some time in the months prior to your trip to actually read a book or to actually practice a little bit with certain you know online or tutorial software programs that you can buy anything you can do like that but again most people probably won't even go that far so what I always tell new gamblers is two things one we've already mentioned get a player's card right off the bat whenever you play no matter what you're playing whether it's it's video poker or slots or you're playing on a table game show that card or put that card in the machine because whatever you do you're going to get some small return from doing that to is try to avoid faster games all right you have to work under the assumption and the premise that you are playing at a disadvantage to the casino hence you want to get put your money out less off and you want less exposure to that casino edge so you want to play games that are slower not faster and that typically means play table games learn to play table games where the pace is slow as opposed to slots or video poker with the pace is very very fast in gambling essentially speed kills so you want to stay away from speedy situations taking that farther and farther out and one of the best wagers Gamble's that a customer that a player a new player can make is a sports bag because you go up and you've got 20 bucks on a game you know let's say you're from Cleveland and you want to put the Browns you know you're from San Francisco and you want about the Niners bet on your team you've got two and a half to three hours of action at allö casino edge of about four and a half percent five percent and your money's going to last longer that way but you know my son does that every year he takes $20 and he bets it on the Dolphins to win the Superbowl now he's got a whole year's worth right well until the Dolphins are out of it right and he's so optimistic every year and then he goes straight down the tubes but it's only $20 and it keeps them happy for a few months exactly you know I mean it's it's all about staying away from the fast games that gobble your money you see people will say oh my goodness you know this penny slot machine is really great I can only play for pennies well that penny machine will take two dollars and fifty cents often you know so if you start letting to get away from yourself all of a sudden you're not betting a penny or five cents you're betting 250 and you're doing it at lightning speed boom boom boom boom boom and before you know there goes your bankroll now one thing at which we put in the american casino guide each year and it is relative to the Las Vegas market especially is the slot machine pay bank percentages because most people are going to play slot machines and if you look at the statistics that are put out each year by the Gaming Commission we put them in the book I also put them on our website american casino guide does no it shows that the slot machine the average slot machine payback percentages on the strip are lower than they are at the off strip casinos or on Boulder Highway North Las Vegas or downtown so that's one suggestion that we make if you want to play slot so don't do it all in the strip go and play and some of these others I would say just about any game I mean when it comes to where you're going to get better odds now you have to understand going in that the difference between better and you know or you know looser or better or whatever is not that great so it is it is true you'll look at these sorts of reports or you'll look at rules that can be quantified so you know exactly which game is better and down excuse me the strip tends to be the worst of it you can do better at other places like downtown or at the at the locals casinos but typically it's not that much difference remember when you're playing a lot you're playing a lot and that's where you know the more you play the more important it is to try to go to a place where the odds are better for you the paybacks are richer or better and you're you're right you can look at payback percentages and know that if you know what you're doing you can look at video poker pay schedules and you can tell that it's definitely better to play downtown than the center of the strip you know you're going to do better at a place like the Four Queens in terms of your your chances then you will at a place like Bellagio that's just that's just the fact so for the person who's going to go and visit Las Vegas what is your best advice or how they can save money on show okay four shows the important thing to understand that bigger shows like Celine Dion Cirque de Soleil that sort of thing the shows are priced they're inflated with price so that they can disk most this console out there everywhere so you shouldn't just jump at the first price you see you should look around you should go online you should look at matters you should look at the lipid codes go to the ticks for tonight booze which are half price moves on the strip anything basically the rule is accepting a bigger size and don't want to pay retail when it comes to the big shows if you want to see something like blue moon or Cirque du Soleil then maybe you will play retail but you should still check around there are still codes we do a lot of this at Las Vegas Advisors calm where we have codes that will get you at least 20 bucks all for 25 bucks off you should always be looking for the discounts on shows another strategy is to look for shows on the low end and buy the low end I mean lower price range comedy clubs are an excellent example of that there are probably a dozen comedy clubs in Vegas and these are top-notch stars guys like Seinfeld started in I think David Brenner four years started in the comedy clubs in Vegas and the new stars are coming up now they're really good you can get them all sorts from almost family-friendly to very very dirty and then they'll tell you you know this is x-rated comedy or whatever but the discounts are are readily available for these they're easy to get to you can also you can go to the free lounge shows a lot of people think that the lounge shows are dead in Vegas not true the lounges are going strong everywhere they're on the strip they're downtown you don't usually have to pay for that there's often not even a drink minimum when you go to a lounge show or finally just the free attractions you know go downtown and see the Fremont Street Experience or you know go over to Bellagio and watch the fountains or go into Bellagio and look at the conservatory or the big you know dripping chocolate that they got in there a lot of these places have things that are put there to attract the tourists and they're they're fun to see especially if you've got kids the kids love those free attractions you know they're cool and again for some of these and mid-level shows in Las Vegas there's a lot of two-for-one coupons and your member rewards ya the Las Vegas advisor you know we we have a lot of discounts both on our website with codes and for members of the Las Vegas adviser for subscribers with something we called member rewards lots of discounts on shelves and I know that your book as well northern casino guide has two four ones on shelves people should be looking everywhere anything not to pay retail all right now let's move over to dining how can people save money on dining in Las Vegas dining is similar dying dining is similar to shows you know look for coupons look for discounts but a great and look and look for the loss leaders in dining in casinos a lot of casinos use dining as a loss leader so that's what we're talking about the chief you know the chief breakfast the cheaper phase the the big hot dogs for three dollars a dollar fifty shrimp cocktails you know there's there's still $0.99 shrimp cocktails around you know there's one right now it's lanai Express at the Fremont so these things are always going to be there the other thing that Vegas has that people overlook all the time are tons and tons of happy hours and that's not just in the restaurants around town of the bars around town it's in the casino restaurants themselves almost every one of them has some kind of a happy hour so scope it out you know check your hotel see take a look at the restaurants in there see when they're happy hours run and take advantage of it oh and one other thing let me ask you about this the Players Club car it's a lot of times the the will go discounts by presenting your players club card even if you don't play you just have the card exactly that's why you know going back to a previous advice you always want to have a player's card and you always want to show it whatever you do there are the phase in town that you can get up to five dollars off on a buffet just by showing the card most places it's two to three dollars some places only one doll or some place that they'll say hey thanks thanks for showing get anything out for that you know but you always want to try it because the discounts can be substantial though alright and one last question I know we touched on this before but let's go back to the rooms how can people save money on rooms in Las Vegas well saving money on rooms has a lot to do with as we discussed when you come yeah so it's time of year time of year has a lot to do with it the other thing you can do with hotels I mean obviously consumer is is paramount you know you want to look around you want to look and compare you want to go to different websites and see once you start looking around you'll find that there are codes for there are discount codes for rooms and some of these they're different in different places but if you find the right ones you can find some tremendous values this is something you started doing at Las Vegas advisor calm about five years ago and I didn't realize how pervasive it is and how many of these discounts are out there and they're there to be had you've got to look around he is another situation where you just don't take the first thing that comes your way you look through the codes in the discounts and you're going to get you're going to get or potentially packages look for packages with bundle together like maybe you're coming out with Southwest Airlines or Allegiance or something like that take a look at their learning package these all-inclusive things check your you know check your local newspapers they're one of the best ones in LA they have lots of biggest deals that run in the newspapers so you just want to look at as many sources as you can it all comes down to planning ahead and spending the time to be a consumer alright great thank you very much for the tips and if people want to get more information on some of the gambling books you publish or your monthly newsletter Las Vegas advisor where would they do that well everybody does the internet these days so I mean you know obviously you want to go on the net Las Vegas advisor calm pretty much once you get to the homepage it's going to lead you all those things we've got Las Vegas let's top 10 values there we've got information about the coupons that we have we have information about the codes that we have and trust me we try to be the best in all these areas so if you want to go to just one stop that's probably as good as any to go to all right Anthony Curtis publisher of the Las Vegas advisor thank you very much for spending time with us thanks Steve my pleasure don't forget that you can see more of our educational gaming videos on our youtube channel just go to youtube.com slash american casino guide you

Channel: americancasinoguide

Views: 115,203

Rating: 4.7223973 out of 5

Keywords: steve bourie, casino gambling, casinos, how to gamble, las vegas, las vegas travel, save money, travel tips, Vegas, vegas travel, Las Vegas, las vegas adivsor, anthony curtis, save money in las vegas, las vegas coupons

Id: 0TXmcSzMc0A

Length: 28min 21sec (1701 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 10 2016