As the NFL season fast approaches, the casinos are advertising their various football contest promotions. Some are free. Some are small stakes like $25 per entry. Some are higher stakes such as $1,000 or higher buy ins. Some focus on college football, but most of them are for the NFL.

Which contests are worth playing? For some people many of them are suitable. For me, just about none of them.

The Station casinos $1.4 million Great Giveaway contest is a small-money contest that charges $25 per entry (or $50 for 3 entries) and gives away prizes for weekly winners along with overall season most wins, most losses, and even closest to 50-50. At the end of the contest, if you won no prizes at all, you get your buy in returned to you in the form of free slot play.

The Station contest has to be a positive expectation return. I suppose it's possible you could win a share of a weekly prize that's less than you paid to enter but that would be unlikely I would think.

So it's a free shot at making a few bucks and it gives you a chance to root for some teams throughout the season and have some fun. So what's the catch?

The catch for me is that these contests are a royal pain in the ass.

If it were only one entry, I might like it because I could make what I felt were my best selections for each week and if it wins great. If not, that's OK.

The fact that I have to fill out 3 entries drives me bonkers. After a couple weeks it begins to get really old, really fast. I start making patterns with my dots or I just go ABBAABBAABBA, AABBAABBAABB, and AAAABBBBAAAABBBB and the like.

Some places like the Palms have 6 entries. 6 entries! You have enough entries to do zig zag starting from right to left, zig zag starting from left to right, all home teams, all away teams, all favorites, etc.

I believe that the Coast casinos have a totally free contest this year. Obviously that is an overlay since you're paying nothing to play but I won't be participating.

I would rather have someone drop golf balls on my head for 4 months than I would like to participate in one of those contests for 4 months.

The bigger money contests are more enticing to me, but I probably won't be in any. For one thing, I may be traveling a couple times this fall and not be available. Most of the larger contests do allow you to have a proxy to submit picks for you but I don't know if I want to go to the trouble.

The most prestigious contest is the Hilton's Superconcept which costs $1,500 for the season and you make 5 selections against the spread each week. I stopped by there 2 days ago to inquire about the contest and potentially sign up.

I found out that I could have a proxy to submit picks for me and so that sounded good. Then I tried to hit them up for a race & sports parking pass and they said they couldn't give me one just for joining the contest. I decided not to sign up.

I guess you can call me a lot of things for that, but I try to get extra value out of things that I do and for me, I had decided beforehand that if they gave me a parking pass, I'd play in the contest and if not, I wouldn't.

I don't know how many of you have tried the parking behind the Hilton which has immediate access to the sports and race book but it's very convenient and a nice perk. Prior to Jay Kornegay running the Hilton book (and he is an excellent operator, perhaps the best in town) they had a few parking spots designated for sports and race bettors. When Jay came in he at least doubled and perhaps tripled the number of reserved spots. If you don't have a sticker, it can be really hard to park out there. The other option is the garage which is so distant that it makes the Planet Hollywood garage look like it's attached to the casino.

Anyway, I don't fault them for telling me no, but I just figured if I was going to be there every week for 17 weeks, I didn't want to have trouble parking.

Sorry to get sidetracked on that...

I'd say, if you're not really into gambling and you can get a free shot (or inexpensive shot) at some money and a little bit of a rooting interest each week then the low-roller contests could be good for you. For me, I think I'd have to be institutionalized if I played them one more year.

If you're interested in the higher stakes contests, I'd say that they can be worth it, but you don't need me to tell you that. If you're ready to pay $1,000 or more to play a contest then you likely already have an idea what you're getting yourself into.

One side note for sports book operators!

I read on an online forum how the loss of the betting hold of people who are trying to make legitimate bets having to wait behind people playing these free and cheap contests may very well be higher than the ancillary money they make off the gamblers in the contests.

In other words, someone wants to bet his 3-team parlay but he's got to wait in line behind 3 people playing a cheap contest all who have 6 tickets to process.

It's a casino's job to know the numbers as to where they make their money and I'd assume that they think they make more by running these loss leaders, but I have to wonder. If you turn away enough legitimate bettors then you really could start hurting your bottom line.

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The Hard Rock Poker Lounge is now rockin'. I've stopped by a couple times now but have yet to sit in a game. I'll try one out soon enough.

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, it looks like they'll have some innovative features such as text messaging you when your seat becomes open and some rules differentiations such as allowing you to straddle on the button. They also have a private room with a slightly elongated table for bachelor or divorce parties. I hear they will also allow poker leagues similar to a bowling league where you and several people from your office can have a poker team and compete against other teams

Don't hold me to this, but I believe the comp rate is $1.50 an hour on the raked games and $2 an hour on the time collection games. This would be equal to or greater than any other place in town that I know. Supposedly you can even use your comps for concert tickets or cabanas at the pool, but it'd seem to me that it would take a LONG time to earn those. Maybe they plan on giving those types of things out in drawings or some other random selection-type promotion.

Here are a few pics so you have an idea what the room and the tables look like.

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A number of people sent me their answers by email. No one appears to have used the comments to reply which is what I had hoped for. Ah well... anyway, I wanted to follow up and not leave all of you hanging. I'll repeat the question and then give the answer.

The question:

There's an actuary and a lifetime professional expert gambler who are presented with a coin by a third person.

The third person says, "This is a fair coin with an equal chance of either heads or tails being face up after I flip it. The last 29 times I flipped this coin it landed on heads."

After that, the third person then asks each person what he says the probability of the next flip is going to be another heads.

What do you think is the answer, and do you think both the actuary and the gambler would agree with you? Why or why not?

.....

Here's the answer as we discussed it in our gambler's meeting.

The actuary would say that the past trials have no bearing at all on future results and say that the chance of a heads on the next flip is still 50/50.

The gambler would say that the chance of a perfectly fair coin landing heads 29 out of 29 times is so astronomically low, that he would conclude that the coin isn't fair and that heads is more likely than tails. In other words, he would question the premise of the coin being fair in the first place.

Many of you had close to the right answer, but I wouldn't say that anyone had it exactly right. Many of you thought the gambler would think that the heads was some kind of streak which meant it would be more likely to be heads again or that tails would be "due."

A professional gambler doesn't see a streak as affecting the mathematical odds of a particular result going forward. A streak might lead a gambler to question what he sees, however.

Is either answer correct? I'd say no, but I'd go with the gambler in this one. That's just my gut feel.

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Just a couple notes, it appears that the Excalibur will reopen their room within a day or two with the new electronic tables. I'll make sure to play them and let you know what I think very soon.

Also, this Thursday is the Hard Rock's poker room (they call it a lounge) opening. Tune in Friday or Saturday for my Hard Rock impressions.

Here are a few pictures from the Excalibur yesterday as hey were installing the new tables.

And here's one shot from the NYNY advertising their new night club Rok:

The NYNY hotel always seems to take good pictures. It's very photogenic.

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Just thought this might interest some of you even though it's New York City instead of Vegas. CNN has some recommendations for a NYC visit on a budget. Looks like a decent article:

Big Apple Fun on a Budget.

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Over the weekend we decided to try one of the day excursions via helicopter from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon. I did some searching online and found a "special" (might be their price all the time) for $299 a person which included a trip out, a champagne picnic lunch, and a trip back (that should go without saying, no?). There was also a $40 per person fuel surcharge.

The company we chose was Sundance, not for any particular reason other than the price was in line with what I was looking to spend and it sounded like enough tour for us.

The tour includes being picked up in a limo at your Strip hotel. They won't pick up far from the Strip. We could have driven straight to the Sundance office, but chose to park at the Palazzo to take the limo.

I had thought that it would be a private limo for the two of us along with some champagne. It wasn't. There wasn't even a bottle of water inside and we had to share the limo with 5 other people. Next time, I think I'll just drive to the departure area. If you're a tourist staying in a hotel, this would be convenient but don't expect it to be romantic or glamorous.

When we arrived at the departure area, they weighed us and gave us some safety instructions. Don't you love the "in case of a water landing" speech on an airplane? Imagine getting that speech when going on a helicopter. Yippee.

One of the first views I had from the office was this:

I leaned against the glass and just looked at the helicopters for a bit. I was clearly fascinated and a fit and energetic older man in his uniform said to me, "Ain't they beautiful? I could just look at them all day." He was one of the helicopter pilots and said, "Anything a bird can do, I can do in one of those babies." He exuded confidence which was helpful to ease my tension. In fact, he told us that he'd been flying them for 42 years. This also was reassuring. We'd hoped that he'd be our pilot.

He wasn't our pilot, but we got a great one named Nate. Here's Nate as we're preparing for departure.

Nate was very professional while at the same time being comfortably informal and humorous. When we first got in the heli, he said, "Ok. Let me see if I can figure out what all these buttons and switches do." Thanks a lot Nate. ... although it was pretty funny.

After the doors were latched shut, we were buckled in, and then we left the ground I did immediately think to myself, "Get me off of this thing!" The first 10 minutes I had to calm my nerves a lot. You can say to yourself, "Well there's nothing I can do about it now" or whatever it takes to calm down but it can still be a bit nerve-racking if you're like me and don't like flying, don't like heights, or don't like closed in spaces.

Here's me settled into the cockpit:

After the first 10 minutes or so I relaxed a lot and found it really enjoyable. As we lifted off the ground, I took some pictures of the airport and some planes on the ground:

As we began to fly East, it was really interesting seeing the city from 1,000 feet. Sure, I'd seen it from an airplane before, but a helicopter gives you a much larger field of vision. Seeing the city from that height, with a golf course in one area, and a school in another, and neighborhood after neighborhood, I was reminded of one of those computer games where you build a city.

In the video games you grab a school with your mouse for example, and then move it to an open area on the computer grid map. You then have to provide facilities utilities, police, fire departments and such and then the game plays out your city for you. The city looked like an amalgamation of many different small grids of various purposes. It almost felt like it wasn't real and that you were observing the city below the same as a child would observe the ants inside an ant farm.

As we flew past Lake Mead I realized that Lake Mead is one of big freaking lake. It's a man made lake, I guess the biggest in the world, and it's absolutely enormous. The lake actually has two major sections that are connected by the Narrows. Here's the Narrows as well as a shot from inside the heli.

One of the first major areas that we passed on our way out of town was Lake Las Vegas. Lake Las Vegas is also a man made lake but it looks like a pond compared to Lake Mead. You could also see the casinos and residential areas around Lake Las Vegas. I didn't get any good photos though.

The next major feature on our trip was the Hoover Dam. As we approached we were traveling parallel to the Dam, and then the pilot did a quick hard left and we zoomed right toward it. It was a remarkable sight and a queasy moment for me.

I took several pictures of the Dam but this one is probably the best. One thing you can see is the bridge that they're building for traffic to bypass having to drive over the Dam. That should make road travel between Arizona and Las Vegas a whole lot easier. How they're going to have support in between the sides I don't know.

Here's another shot of Lake Mead. This is the far opposite end from where most Las Vegas residents would go to recreate. The pilot told us the name of this area, but I can't remember. Feel free to post a comment if you know the answer. I just thought it was a really pretty sight. The water was a greenish blue and the land had many colors.

When we flew over one ridge and first saw the Canyon it was jaw-dropping. What a sight. Enormous expanses of depth that had been carved away over hundreds of millions of years by the water of the Colorado River. Every group of rock was a different color and it all looked so darned big.

Here's a couple shots:

When we landed inside the Canyon, we were in a section called the West End. This land is actually Hualapai Indian land which is why we could visit. The tour company pays the Hualapais a fee to have this landing area available. Other sections of the Canyon are owned by the Federal government which does not allow flying in most areas and landing in any area.

Here are couple pics taken from the ground inside the canyon:

While we looked around at the exotic vegetation, and tried not to find any scorpions, rattlesnakes, or tarantulas (we were told they're around sometimes), the pilot set out a picnic lunch for us. It was really basic. It included a ham and cheese wrap, some apple slices, sodas, bottled water, and champagne.

We then sat down to eat. Here's a picture of our picnic in the Canyon.

We were on the ground for about 30 minutes and then back on our way. If you're ever planning on taking this trip, note that there aren't any bathroom facilities here. Fortunately, I didn't need any but I'm not sure what you could do if you really needed one. Make sure to plan ahead.

When we departed we took a slightly different route going home. Also, in the final leg of the trip we fly to downtown Las Vegas briefly before coming back along the Strip on the West side back to the executive airport.

One sight I enjoyed was seeing the large groupings of Joshua trees. These aren't really trees; they're cacti. They look a lot more like trees than your average every day cactus though. I didn't get any great pictures. This one was probably the easiest to see.

I would really enjoy being on the ground to see some of these. There were some areas that had hundreds of them. I don't know if it's possible to hike out there but these would be great to see up close.

We also flew by where the Colorado River dumps into Lake Mead. You can see the change in color from the muddy river to the blue lake.

The river is still carrying sediment from the Canyon. In fact, it's still carving the Canyon deeper.

The last few shots are just a few aerial shots of Downtown and the Strip that I took as we neared the end of our trip.

Downtown Las Vegas and the Fremont Street Canopy

The Strip Looking North to South from Behind the Stratosphere

Trump and Other Vegas Buildings

The Mirage

Project CityCenter

Monte Carlo and New York New York

MGM Grand

The Strip From Just Above the Helicopter Landing Pad

This was a wonderful trip and we both had a great time. The pilot also does a film of inside the cockpit and outside while we're traveling which also includes his narration. It's $65 which I think is a bit high but I'll likely buy it anyway.

We're both big fans of the helicopter trips now and hope to do some more in the future. If you're looking for a way to add to your Vegas vacation, this is an excellent choice.

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All the poker dealers at the Excalibur have been given 2 weeks notice. They're being replaced by computers.

On August 21, the Excalibur is scheduled to open their poker room with 12 electronic PokerPro poker tables which will replace their existing 12 traditional tables. There will be no dealers and the room will be staffed only by 1 or 2 poker "hosts."

I spoke today with Neil who is currently a floor person and is slated to be one of the hosts for the room. He will seat players, move players from table to table during tournaments, assist with purchasing and cashing out, enforce poker room rules regarding behavior, and do other tasks.

Neil had a list of questions for management such as whether the rake would be the same, will they still have a jackpot drop, will they still spin their bonus wheel and other such questions. He didn't know at this time. One potential profitable opportunity for us could be the wheel money in reserve. They may to give it back to the players which they'd likely do in a promotion that could be good.

As far as those questions, he didn't know the answer.

What he did know is that when you play you sign up for an ATM card and then you deposit money in that account. You then swipe your card at the table when you sit down and it registers your balance on the screen. When you're done playing you remove the card and you can cash out your money from the card.

The tables look like this:

Another person I spoke with at the Excalibur implied that this was a test from the MGM/Mirage corporation and not an Excalibur decision. If the tables show themselves to be more profitable than having a fully staffed room then they will start to convert other poker rooms in the corporation to these.

From the casino's perspective this could greatly increase profitability of the poker room. The first savings that comes to mind is the dealer wages (and benefits), but there is also the savings of not having to buy new cards, not having to rent the automatic shuffling machines, not having the admin of chip handling and surveillance, and more. Also, since it's expected games will be played faster, the casino believes each table will generate a greater amount of rake per hour.

For players, I'd say that it's a mixed bag. One benefit is that the games will go faster and that there will be more hands per hour. Another is that dealer tips will be unnecessary.

I do wonder about certain aspects of the game. I wonder if there are 3 deuces on the screen if a player might be more apt to say he folded a deuce since there won't be a dealer sitting at the table moderating. I wonder if people will be more likely to say they folded the ace of hearts when they see 4 hearts on the board. I also wonder if when someone is contemplating a big all in call on the river if there'll be more people urging to caller to call when they should absolutely keep their mouths shut.

I wonder if the bad poker players will be as excited about jumping in a game when they can't riffle chips in their hand and get cards to play with. I think the physical aspect of poker contributes to the enjoyment for some people.

I'll go on record to say I'm skeptical that these tables can be popular... but I've been wrong before and I could be wrong again.

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These aren't beautiful pics by any means, but a couple interesting things I saw a couple nights ago walking the Strip.

This is a picture from between the Venetian and the Casino Royale. Can you identify what's missing from this picture? You'd have to be someone that's made this walk a few times to know. The answer will be under the picture so don't look unless you're ready for it.

If your answer is....

....

Porn slappers... you win.

This particular place seems like the most popular spot for porn slappers that I know of. The way the building creeps up on the Strip it creates very little room to get past the porn slappers. I always dislike walking here because they get so close to you with their ad papers.

Two nights in a row I walked this part of the sidewalk and saw no porn slappers. I wonder if Adelson was able to do something about them or if they just were taking the night off. I did see them at other parts of the Strip that night so I'm not sure. I hope they stay away from here and in places where they're a little easier to avoid.

My second picture is the overpass between Caesars and Bellagio:

This was a really annoying thing because they blocked off all the accesses on the Caesars/Bellagio overpass. They said they were working on the overpass and so no pedestrians were allowed. Also they said it'd be another 10 days (now 8 days) before they'd open it back up.

The way you'd have to go is to take the overpass to Bill's Gambling Hall (formerly the Barbary Coast), then go down to the street level, then walk around to the Bally's overpass, and then over the Bellagio overpass. I don't mind walking but when it's 100 degrees outside and you're not expecting it this is a real pain in the arse.

I opted to walk West on Flamingo and cross at the light to the Bellagio North-side valet. Once I got there, however, I noticed that there is no crosswalk! Sure there's a light but that still didn't make me feel too good crossing that many lanes of traffic with cabs flying around everywhere.

I really don't think they should be able to block off the whole overpass. There should be a way they can work on the overpass without doing that.

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Ruth's Chris, which has two locations in Las Vegas, is running a promotion with a special menu for 2 people for $89. This includes a soup or salad for each person, a main course for each person and a dessert to share. This doesn't include drinks, but it still looks like a pretty good deal. Here's the information:

Ruth's Chris $89 Dinner for Two.

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Sorry for the poor quality of the photos. I only had my phone with me for these.

This is a sign as you walk from the New York New York over to the Excalibur casino prior to getting to the walkways into the Excalibur.

This is a picture of the walkways with the moving walkway in the middle.

Anyone confused?

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