Think you know Las Vegas? Think again. There's so much more to this city than gambling tables and star-studded concerts. And no matter how many times you've been, there's a hidden Vegas that the residents keep to themselves.
10 of the best Las Vegas casino secrets
Don't go up against the locals
If you sit down to play poker and the dealer greets everybody at the table by name, leave. These players are locals. They play every day. They make their living off chumps like you. So ask the floor supervisor for a table change. Or rack up your chips and head to a different poker room. You want a game in which you're playing against other tourists. Drunk ones, ideally. Use the time change to your advantage: head to the poker room at 3am, when the clubs are clearing out. Try the Venetian. Its poker room is right below megaclub TAO. All those drunk, sexually frustrated guys pouring down the two-storey escalator? They're coming to play poker against you. You can beat 'em. You got this.
Drink for a buck at the Wynn
Vegas casinos serve free booze to all gamblers. You don't have to sit down at a $100 blackjack table; they'll bring you cocktails at the penny slots. So, if you're planning to get plastered, do it before you hit the clubs. It'll save you $75 a night. You'll find the best complimentary casino drinks at the Wynn, as it offers gamblers free mojitos and brand name tequila. Just remember to tip your waitress a dollar a drink. Oh, while you're here, stop by the Koi Pond. (A Koi is like a big, sensitive, fanged goldfish, and a koi pond is the aquatic equivalent of a rock garden.) It's the most relaxing room in the Strip, but nobody knows about it – not even the locals.
Lose your money in style
The Cosmopolitan is the newest and swankiest hotel on the Strip. It's the one that looks like the Wynn, if the Wynn were bedazzled by Liberace. As long as you're gambling away your hard-earned cash, you might as well do it alongside the pretty and the powerful. Oh, and if you're gambling at the Cosmo on a Friday, Saturday or Monday night, do it at a table below the elevator that leads up to Marquee, the hottest club on the strip; this is the best people-watching spot in Vegas.
Make new friends at the Circle Bar
Every casino has a Circle Bar. Usually right in the middle. This place, not the club, is where you want to make new friends. Couple of reasons: you don't have to pay a cover, and the turnover rate is high. So if you're being pestered by a drunk weirdo – this will happen – he'll be out of your way soon. The only casino-goers who never visit Circle Bars are locals. And you can't befriend locals. They come to the strip for business; they seem like they're on the strip to have fun, but that's part of their business. Best casino Circle Bars: Hard Rock's Center Bar, Mandalay's Eyecandy, and Venetian's Oculus.
Bet the Pass Line
If you want to gamble but don't know anything about gambling, play craps. More specifically, play craps and bet the PASS LINE. It's easy: you put your money on the table and somebody rolls the dice. If everybody starts cheering, you've won. If everybody gets quiet, you've lost. It's the closest thing to a 50/50 bet you're going to find (except for the DON'T PASS LINE. But if you play that, it'll piss the other players off). Head to O'Sheas, where the low-stakes craps tables practically pour out onto the strip, and where, if you crap out, you can take your final $20 and play beer pong against a team of just-turned-21 frat guys from Ohio State. Tell them you went to college at the University of Michigan – see what happens!
Act like a high roller (without rolling high)
Casinos give free stuff to high rollers – that's no secret. But it's hard for casinos to track exactly how much a player gambles. So they estimate. One good way to make a casino think you're planning to gamble away a fortune is to take out a huge marker. If you plan to lose $500, consider taking out a $5,000 marker. That'll get the casino host's attention. And who knows, you might get offered a free room, a free meal, and free show tickets; or at worst, you'll feel like a big shot. A blackjack player who visits Vegas all the time recently told me that Mandalay Bay has been generous with room comps the past couple months.
Stretch your betting buck at the Sportsbook
Try as we might, we Americans just can't match our European counterparts when it comes to sports hooliganism. But what we lack in aggressiveness we make up for in financial recklessness. For us, betting on sport is like driving 10 miles over the speed limit. It's illegal, but everybody and their grandmother does it. In Vegas, though, sport betting is not illegal. The MGM Grand doesn't have the newest or the fanciest sports book on the strip, but it's consistently the most energetic. And isn't that what's most important? So if you go, go prepared to cheer. Even if you don't know which side to cheer for. Pick one.
Gamble like a local
All the big casinos have their own boutiques.