Warming Up For Vegas

A gorgeous new casino opened in Louisiana this week. It's the largest riverboat casino in the United States. The L'Auberge du Lac is a Vegas style resort plunked down in Lake Charles. The casino was built by Pinnacle Entertainment, which has casinos in Nevada (not Vegas), Mississippi, Louisiana and Argentina. And pending approval from the Missouri gaming commission, there will be two Pinnacle casinos in St. Louis.

This was opening weekend, and, predictably, the place was packed. I decided to take the 1 1/2 hour drive to see what all the fuss was about. Besides, it gave me another opportunity to see the lovely Lindsay!! How could I pass that up! (Lindsay is the PR rep who helped made the introduction that made our Aladdin tourney possible.)

While visiting with Lindsay, I got a chance to meet Dan Lee, the CEO of Pinnacle Entertainment. My first question for him, "Why no poker room!?!?!" Apparently, Louisiana has a law about no more than 30,000 square feet of gaming, and Lee had to choose between slots and a poker room. Slots won. What a shame.

Without a poker room, that meant finding the nearest Craps table. I plunked down $200 at the $10 table. 20x the bet is about the minimum I like to start with when playing Craps, but there were no $5 tables at the time. It was a little slow-going because a few of the dealers were learning. I suppose that would have upset me, had I been losing.

I bet wrong, as I always do, and it was up and down. Unfortunately, I missed on four different 4's and 10's, each with 5x odds on the table (you could play up to 100x odds). That meant a swing of $95 for each hit. That's $380 I'd love to have!

Instead, my strategy had me up a little over $100 when it was time to go. It was just two hours of play, but that's all I was looking for last night. On may out, I threw my extra $20 on the table and bet the hardways for the dealers. They hit the hard 4 and the hard 6. Damn, I think I'd perfer that $90 to any karma that might come my way!

I'm not sure how often I'll go back to L'auberge. It is the closest thing to a Vegas-style casino you'll find around Lafayette, but if I'm driving a couple hours to gamble, I need a poker room.

| Other Gambling