Bank of Shamerica ATM of Shame

I woke up Wednesday morning to a text from Jimmy Poon. It said "sorry :(".

Day 5 - Wednesday Aug 26, 2026

I did about 6 or 7 facepalms before checking the blog. Then I did 6 or 7 more facepalms. 

I sent a screenshot back. And a text. "Your job is to keep me from looking like a fuck-up. I usually don't need help in fucking up. But you've been very helpful. For your punishment, you have to go and get a long dog from Carl at the Dairy and consume it. ALL of it."

I got to the business at hand. I always sleep well at Enwynn. Arise. Portable Bigger El Gustavo in-room coffee. Punishment RX bar breakfast. Blogging. Another hot, exciting morning in the city that never pays out.

My water in Flusherville comes from a well, and in summer, it's always in short supply, forcing me to take Navy showers.

I luxuriated and exfoliated in a 30 minute gushing aquastravaganza de luxe shower. Oh my it was wonderful.

Finally it was time to see if Keno would give me some money. I only took a very small stake downstairs - because I only had a very small stake left.

The cappuccino here at Encore is fantastic. Definitely worth the 50 cent tip to the most beautiful cocktail waitresses in Vegas.

I took my time, sipping my cappuccino and enjoying Keno's repetitive electronic dinging sounds firing white hot boredom straight into my synapses. I knew I was truly alive, one disappointing game after another.

Still no big winner and with my mini-stake used up, I went back to the room to get the car keys and headed out on the drive of shame. Destination: Bank of Shamerica ATM of Shame. The one on Spring Mountain.

It was almost lunchtime, so I navigated my way downtown to Letty's on Main Street. I've wanted to try the birria ($22) there for a while. Well, it did not disappoint.

Everything was tasty, and the braised beef was super tender, happily swimming in a hot bowl of rich sauce. You get a few tortillas if you want to make a taco, but there's way too much beef to consume the whole order that way. Get that fork and spoon busy and dig in.

Gut Fiero has eaten here - but I tried not to hold it against them.

I put a pin in the map in Flusherville - can you spot it?

Totally stuffed, I rolled into my now about to spontaneously combust car and... started driving. And sweating.

To where though?

My thinking on this trip was to focus on enjoying myself and not cutting corners. So many trips I've worked so hard to save a buck here and there, often at the cost of quality of (vacation) life.

And I applied the same devil-may-care approach to my gambling budget. I wanted to play a lot more, and play more higher denom video poker, in hopes of hitting some decent hands and maybe a long-elusive dollar royal.

It's been a long while since I played this heavily and it's great - except when the wins don't come.

I'm now edging into 'uncomfortable' territory so I have to throttle the gambling down and make better choices. Get back to basics and find those wins.

With this calm, submissive hot dog state of mind, I just... drove. The last thing I wanted to do was rush back to the hotel and start pounding the machines again. There's so little to play at Enwynn.

I drove west on Bonneville and onto Alta and imagined what it would be like to live in one of the huge properties behind the intimidating walls. I wondered if I drove past Billy Gibbon's place.

An idea came to me and I punched in a destination on the screen - Durango.

Perfect. And it was only 8 hours away. The instructions came: "Fill up the car with gas immediately, and get the hell to California."

I punched in another destination on the screen - Durango casino.

The instructions came: "Fill up your wallet at the ATM and head south."

"Thanks, fake Siri," I said.

Durango is that new Stations property that opened way in the southwest part of town, not far from the mountains. It took 25 minutes to get there because I had a long run on surface streets before I hit the 215.

It was pretty nice inside, I guess. Everything was shiny and new, lots of tile and stone. 

First thing, I was greeted with banks of good video poker, clearly labeled. I knew where I'd end up after walking the property for a look.

I stopped at Buffalo to see if my Stations card worked. It did, but my points and everything were all 0s. They do love to zap you if you don't play for a while.

And Buffalo fucking sucked. I dropped $40 in about 3 minutes. What was I doing??? This wasn't part of the plan.

CASH OUT. MOVE ON.

There was a huge line-up for Irv's burgers - they were flogging 80 cent burgers because Irv finally turned 80 or something. When I say huge, I mean a couple of hundred people, some of whom would drop dead from hunger before they ever caught a whiff of a dirt-cheap burg.

There's a pretty great food court with lots of interesting outlets - except... the prices are like strip prices. Is this place an off-strip locals joint? $14 and $16 sandwiches. That kind of thing.

I didn't pay much attention to the table games so I don't know what the limits or paybacks were like.

I played a few other things to no avail, and then my mission became... for the love of God get a win on video poker.

I chose quarters, and picked a game with some higher premium hands but not too crazy higher.

In all I played for an hour and a half or so. It went really well!

POINTIES!!!

I cashed out the $300 ticket and put a hundred in. I was bucking for just one more quad to put me positive for the day. And I had so many chances too with a bunch of three-of-a-kinds dealt, but just couldn't get over the hump.

It was really nice to not be losing my shirt again.

I thought I'd get a drink for the road so I headed for the gift shop. As soon as I saw the place I got that $$$ feeling. There were a couple of coolers at the back filled with bottles - and no prices. This is a bullshit strip game and I wasn't playing. I just turned around and walked out, harrumphing at the staff.

Overall I wasn't really impressed with Durango. It is kind of like a big box version of a fairly nice casino. I didn't see much there that I would want to make it a destination for.

And drink service was abysmal. One offer in over an hour and a half.

Driving back to the strip, it rained a little bit. No idea how that was possible in the heat.

I figured I had better get some food for dinner in the room, otherwise I'd be wandering Wynn trying to decide which $40 entree to spring for. The slice of pizza? The club sandwich? 

Anyway, I found a Von's and picked up a few things. Some berries, some bananas, and a tub of what was labeled as rib tips.

Maybe a cheeseburger (with cheese)?

Back at Encore, I got ice, built a drink, and relaxed for a while.

When I dug in to the 'rib tips' what I found were old, dead, leftover, unsold ribs - dry, tough, horrible and slathered in sauce to hide that these neanderthal meat sticks were closer to jerky than they were to ribs.

Fuck you, Von's. Ribs: fail.

#DisgustingFoodPics

I barfed down a few of the desiccated pig sticks and threw the rest far, far away. At least the berries were good. And I supplemented my protein with a too-large helping of toffee peanuts.

Traveler in hand, I headed to the casino with a severely limited budget. Destination Kenoville, motto 'Too exciting for the most stalwart of Senior Gamblers'.

I'm determined to get another 5 out of 5 before this trip is done!

I sipped my drink and pounded the button, playing one of my usual patterns. And then I remembered an idea I'd had lying in bed the night before.

I made a 3x3 square out of four groups of four spots. Then I added four groups of six. This made for a very low volatility setup. And then I thought I better add a card with all 9 spots - just in case. And after a while I thought I better add two 5 spots - criss crosses through the center.

There are so many small hits that your budget lasts a long time.

And then I thought, what if I make eight groups of 4, one starting on each of the 8 numbers. And then added eight groups of 5. And then... and then... this is the problem with these complicated Keno setups. I was betting 34 credits a spin.

And it went out quite quickly. Oops.

I really wanted to try this out properly and thought I'd drop from 2 credits a card to 1 - 17 credits a spin. And so I rushed up to the room to get one more hundy, and rushed back and...

...some mook was on my machine. FUCKER.

Now what?

Double Top Dollar.

Hey, whaddaya know, I was up $34.

I wandered the Encore casino, looking for something to play. Nothing but mile high video screens, almost no video poker anymore. Mook boy was still on my machine.

I saw something familiar - Dancing Drums, a name I know from the Wynn slots game.

Might as well give it a try at 88 cents a spin.

I played down to just under $100 without anything much happening and I got a bonus round. I had no idea what was going on.

(Anyone - which is the best game to pick? I went for the 5x5 10 spins.)

Anyway, I won a decent bit of money, so that was pretty cool.

And the bonuses kept coming in! When I was done, I'd reclaimed $99!!!

And with that, I headed to bed, feeling really good about the day. I hadn't won money, but I'd lost only $200, which was actually pretty reasonable for the amount of fun I'd had. Plus I'd had the fun of flinging the savory rib tips through the secret Encore tower open window, right into the pork cochon of the Tower Suites.

I'm going to try like hell to pull out a winning day tomorrow. And a better dinner.

My Chance to Win Big it said

I called Jimmy Poon. "Jimmy Poon, this is not fixed! Your AS engine is not working - maybe you should try ChatGPT instead..."

Then I heard sniffling.

Day 4 - Tuesday Aug 25, 2026

"Jimmy... are you crying?"

"No..." said Jimmy Poon. He was.

"I'll fix it right away."

I softened my tone after emitting a little elfin laugh just like Jimmy Poon's.

"Jimmy, there's no crying in blogging or computer science. Or gambling. Or baseball. At least, that's what you told me. Get busy, get this fixed, and it'll all be good. Thanks, pal."

Who would have that that AI would lead to tears? Jimmy said he'd fix it right away and he did. The new artwork arrived straight away.

I slept in again, and got busy with my room camping coffee and punishment pre-breakfast, and blogged yesterday's incredible fucking disaster.

But I was cheered. It was a new day, and I was primed and ready to take on a brand new incredible fucking disaster.

Just as I finished writing, Bobby and Mrs. G texted to say they were at the Market Street downstairs. I joined them and we had breakfast together.

I suppose I could even re-use the same photo of breakfast over and over each day, it's always the same order.

We all had things to pursue - moving day for me - so we finished up and said our goodbyes. It was really wonderful to spend time with my good friends. Definitely worth the effort to time my visit to line up.

I packed up all my stuff and that left me a little less than an hour to have a last gasp at gambling at the Cal. The machines I wanted to play were occupied, so I started by cashing in $25 worth of points and playing it on Deuces.

That went nowhere, so I put a hundred in and scored a wild royal after a bit. And I did hit two natural quads, both Jacks, just to insult me. 20 credits each.

Head hung low, I rode the escalator of shame up to the Mezzanine, crossed the bridge of shame to Main Street, and did the walk of shame to the cage, where I tapped out my credit limit by taking another small marker.

I played $100 in the Loose Doose and got another wild royal for my efforts. But it all went away chasing those ducks.

Little did I know at the time that this would be the best hand I'd see all day. Kinda gave away the plot there, didn't I.

It was noon and time to get out. I emailed my host and asked him to take a look at my room charges and headed on out to the Club Fortune Casino, to take advantage of their 'first $100 in losses back' promotion.

I took the photo above on my way out, having lost $100, and then having lost the $100 that they gave me back. Bonus Deluxe, and then Keno.

Lunch? Yes please! I'd had a hankering for Asian food for some time and found myself (after purposefully driving there) at the Kung Fu restaurant on Spring Mountain, a place I've been to a time or twice.

They still have an amazing lunch special. For $10.75 you get soup, choice of main dish, a chicken wing, and a spring roll. Steamed or fried rice as well.

The Chicken Panang seemed like a good bet and it was. Everything was excellent. The wing was fresh and hot, as was the spring roll. And the panang was so good, I practically wanted to lick the last of the sauce out of the dish.

The same guy who sport-humped a million dollars found some decorum at this juncture and I restrained myself.

It was so good and so reasonable, don't be surprised if I end up there again tomorrow for lunch.

My fortunate cookie said "Don't miss out on your chance to win big!". In retrospect, the lucky Keno numbers were right there.

It wasn't check-in time at Encore yet so I jumped back on I-15 and headed to South Point.

I tried to repeat my recent success at the Loose Doose in a previous trip, but it wasn't happening. Saw lots of hands with three deuces, but never four.

This hand is kind of interesting - hit it on the re-deal.

Other video poker sucked too. I did have a tiny success screwing around on White Orchid - my degenerate go-to vintage video slots. I won $30.

My room at Encore was ready (they said), so I grabbed some drinkin' stuff and some snacks from the gift shop at South Point, and headed north, stopping at Smith's for punishment dinner.

The express check-in thingy seemed to work, and I hauled all my crap up to the room.

In lieu of exciting tales of gambling, here's a photodump of my king Encore suite.

The intensity of the last four days had worn me down a bit and I had a couple of cocktails and just chilled in the quiet comfort of my room.

My punishment supper was pretty good. The hoagie was stuffed with meat, a good deal at $5.99. And the dill potato salad was excellent.

That's the one problem with Enwynn - when it comes to the restaurants, you pay through the nose. And I don't think cashiers like that very much.

I missed out on getting the free tickets for Awakenings and they are dark the next two nights, so I guess that's that.

Down in the casino, I ordered a mojito and went at it. My $100 Free Play went pretty well on Keno - I harvested almost all of it. But again, no 5 out of 5 hit was coming and I was down $100 cash. I should have taken the cookie's advice.

The next bit turned me. I got completely pissed off at quarter Double Super Times Pay. Triple Play Bonus Poker. Hand after hand of disappointment. Multipliers that paid nothing. Flushes not made. On and on, and I went on tilt, dumping quite a few hundies at it, stupidly believing that a quad had to be just around the corner.

And then it was over, and I hadn't have a proper quad all day long. Or a hit on Keno for that matter.

My lighter mood approach to this trip finally gave way to anger and frustration. I was pissed. This was not what I wanted, not what I was so looking forward to.

To try to drain some of the anger away, I took off on a fast walk, over to Wynn, all the way around it, and back to Encore, and then my room.

At least the bed is comfortable.

Let's turn this ship around tomorrow.

Cause I'm in trouble deep.