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.