ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

Let it never be said that I don’t complete a trifecta.

Three days, three trips to Caesars.  It’s been a noticeable pattern for years, but perhaps it is just a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.

As adrenaline-surging as it was, I did not return to the Monopoly Championships yesterday.  Instead, I had a quick meetup at the pseudo-new Serendipity 3 cafe.

Given that it was a nice day, we ordered from the “Fun on The Run” menu and ate on the Plaza instead of in the confines of the establishment itself.

There are four weeks of perfect weather each year in Vegas, and we are presently in the brief Fall window before the omnipresent winds of Winter move in.

On Wednesday, I passed through the same plaza location, and was somewhat disconcerted as a strange siren began blaring.  About 2 minutes after the alarm started, a voice came over a loudspeaker and said something along the lines of “Remain calm, we are looking for the source of the alarm”.  Nobody had the slightest idea what this meant, and few people seemed to care.

Since it sounded like an odd air-raid siren, I looked up when a plane flew overhead, but only because I didn’t know what else I was supposed to be looking for.

An emergency alarm is of little use if you can’t ascertain the nature of the emergency.  We had no idea what we were supposed to do.

Go inside?  Stay outside?  Duck and take cover?

Most of us took the advanced evasive maneuver of standing around with our thumbs up our asses.  You know, we were Americans continuing to live our lives as normal.

Take that Bin Laden!

After lunch, I struck out on my own, and stopped at the nearby Brama Shrine in front of Caesars, took a few shots, and once again read the “reward” sign for the missing elephants that were stolen several months ago.  Even though it sounds like a really bad sub-plot for the movie “Hangover II”, ten pachyderm figures really were lifted from the shrine.

I think it’s really lame that someone would steal display items, but this hardly comes as a surprise.  Central Vegas shares an almost pathological similarity with New York City in that anything left unguarded or unlocked for more than two minutes will almost certainly be stolen.

I parked my bicycle at the Hilton in 2006, and it was stripped of all of its reflectors, as well as its rear blinking light.  The light was perhaps expected, but reflectors?  They may fetch a nickel on the black market … if that.  There is nothing that people will not steal.

Hell, I wouldn’t leave a stool sample unattended in this city.

This being the case, it shocks no one in the least that the elephant statues have gone missing.  I hope they are enjoying their new lives as the world’s most unique crack pipes.

The $2,000 reward thing has always been of a source of curiosity for me, though.  There are definitely some questions about the reward that aren’t readily apparent.

For instance, does your information have to lead to the capture of all 10 elephants?

If your phone call leads to the recovery of 9 elephants, do you get $900?

How are they going to donate to children’s charities in Thailand in your name if you remain confidential and anonymous?

Why are they going to let the children of Thailand suffer for the lost elephants?

“Sorry Bangkok Billy, I know you’re hungry but we’re not buying you a sandwich until a Vegas tourist comes forward with our elephants!  You’re just going to have to wait.”

Lastly, he first thousand dollars is compelling, but why can’t the hero get the other $1,000 in cash or money order?  If that person wants to donate half of his reward to a children’s charity in Thailand, can they not do that themselves?

I’ve never understood the concept of donating to charity in “someone’s name” … or even giving to charity at all for that matter.

For the most part (I’m sure there are some exceptions), charities are simply businesses that don’t have to pay taxes.  Not only that, but the businesses get people to work for them for free, and random folks give them money for no other reason than they chose a cute business name like “Baby Kitten Rescue”.  They don’t even have to give a product or service in return.

The business model is brilliant if you think about it.

I’ve been through this before and I always get the inevitable email “No, no my charity is different!” … but I think most people are in denial.

Consider this, as of 2007, there were 1,128,367 charities and foundations registered in the USA.

ONE MILLION ONE HUNDRED TWENTY EIGHT THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY SEVEN!

There is roughly one charity or foundation for every 250 individuals in the nation.

To put this into perspective, in the USA, there is one McDonald’s for every 22,000 people.

This makes charities nearly 100 times more common than the golden arches.

Even if there are 1,000 legitimate charities, this still means that greater than 99.9% of them are frauds overall.  These are not good odds.  If you are in a giving mood.

If there were one million legitimate charities in the United States … that’s what … two thousand charities for each serious societal ill.  If these things were real, nobody would have any problems.

People crow about pink breast cancer ribbons, but those too distort the truth of their mission.  The fact is, that there is no coordinated effort to find a cure for breast cancer in the USA.  It is impossible to “race for a cure”, “run for a cure”, or “walk for a cure” when you don’t know how much a cure costs, or even if one is possible at all.

Call up the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and ask “How many ribbons do I need to buy to cure breast cancer?”

They won’t be able to tell you, but they’ll be happy to sell you an assload of ribbons.

If someone needs $50,000 for a liver transplant, and you know the exact hospital to give it to, directly giving that money is philanthropic and generous.

Raising funds without defining a cost or a specific endpoint, however, is almost as asinine as declaring war on a vague concept like, oh let’s hypothetically say … terror.

Without a specific goal, a charity or foundation is the basis for a perpetual moneymaking entity, which is almost indistinguishable from what we usually call a “business”.

I rather doubt the Thailand “children’s charity” even exists, so if you happened to find the elephants (hint: they’re with Jamie), do yourself a favor and hold out for the full 2G’s.

Allow me to digress.

I spent the rest of yesterday hanging out on the Boulevard, pausing to do some outdoor work on my laptop, dropping a few gaming bucks here and there (I actually had a nice winning day with a series of quads), and even lounging by a couple of pools to take advantage of the extra-long Summer’s final few days.

The level of mid-week visitation in the city has been quite impressive as of late.  Not only have there been large amounts of people on the sidewalks, but so too have there been decent crowds at the gaming tables themselves.  Even in the early afternoon.

The Strip feels as if it is having a visitation rally of some sort.  By the time the October numbers come in, it would not surprise me in the slightest if one of two things happen:

• Our visitation losing streak will be broken.
• Our revenue losing streak will be broken.

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I would be remiss if I did not restate that the stoppage of the downward trend will have no practical effect on 99.99% of Vegas residents and visitors.

Even if we rise 10% in both metrics, and stay there for two years, the town is still screwed, glued, and tattooed.  We need nothing less than an extreme climb in the opposite direction to reverse the housing and job markets, and that doesn’t look probable any time soon.  I think the slow bleed is just about done, though.

Now that I’ve gone out on a limb, watch October come in as the worst month on record.

It’s a large-ish city and these things are almost impossible for one particular individual to eyeball, but I smell a bottom.

Perhaps it’s just time for me to take a shower.

• Keep updated through Newsletter or on Facebook

  E-mail:
  

  Subscribe
  Unsubscribe