ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

One of the things people kind of like on my other site is the “Real-Time Las Vegas Webcam” thing I do from time to time.

Every now and then when I am walking around Las Vegas, I will take either my laptop or my BlackBerry along with me and just manually upload shots at random of the scenes around me.

I suppose that in some way, it makes people sort of feel like they are here … without actually dropping the cash for airfare.

And since it’s real-time, you basically see what I see pretty much when I see it.

You can see how crowded or empty the city is and kind of get a small feel for the vibe.

Since this blog is a new format, and I don’t have the real-time photo upload enabled, I will actually have to stop and post the shots manually, which means they may be a few minutes delayed … but it’s still about as close as you are going to get to a roving Las Vegas webcam updated in real time.

Sometimes I catch something of interest.  Sometimes I get nothing at all but random Vegas scenery.

Such is the nature of live webcasts.

These things aren’t exactly planned.

It is currently 2:53pm on Saturday (October 25th, 2008) and I am heading out for a bit.

You are welcome to come along.

It’s about the next best thing you are going to get to being here, without actually being here.

If you get plastered and flush the entire contents of your wallet down the toilet as you are reading the post, it will make the Vegas experience much more authentic.

The photos that follow will be taken by my cellphone and uploaded in near-real-time.

Well, I am finally back.  I cut off the picture taking after I had arrived at the Bellagio.

It was in the mid-80′s today, so it was still perfectly good pool weather.

I am not sure whether or not you could tell from the photos, but the crowds were quite impressive today.

Compared with a month ago, the numbers seem to be up significantly this Saturday.

Our tourism has fallen off dramatically over the last year, so hopefully this is a harbinger of things to come.   Granted, it is a Saturday … the busiest day of the week, but there have been many weekends over the past several months in which the place seemed like a ghost town.

Not so today.

Not just the sidewalks were full, but so were the gambling pits.

Craps tables, Blackjack tables, Baccarat, you name it.  All going strong and very crowded.

The sports books were also completely crammed with people.

The only place I noticed that is still lagging is the video games.

The slot machines and video poker machines are still relatively lonely compared to what they were say, 3 years ago, but at least the pits are seeing more and more action with each passing week.

I know that this is a side effect of lower room rates, and gas prices which are finally coming down, but hey … a crowd is a crowd.

I hung out in the Bellagio for awhile amidst the crowds, then cruised The Strip with a buddy of mine whom I met at the bar near the poker room.

At times, traffic was nice and gridlocked too.  Especially near Las Vegas Boulevard and Spring Mountain Rd.  I normally detest traffic, but after 6 months of smooth sailing, it was nice to be back in the bumper-to-bumper mess.

Have our tourism and revenue numbers bottomed?

The hell if I know.

But on this particular day, it does seem like we may have turned a corner.

All told, morning to evening, I was in the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, NYNY, Hilton, Bally’s, Paris, and Bellagio.

Each and every casino had a reasonably decent amount of action.  Nothing like two years ago, but things look to be picking up a bit.

People seemed happy, and the “vibe” seemed to be back … if just for this day.  Lots of drinking, smiling, and general goofiness.

Of course, Jimmy Buffet is in town, and we are overrun with parrotheads right now, so that may have something to do with it.

Whatever the reason … Jimmy, the weather, the room rates, or something else … the end result is that it was a good day to be in Las Vegas.

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