Dear WSOP Newbies and Degenerates,

Like every year, Pokernews will soon start to publish a succession of articles aiming at giving you advice on how to save as many $$$ as possible on accommodation, flights, car rentals, meals, etc. They will even teach you where to get the cheapest Bananas in Las Vegas (Chinatown) so you don’t have to spend 7$ on a hot dog at the Rio. Since I find their articles insanely boring and repetitive (I suspect they copy/paste it every year and use the synonym feature of Words to make it look brand new), I decided to come to your rescue and publish my own set of tips. That way, you are guaranteed to scrimp on every single dollar and go gamble the whole thing on a 1500$ tournament you are likely to bust on day 1. You are welcome!

Let’s talk accommodation, shall we? Here are your options, for all budgets.

1/Splurge

Luxury hotels on the Strip – If you have deep pockets, you can stay at the Bellagio, Aria, Nobu and all the fancy options. Hell, if you happen to bink a tournament you can even get the 11,200 sq ft. Titus Villa at Caesars Palace: Three bedrooms villa including a private dining room for 10 people with a hand painted wall mural, billiard room with a bar, media bedroom with a 103-inch 3D plasma television and OSIM massage chairs, and a private outdoor garden and pool. If you are reading this, chances are it won’t be your preference.

Souped up trailer on Rio’s parking lot – If you watched Daniel Negreanu’s vlogs and decided eating Kale while watching your NHL team losing during dinner break is your thing, this option is for you. Every summer, the parking outside of the Rio literally becomes a trailer park. It’s an investment for sure, but you can’t beat the convenience.

2/Mid-range

Rio – Staying in the Rio is depressing. Food options are not great. The noise of the slot machines on the ground floor can make you crazy (more than after watching Frozen 4 times in a row with your little cousin). Still, in a word: convenience. Rooms are large and clean, albeit worn, and reasonably priced. If you bust from an event, this is the shortest walk of shame to reach your room and cry. Dinner break? You can grab something and relax in your room. Not having to screw with Uber, Lyft and cabs is a serious gain of time and $$$. Also, it means you get your private bathroom during the breaks (I will have to tell you about the bathroom situation during the breaks. If you ever saw the first 2 minutes of a marathon race, it is similar). If you plan to grind the WSOP and do not care about seeing Las Vegas, it is a solid option.

Gold Coast – Basically it is a Rio next to the Rio. This accommodation will save you some money but extend your walk of 5-10 minutes. It is literally a parking lot away. If you are fine ****ting your pants 2 minutes a day while running at 3AM between the Rio and the Gold Coast with your full bankroll in your pockets, this option is for you.

On the Strip – Vdara, The Cromwell, The LinQ, Flamingo… There are MANY options. Google will be more helpful than me here. Make sure to register to the reward program of the casino you plan to book an accommodation at to get better pricing. If it is your first time in Las Vegas and you want to explore on top of giving the WSOP a try, I strongly recommend this option.

3/” I am broke”-range

Motels – You liked the zoo outing in 5th grade and always wanted to study bed bugs? This option is for you! There are plenty of cheap motels that will cost you close to nothing, but that mean you will need a car to drive to the Rio. And that you might be itchy while wondering if you should call that 4-bet with top pair.

Your car – You busted of a tournament, went full tilt and lost your bankroll in the pit? Fear not! You can still sleep in your car, on the Rio parking lot. Your vehicle should convert into a Finnish Sauna (Las Vegas gets REALLY hot in June), that’s a complementary upgrade!



Last word of wisdom, you might be tempted to split a room with a rando you met on a forum. Unless you personally know the dude, I would pass. You can meet the most wonderful people at the tables, unfortunately, you often meet the most scummy, miserable and dishonest human beings.

If this article was helpful, or distracting, let me know and I will write the next one. Feel free to suggest what you want it to be about.

If you got offended or thought my writing is terrible, I invite you to send me letters of insults by PM.

If you are from Pokernews and want to hire me, also PM.

Love,

Don´t agree with the Bellagio part, you can stay at Mlife properties for free if you play something else than poker. As an example I lost $900 over a two week period (total wager was around $10 000) and got 8 nights free at the Bellagio + resort credit + free play.

Obviously not easy if you are not going to Vegas regularly, but you should still receive offers here and there with good discounts if registered.

I agree with you 100% - my article is more a guide for Newbies. I assume most people who already gave some action in the Casinos would know about the promotion and offers they can enjoy.

No way in Hell will Bellagio give you 8 nights free with only $10,000 worth of betting, even if you lost all $10,000 to them.

How much do you want to bet?






Could chose from any Mlife property, 4 + 4 full nights + $100 in resort credit + $100 in free play.

Obviously Bellagio just wants to be in your next TR.

It isn't so much a deal he got based on his play, it's promotional. They do random stuff like that. Don't expect results to repeat themselves.

El Cheapo section needs a lot of work. You don't have to stay in Motel Hell Bedbug Paradise or Homeless Flop House to save money. For instance, if you want to stay "on the strip", don't actually stay on the strip. If you move like a block or two off the strip, like Ellis Island Hotel Casino and Brewery for example, you save lots of dough and you only have a city block walk to actually be ON the strip. Also you are ignoring downtown. The D, El Cortez, Plaza all have accommodations that do not pose a health risk that are much cheaper than the overpriced "Strip". Sams Town and Eastside Cannery would be other good examples that would be acceptable to a cheap poker degenerate.

A cheap alternative to uber and cabs is the bus. As long as you go downtown to the bonneville transit center(btc) you can get a month long pass for 64 dollars instead of the 20 dollar 3 day price you would have to pay on the strip.

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As far as housing goes i would just stay at an airbnb for a week or so. And then spend a couple days scouting out some craigslist rooms. You can pretty easily get a place for 3-600 a month if your willing to sift through the bot posts. The location will most likely not be close to the strip though.

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You are right! The goal of my post wasn't to put the nail on the coffin about what accommodation is best during the WSOP, but to write something light and funny that would be more distracting than what Pokernews right every year. I do not know Downtown well at all for example. Twoplustwo members seem to take this article way more seriously than it should!

That is true, but once you are included in that promotion offer you will keep receiving it as long as you make Vegas trips.


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I'd also recommend fooling around with myVegas for free rooms at MGM properties (still have to pay the resort free though) and the Wynn app for free rooms there. If you don't mind endless games of slots on your phone (just set them to auto spin) you can get some decent free rooms (and food, with the myVegas app).

That's not really true. You'll keep recieving offers as long as you keep playing house-advantage casino games at a level that merits continuing to receive the offer. And the level required to continue getting comps may or may not be higher than the level required to receive an initial promotional offer. You might also be able to ride the promotional offer for a year or so before the casino catching on to you low-playing them.

Im potentially looking at going to the WSOP (assuming I can get time off from work). Im looking at playing the Deepstack Championship event. I dont want to spend too much money on a hotel, since Im guessing I wont spend too much time there... I pretty much just want something thats close to the Rio. Is Gold Coast my best option?

Close to the Rio and cheap...Gold Coast is indeed your best option.

Vdara is just as nice as the Aria and should not be in the same category as the Rio and Gold Coast. It's my choice as to where to stay. A quick walk to both the Bellagio and Aria poker rooms. And quieter, because it's a non-gaming property. Price wise they're close, but a far superior property.

OK. OP's write up was a bit funny, but I feel bad for Noobs really trying to figure it out from this.

Here are a few useful pieces of advice.

Go to https://www.caesars.com, set destination is "Las Vegas" and click the flexible dates box. This will give you a month long list of nightly rates for all of the Caesars properties. Even if you don't want to stay at Caesars, you get a good market price check for your stay.

Assuming you don't have mlife or CeasarsRewards status to get resort fees waived, check out this site: https://www.lasvegasjaunt.com/resort-fees/ to see how much the current resort fees are, and the very short list of hotels that don't have a fee.

If you have hotel points, you can stay at some non casino properties (Marriott/Hilton/etc.) near the strip. This is a good option on weekends, where the strip properties are $200+ per night.

Treasure Island on the strip generally has an TV Promotion option where you can opt out of the resort fee.

Finally, if you don't care about a specific property, Hotwire and Priceline can be very useful to save some money. Don't like the lack of control of that? Betterbidding.com will help you play the odds to get the property that you want based on zone and description.

Hope this helps.
MDM

Thanks! you just saved me $100

I haven't paid for a room at Bellagio in over two years. I don't gamble anywhere near baller status to earn that. They are giving away rooms lately. That said, they appear to be adjusting the market somewhat for summer.

One qualm I have with the list is comparing Vdara to the mid range dumps on this list. It belongs up top.

10 trips in and they are still coming as offers. The best part, my wife is considered part of my account and i send her and her best friend out each year for a girls weekend. They accrue 20-30,000 points at least, and dont gamble a dime.

I'm a Gold level MLife status, how the heck do you get the resort fees waived?

I'm Diamond w/ Caesars which does the trick. I'm not sure what level/tier (if any) for mlife - just assumed it was similar to Caesars at some point.

Do either of this give away rooms for weekends? I’m comped June 3rd-7th but I will need a room may 30th through June 2nd(Friday Saturday Sunday) for as cheap as possible(just need somewhere to sleep really). Has anyone stayed at Arizona Charlie’s Boulder Casino? Three weekend nights with resort fee is only 70ish a night. That a lot cheaper then anywhere else it seems. Only 4 miles from rio which isn’t terrible.

You can look at the promotional calendar for the property of interest on FB MyVegas. For example, Mirage has lots of Sun-Thurs, very few Fri, only one or 2 Sat. Bellagio, no weekends currently showing. Other properties I couldn't readily see the promotional calendar link, would assume they are somewhat more liberal, but wouldn't want to purchase the reward blind and not know that those exact dates you want are there.

Without crossing threads, for anyone that doesn't already have a ton of points there, I wouldn't recommend starting now. The days of getting Tower Suites at sensible prices are looong gone. Would probably be a better math play to take on O/T at work than it would be to try and accumulate enough points for rooms at today's points rates.