Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds is buying Stratosphere

*** MIA - *** (6) 25c large screen 9/4/4 BDW slant-tops near hotel registration.

i was in laughlin last week and quite a few of the positive machines listed for aquarius i did not find. the only ones i found were the ten back by the buffet 25c only.

Those ten 10/7 Double Bonus 25 cent slant-tops have now been moved deep into the casino but still, more or less, directly in from the main entrance. This also applies to the NSUD on these same machines. And also on these machines is 9/6/90 Jacks or Better (90 to one on the straight flush).

Ultimate Rewards is now A.C.E. Rewards, and "Action Cash" has been replaced by a new cashback program. It now takes $1 to earn a point on slots, $2 on video poker and $8 on positive video poker at all ACE properties. 600 points equals $1 cashback. There will also be a weekly mailer with additional cashback and food comps for active players.

Aquarius. There’s okay news for vp players here. I found a back to back row of $.25-only slant-tops (10 or 12 total) with 9/6 JoB, 9/6 DDB, 9/7 DB, 8/5 BP, 9/6 BPD, and the requisite ugly ducks near the Arizona Tower restrooms and the poker room (the north side). It’s harder to find plays at the $.50 level. I couldn’t get to many machines to read pay tables (heavy crowd during the grand opening), but I only found five $.25, $.50, and $1.00 slants with 8/5 BP between the showroom and the hallway to the buffet. All the other games on those machines were short pay. There are full pay $1-only slant-top machines in the little alcove right by the main door to the riverwalk on the Edgewater side with the same games as the quarter slants. Summary: nothing over 100%, and you either play quarters or dollars for multi-game full-pay (or nearly full-pay in the case of the DBs). Slots $1=1 point, VP $2=1 point.

Icahn company takes over Flamingo Laughlin

*** MIA - *** (4) 25c IGT 10/7 DB slant-tops near center of main casino.

Upon card insertion, points are rounded to the nearest "1000", but your comp dollars "in round dollars " are displayed. Then it goes to "Accepted". Nearly impossible to track your own play now.

I did as detailed a search of the inventory at the Flamingo as I could. The 4 $.25 10/7 DB slant tops are still there. One of them has a really wonky screen and probably won't last long. Database reports one of the $.25 Game Kings (wall/main cage) has NSUD, but I hit the button on all of them and didn't find anything but Ugly Ducks that paid 15 for 5K, so if one machine got past them on the install, they've found and corrected it. There are 3 $5.00 Game Kings in the high-limit area that have NSUD, not 2 as listed. No one was ever in there. There's even a sign that asks you not to loiter and block the entrance, which I found odd. Everything else in the Database is as written, as far as I can tell. It's quite a JoB house, so I kept trotting over to Edgewater and playing the abundant FPDW. The hotel is suffering from the neglect that most mid-level Caesar's properties are experiencing, but the room was fine and we enjoyed ourselves.

Well the poker room is now back in the southeast corner and the high-limit room by the north end/Keno. The Connection card kiosks are up and running by the slot club. Inventory-new games-(11) aqua blue Game Kings (slant-tops) have been added. These quarter games are by the southeast riverwalk doors, and include Jacks 9/6 and Bonus Deluxe 9/6. Update on the .25 DB-actually 4 of these, not 3, in a row of 7 that starts with 3 nickel Joker's Revenge games, next row over has decoy DB. Place still is filled with Jacks. Slot club too busy to find out CB/comps info.

I received a flyer from Flamingo Laughlin yesterday stating they use the Connection Card now. The card earns "comp dollars," somewhat like Station Casinos. That is, you earn them playing slots or VP (not sure what they do for table games), and use them for meals, rooms, show tickets, and "selected merchandise" at any Park Place property in Las Vegas, Atlantic City or Mississippi. You also "get back 3% of your hotel cash purchases." New Orleans, Indiana and Northern NV (Reno?) aren't on the system yet.