User profile: Indianadave

The wife and I are heading out to our favorite city(Vegas, where else) in just four days. Your fair city is a magnet- good memories, good times, excitement, great people, superb food, palatial architecture and lodging, stupendous weather and sunny all the time. A vacation retreat without equal anywhere on the globe. We got an offer we couldn't refuse from Mr. Wynn and will finally be able to sample from the cask of better vintage. Usually we bunk at the more affordable joints like Hampton Inns or Stations.
Unabashed, dedicated, fanatical slot players, we of late have been turned off by the tightening of the payback spigot by the casino bosses countrywide. Lately, here in Indiana we've seen some improvement in payback and comps at the local properties. Nothing like a good old depression to knock folks back to reality!
At any rate, hopefully the power people in America will wise up and go back to providing service and value to consumers and customers. I hate feeding stingy slots and paying the A/C repairman $100hr. The proverbial "I got screwed and didn't even get a kiss" situation. Viva, Las Vegas!

We need to bring manufacturing back to our country and quickly. Indiana used to be a manufacturing hub with lots of Union jobs and good pay. We had a lot of disposable income which we used to buy cars, homes, quality American-made clothes and other USA products. We also had plenty of dough to take extravagant vacations to places like.....Las Vegas.
Today Indiana like most of the midwest is struggling. Our people are fearful and our children are flipping burgers and living with Mom and Dad at age 35. Vegas is starting to feel our pain with your economic crisis.
Face it, friends and fellow Americans! We are all in this together. No man is an island, we all sink or swim together.
This foreign-made stuff is nothing but low quality trash, foisted off on us by the big business interests so that they could enrich themselves into billionaire status. In the process they deprived us of our livelyhoods and national pride and our kids "compete" against 50 cent per hour foreigners. I have 25 year old American-made clothing I still wear. These China garments are lucky to survive a dozen washings. Likewise all the rest of the pitiful crap they flood us with.
Our leaders are supposed to represent we the people and make decisions to the benefit of The United States of America. Demand that they do that. A good start would be the return of America's jobs and minimum involvement in foreign affairs.

America is amazing. I retired from a company in Indiana that had been in business since 1875 and had been profitable up until 1987. At that point foreign competitors started to erode profits. By 2001 she was on her back losing money yearly. Management tried every trick in the book to no avail. Today she is out of business, just a memory. This was a company that produced quality equipment for Industry and couldn't turn a profit. If they could have made just $500,000, they would have kept her open.
Now check out the gaming industry. Profits of these 8 or so casinos just here in Indiana run way over $200 million a year. I read that profits in Las Vegas are several billion dollars a year. And truthfully they produce nothing...no grime or sweat involved, no hard product. Just entertainment, a service.
And there's the rub. Vegas moguls have gotten fat, smug and entitled...much like the rest of America's populace. They think they can just rake in the jack and give no regard to customer satisfaction, quality, or even essential need of their product/service. Times are achangin'. I hope casino bosses everywhere wake up and start giving us entertainment value for our dollars again. Would you play golf if you hit every shot in the drink everytime?
By the way, I've found a nice vacation spot halfway between Vegas and home, a hotel/casino/golf course. The machines are set to pay like Old Vegas, the food is grand and we're having a ball there. The weather leaves something to be desired, but this is where I hang my hat for the foreseeable future.

Casino kid, PatriciaLV, Canadian, & Swaddill...good remarks. I'm no shrinking violet and when we were out there in May I loudly proclaimed to every hotel manager I came in contact with my displeasure over the non-paying slots. It's impossible to BS a veteran of 45 years slot playing. A few of the "suits" sheepishly admitted that payoff has been reduced and that they hoped upper management would come to their senses. My wife and I retired 5 years ago and I had grand visions of entering Slot Heaven and spending a great deal of of our golden years happily indulging in our favorite past-time, mostly at Las Vegas. Why does Bozo Partypooper always have to come around and ruin a good thing? If I was a casino mogul, I'd rather have a house full of happy partygoers, rather than a few high-rolling whales that can afford the high-end suites and meals. Well, we are taking a wait and see attitude. We have been going to local casinos only once a month here in Indiana-Illinois. The Las Vegas funds are accumulating in the bank with interest. Show us the fun, Las Vegas and we'll be back in a heartbeat. Otherwise, I'm on the verge of buying a 60 inch HD TV and calling it quits to slots forever. Peace and good luck!

Here we sit in Indiana just itchin' to come back to our favorite vacation destination (Vegas of course), but lickin' our wounds from our last visit. We used to be 3 times a year visitors, but last May we had our most unfun trip out there in history. A clue- slot players come to Vegas for one reason, to play slots. Slots that are reasonably calibrated so that the player can play for 2 or 3 hours on a $100. Hell, we know slot odds are against the player and 90% of the time it's empty pockets, but we're willing to spend $400 for the entertainment daily. Last visit, our $400 was down the tubes in an hour or two. No fun, just a bad taste in the mouth. We've got 8 or 10 casinos here in the Chicago area, a two hour drive. Kinda dumb to come out 2000 miles to get skinned. I sincerely hope the Vegas powers see the problem and go back to doing business like the Mob ran it. They were content to wet their beaks and desired happy return customers. Fix it, Vegas, we want to come back.