NYE Trip report with my biggest wins yet.

Hello my fellow Fanatics! I hope everyone is having a great start to 2018. Let me first apologize for the delayed TR. I have been really busy on the road ever since I left Vegas. This trip was the most profitable for my by far, so let’s get to it.
I flew out from Hawaii on the evening of Dec 30th. I arrived at around 6am and promptly took a taxi to Aria where me and my girlfriend would stay there for 2 nights before heading to Encore for our third and last night. One of my Christmas gifts to her was tickets to Le Reve and staying at a new hotel.
Once at the Aria I decided to hit the machines hard. I would be alone for about 6 hours before my girlfriend arrived from Denver. The first several hours of gambling were terrible to the point where I had to start digging in to my “nighttime” bankroll lol. I garnered a decent amount of TITOs from decent bonuses on Buffalo Gold and Grand. I decided to walk around a bit when I finally saw a China Shores machine that I saw was occupied earlier. I sat down and saw my tickets amounting to just shy of $500. I told myself “F**k it!” Then changed the denomination to nickel!
First couple spins were none eventful then finally I hit 16 Free Spins. The third free spin then set off 140 free spins. At this point I was excited and drew attention from on lookers. I mean I have over 150 free spins on a $15 a spin machine, this is going to be a handpay! After about maybe 10 more spins and getting several hundred dollars, I landed another stack of Yin and Yang symbols. Another 140 spins. I let out another cheer and at this point I had a spectator at each side watching as they couldn’t believe the amount of free spins I had.
That ride of free spins was fun, however underwhelming. There were spins after spins of nothing with occasional decent hits and they were all adding up which I was thankful for. I was just wishing for a 5 of a kind or rows of single objects but it never came. However almost 300 free spins got me $4500! My biggest handpay yet.
The only salt on the wound was when I had a slot attendant who started watching when I was at 3k but still about 100 spins left muttered how she thought it would be closer to 10k given the amount of free spins and being at Nickel denomination, but hey I’ll gladly take the $4500!
After getting paid out and signing the forms I decided to try another Nickel denim machine. I loaded up another $500 into a Quick hit riches and triggered a bonus about ten spins in. It was a nice bonus as it just got me under the threshold of a little over $1100. Perfect, no taxes on this one lol
When my girlfriend arrived we went upstairs to nap and rest up for the NYE celebration.
We finally woke up, showered, ate room service and decided to head down for some gambling. After experiencing no major wins or loses we decided to head over to Cosmopolitan where we would celebrate the countdown. As you know Cosmo is my spot but due to this trip being last minute, it was too late and Cosmo was booked.
I was shocked to see the bridge closed and even more shocked to find out that only guest were allowed to enter. I was very angry at this point and stormed off back to Aria where we ended up ringing in the New Year at Alibi lounge.
The following day we slept in and did some light gambling during the day before dinner and our usual ritual when in Vegas....Dinner at Fiamma at the MGM for in my opinion is the best ravioli ever!
After the delicious dinner we decided to play at MGM for a bit. Just to kill time I decided to give a try Willy Wonka. I believe it’s the Golden Ticket one where the Oompas stretch the screen upwards as opposed to the other one where they streatch it outwards. Couple spins in and our little green friends came out and built some extra rows up, dump to fill all but the last column as a wild, then dropped 2 balls down the screen, a 2X and 3X! At this point I knew it was special and I know that handpay on Wonka are rare. And what do you have it, almost a whole screen of wilds and a 6 times multiplier got me a little over $1300. I am glad we went there for Ravioli lol.
Shortly after getting paid out, my girlfriend hit her first ever handpay, although just over the threshold, I believe $1230. She was so happy although we were disgusted at the fact that it was so close to not being taxed.
After enjoyomg our handpay day MGM we decided to catch a cab to Cosmo. There we spent about 4 hours there gambling and I dropped in to also visit and talk with my host. We basically broke even for that Cosmo visit. Couldn’t complain. Walked out with the same amount of cash I walked in with while accumulating about 8,000 Identity points.
The following afternoon we checked out and headed to Encore. Thanks for being nice to me Aria, and also I checked my account and earned about 12,000 mlife points.
At Encore I was impressed by how nice their regular simple room was. However the casino is small so we went next door to Wynn.
What happened next was one of the worse stretches of gambling, ever!
It seems I just continued to drop bills after bills into machine after machine and just hitting spin. No bonus, no decent line hit. Just spin spin till $0.
After my frustration and being down $2500 we went back up to our room and got dressed for LeReve.
No matter how many times we see that show it still amazes me. Really good show!
After the show we decided to change it up and gamble at Encore. After more losing I was ready to call it a night, but not before my usual departing ritual, 5 cent buffalo gold. I triggered a bonus rather soon and it was a nice bonus of just over $1000. I was happy to recover some of my loses and we went upstairs for the night.
Upon returning to our room we decided to do more drinking when my girlfriend realized we had no mixers. We went downstairs to the store, when that “GUT FEELING” hit. I decided that you know what, my 5 cent buffalo machine ritual was really good to me and I have a feeling that it wasn’t just that one machine. Time to do a tour of Buffalo Gold and see how nice those beautiful animals would treat me.
I started on one machine I haven’t played yet. Set my $500 and started the ride.
BOOM bonus! I can’t remember in full detail (mind you it’s about 2am and many vodka sodas in lol) but couple retriggers and nice line hits got me a handpay of $3700!
At this point I was so happy. Made back all my loses and then some!
After getting paid out I moved to another Buffalo Gold. And BOOM three gold coins and time for another ride. It was a short bonus with nice line hits and now I was getting paid out $2600 as the slot attendants laughed “didn’t we just see you!”
After getting paid out I watched my girlfriend get herself a handpay! The elusive Free Parking on Monopoly! That got her a nice $1300!
Such an exciting hour!
She would move on to Three Card Poker while I continued my hunt for the majestic beast!
BOOM! Four gold coins this time! I would accumulate about 40 free spins and just needed one more golden buffalo to unlock all animals! For those free spins and all but one animal unlocked, I didn’t get any major buffalo hits unfortunately. The best hit of that ride was an Ace and a Queen, X2, X2, X2, Ace and Queen. Man how I wish those were buffalo! In the end it was $3800!
I collected my winnings and decided to join her at 3 Card Poker. We played for a bit and I left about $400 up.
In the end it was a great trip and will return to Encore in the future! Got about 11,000 points so hopefully I’ll get a decent offer in the near future.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Those were my exact same thoughts!

 

Hopefully you will do better next time you’re there! I find that I go on a pattern of winning trip, losing trip, winning trip, losing trip.
I was already staying on one of those mlife corporate offers for two nights and 150 FP and 100 F&B and we really didn’t rack up any other expenses.

 

The Casino was packed pretty well actually. Most people like myself was still playing up before midnight and would only sneak off to a lounge for a shot of something and the countdown to midnight, and then right back to gambling.