For the first time my husband Randy was joining me at G2e (Global Gaming Expo), not to see the new games so much but because John Fogerty was performing at Venetian during the same week as the convention. We would be staying at Palazzo since the G2e convention was at Sands convention center at Venetian. Randy would be departing on Thursday to return home after G2e while I would move to Cosmopolitan for three more nights to participate in the Up Up and Away tournament!
Randy and I had a quick bite to eat at the airport on Monday, September 26th before our flight. The flight was on time and we had our first win of the trip when we were one of only 2 rows on our Southwest flight not to have someone in the middle seat with us!
One hour and 10 minutes later we landed in Las Vegas where our limo driver was waiting for us and we were off to Palazzo.
For those of you who aren't using a limo service in Vegas but don't care for the taxi service, I want to once again recommend Uber. I have been using them successfully in Vegas this year and have been very happy with their pricing and service. If you haven't used them before you can use a code like mine and get your first ride for free up to $20.00. My code is dianae549ue. Full disclosure if you use my code I also get a free ride. If you want to try them out and need instructions on using the app, just ask me in comments for help.
Arriving at Palazzo we quickly checked in at the Palazzo VIP Platinum lounge and were up in our room five minutes later unpacking.
Twenty minutes later we were in the casino and gambling!
My first bonus and win on the trip was on Super Diamond Jackpots, just outside of the Palazzo High Limit lounge. This machine also has Top Dollar and Pinball that you can switch between. I landed a bonus fairly quickly and was so happy when it landed on the Emerald progressive! It's always fun to start out your gambling with a good win. After this win I played the same game but on a different machine while my husband went over to play House of Cards. I was about five minutes into it when I heard my name and there was Slotspert, a friend I have known for years via a couple slot machine message boards. While in years past Slotspert and I have spent some time walking around G2e together this year we just got to chat a couple times while running into each other at the casino. It was great to see you Slotspert!
Randy and I started losing after my great beginning but he did get a decent bonus on Game of Thrones and I did okay on Lightning Link Happy Lantern.
We had heard that the new game World of Wonka had been installed at Venetian the day before so off we went to Venetian to seek it out. We found it and after a short wait for a seat at it we were having fun playing it. This game at Venetian has the comfortable love seat for two. While we didn't get any big wins on it, we managed to come out a bit ahead. I have a live play video of this session and a couple others, it's long so you might only want to watch a little of it. We did have a couple nice Oompa bonuses!
After World of Wonka we played a few penny and high limit games without success so we returned to Palazzo where Randy decided to play Plants and Zombies 3D. Above is Randy recording one of the bonuses he got.
I sat down at the game that is to the right of him in the photo above and hit a good bonus of $432.60! If you want to see a video of this game and win, this is it:
After Plants vs Zombies Randy went over to play Buffalo Grand while I tried a few other games that turned out to be losers for me. While I'm losing Randy got a bonus and a big win of $752.83!
After Randy's great win it was time for dinner at Aquaknox.
It's been at least a year since I have eaten at Aquaknox and I'm not sure why I have waited so long to return as the food was great. Service was a little slow but the restaurant was completely full due to G2e with the overflow filling up the lounge.
My drink above is their version of a sidecar, it was good.
Our amuse was tasty, I remember we were both glad it wasn't something with raw fish as Randy and I don't eat sushi and many times in the seafood restaurants that is what is served. While I don't recall exactly what was in this I remember we both ate it and said thank goodness it's not sushi.
Randy and I shared the Pacific prawn cocktail, that has a spicy cocktail sauce.
Both of us ordered Halibut as our entree, it was excellent!
We split the pomme frites and asparagus with bernaise, and while the serving of pommel frites was large we somehow managed to eat them all!
After dinner we were off to meet Superpocky who is a member like me of the VegasFanatics group. We had a nice chat and a photo op at the new World of Wonka game. We also had a minor miracle for Vegas when Superpocky noticed he had left his money in the Dragon Spin, the slot that we had met up with him at and when we ran back the money was still in the game!!! Randy and I in the past have left money in a game thinking the other one had cashed out and rushed back in one minute to discover it cashed out so it was amazing that after almost ten minutes that money was still there.
After we left Superpocky, we walked back to Palazzo in the hopes of duplicating Randy's win on Buffalo Grand and while we had a bonus we didn't get near the amount of his previous win.
We were walking over to see if Monopoly Jackpot Station was free when we ran into Lacey a lovely lady I know from the Joker's Wild Gambling Emporium message board.
Monopoly Jackpot Station was busy so Randy and I went and played Gold Fish. Where by some miracle I picked award all during the green fish bonus with the bubbles. Green fish is usually nicknamed Sucky Fish by me, but not this time!
After Gold Fish, I introduced Randy to Orange is the New Black, which cooperated by giving me a nice bonus. Later in the trip I had a nice bonus again when playing it with Rex. Here's the video of both bonuses.
Before going to bed Randy wanted to try Buffalo Grand again but the machine he won on earlier had someone playing it, however we had a nice Buffalo hit for $144.40!
We also won $115.60 on a Buffalo Grand bonus. This video has several Buffalo Grand bonuses on it and also the end of Randy's great win!
It's that time of year again when the Global Gaming Expo (G2e), international gaming trade show and conference for the industry took place at the Sands conference center in Las Vegas. This is where they network, talk about the trends, attend various seminars, see the latest products, not just in slot machines but all types of gaming, food, beverage and hospitality that casinos may offer.
While this conference and trade show is for the gaming industry there are usually some free passes available from exhibitors, for those of us who are interested in the new slot machines that are coming out. If you are interested in attending the exhibit hall in the future then I suggest watching the Twitter feeds and Facebook pages of various slot manufacturer's in mid or late summer in case they offer links to free passes and also read some of the gambling message boards such as:
www.vegasfantics.com, www.jokerswildforum.com, or other boards I have listed on the side of this blog as most years they will have posts with links to free passes posted around late summer.
I will be writing up separate trip reports on my stay during G2e at Palazzo and moving on to The Cosmopolitan for the Up Up and Away Slot Tournament. This post will mainly be videos of the floor at G2e around the various slot companies and short videos of a variety of the new licensed games for slots that are coming out in the future. Some of these games like Elvira will be on the casino floor very soon, other may not come out for a year or more. Mainly I'm showing you the graphics and sounds as some games are not yet finished and the pays you see in the videos may be different when they are set up in the casinos. For those of you interested there are five videos posted here each with something different to show you either of the G2e exhibit floor or some demo play on various new games.
When I first walked into the exhibit expo in the area of the various slot manufacturing companies, Aristocrat had a photo op available for their new game Sharknado, that's me and my husband above.
I played Sharknado for a bit and of course there is lots of humor and some fun features. While I have never watched the movies I will give this game a try when it's released in the future.
Casablanca was interesting for those of us who like old movies. I believe this is an Everi game.
Take a walk with me around the slot manufacturer's booths at G2e in this video!
Photos of some of the booths of the slot manufacturer's.
Normally not a big fan of Ainsworth slots but the Huckleberry Finn game was interesting.
I have never watched the movie but I did enjoy the humor and play of the Goonies slot machine at the IGT booth. Here's a video that has some brief play on Goonies and some of the other IGT games.
My friend Terra and I both played the Harley Davidson game and thought it had potential.
Second year for Breaking Bad at G2e. I don't watch the TV show, not sure I will play the game.
