Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Harrah's

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Harrah's - Las Vegas

Would appreciate any information that can be provided about the hotel. I did a search and nothing came up.

It is a nice hotel and it is located right in the middle of everything...

Would agree with Cheryl's short be sweet assessment. Casino is very convienent to getting onto the strip; it's not setback like some of the other casino-hotels. It's across the street from TreasureIsland, and not too far from the Venetian. Rooms are basic, but nicely designed, if on the small side. The buffet in the hotel is good, with lots of selection. Far superior the The Inperial Palace, which is also next door. That place is a dump!

Hotel: Basic. Not great, not bad. Like a Fairfield Inn, decent budget type place. Casino: Also pretty generic. Could be a casino in Mississippi or Missouri or Connecticut and you wouldn't know the difference. Location is its saving grace. Tops.

Someone needs to show this thread to Gina.

You called. Suggest you try under Harrad or Harrod. Obviously you're misspelling it.

S, go to www.harrahs.com for more information. I respectfully disagree with Gene's assessment of Harrahs. I have stayed there a number of times and it is not what I would refer to as a generic casino with rooms like a Fairfield Inn. The hotel has been remodeled. It has a Mardi Gras theme. There are great shows and restaurants as well as an excellent buffet. If you like Italian food, do try the Cafe Andreotti. Harrahs has an ideal location along the mid-strip near the Venetian, Mirage, Caesars, Treasure Island, and Bellagio.

Well, Gina, I see you have a sense of humor!

David, most of the non-Vegas casinos I've been to have themes also. In fact some of Harrah's own non-Vegas casinos are more interesting and better themed than their Vegas casino. The issue in Las Vegas is that Harrah's doesn't stack up well against all the high level competition. Compare its casino to Bellagio, Mirage, Mandalay Bay, New York New York, Rio and several others...Harrah's is plain vanilla. Again, nothing wrong with it, but there is some vert stiff competition in LV. As for its hotel rooms, same thing. Outside LV Harrah's would be better than average. In LV, it's very average, nothing special or memorable.

I agree with Gene. Harrahs is plain old vanilla. It is quite funny because I know people that worked for them and they are conceited, arrogant fools. He ended up getting another job at Bellagio, a much MORE UPSCALE hotel with FAR MORE better qualities. Do they realize they get laughed at??the recruiters at that dump?? Their hotel is kind of low man on totem pole...They aren;t anything spectacular. Bellagio paris and Venetian are much better!!!!!!!!!! go to another hotel. Front desk needs manners also.

I don't think anyone is going disagree that Bellagio, Paris, or the Venetian are nicer hotels than Harrahs. You would be a fool to. But that is the question. The original question is what is the hotel like, not is there is any better place to stay. Reemeber, Harrahs rm rates are about $45/nt. and lower. Venetian is at least $120/nt, as is Bellagio. Paris usually is at least $79/nt. What's more, Harrahs is considered a 3* hotels, while the others are 4*. Having said that, for the money, Harrahs gives you good value.

I like harrahs because you get a clean room at a good price which leaves me more to spend on the hookers!!!

I'm not big into the bar and club scene, but my wife and I have always had a really good time at Harrah's Carnival Court. It always seems to be one of the livelier parties in Vegas on a Friday or Saturday night. Cook E. Jar alone is worth the cover charge. Oh yeah, I've never stayed at their hotel so can't help you on that one.

Anthony, I think the only reason the comments about Bellagio and such came up was to try to put Harrah's in perspective, not to suggest that the original poster stay elsewhere. At the other end of the spectrum are places like the Frontier and Boardwalk. Harrah's is a palace compared to those. I also don't think anyone is disagreeing that Harrah's is a good value. I don't tend to hear negative comments about.

S, Anthony is correct. Gene, I also agree with you that such hoels as Bellagio and Venetian, for example, do have nicer casinos than Harrahs, but when it comes down to it, the best casino, in my opinon, is the one that pays the best. Last year a relative of mine did great on the dollar slots at Harrahs. I never play in the more upscale casinos like Bellagio or Venetian because they do not pay as well. In terms of casinos on the strip, I typically see more people winning jackpots Harrahs than at the more ritzy places. Also, being that most people do not spend much time in the room, Harrahs has more than adequate accomodations at an excellent price. I would rather save my money and have more to play with. The other reason I stay at Harrahs is that I have a Total Rewards Card so most every time I go I have a free room.

It is literally impossible for any single gambler to perceive an actual difference in overall payouts from one casino to another in Las Vegas. The actual percentage difference in total payouts at the major casinos is so similar, and the amount of time one would have to spend analyzing payouts to spot a 2% difference with 95% certainty is so large, that you'd have to spend hundreds of hours to identify that difference. David's perception is all part of what's known as the 'gambler's fallacy'. People look for patterns and attribute statistical validity to small variations and perceived trends when in fact the observed changes are simply random variations. A bit like flipping a coin 3 times in a row and getting all heads, then thinking that the 4th toss is more or less likely to be a tail. And perception is known to be heavily influenced by expectation and emotion. People tend to allow superstitions and preconceived notions to color their perceptions. This has been repeatedly validated in studies of gamblers' recollections of their activities.

What you see, I do not make any claims as to statistics, but instead with common sense. When I walk into a casino I notice how many machines are occupied and whether I see people winning. Of course this is not scientific and do realize that winning at slots is just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. But if I go into a casino where there are not many people playing or winning, it does not take a PhD in statistics to figure out that your chances of winning there are most likely lower than at a casino that is more crowded. The crowds are probably there for a reason, because of a potential for a better payoff. I have used this theory when playing at the Cal Neva in Reno, and I can say that every time I have won in Reno, it has been at the Cal Neva.

"....But if I go into a casino where there are not many people playing or winning, it does not take a PhD in statistics to figure out that your chances of winning there are most likely lower than at a casino that is more crowded". What?? Are you serious?? Tell me you're kidding, OK? You actually think the presence or absence of patrons tells you whether a casino pays better? Oh puhleease. Casino slot payout rates must be registered with the state gambling commission every month. You can look up the stats for yourself and see which casino's payouts are better or worse every month for every denomination of slot. And it will have NOTHING to do with whether the casino is empty or full when you just happen to walk by. Please call me about some land I have available in southern Mississippi. And please post your SSN and crediti card number here si I can process your request quickly. (You need some help with your critical thinking ability).

any truth to the rumor ihop now manages the harrad buffet allucaneat? no wonder its in laughin, nv. xxx, speaking of humor, I am full of it.

zzzzz, You might want to read before you start ranting. I never said that more play on a particular machine increase chances of its payoff. But, it does stand to reason that if a certain casino draws significantly more slot players than another, they must favor that casino because the slots tend to be loser. If you see people playing the slots and don't see alot of money dropping, that's usually not a good sign. If you ever go to Reno, check out the Cal Neva and you will see what I am talking about. I have been playing at Cal Neva for about 15 yrs. That place is always crowded and I see more people winning jackpots there than across the street at Harrahs.

David, David, David....don't wish to be harsh but you really don't understand the gambling thing. Here are a few simple rules: **slot machines have payout percentages which are set by the casino. They can be set to pay out 99% of coinage entered, or 79%. That doesn't mean every machine pays the set % every hour, but over many days it will pay what it's set to pay. **since casinos have to make public record of their actual payouts, they don't want to set the % too low, but they want to make money also. Look at the records and you'll find most pay 94%-99%, a little higher for dollar machines than nickel and quarter machines. **in a place like the LV strip, >98% of slot players have no idea which casino's slots are paying best. They just play where they're happy playing, or where they have slot club cards, etc. So if one casino's slots are busy and another's dead, it has nothing to do with payouts. It has to do with which casino is doing a better job of making people want to be in their casino (rewards programs, atmosphere, location, air quality, lighting, on site food and shows, etc etc all combine to determine whether a casino and its slots are busy. Not the payouts). **I will grant you that local players in LV and in other cities with casinos are more likely to read the newspaper and track which casinos are paying best, then play at those places. But in a place like LV this is a tiny percentage (<1%)of all gamblers on the strip. Locals tend to favor non-strip casinos. And even then, only a tiny percentage of locals have the discipline or even concern to adjust their gambling habits to the monthly changes in slot payouts from place to place. **and again, any one player simply cannot distinguish the payout differential from one casino to the next short of playing for inhumanly long hours on end. As such, whether or not a casino's slots are busy has nothing to do with payouts. Casinos cannot alter the payouts of table games, of course, as these are all based on probabilities of card and dice sequences. A casino can skew odds toward players by altering the rules, in blackjack for instance. But players know in advance exactly what the payouts are on all table games just by looking at the table rules. *****and the final argument is that even casinos which make blackjack rules more favorable for players (single deck, better hit/stand rules etc) are often less busy than ones with lower payouts. ----An even better example is roulette. Wheels with a single green "0" (as opposed to those with both a "0" and "00") have house advantages HALF as high as the double green wheels. but if you go places like Monte Carlo, where they have a few single "0" wheels, most people play the double green wheels with the worse payouts! By your theory people should be playing where they win the most money. Even in table games where you can KNOW FOR SURE that your odds are better at a certain table, people don't gravitate to the better paying tables. In slots, where you CAN'T know if any one slot is better than another, there's no way people will gravitate by payout. ***a final point: casinos often set the payouts higher on slots which are off the beaten path. They want the lowest payouts on machines which are in high traffic areas (aisles, entry ways) because these machines attract more passerby business. Thus they want the profit margins highest on the high traffic machines. But if people intuitively avoided low payout machines, the machines in high traffic areas would be the ones the casinos would NOT target for low payouts. The casinos are telling you that people spend more time playing the low payout machines!!

Gamers 101, You entirely missed my point. I never equated how much money has been put into a machine with its payoff. If it were that easy, all you have to do is just watch someone drop a large sum of money and then start playing it after they give up. I do know that casinos set a payout percentage, nut some casinos have a highr number of machines with a higher payoff than the others. As I mentioned before, I have been going to Reno for many years, and in my experience Cal Neva has higher payouts than the other casinos downtown. Also, how many people actually take the time to look at the public record of a casino's payout? Maybe the locals do, but tourists such as myself do not, and the casinos know this. So they probably could not care less if they have a lower published payout than other casinos in town. By the way, sometimes the slot attendents can be very helpful in directing you to a looser machine.