Ultimate low roller's guide - Los Angeles Times

Ultimate low roller's guide - Los Angeles Times: "Downtown, the official Las Vegas, looms in the minds of most tourists as a run-down, honky-tonk of a city. Yet, the more I see of it, the more I like it. Doing downtown Vegas is the best way to avoid the Manhattan-scaled traffic jams, the velvet-rope apartheid, the hyper-corporate hustle, the human and economic crush that a visit to the Strip has come to include. The New Vegas, dominated by just two or three conglomerates, has converted the old Rat Pack hangouts into behemoths that now wring more of their profits from room, restaurant and club rates than from the slot machines and tables.What a deal, then, to check in to a room at the venerable downtown Binion's, where the walk from the parking valet to the registration desk was about 10 yards — with no waiting in line when I got there. I had splurged by reserving an $83 mini-suite, but when I mentioned that I intended to play some low-stakes poker, the desk clerk knocked the tariff down to the 'casino rate' of $39 — about a fourth of weekday room rates on the Strip."