Why, then, do people insist on gambling if they can never win? Well, as these stats show, some people do win, and the prizes on offer are as huge as everything else in Las Vegas.

The highest of the high rollers

When you think of big wins in Vegas, you naturally think of the high rollers. Gambling tens of millions of dollars on the flip of a card or dice will net you big wins if luck is on your side – or big losses if it’s not.

Of the many legendary gamblers that have high rolled their way into Vegas legend, Australian billionaire Kerry Packer is one of the most impressive. In 1997, he went on a famous gambling expedition to the MGM Grand, and over the course of a few days, won between $20 million and $40 million.

Such was the extravagance of the man, he was said to have tipped a cocktail waitress a house and a doorman with $1 million! This could, of course, just be legend, but his largesse was famous, as was his prowess at baccarat and blackjack.

Mind you, he did also lose $28 million back in 1999 at a London casino – easy come, easy go as they say!

Mega wins on the slots

High rolling is all very well, but you need serious money just to take part. In contrast, anyone with 25 cents can play the slots. That doesn’t mean you can’t win serious money, though. Across Nevada, certain slot machines are all hooked up together, and accumulate a jackpot of immense proportions that one lucky punter must win at some point in time.

In 1998, that lucky punter was an anonymous woman in her mid-60s, who won $680,000 on The Wheel of Fortune at the Palace Station Hotel, before scooping the Megabucks jackpot a few months later and winning a phenomenal $27,582,539!

Even this pales into insignificance compared to the largest jackpot win of all time. This happened on March 21, 2003, when a 25-year-old software engineer from Los Angeles, who was just passing time at the slots, won an incredible $39,713,982.25 at The Excalibur.

So sure, gambling’s a mug’s game, and the house always wins – but sometimes, it’s the average bloke on the street who can pummel a casino’s monthly profits!

[Source: CasinoCityTmes, ABC.net, VegasTodayAndTomorrow]

Or at least I would if I learned how to gamble properly. I went to the Venetian, and put in my obligatory solitary dollar, and what do you know, I won $21. My gambling philosophy is, if you win more than you put in, cash out quick! So I promptly cashed out, and got my ticket.

In Vegas, the machines no longer pay out actual cash. Cash can be stolen, it’s heavy, and it can be used at other casinos. Tickets that represent how much money you’ve won, on the other hand, are much better. It’s less obvious how much money you’ve won with one, they can’t be transferred between competing casinos, and obviously they aren’t heavy. So all casinos use their own ticket system, with each slot machine paying you in a ticket rather than in 1,000s of quarters.

Now I should have remembered this when playing the slots at The Venetian. But no, I completely forgot, left it at my hotel (Circus Circus), only found it again when checking out, and so ended up with a ticket that could only be cashed at The Venetian (over a mile away)! What else could I do but leave it for the chamber-maid? I am an arse!

So you’re stuck with the taxi-driver to get around town, which also means you’re stuck with his laconic wit and his suggestions for the best places to go around town. And this year, we had some real gems!

This year I learned that doormen at the Mandalay Bay hotel earn $135,000, and saw one doorman showing off his new Maserati (I really am in the wrong job!). I also learned that 4 million visitors enter the city every month, and that taxi drivers earn $60k a year, mostly because they claim they only carry $5 in change – so even if you give them $100 (which many high rollers do, as that’s all they have on them!), they still only get $5 in change.

I was also asked where I came from, and after replying England, was told “well say hello to the Bloody Queen!” by an in-your-face cabbie who seemed to think his cab had an invisible force field around it, and that he could pull in front of any car he liked without any fear of trivia such as instant death!

Worse, though, were the other kind of taxi drivers, who were keen to inform us of some of the town’s other attractions. One cabbie, for example, told us the “hoes in Vegas” were way too expensive (“at least $300 or $400!”), whereas the ones in Thailand were much better value at only $35! He also told us that all the UK guys in Thailand sampling said hoes all wear Diesel shirts, and that the Germans over there were huge super-fat lard buckets who were way out of shape. A case of Mr. American Pot calling Herr German Kettle, but I didn’t like to point this out to him!

As if all this wasn’t enough, we asked another cabbie to take us to the Hilton, upon which he said “Oh you mean Sherrie’s?”, which turned out to be a “Gentlemen’s Club” on the edge of town. After convincing him that we did actually mean the Hilton, he tried to persuade us to go to some other strip joint. Again, we said no, at which point he started talking about Gentlemen’s Clubs for Gay people, and that while female hookers weren’t illegal in Vegas, gay hookers were!

Presumably his thinking was if you didn’t want to go to a strip joint in Vegas, you must be gay! We thought it best not to tell him we were going to the Hilton to check out the Star Trek Experience!

I thought no more than that though, and my eye drifted lazily to the tiny blonde girl walking next to them with the expectant smile on her face. As I looked at her some more, my mind started to make a few connections: “I know you from somewhere”, “hang on, they look like bodyguards”, “here, aren’t they your bodyguards?!” Yup, Vegas had two Paris’s that day – it was Paris Hilton, who was in Vegas to watch Prince play at the Rio (among many other things!).

It wasn’t that she was standing there shouting “look at me world” – she was just drinking in every double take that people made as they walked past her (myself included), with an expression that said “yes, that’s right, it is me, and you should be looking at me!”

Smug’s too strong – lovin’ it is more appropriate. But at least she was smiling at the people who smiled at her – even me! So there you go, my claim to fame: I went to Las Vegas and Paris Hilton smiled at me!