Back from Las Vegas. Only wish some of my $20 bills could have made the return trip as well. I guess some things do stay in Vegas.

The girls in Vegas were hot. But then again, so were the guys. It was freaking 102 degrees every day. The only time it got real cold was when we were at the craps table. Craps, or crapola as I call it, has overtaken roulette as my favorite gambling game because I can lose money at a much faster rate. And lose I did.

Runner-Up for the Best Gambling Story:
At the Vegas airport, there are slot machines for the desperate last chance gamblers to play. These machines are there to suck even more of your money out of your wallet so you can have less to carry home. I wasn't going to play any of these, but our flight wasn't leaving yet, and Howie decided he wanted one more chance at the Wheel of Fortune slots. I hate slot machines. A Wheel of Fortune machine at the Mirage had already sucked $10 in quarters from me, but I had a few dollar bills (and not much else) left in my pocket, so I popped one in and got 4 credits.

I played the max 3 credits and hit some combiation that paid out 60 coins. I immediately cashed out, but decided that I wanted to spin the wheel just once on the machine like I had seen so many other slot players do. After playing a few more max credit bets, I finally got a chance to spin. I could have won up to 1000 coins, but I only got 30. Stupid machine. Still it was $17.50 from $0.75.

Best Gambling Story:
We were sitting in the sportsbook at Caesar's Palace just watching the big screens, when a soccer fan comes up to us and asks us if we can explain the gambling lines to him. The game he asked about was the Euro Cup quarterfinals match between France and Greece. France was at (-600) and Greece was at (+400), meaning France was a huge favorite. We told him it was not worth it to bet on France, as you would have to bet $600 to win $100.

I, however, saw that Greece was listed at +400 (bet $100 to win $400) and was suddenly taking an interest in the Greek national soccer team's chances of victory despite having no knowledge of European soccer. I was going to make a $5 bet on Greece to win, just for fun, but the Bellagio sportsbook minimum was $10. Since $10 would last about 10 seconds at a craps table anyways, I would at least get 90 or so minutes of action for the soccer bet. (Certain people were mocking me for making this bet.)

When it was time for the game to be played on Friday, I went to all the different sportsbooks to try to see the game and root for the Greeks, but it was not on any tv in any casino. It wasn't even on ESPN's bottom line. Finally, after returning to San Francisco did I get a chance to see ESPNNEWS. The soccer bar came up and it read: Greece 1, France 0. The fifty dollar check I'm going to get from Bellagio won't offset all my gambling losses, but winning this one wager was more exciting than any other bet I placed during the week. Seriously, I cannot explain how awesome this soccer bet was.

I also stand to cash in big when the Giants win the World Series.