Tropicana is one of those casinos at the far end of the strip that is scheduled for destruction at some point. I thought while I was in Vegas I might as well take a journey down there. Hitting up quite a few casinos along the way and some shops as well.

I did some early morning gambling at the Pairs before getting a little sleep before quite the walk down to Tropicana when it was a little warmer outside. It was a bit of a chili week in Vegas, but it was not unexpected for the time of the year I went. At least there was only a little rain the night before.

This ended up being one of many newer games I had not seen yet until this trip. It would not be my first time playing it or my last either. While the bonus I got was small I ended up getting the bonus three times.

A mummy walks around and collects green diamonds. Once he collects enough, he increases in size. He is also wild. As he increases in size you also get more free spins. Naturally, you want to make it to the end where he takes up the whole screen and you get a nice win. Quite rare to do and the best I’ve gotten has been a 4 by 4.

There were a couple of casinos I went into that I don’t quite recall the names of. I’d be going to a few on this day just to see what they had. I did not find much of any older game I’ve never played or not seen in forever. Instead, I’d play a little dragon link. huff and more puff, raking bacon, carnival jackpot, and a few others. Not getting anything that big but I have more than enough to be slightly ahead.

One such place I stopped at was Planet Hollywood. I guess playing in one of the bigger casinos in the country as my nearest local has spoiled me a bit. I found quite a few of the casinos on the strip to be rather small. I’m sure back in the day they used to have a lot more slots. Now everyone wants to sell you a show, a meal, and who knows what else.

My next stop was at Burlington. While many view it as a discount store. This is Vegas. I browsed a few isles and took an escalator back out of this place. They might have bought a basement in a casino or something to make this spot happen. I was kind of shocked they managed to fit an entry from the Vegas strip.

One place I did end up spending some time in was the M&M shop. It was a few stories tall with endless rows of M&M candy to buy or trinkets of the brand. They even had some custom M&M you could buy. It was tempting to make my own “custom” bag with quite a few different scoops of candy in it. Then I looked at the price and walked on to the next item to look at. It’s not like I wanted to lug around a 10 Lb bag of candy for the rest of the day anyways.

It was then time for a bit of a walk again. That would be the last store I’d be hitting on this side of the strip while making my way to Tropicana.

While I did not spend much time in the MGM Grand. I ended up finding the golden lion. I played a couple of slots inside but was not having any luck and moved on.

While back out again you can see I was getting close to the end of the strip. I had to take a bridge over to the other side of the street. I could have looked at those mountains till sundown but there were just too many people.

At the very least this being far down towards the end of the strip. Fewer people were bugging you or blasting at full volume the latest horrible music tape they made that they were trying to shove into everyone's hand. Other than a bit of construction blocking the road it is not that bad.

It was then time to head into Tropicana. This place was quite empty. I was at least hoping to find some rather old slots here. While they had a couple it seems at some point they attempted to be “hip” and get some of the new stuff.

The only thing older than the employees here were the random small groups of old ladies and they would all be saying the same thing “Remember when I hit a jackpot on that machine right there!!!” It seems they just showed up to go back down memory lane before the place was destroyed.

The casino on the walls was advertising a new player club experience, sign-up bonus, and new rewards. I guess it either did not happen or they had mostly shut the program down for the most part. I did at least get a player's club and they gave me a used deck of playing cards that had been played on the casino floor.

They also just had a lot of stuff I thought most casinos gave up having since almost no one plays them. At one point I swore every casino had thirty quick hits in them. I’ve never liked that game and don’t mind not seeing them much anymore. It seems they all came to this casino to die.

It was also quite noticeable how many slots had been shut down. I’m not sure what the legal requirement was to be able to turn them off for good or if they were just “broken.” This place had seen some better days.

There were also quite a few people who just seemed to be sitting around or wandering around, not gambling. Usually, I find it quite annoying when people are taking up a slot and not playing. It’s not like this place was that busy and they were not on any slots that I’d expected to have anyone playing them for quite a while.

Final Thoughts

At the very least I got to see what used to be a Vegas strip icon. It was kind of cool to see some of what Vegas used to be more like, not just the giant crowds it used to have. I did end up playing on a few slots in Tropicana, but I can see why many were not doing any gambling here.

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Photos were taken and content was written by @Enjar about my personal experiences in the real world away from the computer at home.