You will see their demeanor go from "Hey, come over here and take a picture. This is Vegas.
Get your Vegas showgirl pictures!" to "I'm going to call the cops
if you don't give me $20 for this photo."
So,
we've seen this happen a ton of times where someone goes over to take a picture thinking maybe these girls or these guys are part
of the casino or
they're from a show that just got let out or something, go to take a picture and then they start demanding $5, $10, $20...
more even, so, if that's your thing and you think that's worth it, by all means, knock yourself out
but just know what you're getting into beforehand.
#2 - It should be no secret to you that Vegas has an advantage - the casinos always have an advantage.
They are always going to win unless you are very lucky. You should never bank on getting anything,
But something that you should
extra watch out for, are casino games that make you think you're about to get a big win.
And in reality, it's just a scam. It's just a mind trick...
[People saying hi] Oh thanks guys! Thank you!
It's just a trick to make you think you're on the verge, but in reality, nothing is going on.
For instance... We just passed one.
I was trying to point it out to you, but I interrupted you.
Sorry. So, for example,
This machine has this gold pot that fills up. It makes you think that once that gets really full
it's going to hit the bonus,
but if you click the help button and look through the rules,
it actually says the number of coins in this pot has no effect whatsoever on when the bonus is going to hit, so
don't let machines like this trick you.
Oh, here we go!
The accumulation of this coin symbol over time in this pot has no effect on triggering the jackpot bonus.
But as you're playing and you get this coin symbol,
it's going to add these little coins to the pot making it more full and more full and more full,
but that's not going to mean you're just due for a win.
Here's another one. Actually, this wicked devil wheel, where it has something...
It has this cauldron that fills up and on this game as well
it says animations adding to the cauldron have no effect on the progressive pick bonus - whatever the bonus game is.
So, this is just another one that will make you think, "Oh, it's full... It's piling over"
"I'm going to get a win soon", but sadly, no!
#3 - This is one that if it happens to you, it's really going to ruin your day and
that is theft, thieves, pickpockets, things like that.
And this one actually
happened to me. We have
been to Vegas dozens and dozens of time
and this only happened once, but it did suck
royally. So we're going to tell you about it. Whenever there's big crowds of people,
whenever you're in a club, I think those are the prime
time for people to get in your purse or slide their hand in your pocket and steal your phone out.
What happened with me was, we were in a busy club, Jordan had his hands around my waist,
so I wasn't paying attention to anyone else potentially touching me. There were tons of people on the dance floor
pushing past, legitimately like start pushing past. So I was just thinking, "Okay, oh my gosh."
I'm just getting shuffled back and forth with my stuff.
But what actually was happening at some point was someone getting right in my purse and
taking my phone out and I just thought it
was part of the deal being in the club - being in the crowd, so
unfortunately, there went my phone, never saw it again. In general,
I don't feel like I have to really watch my stuff in Vegas,
but whenever we're around big crowds of people like, in a club or on a busy sidewalk like last night,
it's "Labor Day" weekend. There were so many people out,
Yeah. Like shoulder-to-shoulder on the sidewalk.
You better believe I
had my hand on my fanny pack and you were really keeping
an eye on your phone in your pocket.
Yeah, absolutely!
#4 - This isn't so much a tourist trap, but it is going to take more of your money than other things.
Well, slot machines have bad odds in general.
The ones that are branded are even worse. This one like, "Breaking Bad" or you'll see "Sex in the City"
or "Walking Dead", all of these have to pay royalties to
the rights holder of these shows. So
the odds are even worse than other slot machines. So, on something like this the house is going to have a 15% advantage
unlike something like this, where they might have a 10% advantage.
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#5 - Often times when people come to Las Vegas, they're looking to go to day clubs and nightclubs.
So, something you're going to be looking for is a promoter to get you on the guestlist for free or whatever the case, trying to
get you past without having to pay a very high entrance fee.
That's another scam on its own.
So you go out and you find promoters on the streets, they're like "Hey, come on"
"You can come to Omnia tonight. You can come to Jewel. You can come to Drai's night club" or day club,
whichever one it is and they're like, "We'll give you free drinks." "We'll give you free entry"
We can give you a table
If you have like this ratio or whatever. (What is a "good ratio" in Las Vegas? Clubs prefer groups with lots of ladies and fewer gents).
Something that you want to look out for though is
over promising because, in the past, we have seen it time and time again.
They say you can skip the line or get all these free drinks for ladies or whatever it is, and it doesn't always happen.
They can't always follow through on those promises. So, go to clubs
because you want to have fun not because you think you're going to get all these extra goodies. And one caveat is,
Not all promoters or scam artists or anything. If they say they're gonna get you on the list for free before
11:30 or something. You'll probably get in for free before 11:30, but those extra things that's what might not happen.
#6 - One tourist trap -
well, something that's going to really dig into your pocketbook is buying drinks at
nightclubs, or day clubs, or even out at the pool. They are so expensive!
So, try to do your drinking before you go to these things so you don't end up having to pay
$30 to get a drink,
or just a bottle of water.
We talked about that in our first video.
Yeah. Ungodly expensive.
Horrible.
#7 - So, this next one is a scam
we've been told about on our channel, but it has not actually happened to us,
and that is, apparently people will be selling water on these walking bridges - these pedestrian bridges
That take you over top of the roads, which I have seen before. We have seen that. We've never bought water from them,
but the scam is, they will take old water bottles and refill them with tap water.
Which is... Ewe.
And then, so you don't notice, they'll be so polite as to take the cap off for you and hand you the water bottle.
So I supposed to get around this, notice if they have all the same water.
I feel like if it's a bunch of Kirkland waters, they probably just went to Costco and got a bunch of waters,
but if they're all mismatched -
You want to go down here? Yeah.
If they're mismatched water bottles
or they are being so polite to take that cap off for you so you don't notice that they just glued it back on,
don't buy it. And water is relatively inexpensive at CVS and Walgreens on the strip,
so you might as well just do that. For me, although I'm sure this has happened,
I don't really buy this one,
because waters are just so darn cheap when you buy them in bulk at the grocery store.
You can literally get them for 10 cents a piece and they're selling them for a buck or two.
So you have huge margins and in order to fill up empty water bottles,
you'd have to go through the work of finding all those empties and then filling all of them up, when that
seems like way more work than the price you can buy them for in bulk.
That said, desperate people do desperate things.
So, you just never know.
Just proceed with caution on that one? Yeah.
#8 - We've mentioned this in previous videos and
that is going to timeshare presentations for the promise of free stuff.
So, we were actually in an uber with a guy who used to be a timeshare
promoter person and he was like "I had no idea what I was doing."
He would promise people that it would be an hour and a half.
They would call him back up later, going
"You said it was going to be 90 minutes" and it was 4 hours,
5 hours, 6 hours long and then they would be even angrier
once they went to the shows or the crappy buffets that they gave passes to,
to realize that they had wasted a huge chunk of the day or a huge portion of their trip only to get basically crap in
return for it. So we have said it before but it's worth saying again,
just also proceed with caution. Know what you're getting into with the timeshare
unless you're like super interested in timeshare.
I personally feel like it's a huge trap. How are you going to know it's a timeshare? They're probably going to ask you,
"Are you married?" "How long are you in town?"
Questions like that. "How old are you?" "Are you two on your honeymoon?"
But I would definitely qualify this as a tourist trap because almost everyone who does a timeshare presentation says "Never again!"
I do want to clarify though that not every buffet is crap.
Not every Vegas show is crap,
but some of them are. Like we went to the "Misbehave game show" and it was so
awful. For the love of God, do not go to that show.
There are some really great ones like "The Cirque shows". "Beatles Love" is an absolute favorite of mine.
We've been to it 3 times because I like it so much and some of the buffets are really good.
We just checked out, what was it called? Bacchanal. Bacchanal buffet. And that was like, oh my gosh,
so good. We also love the "Aria-buffet"
But then there's others that are a little bit more low quality.
So, when it comes to these timeshares, I don't know, ask for the good stuff if you're going to go through with it,
but I have seen it a couple times and that is 3-card Monte where they'll have
3 cards out there and you have to follow the Queen or where they have 3 Solo cups
and one of them has a ping-pong ball underneath it. These are a scam, do not do it.
You'll see people winning but those are other people who are in on the scam.
They convince you to come up there, throw $20 down and then you lose because
it's rigged. Yes, it's rigged!
They use sleight of hand to switch it out and you will never win.
#10 - And another thing to keep in mind and look out for is
Resort fees. You might be like, "Oh, I found this great deal on a hotel. It's only $50 a night."
Well, then you get there and realize that it also has a $35 night plus tax resort fee.
That for the most part,
you're not going to be able to opt-out of it. Most hotels don't allow it, whether you want internet or not. Yeah.
However,
we recently found a way that we no longer have to pay resort fees ever.
So, we're going to link to a video
right above here and
in that video, we tell you exactly how you can avoid paying resort fees as well.
Word to the wise, there are some rare ways that you can get out of paying these resort fees. BONUS TIP (this isn't in the video linked above).
For instance, we play the Wynn Slots app, and you can accrue gems
which help you get free rooms. When you book those free rooms,
you can opt-out of Internet and some of the facilities, I think like the gym,
so you don't have to pay like $35...$40 a night.
And then there are casinos like "Treasure Island" where if you book a certain offer or through a certain way
which I'm not totally sure what all the ways are, you can also opt-out but you're just basically saying I'm not going to use
Internet, I'm not going to use the gym,
potentially, I don't think you got to use the pool either but if you want to save that money (and it is a lot of
money) and adds up, then you could try to find these ways. In our other video, that's not one of those, it is
how you get those resort fee for free.
You still get all the benefits that come with them, but you don't have to pay it.
#11 - Sometimes when you're walking down the strip, you're gonna have people trying to hand you CDs or
fake monks trying to hand you a bracelet.
Did you
say fake monks? Yes.
Monks? Yes. It's a thing.
Okay...
I've never seen that one.
But the CDs one is more common.
People that are trying to hand you stuff,
sometimes that's cards...
Which are somewhat harmless except they're like strip clubs, stripper, hooker things. But
[Showgirl standing on the sidewalk] Would you guys like your photo? No thanks. We're alright!
The other thing is, people will be...
The other thing is, a lot of times, people will have CDs,
their sample discs.
Sometimes, these are just blank CDs, so you would be buying nothing.
Generally, just don't take it.
Just put hands in your pockets, don't do it. So you don't have to worry about getting scammed in whatever potential way
they're trying to work you. When these people hand you CDs,
they'll want payment in return and then they won't take it back.
They'll refuse to take it back. So, if this ever happens to you just toss it to them.
They'll be forced to catch it and you walk away.
#12 - So pretty much everything in Vegas is expensive and
ATM fees are no exception. Almost every ATM on the street is going to cost you $8 to $10
every single time and I've even seen pictures of someone paying
$200 for an ATM fee at a strip club.
So, be sure to get your cash out before you come here or have a bank that
refunds all ATM fees like we do, to avoid those charges.
#13 - Here is the next scam, it's
107 degrees outside. Probably fricken 100 and I don't even know, 10?
It feels really hot today. And then!
They've got this scam right here - elevator out of service
or I mean escalator out of service and we have to take the stairs.
Ugh, I have to use my own legs!
[Laughter]
#14 - And last but certainly not least, are the taxi drivers.
We have definitely mentioned this before but it is another one of those that's worth mentioning again.
When you get in a cab, typically from the airport, a
dishonest cab driver will try to scam you by taking the longest possible route to get you to your hotel, maybe
slowing down so they don't miss that or they don't get through that yellow light or
what is the other thing?
Yeah, basically, just things to rack up the fare and they're already expensive to begin with.
Using uber or lift instead of a taxi is
probably going to be about half of the cost for you.
So that's definitely the way to go.
And of course, the fare is predetermined.
Everything is within the app - you have recourse if something crazy happens with Uber or Lyft.
You can report the driver, or report whatever it is. In general, anywhere in the world, avoid taxi drivers,
it's my advice.
Before we go,
please go ahead and comment down below if we missed any tourist traps, scams, or bait and switches that you've experienced in Vegas.
Obviously, since we've been here so many times, there are a bunch of stuff that we just don't
fall for because
we know it seems weird and it's not just "Oh, this is crazy! It's Vegas" Kind of thing. So yes, please comment,
let us know what you've experienced, or things that you've heard about that we may have missed.
So that potentially we do a part 2.
And go check out our other Vegas videos, we're going to link to a couple of those on the end screen here.
We have a lot of great advice for you and ways for you to save money,
coming up on your trip. Thank you guys for watching, please
be sure to subscribe to our channel
if you want to see other Las Vegas videos that we create and also travel vlogs that are putting out
across the world.
And one more very important thing...
[Bell Ringing]
Gong that bell! So you get notified the next time we put out our new videos, and we'll see you soon.
I think I just shot something out my nose. [Laughter]
Gross!