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"Heaven on earth" is a state of mind. But, it can also be a real place. To me, heaven on earth is a quiet pine forest nestled high up in the Swiss Alps. It may also be a quiet beach in Bali. From my perspective heaven on earth is any place where natural beauty exists, far removed from the hustle and bustle of civilization. I presume each one of us has a definitive idea in our minds of what a "heavenly" place is -- whether that be a mountain, a beach, or a green valley. The places which attract us are as different as our multi-faceted personalities and tend to reflect our deepest aspirations in life. The other extreme is "hell on earth." These are the places to avoid. For some people, hell on earth might be a dangerous slum in a big city. It could be a cold frigid place, without any creature comforts. It could be new Orleans in the summertime or Buffalo in the wintertime. Or, it could very well be The Palms Casino in Las Vegas. Yes indeed, if I had to chose one location only, my hell on earth would be The Palms Casino. Congratulations, Palms. This is an awful place. It is so wretched that I have difficulty finding anything positive to say about this property. Even the parking here sucks. The Palms represents absolutely EVERYTHING that is wrong with modern Las Vegas -- a place where style matters over substance, a place where superficiality reigns supreme, and a place where anyone over the age of 25 might as well be nailed inside a coffin and buried six-feet underground. GETTING THERE: Let's start off with trying to get into the parking lot. This is one of the worst valet parking services anywhere to be found. On weekends it may take 10-15 minutes to get your car INTO valet parking. Note that I said "INTO." That's because of the crush of parasitic taxicabs crawling to shuttle all the ditzy twentysomethings back and forth between -- the Hard Rock and The Palms -- or modern civilization's reincarnation of Sodom and Gomorrah. Another reason accessibility is a problem is because the entrances right off Flamingo are very poorly designed and are almost always clogged with traffic during the evening hours. It amazes me that mega-casinos like the Mirage and Bellagio -- which handle FIVE times more cars and traffic on a daily basis -- are so easy to enter and exit, while clusterfucks like The Palms are burdened with traffic jams and lengthy delays. ONCE INSIDE: From the moment you walk into this hideous establishment, you are bombarded with a mix of rap and hip-hop over the loudspeakers. No doubt about it, The Palms seeks to attract a "younger" crowd. To this crowd "oldies" is probably any music released before 1999. Then, there is the problem of the casino layout. The slot machines are packed so closely together that it makes the inside of this joint feel like a rat's maze. At times, I wonder where's the hunk of cheese if I'm lucky enough to find my way out of the place. At one end of the casino is the Brenden Movie Theatre chain -- which features a dozen screens (honestly, this is the ONLY reason I would ever set foot in this God-forsaken place). Out in front is a food court, which gives the west end of the casino more of a "shopping mall look" than anything resembling a place to come and gamble. If you enter the west doors, at least half of the crowd in here is underage. I don't know if this attraction to the underage crowd is intentional on the part of The Palms or not, but I don’t like it one bit. When I enter a casino, I don’t expect to see 14-year olds with tattoos all over their body spewing profanity. That's not my definition of "class." Frank, Dino, and Sammy must be shitting in their graves right now looking down on this place. After dodging through a football field of slot machines and teenagers, the center of the casino can finally be found -- which is basically a lousy imitation of the Hard Rock's concept. The Palms has copy-catted the Hard Rock's original idea of putting a bar at the center of the casino, then surrounding the bar area with table games like blackjack and craps. A glance at the patrons on the casino floor on a typical night reveals about 100 percent of the clientele having not the faintest clue of what they are doing. You have a better chance of finding Elvis alive in here than finding anyone who understands Basic Strategy. There has got to be more stupidity per square inch in this joint than anyplace on the planet -- except quite possibly the Dallas Cowboy's front office. That's probably because situated right next to all the table games is the big headache-inducing nightclub -- with a steady barrage of THUMPING -- you know, that heavy "bass" sound that makes plaster fall from the ceiling. Don’t get me wrong, I love good bass guitar -- but in here it's a major annoyance. Dit. Dit. Booom. Dit. Boom. Dit. Boooom. Booooom. Boooom. I swear, you just want to go over and rip the fucking speakers out of the wall. Or grab a gun. And to think -- some people pay a $20 cover charge to get inside this joint. The crowd that hangs out inside The Palms is a cross between prick-teasing shanks, horny foreign-born Casanovas all wearing shirts that are one size too small and who smell like they bathe in cologne, and self-absorbed phonies who's only "gambling" is playing hard-core mind games with each other as to who can look and act the coolest. Indeed, these are "professional" game players -- with enough emotional baggage to fill a five-piece set of Samsonites. Why on earth The Palms caters to this narcissistic non-gambling crowd that wouldn't know a parlay from a parfait is a total mystery. My one and only occasion to walk through the pit gave me a glimpse of the highest concentration of red-chip bettors anywhere outside of Downtown -- and those were the few who were actually gambling. This is a crowd, most of which makes about $35,000-a-year and has car payments of $700-a-month. Like I said, superficiality supreme. THE SPORTSBOOK: This casino is owned by A. Maloof, who also happens to own the NBA's Sacramento Kings. I will admit to being a bit biased against The Palms from the start -- since (by league rules) the sportsbook cannot accept wagers on NBA games. Of course, that's not Mr. Maloof's fault. But, it does give the sportsbook one strike against it -- since gambling on one of the major sports isn't even allowed in this establishment. It's the equivalent of operating a bar, and saying -- we don't serve bourbon. The television situation is atrocious. First, it's almost impossible to read the scores and graphics because the screens hang high and are badly undersized. On more than a few occasions I had to walk all the way up close to the television at the front of the room to read the score of a game. If you are sitting down, you better memorize the score -- because it's going to be very tough to see unless you have supernatural vision. If you want to watch NHL hockey in here, you might as well be looking for a polar bear in a snowstorm. The television situation is so bad, you haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of seeing the puck moving across the ice. The horse players have it a little better. There are individual monitors which can be tuned to specific races. The Palms even offers handicapping (horses) contests. But sportsbettors are second-class citizens in this joint -- with relatively few chairs, poor visibility when it comes to watching games, and virtually nothing in the way of perks or incentives to stay here to bet and watch action. No doubt about it, The Palms wants a dumb, small-time dip-shit bettors as customers and couldn't give a rat's ass about promoting sports or gambling or anything associated with handicapping. At The Palms, the basic philosophy is -- lure in a young crowd with lots of exposed neo-jailbait flesh, booze them up, and maybe they’ll lose a few dollars at the tables and the sportsbook. Really fucking pathetic. A place for losers. Hell on earth. ATMOSPHERE: F COMFORT: D TV SCREENS: F STAFF: C COMMITTED TO SPORTS GAMBLING: F OVERALL: F |
