Opinion on Binions, plus Robert Arabella's Texas Hold'em Hotel
OPINION ON BINION As soon as the World Series of Poker monster bandwagon gets into full swing, stories about its birth back in 1970, thanks to the notorious Benny Binion, begin to surface and amuse. Some of them are even true! What is known for sure is that Benny was a bootlegger, an illegal casino owner, a cattle rustler, and, oh yes, a convicted murderer. Still, nobody’s perfect, and when Benny wasn’t killing people he was more usefully converting the Eldorado Club and the Apache Hotel into the now world famous Binion’s Horseshoe, the traditional home for the final table of the World Series of Poker! History in the end will record Benny shining like a true American hero. A revolver in his pocket, a shotgun in his car and an idea that turned out to be worth billions.
THE HOLD’EM HOTEL If you want to read some poker stories that definitely aren’t true web search the hysterical work of Robert Arabella. His insane scribblings about the “Poker Cop” hunting down the “Poker Player Slayer” are priceless. His stories usually feaure such venues as the “Hold’em Hotel” (also known as the “All-In” or the “Flop House”) and have that Jack the Ripper meets Phillip Marlow by way of Steve Martin theme. These are particularly valued items if you are taking the America West flight out to Las Vegas for the World Series main event and you want to blot out the “in cabin environment” of what is probably the best example of how a company can stretch the term “no frills” airline like the waistband of Pavarotti’s boxer shorts. The enticing aroma of old buckets of “Hippo Burger” mingling with damp diapers forms an eco system that can’t truly be dispersed by Arabella’s hysterical reading matter alone. There will in fact be moments so disturbing you find yourself whimsically considering stitching your own nose shut with a blunt nail and bra wire you’ve noticed sticking out of the air hostess’s ketchup-adorned blouse.
THE ADVANTAGE The advantage of course of landing in Sin City by this means of torture is that even Las Vegas can now seem like a cultural Nirvana when you arrive. By the time you’ve thrown an ice cream at your first Barry Manilow poster and arrived at the Rio to see poker heaven stretched out before you, all is forgiven and you know this is where every card player should come to die. And of course if you stay long enough (let’s say two weeks) and take up the local diet of popcorn, peanut butter wedges and fried chocolate sausage, you probably will. But hey, this is the last few weeks of the World Series and things are hotting up! It’s the only place on Earth to be however you get there.
