Treasure Island was the original home of the Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, which opened in 1993, and their Mystere show still plays here. The Features of Treasure Island. The hotel here is an impressive one, with a total of 2,884 rooms and suites. Both are reasonably priced, with a 400 square foot Deluxe Room starting at only $59 a night. Most fans of slot machines and large jackpots are not afraid of the curse of Megabucks and are willing to play in this slot. You can find this slot in almost all real casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, as well as in other establishments in Nevada, California, New Jersey, Mississippi, and some Indian reservations. This website uses cookies. By using this website, you consent to the use of cookies.
Treasure Island Hotel and Casino is yet another themed casino that has gone the way of appealing to a more adult crowd, and in particular, an adult crowd with deeper pockets. Several big Las Vegas casinos opened up with an interest in attracting families, sort of gambling versions of Disneyland, and Treasure Island, with its pirate theme, was certainly one of them.
The pirate sign is gone now, and the casino resort now refers to itself as simply “TI” now, the initials for Treasure Island, even though it might be put forth that adults are interested in treasure too and there is certainly plenty of that to be had here. Officially, they are still called Treasure Island though, even though they have clearly moved away from this notion for the most part.
Treasure Island was built in 1993 by Mirage Resorts, run at the time by casino icon Steve Wynn, at a cost of $450 million. The original plan was to build another tower on the Mirage next door, but they ended up deciding to build a whole new casino resort.
By the time 2003 rolled around, they decided to ditch the skull and crossbones and the other pirate motifs, which were designed to appeal to children, and turn it into more of an adult themed resort.
The Mirage became later bought by MGM, forming a new company called MGM Mirage at the time, although they have since changed again to simply MGM Resorts International. They still own the Mirage, as well as many other Las Vegas casino resorts, but they ended up selling off Treasure Island in 2008 to Phil Ruffin, the former owner of the New Frontier, for $775 million.
The last remnant of the pirate days, the Sirens of TI pirate battle show, was closed in 2013, to make way for a new shopping and entertainment center.
Treasure Island was the original home of the Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, which opened in 1993, and their Mystere show still plays here.
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The Features of Treasure Island
The hotel here is an impressive one, with a total of 2,884 rooms and suites. Both are reasonably priced, with a 400 square foot Deluxe Room starting at only $59 a night. All the rooms and suites here have floor to ceiling windows and offer fabulous views.
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$99 a night will get you a Petite Suite, with 630 square feet of living space and a whirlpool tub included. Both the Executive Suites and the Tower suites go for $129 a night, with up to 930 square feet and two bathrooms.
Those who are seeking a truly luxurious and spacious room will find it in their premium suites, with the Luxury Suite going for $499 a night, a Premier Suite running at $999, and a Penthouse Suite costing $2000 per day. The Penthouse suites are on the 36th floor with panoramic views of the strip and have a wet bar, a private office, and 1,800 square feet of space.
The restaurants are headlined by Phil’s Italian Steakhouse, specializing in steak, seafood, and Italian specialties, at an average price of $50 per person. The Seafood Shack provides a variety of fresh seafood for an average of $35 per meal and also has a bar that overlooks the casino.
Gilley’s BBQ offers barbecue ribs, steaks, and chili with a Western atmosphere. Senor Frog’s serves up Mexican food, and the Buffet at TI provides a wide variety of selections in a buffet setting. Pho Vietnamese dishes out Vietnamese and Asian cuisine, and the Pizzeria Francesco’s takes care of all of your pizza cravings.
There’s also Little Richie’s to check out, with their Chicago style hot dogs and beef, and the Coffee Shop where you can get a quick quality prepared meal. So TI has a good variety of food and a good selection of different places to dine at or grab a quick meal as you prefer.
Purchasing an $80 gift card gets you $100 worth of dining credits, which also can be used toward drinks as well. This is just one of many specials and promotions that regularly run at Treasure Island.
Both Gilley’s and Senor Frog have bars, with Gilley’s being the only honky tonk saloon on the Las Vegas Strip. Senor Frog’s offers an open bar three nights a week from 9PM until 1AM, so get ready for some wild times.
The Seafood Shack also has a bar, called Mojito Bar, specializing in rum cocktails as well as other popular beverages. The Breeze Bar serves up premium liqueurs and mixed drinks.
Mystere by Cirque du Soleil is the headline act here, in the Mystere Theater, and has won the award for best show by the Las Vegas Review Journal eight times. Stay with them for 3 nights and you get 2 tickets to this show thrown in for free.
They also feature Marvel’s Avenger S.T.A.T.I.O.N which features lots of memorabilia and is a must see for all Avenger fans. TI also provides access to an ongoing selection of other entertainment acts, including appearances by well known names.
Treasure Island is also proud of their world class Oleksandra Spa and Salon, which caters to your every spa need. There’s also a pool and cabanas on site, as well as shopping opportunities.
The Casino At Treasure Island
The casino at TI, at 95,000 square feet, is a fairly modest one by Las Vegas standards but has been making casino goers happy for over 20 years now and has plenty to satisfy all your casino playing desires.
They describe their casino as being in a more intimate setting, and although this is not a small casino by any means, it is indeed more intimate than most in the city.
Becoming a member of the TI Players Club instantly earns you between $5 and $25 of free slot play to get you started, and they have a good amount of slot machines here for you to enjoy. Once you start playing, you will be eligible for all of the rewards and perks that their player club bestows on their players as thanks for playing with them.
The table games area here offers all of the most popular table games, including Blackjack, Roulette, Craps, Baccarat, Pai Gow Poker, Pai Gow Tiles, Three Card Poker, Let It Ride, Big Six, and more, all in a more intimate setting.
Their poker room is also described as more intimate, and this means more than just smaller, the staff here are very friendly and are always happy to assist players whenever it is needed.
It offers both limit and no limit Texas Holdem, as well as Omaha Hi/Lo, Crazy Pineapple, and mixed games. They also run daily tournaments.
The race and sports book at Treasure Island is one of the best in the city, with a state of the art 60 foot screen as well as individual video monitors at every seat. Qualified bettors also enjoy complimentary cocktail service.
Their high limit lounge offers Baccarat and Blackjack with limits of up to $15,000 as well as first class service and comfort.
Treasure Island has been one of the top casino resorts for many years now and while a lot of new hotels have been built in Las Vegas since, they still proudly stand among the best.
Read also:
- Appendices
- Slots Analysis
- Miscellaneous
Introduction
The following table ranks the Las Vegas casinos according to the looseness of their video display reeled nickel slot machines. The returns are based on a sampling of five different types of machines. The data collected goes back as far as October 2001 so the information is a bit dated.
Las Vegas 5 Cent Slot Survey
| Rank | Casino | Average Return |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Palms | 93.42% |
| 2 | Gold Coast | 92.84% |
| 3 | Sahara | 92.81% |
| 4 (tie) | Bourbon Street | 92.63% |
| 4 (tie) | Imperial Palace | 92.63% |
| 4 (tie) | Slots a Fun | 92.63% |
| 7 | Key Largo | 92.60% |
| 8 | Western | 92.57% |
| 9 | Ellis Island | 92.56% |
| 10 | El Cortez | 92.56% |
| 11 | Orleans | 92.56% |
| 12 | Circus Circus | 92.56% |
| 13 | Gold Spike | 92.55% |
| 14 | Fitzgeralds | 92.54% |
| 15 | Fiesta - Rancho | 92.53% |
| 16 | Arizona Charlie's East | 92.51% |
| 17 | Barbary Coast | 92.50% |
| 18 | Terrible's | 92.49% |
| 19 | Arizona Charlie's | 92.49% |
| 20 | Hard Rock | 92.47% |
| 21 | Town Hall | 92.47% |
| 22 | Longhorn | 92.47% |
| 23 | Riviera | 92.23% |
| 24 | California | 92.14% |
| 25 | Lady Luck | 92.10% |
| 26 | Nevada Palace | 92.06% |
| 27 | Plaza | 91.94% |
| 28 | Luxor | 91.92% |
| 29 | Paris | 91.92% |
| 30 | San Remo | 91.88% |
| 31 | Excalibur | 91.84% |
| 32 | Palace Station | 91.84% |
| 33 | Ballys | 91.82% |
| 34 | Las Vegas Club | 91.76% |
| 35 | Four Queens | 91.75% |
| 36 | Texas Station | 91.71% |
| 37 | Casino Royale | 91.67% |
| 38 | Boulder Station | 91.55% |
| 39 | Aladdin | 91.5% |
| 40 | O'sheas | 91.48% |
| 41 | Hilton | 91.40% |
| 42 | Boardwalk | 91.28% |
| 43 | New York New York | 90.99% |
| 44 | Horseshoe | 90.96% |
| 45 | Sam's Town | 90.89% |
| 46 | Santa Fe Station | 90.87% |
| 47 | Flamingo | 90.86% |
| 48 | Golden Nugget | 90.85% |
| 49 | Stratosphere | 90.8% |
| 50 | Tropicana | 90.71% |
| 51 | Golden Gate | 90.64% |
| 52 | Silverton | 90.57% |
| 53 | Main Street Station | 90.56% |
| 54 | Westward Ho | 90.40% |
| 55 | Fremont | 90.37% |
| 56 | Castaways | 90.36% |
| 57 | Monte Carlo | 90.24% |
| 58 | Stardust | 89.97% |
| 59 | Frontier | 89.91% |
| 60 | MGM Grand | 89.81% |
| 61 | Harrahs | 89.32% |
| 62 | Treasure Island | 89.32% |
| 63 | Mirage | 89.3% |
| 64 | Caesars Palace | 89.05% |
| 65 | Mandalay Bay | 88.87% |
| 66 | Rio | 88.72% |
| 67 | La Bayou | 88.26% |
| 68 | Mermaids | 88.26% |
| 69 | Bellagio | 87.42% |
| 70 | Venetian | 86.66% |
| 71 | Airport | 85.02% |
Excluded Casinos
The Suncoast and Rampart Casino in Summerlin do not allow playing slots and taking notes at the same time. I can not include any casino that prohibits the method in which I gather data.
Location Averages
The next table shows the average return by location.
Returns by Region
| Location | Average Return |
|---|---|
| Off strip | 92.07% |
| Downtown | 91.66% |
| Strip | 91.47% |
| Total | 91.74% |
The above sign can be found across the street from the Palms. Although I did the study Anthony Curtis published it in the LasVegas Advisor, which is how it become well known. The'...' in the sign encompases quite a bit of information,which was conveniently left off the sign. Actually the study only says that the Palms had the lowest nickel video slotsof the casinos surveyed in Las Vegas. The small print at thebottom says, 'Independent study conducted between November2001-February 2002 on Austin Powers, Fortune Cookie, Reel'em In, and Wheel of Fortune games. They left off LeopardSpots, and the study began in October.
Observations
There seemed to be no truth behind slot placement myths. Machines on the end of a bank did no better on average than those in the middle. There was also no correlation between return and proximity to such things as the main door, table game pit, high traffic areas, and low traffic areas.
Most casinos were very consistent in their slot returns.If one nickel machine had a return of x% then all others like it also returned x%. However some casinos did mix up loose and tight machines, most notably Treasure Island and the California casinos.
Methodology
A kind and anonymous source provided me with par sheets for the games in question. The EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) chip is what tells the machine the order of the symbols on the reel, in some cases how the stops are weighted, how much each winning combination pays, and any other pertinent information about how much the machine pays.It is up to the slot manager to select which EPROM chip to order according to the return percentage desired. On atypical game there might be about 8 different possible return percentages, ranging from about 85% to 98%.
Each of the different par sheets has five sets of distinct reels. On video display slots the stops are not weighted; in other words all stops are equally likely. The distribution of each symbol on each reel is what determines the theoretical return of the machine. For example a higher paying machine may have more of the higher paying symbols.
On the machine itself three consecutive symbols arevisible on five different reels. By comparing actualobservations of results to the par sheets it is possible todetermine which reels the machine uses, and thus which par sheet and which return. There are various three-symbol combinations that appear in at least one but not all par sheets. So if one of these combinations occurs on an actualmachine it narrows down the possible par sheets. By playingenough the player can narrow down the possible par sheets tojust one.
To help identify the unique combinations I wrote a computer program for each game, which had the exact reel order of all 5 reels of all the par sheets. The program then counted the number of par sheets with each possible three-symbol combination. If the number was greater than 0 and less than the maximum then that combination was identified along with the associated par sheets it belonged to.
It is then a matter of simply playing the game and comparing the outcomes to the list of partially unique combinations. It only takes about 5-10 plays per machine to narrow down the possibilities to just one par sheet.
The averages in the table are actually an average of averages. For each kind of machine at each casino I took an average return. Then I took the average of these averages over the five kinds of machines I tested for.
Slot Machine Definition
There is some confusion about what constitutes a 'slot machine' or 'slot.' My definition, and that of most gamblers, is a gambling machine with either actual spinning reels or video representations of the them.
People in the gaming business and regulators generally refer to a slot machine as any gambling machine, including reeled slots, video poker, video keno, video blackjack,etc.. For purposes of statistics both casino managers and regulators combine all the electronic gambling machines together. For example, the Slot Chart in Casino Player magazine and reports by the Nevada Gaming Control Board do not isolate just reeled slots but consider all electronic games a 'slot.' Therefore my return percentages should not be expected to agree with those reported by the casinos or regulators. As far as I know mine is the only source to isolate just the return of reeled slots.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Rob Feldheim for helping with the slot play and record keeping. Rob helped me with most of the casinos on the east side of town and part of downtown. I would also like to thank par Sheet Pete (not his real name)for providing the par sheets, without which this project would not have been possible.
Internal Links
Treasure Island Big Bertha Slot Machine Las Vegas Nv Casinos
Go to slot machine appendix3B (Jean/Primm slot returns).
Go to slot machine appendix 3D(Henderson slot returns).
Go to slot machine appendix 3E(Las Vegas quarter and dollar slot returns).
Go to slot machine appendix 3F(Montreal slot return).
Go back to slot machines.
External Links
The main-stream media has covered this study in depth. Here are links to some articles.
Treasure Island Big Bertha Slot Machine Las Vegas Nv 89052
- Turning'em loose, an article that appeared in the Las VegasReview Journal on May 19, 2002, about the possible effectsof this study.
- One-Armed Bandit or Robin Hood?, an article by myself for Contingencies Magazine explaining the methodology, results, and weaknesses of the study.
- Play by the rules and the one-armed bandits will still win. Boston Globe article about slot machines, in which my Las Vegas survey is mentioned and my advice quoted. (cache)
Written by: Michael Shackleford