I think is was the mid-late 1990s. You bought a package deal (something like $250/person) and got a room for two nights and $400 (or so) in these free play chips. I was young, with not a lot of money, so thought it was a great deal. I didn't know all the details and the weekend was a bit of a bust.

First the chips... they were free play, one time use. This might be how it always worked, but I thought they were giving us regular type chips to play. You could only use them for 1:1 bets, i.e. blackjack, baccarat, black/red roulette. etc. You place the bet and regardless of the outcome, you lose the free play. If you played a $5 Free Play and won, they took the Free Play chip and gave you one regular $5 chip. If you lost, they took the FP. So in theory, the best you could hope is to win every hand and have your $400 FP replaced with $400 regular chips.

I learned the hard way, played blackjack and lost all but maybe $50. I later saw players get their $400 in free play chips, go immediately to the roulette and split half on black, half on red, then put a $10 bill on 0/00. That way, they got their $200 guarantee.

I wonder how many people were dumb (like me) and actually took the $6.25 cash value for the $25 chip, considering it's worth twice that at the roulette wheel???

And on a side note, Vegas World overbooked the hotel and sent us down the street to stay at some crappy motel (the Thunderbird maybe) and gave us ZERO compensation for it.

Weekend was a mess!