Flying Aces Casino

Gambling is a sordid vice that takes money from hard-working people who should be spending their earnings on the necessities of life like lap dances.

I'll spend my time and money in the club, not at the casino.

Flying aces casino had their soft opening yesterday and at the end of the month they will have their grand opening. I thought about going yesterday but I have read too many mixed reviews on the place so I avoided it. I don't think a casino will mess things up too much just like having a restaurant inside strip clubs does not mess things up too much but I don't know yet.

It is strange that the listing says Monday-Sunday 12pm-2am but Flight Club does not open until 7pm on Sundays so I wonder if that was a typo or if they are going to be running the casino based on different hours than Flight Club.

Ok, went twice over the last few days and here is what I observed. The remodel looks amazing. Alan truly went first class on everything related to the casino, the tables, the atmosphere, the views, everything looks better than I imagined. On the surface, it looks amazing. That being said, here is what I kind of thought all along. I still don't get the business model. It sounds like a gambler/strip club patrons dream on the surface. Everything under one roof. As a gambler and strip club patron, I really don't like them in one place. Over the first few days, it appears that both "businesses" are struggling.

They have about 12 poker tables, but no poker going on. Why? poker games need people. Unless you have 7 or more people ready to go, a game never gets started because nobody is going to sit around waiting for one to start when there are naked women everywhere. Poker isn't a "lets sit down for a few" game. It required time. Unless you can find enough regulars to play poker at a strip club, they will always struggle to get anyone to play. This was evident over the weekend as a poker game never started. Seriously, not one table! No matter how much this place is promoted, there is a good chance the poker room will NEVER take off (no pun intended.) Considering over half the space is poker, this is a gross miscalculation on their part! I don't think this can be overstated. Well over half the casino is empty. Completely empty.

On to blackjack. I was surprised to see normal casino rules. Most "charity" type rooms either pay 6-5 on blackjacks, or some even take pushes. They use normal rules, which is a good thing for players, still, never saw a full table (there are 5 or 6) and never saw more than 10 people playing total at one time. The dealers are ok, so no real issues here.

Roulette, like poker, never saw a single person playing. More wasted space (oh, and every table had a dealer at it, which they have to pay.)

As a whole, the casino is off to a terrible start, from a patronage standpoint. And he obviously put a boatload of money into this. Without slots, which they can never have unless the laws change, or some miracle promoting, this is simply not going to work as it is set up. Casino's are built on taking people's money, and nothing does that quite like a slot machine. Vegas was built on retired folks and welfare checks dumping money into SLOTS.

Now to the club. Dancers were pissed. Big time. The main strip club area was absolutely empty. Everyone was hanging around the upstairs bar, near the casino doors. The 4 or 5 dancers I talked to, as well as the shot girls, were making no money at all. And they were truly panicked. They guys that lost money at the tables now cant buy dances or shots, and the guys winning seemed to be there for the gambling and not the strippers. If this continues for any extended period of time, they will go elsewhere, and then they will be forced to lower standards and hire girls they wouldn't normally hire ,i.e. Bogarts/Henry's type skanks.

I know, it was the first weekend. They can call it a "soft" opening all they want, since the Black Tie grand opening isn't for a few weeks, but face it, that is for the select few. It is open for business, and business is not good. I was told it was busy on Friday. What strip club/casino isn't on Tigers opening day? It will take awhile for more people to find out about this, but they have ad's in local magazines, internet, etc. The thing is, the entire dynamic of this place has changed, and I just think the idea that hardcore gamblers would flock to this place was optimistic at best. The fact is, strip clubs are still an "underground" place in society, where many patrons don't want people to know they frequent. That does not help matters for the casino, because guys going out gambling that never go to strip clubs will not go here. Explain the night out with guys gambling to your significant other, while you smell like perfume.

Maybe this will change, maybe it will work after it get's going, but in my opinion, this very well could have DISASTER written all over it.

I wouldn't like to visit a strip club/casino. One distracts from the other. 10-15 years ago, I did enjoy going to the casinos in Tunica, MS, and then driving the 40 miles to Memphis Platinum Plus. I would do my gambling in the afternoon and strip clubbing at night. Plus I could tell the wife, I was just making the trip to hit the casinos. Since Memphis dried up as a strip club haven, I no longer go to Tunica. I do have my priorities.