Totally Unauthorized

Islands of "greens" in the middle of the reservoir. Photo from Mike's Blackberry

If you can’t win at bridge, you can win at the slots.  Or Blackjack.  Or Craps, roulette, pai-gow, poker, fan-tan or baccarat.  The hotel even has a wedding chapel if you want to try the biggest gamble of them all.

Then there’s golf.  There’s a reservoir behind the Grand Sierra, where you can hit golf balls towards small islands with targets on them.  Mike Rippey was hitting a couple of buckets the other morning, to stretch out and clear his head for the game, when he got a, well, not really a hole-in-one, more like a barrel-in-one.  He dropped his drive right into the barrel on the closest island.

Get it into the target on the far island, you win a Hawaiian vacation.  Hit the barrel on the near island?

He won a Pepsi.  One.  20 ounce.  All to himself.

Generous payouts like that keep the dancing girls in the casino owner’s private jets.