Room Quality: The rooms are better than Holiday Inn quality, but but mid-tier for the Strip. That's fine, since you aren't paying fancy prices. In the older tower (Mardi Gras) you will find the rooms to be standard-size, and have flat screens and better appointments. The newer tower (Carnival Tower) has smaller rooms. Bathrooms are plain; the tubs and showers are combined. The two bed rooms have two queens. Views can be excellent if you swing a Strip view. The way the place is laid out, however, there is a good chance to get a view of the other tower or the air-conditioning vents. The location, right across from several other major casinos in the center of the Strip, is hard to beat.

Service Quality: Good. The hotel sits right over the casino which is right on the Strip, so it's a short walk to other casinos and anywhere else on the property. The staff is somewhat friendly. The parking structure in back is somewhat confusing to get in and out of. Check-in waits can be brutal at peak hours. Try to do it before three or after ten p.m. if possible.

What You Get Bottles of in the Bathroom: Shampoo, conditioner, and lotion. It's decent quality stuff, but nothing you are going to run out and buy at home - mostly because the bottles are so small you'd have to buy more every day.

Clientele: Young to middle-aged. They draw people with a moderate gambling budget who want a well-located hotel. The folks here mostly aren't flashy and they aren't tacky.

How's the Pool? Poor. Boy, for a hotel and casino as big as this, they sure could have done a lot better. It's a big rectangle, surrounded by an overpriced sundry stand and an overpriced snack bar, where you can get a burger for what a Laotian peasant makes in a month. The pool is not heated and is closed from October to March or April.

Table Games: They have all the games. The casino is cramped and noisy. The feel is action-packed and exciting in there because so much happens around you. The dealers are more friendly than usual here. Perhaps most disturbing is the Toby Keith Gaming Pit with girls in black leather vests and blue jeans, lousy odds on gimmick games and awful music. There is also a sports pit that combines lots of televised sports with blackjack and other games. Nothing like multi-tasking your gambling.

Bet Minimums: They usually want $10 minimum in this place for blackjack and craps, but it can be higher on weekends, and anything not out of a shoe is likely lousy 6:5. Roulette has $1 chips with a $10 minimum, and craps runs $10 and higher with 3-4-5x odds. Other games start at $10.

Machines: From pennies up to at least $100. They used to have these electronic roulette things that were fun (but a ripoff), but they got rid of them (they do have a roulette wheel where you bet electronically, though). Video poker is generally poor.

Cocktails? Good. The cocktail waitresses wear silly costumes (they all do) and deliver drinks with decent speed. The drinks themselves are all right.

Who Gets Comps? Table players may get food at $25 to $50 play for several hours. A room may be comped to $100 and higher players. Harrah's rewards loyalty. More than any other casino, the games are a ripoff, but they comp you well for playing them.

Cafe at Harrahs: It's a coffee shop that has no specials you will trample people to get to. In fact, the name itself tells you how unique it is, but doesn't tell the prices are high. The lines, like those for the buffet, can be long on weekend mornings.

Carnaval Court Bar and Grill: This is a great place to have lunch while sitting right on the Strip. It's outdoors and the parade of oddballs and kooks that will walk by will be worth the price of admission. The food, which is just stadium and pub stuff that's greasy and mediocre, is not the point.

Flavors Buffet: It's a better-than-average buffet with a slightly costly price tag. That means you should go for it if you're not in the mood to seek out one of the super-buffets. The most interesting thing in it is the Brazilian BBQ. The gelato is cool, too. The waits, however, can be as long as an hour.

Ming's Table: It's cuisine supposedly covering all of Asia with Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Thai, but really, it's mostly Chinese. Actually, it's not bad, but not great. Look for a wide range of seafood dishes and prices that run the gamut from affordable for most everything to out of this world for the chef specials like shark fin soup or Peking duck.

Penazzi: We're not sure what the point of replacing the old Italian restaurant with this place was since it's still mostly traditional and standard Italian. Not bad, by any means, but the prices of the meals and the extensive wine list would have you believe it was better than it is. There is also an oyster bar attached to Pennazzi.

The Range Steakhouse: One of the better steakhouses on the Strip, and the view is terrific, if you like watching people walk by on the sidewalk. It's upstairs and has nice windows where you can gaze down upon the great unwashed without getting dirty yourself! Prices are the typical $20-$30 for the entree, and then you pile on the desserts, drinks, appetiziers and slip a little something into an envelope for us.

Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill: The country crooner has opened this bar and grill to serve down home southern cookin' like fried baloney sandwiches, "freedom fries" and other meals that are not considered culinary delights, but please people anyway. A warning: you better love Toby Keith more than he loves this bar and grill, because his videos and music are always playing, and his picture is as omnipresent as the sun in the Sahara Desert.

Carnaval Court: It's an outdoor bar beside the casino and they have free Mardi Gras style entertainment at night. It's usually not very good and the dance floor goes almost entirely unused. Well, we dance there, but we'd do that even if there were no music. One exception is Cook E. Jarr who performs on weekends. Check the schedule and don't miss his cheese-tastic show.

The Improv: Trying to preserve some shred of dignity for the dying art of stand-up comedy, the Improv is usually the home of America's best up-and-comers. You almost always get a good show, if stand-up comedy is your bag. $25 per person.

Legends in Concert: This is an impersonation show with acts like Stevie Wonder, Elvis, the Righteous Brothers, etc. It has been playing for over a dozen years and still packs them in. It costs more than the Stratosphere's American Superstars impersonation show and is about its equal in quality. It skews toward acts that will please a middle-aged and older crowd.

The Mac King Show: It's an afternoon magic/comedy show with a guy who wears a wacky plaid suit and does a lot of wacky double-takes. To be fair, his sleight-of-hand magic is pretty good (although it's still just sleight-of-hand magic). And, there are plenty of coupons around for free admittance with the purchase of a single overpriced beverage.

Piano Bar: Karaoke and dueling pianos fill this medium-sized bar off the casino floor. We know what you're thinking because we think it too: how do they get the pianos to fight? What do they tell them?

Rita Rudner: Don't let the plastic surgery fool you, Rita Rudner must be about 120 years old. It seems like it anyway. She's been one of the top female comics for a long time, and some of her material shows why she's tops and some shows she's been around a long time. If you've never seen her, though, her oblivious neurotic act can be a good time.

Number of TVs: There are more than 45 plasma screens, in the "sports pit" which is a sports and race book, plus has table games and slots.

Number of Seats: The sports seating is combined with poker room and table games to create something called the "sports pit" which is supposed to be your one-stop shop for losing money in many different ways. To us, it's just sort of annoying and busy. Hey, when we're watching curling we need to concentrate.

How Many Betting Windows? Eight windows to serve everyone with money, whether you like sports or races or just the thrill of handing money to people on the other side of the counter.

Free Drinks? They're tightening up. You have to make some big wagers to get the free drink tickets.

Snack Bar? The Pepper Rose Deli is very close at hand.

Minimum Wager: $5 sports, $2 for racing, just like just abut everyone else.

Other Notes: The seats are nice, green leather (maybe vinyl, our fannies aren't sophisticated enough to feel the difference). The layout and lounge seating in the sports bok make it a very social room.

Number of Tables: There are twelve tables, and more than half are usually running from afternoons on.

Comfort of Chairs: Pretty dang typical. While the room is pretty nice, the chairs have no wheels or adjustments. Just tweedy, plain chairs.

Closed Room or Open to Casino? A truly closed room with two doors that let you out to the bathroom or sportsbook. There are windows, though, so don't worry about feeling like your playing in a closet.

Game Spreads and Limits: Mostly Hold 'Em of the no-limit variety, with limit games at $2-$4 and $3-$6. They have a frequent mixed-games table at $4-$8, but they don't include Dogs On The Table as one of the choices.

Beginner Games or Classes? Nope, but they get a lot of newbies and the dealers will help you catch up. Still, we don't recommend this for a beginner's room.

How Crowded is the Room? With twelve tables and the poker boom fading, there is usually not much of a wait. They have a computerized wait list, but you'll rarely be on it longer than 20 minutes.

Comps? Harrah's typical $1 an hour plus points on your Harrah's card to help you gain some fancy status.

How Good Are the Players? On weekdays there are lots of tougher older guys who usually don't even pay to the see the flop. On weekends and late at night, the tourists flow in and the games can get ridiculously loose. There are daily low-buy-in tourneys.

What Else Do I Need to Know? Lots of TVs on the walls in this joint, all of which show sports. The rake is steep at $5 max, so you'll have a hard time beating that at the limit games. They have some very deep stack tournaments most days.