 This hotel next to the convention center is mostly for business people taking up bed space. The place resembles an off-strip casino in many ways, some of them good (like the decent video poker selection and great sports book), and some of them bad (the sleepy-feeling casino) Expect a nice, if quiet, time if you stay or play here.
Coupons Available for LVH Las Vegas Hotel & Casino: $25 off two steak and lobster meals at Benihana's, $20 off two entrees at TJ's and Casa Nicola. (Click Here For More Info.)
    
Room Quality: The rates are quite competitive for the rooms, which are nice, well-appointed, bland and spacious rooms. The range of different rooms is wide, with Standard, Grand, Suites, Park Executive Suites, etc. What we do know is renovated rooms with better beds and linens are called Grand or better. The Grands are all renovated and in the North Tower. The king-bed rooms have sofas, the doubles don't. They all have sitting areas, small TVs and average-sized bathrooms. All rooms have hairdryers and ironing boards. But, let's be honest, we don't iron our clothes when we're home so why would we iron them while on vacation?
Service Quality: Very good. This hotel handles a lot of business travelers and convention attendees because it's right next to the convention center, and the joint is set up to serve their every whim. Lots of executive services. Check-in can be a bear. We have waited over thirty minutes to check-in at midnight on a Thursday.
What You Get Bottles of in the Bathroom: High-quality shampoo and lotion. Be sure to take the bottles and put them in your toilet kit every morning, or they might not give you more.
Clientele: Folks late thirties and up, many of whom are very serious because they are businessmen in town for conventions. There are occasionally some young folks, but they're the exception. Overall, a well-behaved crowd that hoots and hollers little.
How's the Pool? It's good and it's on the roof of the casino, but it's not themed. If you want Palm Springs style, try here. If you want a tropical paradise, try the Strip. They also have tennis courts and a jogging track.
Table Games: All the usual suspects. Blackjack, craps, roulette, pai gow, Let it Ride, etc. Mostly it's average to better-than-average table gaming. The single-deck blackjack pays the lousy 6:5 instead of 3:2 -- skip it.
Bet Minimums: $10 and up. During conventions we heard rumors of $100 minimums. Craps can be as low as $5, but at that rate, they only give you 3, 4, 5x odds. Roulette chips are worth a buck apiece, and tables have $10 minimums.
Machines: From those silly pennies through the roof. An improved selection of video poker with decent full pay. They don't have full-pay double bonus, but they do have full-pay video poker, even at the nickel level.
Cocktails? Pretty good, but they're really going after businessmen who drink in moderation. Unlike some places, they're goal isn't to get you loaded. This should be the goal of every man and woman, though.
Who Gets Comps? The slot club is quite generous, and that's great for the serious players. For table games, this is a high-roller place when it comes to comps, so unless you're throwing around green and black chips, don't hope for much more than a buffet comp.
Benihana Village: A huge space made up to look like an ancient Japanese village, with a bunch of different restaruants surrounding a darkly lit seating area. Most of the grub comes from the Benihana restaurant, which features excellent Japanese food, much of which is prepared right at your table. An added bonus would be if they had a big fire or someone got hurt in the preparation, because you'll see it all. Other options are Robata, which does sushi and meats prepared in Japanese broilers, and Teru, yet another sushi spot. It's hard to say how Teru is different from Robata (especially when you're poor like us and just have to look longingly inside like a beggar), but we're pretty sure your waiter could give you the lowdown.
The Buffet: Well, the name ain't much, but it's a large buffet. Not quite good, but edible food. It's also pretty pricey. If you're staying at the hotel, see if you can score some 2-for-1 coupons upon check-in. Also, the dinner buffet includes wine or beer, or do what we do and make a kamikaze of half-wine, half-beer.
Casa Nicola: Mediterranean Italian food. It's high-quality, with the emphasis not so much on the pastas as on the meats and seafoods. They also have an exhibition kitchen, which means you can watch to make sure they don't sneeze on your food.
Garden of the Dragon: They have every kind of Chinese (Mongolian, Szechuan, Cantonese and Peking) in this Chinese restaurant. It's only open for dinner, and it overlooks the Benihana Village, probably reminding many of the way China often looked in on its island neighbor in the early 20th century.
Paradise Cafe: This is the state-mandated 24-hour coffee shop. There is absolutely nothing special about this coffee shop, so don't wander all the way over to the LVH to try it.
TJ's Steakhouse: Holy cow is this stuff expensive. It's good cuts of meat, but not worth the price. No way, not in this town. Go to the Circus Circus Steakhouse or Binion's and get your money's worth.
If you're in a big fat hurry, Mr. Important Businessman, there's snack bar in the sports books, a Pizza Hut Express, Chaise's Snack Bar and an ice cream shop that won't keep you from faxing important proposals for as long as a real restaurant. Also, there is Fortuna, which serves quick snacks, water, coffee and wine. Perk Place also has java.
LVH Theater: They have a rotating cast of celebrities who fall somewhere between A- and B-list. This includes names like Sinbad, George Lopez, Alabama, and the ubiquitous Righteous Brothers. This is entertainment geared toward people in their 40s and 50s.
Shimmer Lounge: A variety of shows uses the Shimmer for shows about once a week. Besides the aforementioned Andrew Dice Clay, comedian Mark Curry and an Elvis tribute take up residence.
Number of TVs: More than 50, 28 of which are nice and big. They split them up about half and half between sporting and race events. They also have three medium screens and some smaller ones in the "Fan Cave", a smoke-free room for watching sports.
Number of Seats: About 300. Most (Around 200) are for race bettors, with individual TVs. Some of the seats are reserved, but not a whole lot. Every single one of them, though, is above average in terms of comfort. They're made of nice soft cloth that will make your bottom feel just fine. Sports bettors get about 80 comfy seats and 50 bar-table style seats. Poor sports bettors.
How Many Betting Windows? 22, with as few as five being open during slow times. Eight are for sportds with the rest for races. Great big electronic scoreboards help you keep track of all your wacky parlays. Seriously, man, take it easy with those.
Free Drinks? Race bettors definitely get to drink up for free, and maybe sports bettors, although that's less likely.
Snack Bar? At the back of the room, look for the sports book deli with mid-priced sandwiches. Or don't. Truly, it doesn't matter to us.
Minimum Wager: $5 sports, $2 race
Other Notes: The room is massive (they claim it's the world's largest, and we can't think of any reason to dispute them, other than general orneriness. We're not sure if all the lights just happened to have burned out every time we visit or what, but this is one dark room. In addition, the little smoke-free Fan Cave is a comfortable spot to watch sports. There are a number of good video poker machines nearby. It's a good book, it's just too bad it's inconvenient to truck all the way out here.
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