The Imperial Palace

Fairly spontaneously, like most good trips start, Kirsten, Amy, and I went to Las Vegas. Since it was Kirsten’s first trip, we resolved to stay on the strip, and since we were traveling on a budget, we still needed to find a cheap hotel. Our search led us to the Imperial Palace; though it is located in the center of the strip, in all of my previous trips, I have never noticed this place even existing. Upon our arrival, I realized why that was. While most casinos are all about the glitz and the glamour, the exterior of the Imperial Palace looks like it’s been constructed out of cardboard. It’s a relic of Vegas of yore that will undoubtedly be bulldozed for something more lavish within the next decade.

I don’t mean to slight the Imperial Palace. If you’re interested in staying at a place with inauthentic Asian architecture and decor, an inefficient elevator system, a remote-less television from the 80s, a shower with unmanageable water temperature, and walls so thin you can hear your neighbors’ incidents of domestic abuse, then the Imperial Palace is the place for you. The attendant in the lobby promised us a “view of the Strip”; apparently, the side of a parking structure counts as a view of the Strip. Since I’m afraid of heights, I wasn’t too keen on the balcony that afforded me a closer view of the parking structure, especially after noticing a sticker on the door warning visitors to be careful because the door could lock behind them. Instantaneously, I could imagine being stranded on the ledge, left to contemplate whether to starve to death on the dirty slab of concrete or throw myself over the rail for sweet relief.

My description might imply that I did not enjoy my stay at the Imperial Palace, but to the contrary, I loved it since these elements added to the Vegas adventure. Plus, I won a lot of money from the place.

It didn’t start out so fortunate. Although I spent the car ride telling my trip-mates about how easy it was to finagle free drinks in Las Vegas, we came up dry for the first few hours. It was absurdly crowded in the casinos, so I was unable to get a spot at any table games, relegating us to the neglected outer-slot machines. In the first few hours, we only managed one drink; when our would-be trip-mate Michael Michael text messaged me shortly after one in the morning to ask whether we were “sinning it up,” I was too embarrassed by the night’s tameness to even respond.

Fortunately, however, Kirsten turned our luck around. Though Kirsten didn’t even know how to play poker, ey put a dollar in a video poker machine. Before I could show Kirsten how to correct the fact that ey was unwittingly playing high stakes, Kirsten miraculously got four aces, winning eir $100. If you didn’t believe in beginner’s luck, think again. That set the wheels in motion – afterwards, I got a spot at a table and began to win money and drink – neither activity being more important than the other.

The Imperial Palace didn’t like me as much as I liked it. Having a gut feeling, I sat alone at a blackjack table with a friendly, talkative dealer and won about 80% of my hands. Over time, the pit boss scowled at me and demanded the dealer be switched. Though this dealer was not friendly, I won every hand ey dealt me until the pit boss quickly switched the dealer yet again. Never mind that I was betting the $10 minimum the whole time, apparently my winning streak was a threat to the Palace. I walked away more than $200 up, and felt like some special gambling mastermind that the casino was looking out for.

The next day, I lost a bunch of that money playing craps, but then returned to re-coop my losses at the Imperial Palace’s Dealertainer section. There, the dealers are dressed like famous singers who occasionally take a break from dealing to lip-synch on stage. Spotting a vacancy, I took a seat at Christina Aguilera’s table. It wasn’t X-tina that attracted me, but rather an older woman; flirting with old people is my one of my favorite Vegas activities. She wasn’t quite elderly, I’d call her a MILF-plus, and as the hands came, we made pleasant conversation. Even more pleasantly, I was winning money again. At one point, I was so excited as I reached for my winnings that I knocked my drink over and splashed it onto my MILF-plus friend. That’s pretty much where I blew it, I think. Christina Aguilera wiped up my mess with a rag; since her picture was printed on the table we were playing on, I requested that she clean up her face extra well.

To the other side of me was a couple who had gotten engaged earlier in the day and they were winning ridiculous amounts of money. Their animation made the game even more exciting. Our table would belt along to songs like “Sweet Caroline” and “YMCA” and it was one of the most genuinely fun times I’ve had in recent history period, let alone in Vegas. At one point, after winning a big hand, the fiancé made a joke about rape, to which “Christina” took offense. As an act of apology, he threw $25 at her as a tip to shut up, and she gladly accepted and dropped the subject. I always figured Xtina could be bought. Here I amassed a couple hundred dollars, until it was Christina’s turn to sing (She’s a genie in a bottle, dontchaknow) and Gloria Estefan relieved her and put a damper on my luck. I opted not to stick around, in part because the next rotation would put a legitimately frightening “Little Richard” as my dealer and I think that’d be scarier than being locked out on the balcony.

In summation, don’t let the Imperial Palace’s two star quality fool you. When one of those stars is Christina Aguilera and she’s literally handing you cash, it’s enough reason to overlook the inadequacies. Viva Las Vegas! Viva Imperialism!