The narrator visits Las Vegas for the weekend with his girlfriend. On the first day, he wins $49 on a slot machine at the airport and continues to have good luck gambling throughout the day, winning $1,500. This allows them to enjoy nice dinners, shows, and activities. However, on the final day he keeps gambling and losing, ending up $500 in the hole. While it was an overall amazing trip, he learned that in Vegas, it's easy to lose more than you win if you don't walk away.

1. By Ryan Baldwin

2. Flying into beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada, a weekend I will remember forever… My girlfriend and I just arrived at Las Vegas McCarran International airport after a flight close to 4 hours. Things looked a bit different here compared to other airports. There were slot machines everywhere and it looked more like a casino. I sat down as I waited for my luggage and put a dollar into one of the slots. About two minutes later my one dollar had turned into 50. I couldn’t believe in just two short minutes I had become 49 dollars richer. At that point I knew this was going to be a vacation like no other…

3. We caught a cab to take us to the hotel we were staying at. Along the way my girlfriend and I were just staring out the window in astonishment from the spectacular buildings. We finally arrived to The Hotel at Mandalay Bay. This hotel was absolutely breathtaking. The room was very large and the view of the strip was amazing. Not wasting any time we decided to start exploring the hotel and other parts of the strip.

4. Views from our hotel room

5. The most surprising thing I noticed from the beginning was how big these hotels actually were. Walking through different hotels was like walking through an entire mall but full of bright lights, tables, and slot machines. I decided to see if I still had any luck at gambling and to my surprise I had a lot of it. By the end of the first day I had 1,500 dollars more than I came with. It was like the hotels knew it was my first day there and were just baiting me. I was winning on everything, slot machines, poker tables, and blackjack. I couldn’t believe it, all I ever heard people say before was how much money you lose there not win. Little did I know a lot can happen in two more days in this city…

6. After getting to explore much of the strip in the first day, we decided to spend some of that hard earned 1,500 dollars. My girlfriend and I went to a few shows, and also on some rides at the hotels. We went out to a fancy dinner, and even saw the entire strip from a helicopter ride at night. We ended the night by getting bottle service at one of the clubs. What a day, we were able to do so many things we did not have in our budget thanks to one lucky day at the casino. Life could not be better…

7. Stratosphere ride where we saw great views of the city Rollercoaster at New York, New York

8. The final day we decided we would have one more crack at the casino. Everything was going perfect so far maybe we could win a little more money to come home with. Oh if I could take back that final day. It started good and then got bad pretty fast. Once you start losing you just want to keep going to try to win your money back. If I could have just walked away things would have been so great, but I didn’t and I just kept losing, and losing, and losing. The 1,500 dollars was gone plus an additional 500. Ouch, what a way to go out...

9. I learned many important lessons from this trip and had a memorable time in the process. I was able to do things I have always dreamed of doing. This trip was really like no other. Let’s just say I didn’t put a dollar in the slot machine at the airport on the way home.