Vegas reminds us of sushi. We used to hate both, but now we’re inexplicably addicted. We now hit Vegas about once every three months, and over the past couple years, we’ve learned the gambling ropes (at least for blackjack, which is all we play).

Awhile back we were hitting the tables at The Palms, and felted a couple hundred in $20s for the dealer to convert to chips. We soon found out, from the looks of the oxygen-tanked booze hounds stationed next to us, that if you’re at a high limit table, anything less than a c-note isn’t kosher.

Now if only Gil Arenas had been with us that night.

The ESPN MAGAZINE blog’s Alejandro de los Rios has this (via THE BIG LEAD):

Gilbert Arenas does not think like most people. Take his approach to gambling. Where most high rollers deal in large denominations to show off their wealth, Gilbert likes to go small. This explains why, Sunday night at Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans, Arenas rolled up with $20,000 in $5 bills.

Why five-dollar bills?

“Because it’s harder to spend five dollars than it is 20,” Arenas said.

There’s some logic in there—somewhere. Arenas explained that when gambling, it’s easy for him to lose a lot of money when all he has to do is throw a c-note on the table. He said it’s easier for him to know how much money he’s losing if he has to count it all.

Unfortunately, the plan didn’t work.

“They wouldn’t cash all the fives,” he said. “It would’ve taken 25 minutes to count and I saw the look on everyone’s faces and said ‘forget it.’”
That’s right. Gilbert Arenas showed up to a casino with a wad of $5 bills and then decided to forget the whole thing when he realized how long it would take to count.

We’re going to cut Gil some slack here. We’re guessing his intended destination was more than likely another kind of adult establishment. We’ll blame the limo driver on this one.