Vegas Strip Review

With any new board game, you always go into it with certain expectations—and a lot of those expectations are ones set by the game itself. The artwork, the visual style, the gameplay mechanisms, the size of the box, even the very name of the game. Vegas Strip is a great name, one that promises a lot with just two loaded words. But it doesn't deliver.

If I had to sum up my Vegas Strip experience with one sentence, I can't think of a better way than to say it's bridge plus chess with a dash of poker. There's partner play, there's hidden information, there's abstract strategy, and there's some light psychological warfare. None of it feels like Las Vegas though, and I can't help but think that detracts from the overall experience.

Vegas Strip was a hard one to review. Here's my best attempt to put my thoughts into words, how it plays, what I liked and disliked about it, and whether you'll like it or not for yourself.

This review is based on a review copy of Vegas Strip provided by Allplay, but my thoughts and opinions are my own.

Overview

Vegas Strip is an area control strategy game dressed up in the trappings of Las Vegas, complete with casinos, cheating, bluffing, and mind games. Your goal is to control your positional ranking at each casino such that you walk away with the most money you can from each one. But it's not so easy! Some casinos are secretly rigged, and you need to figure out which ones by reading the other players and seeing how they approach each casino.

Vegas Strip revolves around a central board of casinos (5 or 6 of them depending on the player count), where each casino is randomly assigned a character card that makes the casino behave a unique way. Each casino also starts with a certain amount of chips, which is that casino's potential jackpot. Over the course of 3 rounds, you'll try to make as much money as you can from the casinos by exploiting their special rules.

Each round begins by pairing players up. The player count reference card tells you what the pairings are each round, and yes that means your partner is different every round. For the entirety of a round, you'll be silently working with your partner to maximize your payouts. Both of your payouts are pooled together and then split at the end of the round. (They're actually your partner and there's no tomfoolery, trickery, or betrayals involved.)

Each player starts with a hand of number tiles: 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7. (Some of these tiles might be removed depending on player count.) Your hand of tiles is open and public information. The round plays turn by turn around the table, with each player playing one of their number tiles to one of the available casinos. When playing a tile to a casino, there are some constraints:

• You can play at most 2 tiles to any given casino. When you have two tiles at a casino, your value at that casino is the sum of the two tiles.
• You can't play a tile to a casino if it results in you being tied with the leader at that casino. You can tie anyone who isn't the leader.
• You can't play your 7 tile at a casino you've rigged. You can play your 7 tile at any other casino, even one that's been rigged by someone else.

Okay, let's talk about rigged casinos. At the start of each round, you aren't just paired up with a random partner—you also get to rig one of the casinos. You're dealt two random Fixer cards, which each correspond to one of the casinos. From your two Fixer cards, you choose which one to rig and which one remains secure. You then secretly let your partner know (using Team cards that also correspond one to each casino) which one you rigged and didn't rig. Now you both know one casino that's rigged and one that's secure. The rigged status of all other casinos remains unknown to you and your partner.

The other teams also get to rig casinos, of course, and there is no overlap between the casino choices given to each partnered pair. In other words, two teams can't rig the same casino, nor can one team rig a casino while another team doesn't. The two casino choices given to you are your casinos, and you decide which one is rigged and which one isn't. Every team knows the status of two casinos and none of the rest.

What's special about rigged casinos? The payout method of a casino depends on whether it's rigged or not. A rigged casino only pays the leader at that casino, and the payout amount is whatever the jackpot happens to be for that casino. A secure casino pays all players except the leader, and the payout amount is whatever hand value each player has at that casino.

In other words, rigging or not rigging a casino changes how it pays out, which changes how you approach it. You want to have the highest hand value at each rigged casino, meanwhile you want to have the second highest hand value at each secure casino. You'll need to work with your partner, of course, to make sure you're both maximizing your payouts across casinos.

So, turn by turn, each player plays one tile to a casino. Hand values at each casino are constantly changing with tiles played. Once all tiles are played, the rigged and secure status of each casino is revealed, then payouts are determined based on each casino's player hand rankings.

That's one round. Start the next round by refilling any empty casino's jackpot, changing up the partnerships, and going through the process of rigging casinos again. Go through three rounds and see how much money you can accrue. But here's one last minor twist: in Vegas Strip, the top two richest players are both winners while everyone else are losers.

When playing with 2-3 players, there are no partners; everyone plays solo. When playing with 5 players, one player is solo every round. And specifically at 2 players, each player gets two sets of tiles: one is their "main" hand, the other is a "blocker" hand, and you play 1 main tile and 1 blocker tile per turn. Main tiles are played per usual, but blocker tiles don't earn any money from casinos—they're mostly useful for manipulating main-hand positions across casinos.

Setup and Table Footprint

The setup for Vegas Strip is clumsier than I'd like for a small-box game. You start by digging out the player count reference card for your particular player count, which has all the information you need. Then you have to:

1. Set up the central board of casino cards.
2. Set up and organize the supply of currency chips.
3. Shuffle and randomly assign character cards to each casino.
4. Fill each casino card with its starting jackpot.
5. Set aside the Fixer and Team decks.
6. Each player takes a player card and their matching set of tiles. Remove any unused tiles as determined by the player count reference card.
7. Use the player count reference card to determine player pairings. Give each team their Team deck, then go in player order with the Fixer deck and let each team choose their rigged and secure casinos.

It can all take upwards of 10 minutes, depending on how chop-chop you are. It feels pretty finicky and not the kind of experience I expect from a small-box game like this. I wish it were faster and simpler.

Fortunately, despite all the moving parts, Vegas Strip isn't much of a table hog. It can easily be played on a standard 3-foot-by-3-foot card table, with most of the space taken up by the central board of casinos and tiles, plus the supply of currency chips. Each player only needs a small bit of personal space for their player card and tiles. Not exactly compact, but reasonable. The reference cards and Fixer/Team decks can be placed off to the side until they're needed.

Learning Curve

The general concept of Vegas Strip sounds simple enough, but the actual details of play are quite unintuitive. While the rulebook is pretty compact, I found myself scratching my head and re-reading sections multiple times because it all feels rather clunky.

There are several nuanced rules and edge cases that you need to know, which adds a decent amount of mental overhead and confusion. It's a bit of a rough teach because you're basically playing three games at once: the rigged casino game, the secure casino game, and the psychological game where you need to parse and decode what every player's action means for each casino.

I've taught hundreds of board games, and Vegas Strip stands out as one of my least favorite teaches ever. It isn't complex, but it is clunky. The gamers I taught had real trouble wrapping their heads around the unintuitive design.

Game Experience

Decision Space

At its core, Vegas Strip is an area control game with limited information. You're trying to maximize your positions at each casino to extract the most money from each casino, but you only know what the "best" position is at two of the casinos—the one you rigged and the one you didn't rig.

The area control game is mathy and strategic, as you have a finite number of tiles to play and you can only play a max of two tiles to any given casino. You could blow your big tiles on one casino to guarantee top ranking there, but that leaves you weak for the rest. Distributing your tiles in a way that leaves you just ahead of your opponents and not too much ahead will net you the most. Figuring out how to do that means reading your opponents to see how much they plan to commit to any given casino.

But as you play your tiles, you're pulled in two directions: you want to play in a way that gives information to your partner, but you don't want to give any information to your opponents. In fact, you want to mislead your opponents as much as you can, which means giving false information. Your partner has a slight advantage in reading you because you both know which casinos you've rigged and not rigged, but threading that needle is still tough.

And your opponents are doing the same to you. That means you have to make deductions based on their plays. Which casino did they rig? Can you figure it out based on how they play their tiles? It's not easy. But you can also combine it with how their partner plays. Taken together, you can suss out a lot more of what they know, especially in the later turns. But will you have the tiles in hand to act on that information? Or will it be too late?

If the deductive aspect of Vegas Strip seems too difficult, that's where the special black 7-value tiles come in. You can only place your black 7 at a casino you haven't rigged. A casino someone else rigged? That's fine. Which means as soon as you play your black 7, you're giving away concrete information: "I haven't rigged this casino." That single move says a lot, and it's amplified when your partner also plays their black 7. Someone can piece that together with all the other moves to discern which casino you've rigged or not.

There's a lot to process and think about in Vegas Strip. Unraveling the meaning of every single move takes a lot of brain power, made worse by the fact that rigged and secure casinos draw out different players. There's a lot of mental overhead to crunch through to figure out where each casino stands, and that makes Vegas Strip extremely prone to analysis paralysis. It's an interesting mental exercise, but one that can quickly wear you out.

And in the end, the best player doesn't always win. Who even is the "best" player? Vegas Strip suffers from too much ambiguity and obscurity. It's hard to know if you made a good move, or if you painted yourself into a corner five moves ago, or if you're actually being as Machiavellian as you think you are. Everything is concealed until the round ends, at which point you're just seeing where the chips fall and whether your deductions (read: guesses) were as good as you believed. For me, it comes off as extremely arbitrary.

Luck Factor

For better or worse, there's very little luck in Vegas Strip. At the very beginning, you deal a random set of character cards to each casino and that's locked in for the rest of the game. This randomness in the starting combination of character cards affects everyone equally so I wouldn't call it "luck."

There is a bit of luck in who you get partnered with. The actual pairings are predetermined by seat order, so it's definitely fair and unbiased. But some players will naturally be more skilled at this kind of game, and you could end up with three bad partners while others only end up with two or one or none. Fortunately, this only really matters at the 5 and 6 player counts.

The largest luck factor in Vegas Strip comes at the start of each round, when you're dealt two random casinos and must choose one to rig. Depending on their assigned character cards, some casinos are more powerful than others when rigged, and that gives an advantage to whichever team gets to rig it. Is it a huge advantage? Maybe not. But in a game that revolves around hidden information and tactical plays, every bit matters.

Fun Factor

Vegas Strip isn't a "fun" game. When you think Las Vegas, you think parties, excitement, flashing lights, raucous laughter, ups and downs, go big or go home, the time of your life. Vegas Strip is none of that. It's abstract, it's thinky, it's restrained and subdued and low energy. In fact, the rulebook explicitly states "table talk is not allowed." It looks like it'd be a party game, but don't be tricked! If I brought this game out for a party, I'm sure it'd kill the party.

But if your idea of fun is to sit for an hour, staring at each other while decisions are made, analyzing small moves for hints as to what they hide, while bluffing and strategizing to outplay your opponents? Then Vegas Strip should be up your alley. This is a pretty niche game, I'd say, and most probably won't find it fun—but the ones who do will love what it offers.

Pacing

If you have one player who even sneezes in the direction of analysis paralysis, then Vegas Strip is going to be a slog. Between the rules overhead, mind games, and tactical decisions, Vegas Strip brings out the worst tendencies in gamers who overthink. They're baited every turn to consider all angles, and that really drags down the pacing. More than one overthinker? Forget it.

My experience with Vegas Strip is that it's a complete slog. The downtime is atrocious for what should be a relatively light experience and it greatly overstays its welcome. I've had sessions last nearly 90 minutes, and let me tell you: it just isn't interesting enough to warrant that much of a time commitment.

Player Interaction

Vegas Strip exudes a vibe that's reminiscent of poker. You're sitting there in silence with your own bit of hidden information, calculating your moves based on what you want to achieve versus how much information you're giving away, while deciphering the meaning of every other player's moves. You never interact directly. You only give and learn information indirectly.

In other words, it's a lot of mind games and trickery. You're doing what you can to mislead your opponents while trying to read through their own deceptions while also trying not to mislead your partner. It's a silent war of wits and cooperation. You might do a bit of blocking at certain casinos as you jockey for position, but that's secondary to this mental game.

Player Counts

Vegas Strip is a different game at 2-3 players than it is at 4-6 players. Since there are no partners—everyone plays solo every round—you have no need to communicate with your moves, giving you more opportunity to be strategic, subtle, and slick. But at 2 players, you also get blocker tiles involved, and those blocker tiles add an extra layer of mind games to Vegas Strip and shift the game much deeper into the category of abstract strategy. I'm not a fan of dry abstract strategy, so I really dislike it at these player counts.

Vegas Strip was clearly meant to be a 4-player game, and that's where it shines best as far as the partnered play is concerned. You team up with each player once across the three rounds, so the end results feel the most balanced. And with your team only going up against one other team every round, chaos is minimal, information is easier to parse, and decisions feel less arbitrary. Meanwhile, at 6 players, you don't partner with everyone (which introduces imbalances) and you have three teams vying for casinos every round (which increases downtime, muddies the board, and feeds analysis paralysis).

Vegas Strip should be avoided as a 5-player game. One player is solo every round yet there are only three rounds... so three players will have played solo by the end while two will have always been in teams, which drastically throws off the balance. And during those rounds, you have two teams vying over casinos while the lone fifth player fends for themselves with less influence and half the tiles to make their winnings. (No blocker tiles at 5 players.) It feels half-baked and there's no satisfaction in the end results.

Replayability

When it comes to variety, there's a good amount in Vegas Strip. It comes with 10 double-sided Character cards, so you have 20 potential casino rules to work with. And with only 5 used per game, the variations are near endless. These Character cards have a non-trivial impact on strategies, and no two games play out the same way. If you like Vegas Strip, it won't go stale fast.

But Vegas Strip is a bit of a brain burner for how simple it is, and it has left me mentally drained every time. I never want to play it twice in a row—once and done is good for me. I also never find myself itching to play it. Whenever I see it on my shelf, I'm hit with dread and anxiety. The thing is, I like games that are thinky and challenging, but this is more than that—it's mentally taxing. I'd never suggest it myself and I'd hesitate if someone asked to play it.

Perhaps the biggest caveat for Vegas Strip is that it's highly situational as a game worth tabling. It demands a very specific group of bluffers, deducers, mind gamers to truly shine. For a full posse of try-hard poker players who live to outplay each other, Vegas Strip might be the best of its kind. But for everyone else, I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze.

Production Quality

Vegas Strip is well-made for sure. It's a looker with Vincent Dutrait's iconic style, and the unusual tiles are simple yet intriguing. It all promises a more Vegas-y experience than what you get, but you can't deny the lovely appearance.

I love the six suit designs and colors. You get the four conventional suits in Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades, but for the fifth and sixth players you get Moons and Stars. The colors are all distinct and pleasing to look at, too.

The tiles feel nice and read well. Made with cardboard that's neither too thick nor thin, they're easy to play with while remaining durable. The graphic design is clean and easy to read from any direction at any distance, and they evoke that casino atmosphere while still being approachable.

I like the currency chips, but... I wish they were bigger and plastic or metal. I know, I know, they wouldn't fit in the box if they were. But while these tiny chips look like real casino chips, and while they're certainly functional, they don't feel like casino chips. I feel like I'm tossing dimes around and that makes the Vegas Strip experience much lower stakes than it should be.

I'll always praise a board game for using mini cards when full-sized cards aren't necessary. In this case, we're talking about the Character, Fixer, and Team cards, which helps to keep the size of the game box down. The overall quality of cards—both mini and full-sized ones—is good, too. Well done.

The iconography is... not good. I mean for the character cards and player cards, which only use icons to illustrate what they do or what you can do. I had a hard time deciphering what they meant—and even after I learned what they meant, I'd promptly forget and the icons did not help jog my memory. Companies do this for language independence, but I'm going to knock off points if it interferes with my ability to parse and play the game.

Fortunately, Vegas Strip has lots of reference aids. The character reference card really steps up for the poor iconography. The player count reference cards are helpful for not only setting up the game but also managing the teams every round. The player card is great for making sure you don't mix up your Fixer/Team cards and for referencing basic tile placement rules.

The game box is sized well and the components are easily packable. Allplay has an entire line of titles that come in this size of box, and I feel like Vegas Strip fits into this box quite well. It's mostly cards plus a bag of chips and a bag of tiles. I can get it all back in without struggling, so thumbs up there.

Upgraded Components

My copy of Vegas Strip came with a separate bag of upgraded number tiles, which are made of plastic instead of cardboard. They're a little thicker, too. Do they feel better to play with? Yes! Although the plastic does have a cheapness to it, not that I'm complaining. If I do have a complaint, it's with the printing on these tiles—the color is less vibrant and the graphic work is fuzzy/blurry. You can really tell when you put the cardboard and plastic tiles side by side, but it's not a big deal during actual play. Thanks for including them, Allplay!

The Bottom Line

Though admirable in how it seeks psychological mind play with a partnered twist, Vegas Strip is ultimately too clunky, with too much mental overhead, with decisions that ultimately feel arbitrary. It's prone to analysis paralysis, it has zero table talk, it outstays its welcome, and it's an unwieldy chore to play. In trying something new, Vegas Strip ended up outplaying itself.

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