Thoughts on Retiring to Vegas
Hey all. If this belongs in one of the general FAQ threads, please feel free to move, but I was thinking I might have enough specific questions to warrant a separate thread. I looked but did not see a similar thread here. But I've been an admin on a giant MMA forum for like 12 years, so believe me, I get it.
We’re about 50, no kids, and have always planned for early retirement, around 55. I mean, we’ll still do something, but it won’t be toiling in middle management cubicle hell. We’re scoping out retirement spots, somewhere warm and sunny, anywhere from NC, SC, over to Hawaii, even maybe the Caribbean. TX maybe, but a long shot. Playing poker in my retirement is a big part of my plan – not for a living, mind you, right now I’m a modestly profitable rec/reg in my local casino’s 1-2 and 2-5 games, so I’ll probably just keep that going a few times per week in retirement. Some locations are better than others for that – for example, Hawaii would not be great, as they don’t even have a lottery there let along poker rooms. Plus, dat cost of living, Jesus.
Anyway, out of nowhere the Mrs. throws Vegas out there as a potential retirement spot. My ears perk up, and we start doing a little research. Pros: no more cold weather, plenty to do, reasonable housing, poker galore. Hot as **** in the summer but I’ll take a Vegas 112 over the local 85 degrees and brutal humidity any day.
A few questions for the locals as I start to scope this out:
• Housing: there seems to be a TON available looking at Zillow, a dizzying array of choices. Been just sort of looking at Vegas and Henderson. Would like to be reasonably close to the strip, anything more than 20-25 minutes away is probably getting too far. Budget around $500-$700K, looks like that gets 2500-3000 square feet and a pool in a good area. Any other tips on looking for housing? Neighborhoods I should definitely consider/avoid? Is the market super high right now like most areas and expected to come down in the next few years?
• Poker: From what I’m seeing, just a ton of options. Sounds like the 1-2/1-3/2-5 games are reasonably soft. I’m not looking to make the mortgage payment or anything, just make a few grand a year like I generally do. Finding good poker is the least of my worries, Vegas blows away any other options I can think of. Anything off in my assessment?
• Rentals: would like to eventually buy, but the smart thing might be to rent for a year or two, make sure we like it, and if we decide to stay we’ll know the area by then and have a much better idea where to set roots. Are home rentals relatively available? Sounds like it from sites I’ve looked at but I’d be interested in any real experiences people have had.
Would also appreciate any other info anyone wants to share. What is the good/bad/ugly that someone moving permanently to Vegas needs to be considering that they might not read on a website? Granted, I'm a ways off from a potential move, but I'm a planner so I'm already scoping things out. Thx bros.
14 Replies
You can't open the mini bar refrigerator because it will trigger a charge if the items are moved around or jostled.
Not my experience, sorry. I cannot speak to your generalization.
I don't take the liquor out and only infrequently take a Diet Coke.
Also, some room mini-fridges actually have space for you to refrigerate items you bring.
Still on track...planning to retire next year, then probably stick around this town for another year or so before moving.
Rando question: in that intervening year, I expect to have some time on my hands. Thinking about Rosetta Stone or something to pick up some Spanish. Would that be of much value in Vegas?
You can talk to the porn slappers.
Home Depot parking lot.
There is a good sized Hispanic community here in Las Vegas... they ALL speak English.
Learn Chinese or Russian.
I speak Spanish at about the level of a caveman. I haven't really been in a situation where I needed it. Everyone does speak a little English.
However, I do get to practice occasionally when ordering from a taco truck or something. You can also do stuff like try to read the Spanish on bilingual signs or try to follow what's said on Spanish TV or radio. You can listen to people speaking in Spanish.
If you want to learn a language I think it's the way to go, since you get to practice.
I suggest starting with language transfer. You will learn a ton of stuff fast. E.g. 99% of English words ending in ity are the same in Spanish but end in idad. Electricity. Electricidad. Opportunity. Oportunidad.
Que?
Don't listen to them lol, learning Spanish is very useful. Yes, you don't really need it necessarily anywhere in the US but it can be very useful, if only to hear what others are talking about. Not everyone in the US speaks English but ofc all the people you will normally encounter, that have some kind of customer-oriented job will do. Learning Spanish will also open you up to a somewhat different language structure and cultural tree, and you can use it not only if you want to travel to central-south America places, it is also of the same language tree like Italian, French, Portuguese so if you can understand Spanish you will automatically do already better understanding (a little bit) of all of these. With English you can only do that with Dutch and German, they are variants of the same kind of language.
Yeah learning Chinese could be useful at the poker table, but only for conversational purposes, they usually respect the rules and don't talk strat in Chinese. Also not everyone Chinese looking person speaks the same, there are Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese (heavy dialect of Mandarin), Hakka, Min among others. Also yeah, GL learning that in your 50s or 60s, that is probably not going to happen.
I've never encountered a poker table where half are filipinos, maybe Chinese or Koreans, and I played in CA quite a bit. But it depends where you're talking about I suppose. But filipinos are usually also not rich enough to play a lot of poker, maybe CA 1/2, 1/3 with laughable max buyins...
You can start with duolingo and stuff, but the only way to properly learn a language is to be immersed in an environment where you are forced to use it. Costa Rica is a good place for that (outside of the main tourist spots). You can practice as only a minority will speak English but if all goes wrong they will still understand you're an English-speaking gringo and can probably get some other person to drop by who can speak English. They are very accomodating people. Also some lowlifes ofc.
donde esta pendejo
Don't listen to them lol, learning Spanish is very useful. Yes, you don't really need it necessarily anywhere in the US but it can be very useful, if only to hear what others are talking about. Not everyone in the US speaks English but ofc all the people you will normally encounter, that have some kind of customer-oriented job will do. Learning Spanish will also open you up to a somewhat different language structure and cultural tree, and you can use it not only if you want to travel to central-
I was in the Bay area. Lots of Filipinos there. And I've never met your type of Chinese people either. If there is ANY kind of edge available, they will take it, lol.
