Room Quality: The rooms are old and range from decent to downright dingy. All are a little bit shabby. Because of the funny shape of the main tower, some rooms are huge, with two queen beds and a couch, table and desk. Others resemble a typical Days Inn. The bathrooms tend to be very, very small, so if stretching out in the john is high on your list of requirements, steer clear. The decor is sort of flowery and a bit old but at least it's not bright or obnoxious.

Service Quality: Fair. You're likely to not have much interaction outside of checking in and checking out. There is no staff wandering about to help you out, and very few convenience services available.

What You Get Bottles of in the Bathroom: Soap and a bottle of shampoo/conditioner are all you get. And you'd better like it, Mister (or Miss).

Clientele: An older, lower-middle class crowd who feels more comfortable in the Plaza's unpretentious surroundings than they do on the Strip.

How's the Pool? The pool is old and ratty, but decent for downtown. It's nowhere near as nice as a place like the Mandalay Bay, but the big rectangular pool serves its purpose. There are also some dilapidated tennis courts up there that hint at how grand the hotel once was

Table Games: Blackjack, craps, poker, Pai Gow, Let It Ride, roulette and 3-card poker. The blackjack is generally good, especially the single deck. Like almost every other joint in town, they've got girls writhing against a pole in the blackjack pit on weekends.

Bet Minimums: Blackjack is $5 minimum ($2 games do happen during slow days but don't count on it). The craps is usually $3 or $5, with great 20x odds. Roulette usually has toney dollar chips. Oo la la, some casino executive has mistaken this place for the Bellagio.

Machines: Older variations on slot machines and video poker. The casino is wall to wall with slots, actually. They have some full pay video poker at the quarter denominations. Most machines are in the penny to dollar range. Some go as high as $5, but for that much scratch, you're better off playing somewhere with fresher air.

Cocktails? Good cocktail service. The cocktail waitresses here have to put up with a lot of cheapskates and no-goodniks, so a smile and a toke just plain warms their hearts and keeps them coming back quick.

Who Gets Comps? The slot club is pretty generous with mailers. So, if you can stand to stay here, hit the slots for a couple hours, or play a bunch of $01 and up a hand tables.

Firefly: Firefly, a branch of a local eatery, occupies the dome overlooking Fremont Street, and is a terrific use of the space. The restaurant serves tapas, which means you can make your meal of several small servings of tasty different mediterranean dishes. Or, just have appetizers while enjoying the view. Open for dinner only.

Stuffed: This depressing buffet serves up all-you-can-eat dinner (all days) and brunch (weekends) right off the casino floor, and within stumbling distance of the bathrooms. The price is low, about $10. There's a reason for that. A buffet to forget.

Aqua Lounge: The "lounge" is a space on the casino floor with some tired old furniture and dueling piano on weekend nights. come on in and sing along.

The Rat Pack is Back: A tribute to the days when the Rat Pack were the kings of Las Vegas. Impersonators do Sammy, Dino, Frank and even Joey. Mostly it's singing, but there is also some banter and old jokes, just like they told 40-odd years ago at the Sands.

Number of TVs: About thirty TVs overall are split up for sports and racing, with the sports on one wall facing away from the windows.

Number of Seats: 100 unreserved seats for the racing fan. Bring your own cushion. Actually, the 54 that have individual TVs, which only show racing, are pretty comfy. The sports seats are comfy if you can get one. If not, you may sit at the uncomfy barstools at the back of the sports area.

How Many Betting Windows? There are about ten total. Sports boards are electronic.

Free Drinks? Nope, none that we could see.

Snack Bar? Yes, it's on the wall a short walk from the sports book. So you'll never be to far from a source of grease.

Minimum Wager: $5 sports, $2 race.

Other Notes: This is a good sports and race book for downtown. It is operated by Lucky's, which also operates a few casinos in Northern Nevada, and claims to offer the most bets of any book in town. So, if you're itching to put some money on a curling match in Ottawa, this is the most likely spot.

Number of Tables: Four poker tables are all they have space for these days. Or maybe they only had four tables left that weren't too worn out.

Comfort of Chairs: Let's just say you're not going to be tempted to cart one of these off to put in your living room. They are as average as it gets. Actually, let's make it below average since there are so many good chairs in town now.

Closed Room or Open to Casino? Open to the casino and its funny smell. On some nights it's quiet, especially during the week. But if the casino is busy, this is one of the noisiest parts of it.

Game Spreads and Limits: It's all Hold'em, and not good hold'em. $2-$4 and maybe a no-limit game starting at $0.50-$1 or $1-$2 if enough of the wild youngsters stop in.

How Crowded is the Room? The one cash game table they get going fills up, but rarely spills onto a second table. Our last trip, when two seats opened, they were relentless in announcing it over the PA system.

Comps? Free drinks while playing. Play for a few hours a day and they'll give you the room rate. Otherwise, you get $5 worth of comps for every four hours of play.

How Good Are the Players? Well, the players are pretty bad, loose and passive. Chew them up. They dont even look like they're having any fun.

What Else Do I Need to Know? Weak! This is a poor poker room overall. Not poor, downright lousy. It's noisy as all get out, it has nothing special to offer and it's small. Boo!