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Overview:
Lords Of Vegas, produced by Mayfair Games and designed by James Earnest and Mike Selinker, is a game for 2-4 players, whereby players are trying to develop the desert land of Las Vegas into the sprawling entertainment hub of casinos that it is today. With skill, daring, and a bit of love from Lady Luck, the person with the first one to reach 90 points or the one with the most victory points(VP) is the winner!

Components:
This game is chock full of stuff with high production values. 12 plastic dice per player colour (48), solid cardboard tiles representing the casinos, clear and solid plastic discs to indicate player positions on the lots and score track, a large board with clearly printed text for easy reading, and cards that when drawn, indicates what happens during that turn, and also acts as a game timer.

Oh, and paper money. To be fair, the paper money is also made of thick paper, and is printed on both sides of the paper. On a publishing standpoint, I suppose it makes sense to keep costs down, instead of poker chips. However, the money gets handled a lot during a game, and is likely it will wear out quickly. Perhaps, they might have considered making the money into card form instead?

Components Rating : 7.5/10

Gameplay:
Each player takes all the dice and discs of his colour. Two cards are dealt to each person, which indicated their starting lots and starting money. The remaining cards are roughly divided into 4 piles, and the Game End card is placed on the top of the 4th pile, and the other piles placed on top of the 4th pile to make a draw deck. A starting player is chosen and play goes round the table. All drawn cards are placed on their discard area on the board, as an indicator to how many of each colour card has already been drawn.

There are two phases to each player's turn.
1) Draw a card, and
2) Actions phase

When the current player draws a card, 3 things happen. Firstly, he gains ownership of the lot indicated on the card. If it is empty, he places one of his clear discs on the board on the indicated lot. If it is occupied, simply replace the opponent's die with one of your own. This replacement is mandatory!

Next, every player gets money for each lot they own that has not been built up into a casino. (Basically, count how many clear discs of your colour is still on the board, then get $1 per disc).

Finally, a certain casino colour pays out. Any player who has dice in a casino with a colour matching that from the drawn card, earns $1 per pip shown on his die. Then, the owner of the casino, being the player with the biggest die value in that casino, earns a point per tile in that casino. These points are earned from the smallest sized casinos to the largest, for reasons explained later.

Now, the current player gets to make some actions. These are:

Build - pay the amount listed on the owned lot to build a casino there, placing a coloured casino tile and a die with the value listed on the board.

Sprawl - pay double the amount listed on an adjacent lot(orthogonal) that is unowned, place a casino tile there, and put down a die in their colour of the shown value.

Remodel - pay $5 per tile of a casino that you have a die of your colour in, to change all of those tiles to a different colour. This may cause it to merge with other existing casinos adjacent to your casino, and makes the resulting large casino solely belonging to one player.

Reorganize - pay $1 per pip shown on all the dice shown in one casino. This allows the player to pick up the dice, roll them and reallocate them back to the appropriate player spots, changing the value of the dice to it's owners, and the boss of the casino. However, each die may only be reorganized once per player turn.

Gamble - once per player turn, he may make a bet with any other player, up to $5 per tile size casino the opponent owns. The other player becomes the house for one single roll. If a 5, 6, 7 or 8 is rolled, the banker wins the bet placed, while any other result is a win for the player, and a 2 or 12 is a double sized win. Winnings come out from the losing player's personal money. However, the house in any bet against him, can decide to mitigate risk by laying off half of the bet to the bank. If the house wins, the laid off portion of the bet goes to the bank If the house loses, he is only liable for his half of the bet, while the remaining bet comes from the bank.

For example, on Blue's turn, he chooses to go to Yellow's size 3 casino and gamble $15. Yellow decides to lay off $5 to the bank. Blue rolls snake eyes, which is a 2, a double! Yellow has to pay his share of the bet, doubled, which is $20, while the remaining double of $10 is taken from the bank.

Finally, any player may trade with others at any time, trading money, ownership of lots, dice in casinos, or actions, provided if both parties agree.

When I played this, the rules were clear cut. Even though at the beginning, players did not understand the importance of what they were doing, the game continued smoothly without interruption.

As the game progressed, the player interaction grew, as players collaborated to make deals through trading, tried to block each other off through monopolizing casino colours, and gambling a wad of cash 'just because they could'.Every turn, all players are involved, be it getting money, points, or trading.

Gameplay rating : 8/10

Theme:
This game exudes theme like nobody's business. Casino's are all about gambling, right?

There's a ton of dice, where one roll can change the fates of everyone involved. A daring player can gamble to increase his funds so he has enough to pull off his expansion plans. Sprawling out to unowned territories, hoping that he can hold it long enough to make a big points score. Using a big stack of money to try and forcefully take over someone's else's business.

Even knowing that the odds are stacked heavily against you, going all in with your funds in order to reroll the dice, praying that your one solitary die can roll higher than his 5 existing dice that is keeping him boss of that casino.

Also, the method that players can bet against each other is an actual bet that can be made in a real casino, found on the dice game, Craps. Of course, the house has the edge.

Theme Rating : 9/10

Overall:
Lords Of Vegas could have somehow become a dry game based on probability. Much like how Roulette is one of the simplest games to bet in a casino, but is generally regarded as boring.

However, the designers have managed to make a game that emulates the thrill of the casinos, in a light, quick game. For a simple dice game, Lords Of Vegas is definitely, nowhere near crappy. (Forgive me, I just looooooove puns.)

The best thing about this game? Sometimes, those long shot bets? Those sprawls that you push your luck with? They happen. And when it does, you will be hard pressed not to yell with triumph. Even if you happen to be on the other side of the amazing roll, you'll share in the amazing roll that beat all the odds.

So what are you waiting for? Go try it now!

Overall Rating : 8/10

Review by Eugene Loh

Review from: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/592480/putting-it-all-on-the-line-a-review-of-lords-of-ve