Trip Blueprints / Las Vegas / planning
The Vegas Blueprint for Five Guys and Three Nights
- $818 each
- 5 guys
- Las Vegas
- We researched this
Budget $818 per person for three nights in Vegas with five guys, before flights and before anything you lose at a table. Five is an expensive number: rooms come in twos, so a fifth guy adds a whole third room and pushes the per person cost above what six would pay. About $90 of the total is resort fees, which are mandatory, charged per room per night, and not in the price you booked.
Worked out from real rates and our own trips, but we have not run this exact plan.
Vegas is the easiest guys trip to plan and the easiest one to blow the budget on, because the number you book is not the number you pay. The room rate is advertised. The resort fee is not, and by checkout it has quietly added a couple hundred dollars per room.
The budget below assumes the crew is already committed. Getting them there is a separate job, covered in the guys trip planning system.
Here is the whole thing: what it costs, who owns what, and what has to be booked before it stops being bookable.
The shape
What 3 nights with 5 guys actually holds. Fill these slots and the trip plans itself. Ignore them and you will overbook the days and underbook the one thing anyone remembers.
- 3dinner slotsSpend real money on exactly one. The other two are walkable and under $40 a head. A group that eats big three nights running is broke and irritable by Sunday, and nobody remembers the second expensive meal anyway.
- 2daytime blocksPlan one, leave the other genuinely empty. Groups that schedule both start resenting the itinerary by day two. Groups that schedule neither spend sixty dollars on a pool day nobody wanted.
- 1thing that is not gamblingworth the moneyEscape room, karting, Area15, a range, a show. This is the only part anyone describes when they get home. Pick whatever produces a ranking or a story, and book it in advance.
- 0gambling in the budgetSeparate pile, cash, decided before you leave. A trip budget that absorbs gambling money stops being a budget the moment somebody has a bad first night.
The thing it turns onDinner reservations. Everything else can be decided on the day, but a table for five at 8pm on a Saturday cannot be found on Saturday.
The specialists
Four jobs. One guy can hold two of them, and on a crew of 5 somebody usually does. What cannot happen is a job with nobody's name against it, because that is the one that quietly does not get done.
Commissioner
Get us there
The crew and the plan. Runs the chat, locks the date, books the rooms, and breaks ties when five guys cannot agree.
- Proposes two weekends and sets a reply deadline rather than asking what works
- Books rooms and assigns who shares with whom before anyone asks
- Collects every flight time, then builds airport rides around them
- Owns checkout: late fees, bag storage, who leaves when
Treasurer
Keep us solvent
The money, and the friendships that money quietly ruins.
- Collects the deposit before anybody counts as coming
- Runs one card for shared costs instead of splitting every meal five ways
- Keeps the trip fund and the gambling money in separate columns
- Settles up once at the end, with the numbers visible to everyone
Quartermaster
Keep us supplied
Everything consumable. In Vegas that is a short list, and the shortness is the point.
- Buys water and breakfast food off-Strip on arrival
- Carries painkillers and electrolytes for the whole crew
- Owns the chargers and battery packs nobody else remembers
- Stops anyone hauling what a drugstore sells for a third of the price
Cruise Director
Make it worth going
The reason you left home. Reservations, the one non-gambling thing, and the swag.
- Books the one expensive dinner three weeks out
- Picks and books the thing that is not gambling
- Keeps a backup for anything a sell-out can kill
- Orders shirts or chips early enough that they actually arrive
The money
| Line item | Per person |
|---|---|
| Rooms, three of them3 rooms at about $160, 3 nights, split five ways | $288 |
| Resort fees3 rooms x 3 nights. Per room, not per person. | $90 |
| Food and drinkMid-range: about $90 a day | $270 |
| Rideshare and groundAirport both ways plus moving around the Strip | $70 |
| One showOptional, but everyone ends up doing one | $100 |
| Total per person | $818 |
| Group of 5 | $4,090 |
That is before flights, which depend entirely on where you leave from, and before gambling, which should never live in a trip budget.
Five is an expensive number, and it is worth saying out loud. Hotel rooms come in twos and resort fees are charged per room. Six guys fill three rooms exactly. Five guys still need three rooms, so identical lodging and identical fees get divided by one fewer person. The fifth guy costs roughly $60 a head more than a sixth would have.
If you are at five and somebody is still deciding, show them that number.
Add a typical domestic fare to the $818 above and you have what three nights in Vegas actually costs a guy who is not trying to break either direction. If your own number is coming in far under this, check whether you have counted the resort fee, because that is the line people forget.
The resort fee, because it deserves its own section
Every major Strip hotel charges one. As of 2026 they run $39 to $62.36 per night with tax. Bellagio, the Cosmopolitan, Fontainebleau, the Venetian, the Palazzo and Vdara sit at the top of that range. The Four Seasons Las Vegas is the one notable holdout, with no resort fee and amenities built into the rate.
Two things follow, and both change how you book.
It is charged per room, not per person. Five guys in three rooms pay three resort fees a night. Five in one suite pay one. That sounds like an argument for the suite, and occasionally it is, but suite rates usually exceed three standard rooms by more than the roughly $100 a night you would save.
It is charged per night, not per stay. A fourth night is not just another room rate, it is another resort fee and another day of food. The jump from three nights to four costs more than a third of your trip.
Getting rooms comped, so nobody has to share
Five guys need three rooms and somebody ends up on a rollaway. There is a way around that, and it is the biggest single lever on this budget.
Paid, lodging is $378 a head: $288 for a share of three rooms plus $90 in resort fees. Comped, with everybody in his own room, it is about $150 a head, because that is what is left when the room is free and the resort fee still is not.
So the pitch is not “free rooms”. It is: less than half the cost, and nobody shares a bed. Which is a better trade anyway.
Start with the part most people get wrong.
A comped room is not a free room
The casino is not being generous. It is rebating a slice of what it expects to win from you, and it worked that number out before it offered you anything.
Comps are based on theoretical loss, not what you actually won or lost. The formula is average bet, times hours played, times the house edge on your game. Play blackjack at $50 a hand for three hours against a 1.5% edge and your theo is somewhere near $135, regardless of whether you walked away up or down. Casinos typically return 25% to 40% of theo as rooms, food and shows.
So the honest version: if you were going to gamble anyway, playing rated costs you nothing and converts that play into rooms. If you gamble more in order to earn comps, you are spending a dollar to save thirty cents. That is the whole trap, and it is worth saying out loud to the guy in your group who is about to fall into it.
How to actually get them
Get the card before you play, not after. Play that is not tracked never happened. Every property gives them away free at the desk, it takes two minutes, and there is no downside.
At tables, hand the card to the dealer when you buy in. Slots track automatically. Table games do not: the dealer passes your card to the supervisor, who keys in your average bet by watching you. If you never hand it over, you are playing for nothing.
Concentrate everything in one company. Splitting play across four properties gives you four ratings too small to trigger anything. The same total at one company gives you one rating that does. Pick a program and stay inside it, including on future trips, because the history compounds.
Book through the offer, never the website. Once offers start arriving by email, the rate inside the offer is usually well below the public rate for the same room on the same night, and it is often the same booking engine.
Get a host once offers start showing up. A host is a person you can call, and a person can do things a website cannot: waive a fee, upgrade a room, sort five rooms together instead of three scattered across a tower.
The first trip earns the second. This is the part people miss. Play rated this year at a property you like, and the offers that arrive over the following months are what make next year cheap. A guys trip that repeats is exactly the shape this system rewards.
The catch nobody mentions
A comped room usually still carries the resort fee. That is $39 to $62.36 a night arriving on a room somebody told you was free, unless your tier waives it. Over three nights that is roughly $150, which is exactly the number in the comparison above and the reason this section does not promise you zero.
Ask specifically whether your tier waives it. Some do at the higher levels, and that genuinely is a free room.
Midweek offers are also consistently better than weekend ones, for the same reason midweek rack rates are lower: they are trying to fill Tuesday, not Saturday.
Bill of materials
Sized for 5 guys over 3 nights. Quantities show the rate they came from, so scale them to your own crew rather than trusting our total.
Bring
Vegas is the one trip where hauling things is mostly pointless. This is the short list worth suitcase space. Your gambling cash is your business and is dealt with further up.
| Item | Amount | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Collared shirtSome rooms will turn you away without one | yours | each guy |
| Comfortable shoesThe Strip is a lot longer than it looks on a map | yours | each guy |
| Portable batteryPhones die by 6pm on a day of walking | 2 packs | Quartermaster |
| Painkillers and electrolytesOne guy brings enough for everyone | enough | Quartermaster |
Buy on arrival
A drugstore off the Strip is a fraction of resort prices and usually a five minute walk.
| Item | Amount | Who |
|---|---|---|
| WaterThe single biggest markup in the minibar | 45 bottles3 bottles per guy per day | Quartermaster |
| Breakfast for the roomKills the worst-value meal of the day, which is a $28 hotel breakfast | enough | Quartermaster |
| Sunscreen | 1 bottle | Quartermaster |
Decided in advance
Not objects, but they belong on the manifest because trips fail on these more often than on anything you pack.
| Item | Amount | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Dinner reservationsBook the expensive one first. The other two can be walk-ins. | 3 bookings | Cruise Director |
| The non-gambling thing | 1 booking | Cruise Director |
| Airport transport both waysSplitting a rideshare five ways beats a shuttle | 2 rides | Commissioner |
The countdown
Trips rarely fail on the plan. They fail because nobody booked anything while the dates were still available.
- T minus 60miss this and there is no trip
Midweek rooms run $57 to $172 a night cheaper than the same room on a weekend, and the cheap blocks go first.
- Lock the dates. Propose two weekends, set a reply deadline, book the winner.
- Everybody signs up for the players card at whichever property you pick, before the trip.
- Book rooms. Two or three standard rooms usually beats a suite once resort fees are counted.
- Collect the deposit, so the guy who booked is not carrying six people.
- T minus 21miss this and there is no trip
Saturday tables for five do not exist inside three weeks.
- Book the one expensive dinner.
- Book the thing that is not gambling.
- Agree the trip name if you do not have one. It is what gets printed.
- Order any swag, so it arrives before you leave rather than after.
- Confirm everyone actually bought a flight.
- T minus 7
- Pick the two cheap dinners, even if you do not book them.
- Agree the gambling number out loud so nobody is guessing.
- Sort airport rides in both directions.
- T minus 1
- Everybody draws their cash before leaving home.
- Decide the last morning now: checkout time, bag storage, who leaves when.
The run of show
One anchor per day, meals with an owner, and the rest deliberately open. Schedule every block and the group resents the itinerary by day two. Schedule nothing and you lose an afternoon deciding in a parking lot.
Day one, arrival
Nobody has energy for a plan after a flight and a check-in queue.
- AfternoonArrive, check in, drop bagsCommissioner
- AfternoonDrugstore run for water and breakfastQuartermaster
- EveningCheap dinner, walkable, no reservationCruise Director
- NightOpen. Nobody plans the first night and nobody should.
Day two, the full day
The only day with room for a real anchor.
- MorningOpen. Everyone wakes at a different time anyway.
- AfternoonThe thing that is not gamblingthe anchorCruise Director
- EveningThe one expensive dinner, booked at T-21Cruise Director
- NightTables, and the cash you brought for themTreasurer
Day three, the last full day
- MorningOpen, and protect it. This is the day people are tired.
- AfternoonOne thing, chosen that morningthe anchor
- EveningSecond cheap dinner, then settle the shared cardTreasurer
Day four, out
Decided the night before, not at 10am with six different flight times.
- MorningCheckout, bags to storage if flights are lateCommissioner
- MiddayRides to the airport in whatever order the flights dictateCommissioner
The extras
Matching shirts for a guys trip are objectively stupid and they work anyway. The reason has nothing to do with the shirt. Five guys in the same dumb shirt on the first night is a signal that this is a group with a history, and everyone treats you slightly differently, including you.
The rule that separates swag worth making from swag that ends up in a drawer: does it survive the trip?
A shirt gets worn once. If you are making them anyway, make them cheap and make the joke specific to your crew, because the whole value is that nobody outside the group gets it. A generic “Vegas 2026” shirt is a souvenir. An inside joke with somebody’s face on it is an artifact.
What actually survives is small, durable and dated. Custom ceramic poker chips work as challenge coins, cost a fraction of die-cast metal, and several vendors run them with no minimum order. Stamp the year, then do it again next year.
We have priced those rather than bought them, so take it as research. The two things this crew has actually reordered are the patches and the personalized glassware, four years apart.
If you are going to customise anything, name the trip first. Vegas is the one trip where the joke already exists off the shelf, so custom only earns its keep when it is about your group rather than the city. That starts with a name.
Shirts
Off-the-shelf novelty tee
For Vegas do not customize anything, because the joke already exists off the shelf and ships faster.
Etsy pendingunverified
Hats
Custom trucker hat
Outlasts a shirt by years and gets worn at home, which is the real test of any of this.
Link pendingimage: blank vendor mockupunverified
Drinkware
Personalized whiskey glasseswe use this
One glass per guy with his own name on it, which is the only reason anybody still knows whose drink is whose by the second night.
Once you are thereEtsy glassware is almost always listed in sets of four or six, and crews are almost never an even number. Message the seller before ordering and ask whether they will add a single to a set, because most will and it beats buying a second set. Put one name per glass rather than the trip name on all of them, otherwise nobody knows whose is whose by the second night.
.308 shell casing shot glasseswe use this
A shot glass built around a .308 casing, so the joke is the object itself rather than something printed on it that wears off.
Insulated can koozie
The cheapest thing here you can order a single one of, and it survives because it lives in a drawer rather than a closet.
Link pendingunverified
Personalized beverage tubwe use this
A steel tub with the crew name on it, which does the one job a cooler cannot: it sits out in the open where everyone can see it.
Personalized cocktail glasseswe use this
One glass per guy with his name on it, in a shape that suits a mixed drink rather than whiskey, which is the only reason to own both.
Etsy pending
Personalized flaskswe use this
One per guy with his own name on it, which is why these get kept instead of left in a hotel room.
Keepsakes
Hand-forged engraved bottle openerswe use this
Engraved with the trip number and the year it started, and forged steel means there is nothing on it to wear out.
Once you are thereEngrave the founding year, not the current one. Ours read the trip number plus the year it all started, which turns a bottle opener into a record of how long this has been going. A current year makes it a souvenir of one weekend. Forged pieces are made to order, so give the smith four to six weeks and confirm the engraving text in writing before they start.
Custom embroidered trip patcheswe use this
The longest-running item on this list, ordered most years since at least 2013.
Once you are thereThree inches across with a merrowed black edge is the size that works. Smaller loses any detail, bigger stops fitting on a hat or a jacket pocket. Keep the design to a few flat colours, since embroidery cannot hold gradients or thin lines. Iron-on backing is fine for a jacket that never gets washed hard, otherwise ask for sew-on.
Link pendingimage: blank vendor mockup
Two-sided custom challenge coinswe use this
Coins survive where shirts do not, because they live in a drawer rather than a closet and nobody throws one away.
Once you are thereOrder more than you need. We went ten deep for seven guys, and the spares are the whole point: somebody misses a year, somebody brings a new guy, somebody loses theirs. Reorders mean a second setup charge and a coin that never quite matches, so overshoot the first time. Two-sided costs barely more than one and gives you room for the joke on the back.
See the one we boughtimage: blank vendor mockup
Games
Custom branded poker chips
Priced these out for the trip tournament and never pulled the trigger, so this is research rather than a recommendation.
Link pendingimage: blank vendor mockupunverified
Custom deck of playing cards
Put faces on the court cards and it stops being a deck and starts being a running joke.
Link pendingunverified
Pick the table by the lowest bankroll in the group
The reason to gamble on a guys trip is doing it together. Same table, same shoe, everybody groaning at the same card. Sharing a win nobody earned and a loss nobody deserved is most of why you came, and it is worth more than any individual result.
It only works if everyone at the table can afford to be sitting there.
You can always bet more at a $10 table. He cannot bet less at a $50 one. That is the entire rule. The minimum gets set by whoever has the smallest number in his pocket, and anyone who wants to play bigger just plays bigger in the same seat.
Playing above your limit is not exciting, it is stressful. It turns a good night into arithmetic, and the guy doing that arithmetic goes quiet a good hour before anybody notices he has stopped enjoying himself. Nobody is going to say “this is too rich for me” in front of five friends. So do not make him.
If Strip minimums are too high, go downtown. Fremont Street runs meaningfully lower table minimums, the rooms are louder, and it is a better setting for a group than a quiet high-limit pit was ever going to be.
And if you genuinely want to play higher, do it on your own time. Get up early, play what you like, come back for the group game. Nobody resents that. What they resent is being the reason the table had to move.
The thing that is not gambling
You need one. It is the only part anyone describes when they get home, and it is what separates a trip from three nights in a casino. Book it in advance, because the good ones sell out and a group of five deciding at 2pm decides nothing.
Escape rooms. Close to perfect for this. Fixed time, fixed price, forces everyone to talk to each other, and the group splits neatly if you are more than six. You will find out very quickly who is a leader and who is useless.
Area15. An immersive art and entertainment complex off the Strip. Works because it is several things in one building, so nobody has to agree on anything for longer than an hour.
A show. The safest option and the least memorable, unless it is genuinely somebody’s favourite act. Comedy travels better with a group than production spectacle does.
Indoor karting. Competitive, timed, produces a leaderboard, which means it produces an argument that lasts until next year. Anything that generates a ranking is worth more to a group than anything that does not.
Driving construction equipment. Yes, this exists in Vegas, and yes you can operate an excavator. Expensive per head and completely absurd, which is exactly why people still bring it up years later.
A shooting range. Popular, straightforward, and worth agreeing on as a group beforehand rather than assuming everyone is comfortable with it.
Pinball Hall of Fame. Cheap, unpretentious, quarters rather than a booking, and a good low-effort option when the ambitious plan falls through.
Axe throwing. Same logic as karting. It keeps score, which is the point.
The rule for choosing: pick the thing that produces a ranking or a story. An activity that generates a winner gives you something to defend next year. An activity that just fills two hours gives you nothing, and you already had open time for that.
The manifest
Every moving part with a name against it and a fallback behind it. Rows marked in red sink the trip if they slip.
| Thing | Owner | By when | Backup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group chat and two proposed dates | Commissioner | T-70 | Pick for them |
| Rooms booked$288/guy | Commissioner | T-60 | Off-Strip, one block over |
| Deposit collected$150/guy | Treasurer | T-60 | Nobody is counted until it lands |
| Trip name agreed | Cruise Director | T-30 | Initials and the year, which always works |
| The one expensive dinner$90/guy | Cruise Director | T-21 | Bar seating, same room |
| The thing that is not gambling$100/guy | Cruise Director | T-21 | A second option already priced |
| Swag ordered | Cruise Director | T-21 | Pre-printed, bought off the shelf |
| Flights confirmed by each guy | Commissioner | T-21 | Drive, if under six hours |
| Two cheap dinners picked$80/guy | Cruise Director | T-7 | Walk-in, off-Strip |
| Airport rides both directions$70/guy | Commissioner | T-7 | Rideshare, split five ways |
| Gambling number agreed out loud | Treasurer | T-7 | Cash only, drawn at home |
| Water, breakfast, painkillers | Quartermaster | on arrival | Any drugstore off the Strip |
| Checkout plan agreed | Commissioner | T-1 | Bag storage at the hotel |
| Final settle-up | Treasurer | T+3 | One transfer each, no haggling |
The damage report
What consistently works and what consistently does not, from the research rather than from our own scar tissue. This section gets better the first time we run it.
Do it again
- Going Tuesday to Thursday instead of the weekendsaves $57 to $172 per room, per night
- One expensive dinner rather than threesaves roughly $100 per guy
- Buying water and breakfast off-Strip on arrivalsaves about $40 per guy
- Booking one thing that is not gamblingthe only part anyone describes later
- Everybody playing rated on money they were gambling anywaylodging from about $378 a head to about $150, in your own room
- Setting table minimums by the smallest bankroll in the groupeverybody plays together instead of one guy watching
- One card for shared costs, settled once at the end
Do it differently
- Budgeting gambling money alongside the trip moneythe failure that actually ruins tripsSeparate pile, cash, drawn before you leave.
- Leaving both daytime blocks unplannedabout $60 per guy on a pool day nobody wantedPlan one, leave the other genuinely open.
- Splitting every bill five ways at the tableOne card down, settle up once at the end.
- Deciding the last morning on the last morninglate checkout fees and a missed flightAgree checkout, bags and rides the night before.
- Sitting at a table one guy cannot really affordhe goes quiet an hour before anyone noticesLowest bankroll sets the minimum. Play bigger in the same seat if you want.
- Gambling more than you planned to chase a comped roomabout a dollar spent per thirty cents savedPlay rated on the money you already set aside. Never above it.
- Assuming a comped room means no resort fee$39 to $62.36 a night on a room somebody called freeAsk specifically whether the fee is waived at your tier.
- Adding a fourth night without re-running the numbersanother resort fee plus a day of foodPrice nights four and three side by side before committing.
The one ruleSeparate the gambling money from the trip money before you leave home. Every other failure on this list costs you dollars. That one costs you the trip.
Prices checked July 2026. Resort fees and room rates move constantly, so treat the structure as durable and the figures as a snapshot.
Sources: Las Vegas resort fee comparison, Las Vegas resort fees explained
See how this stacks up against a cabin weekend and fishing in the Guys Trip Cost Index.
Questions people actually ask
How much does a Vegas guys trip cost per person?
About $818 per person for three nights with five guys at a mid-range Strip hotel. That covers $288 for three rooms split five ways, $90 in resort fees, $270 for food and drink, $70 for ground transport and $100 for one show. Flights are on top and depend on where you leave from. Gambling money is counted separately, because a trip budget that absorbs it stops being a budget.
Why does a five-person Vegas trip cost more per person than six?
Because hotel rooms come in twos and resort fees are charged per room. Six guys fill three rooms exactly. Five guys still need three rooms, so the same lodging and the same three resort fees get divided by one fewer person. The fifth guy costs roughly $60 a head more than the sixth would have. If you are at five and someone is undecided, that maths is worth showing them.
Who should organize a guys trip?
Split it into four jobs. The Commissioner owns the crew and the plan: dates, rooms, arrivals, checkout. The Treasurer owns the money: deposits, the shared card, the final settle-up. The Quartermaster owns everything consumable. The Cruise Director owns reservations, the one non-gambling activity, and the swag. One person can hold two of those. What cannot happen is a responsibility with nobody's name against it, because that is the one that quietly does not get done.
What is a resort fee and can you avoid it?
A mandatory nightly charge on top of your room rate, running $39 to $62.36 per night including tax as of 2026. Every major Strip hotel charges one and you cannot decline it by skipping the pool or the gym. The Four Seasons Las Vegas is the notable exception and folds amenities into the room rate instead.
How far in advance should you book a Vegas guys trip?
Rooms at sixty days, because midweek rates run $57 to $172 a night below weekend rates and the cheap blocks go first. The one expensive dinner at twenty-one days, since a Saturday table for five does not exist inside that window. Everything else can wait until the final week without costing you anything.
Is it cheaper to book rooms or one suite for a group?
Usually standard rooms. Resort fees are charged per room per night, so a suite sleeping five pays one fee while three rooms pay three. But Strip suite rates generally exceed three standard rooms combined, and the roughly $100 a night saved on fees rarely closes that gap. A suite becomes genuinely worth pricing at an odd crew size, because that is exactly when rooms stop dividing cleanly.
How many dinners should you plan for a three-night Vegas trip?
Three, and spend real money on exactly one. The other two should be walkable and under $40 a head. A group that eats big three nights running is broke and irritable by Sunday, and nobody remembers the second expensive meal anyway. A table for five is also easier to get than a table for six, which is the one advantage of the odd number.
How do you get a comped room in Vegas?
Sign up for the players card before you play, hand it to the dealer when you buy in at a table, and concentrate all of your play inside one casino company rather than spreading it across four properties. Comps are based on theoretical loss, which is average bet times hours played times the house edge, and casinos typically return 25% to 40% of that as rooms, food and shows. The first trip earns the offers that make the second trip cheap.
Are comped Vegas rooms actually free?
Not quite, in two ways. The room is a rebate of roughly 25% to 40% of what the house expects to win from you, so you paid for it in theoretical loss. And a comped room usually still carries the resort fee, $39 to $62.36 a night, unless your tier waives it. Over three nights that is about $150. Still a good trade: paid and sharing costs about $378 a head, comped in your own room costs about $150.
Should you gamble more to earn casino comps?
No. Comps return roughly 25% to 40% of theoretical loss, so playing more purely to earn them means spending a dollar to save about thirty cents. Play rated on the money you were already going to gamble, and treat the room as a rebate rather than a reason.
What table limits should a group gamble at in Vegas?
Set the minimum by whoever in the group has the smallest bankroll, not the largest. You can always bet more at a $10 table, but he cannot bet less at a $50 one, and playing above your limit is stressful rather than fun. Nobody will say it out loud in front of five friends, so the group has to decide it for them. If Strip minimums are too high, Fremont Street downtown runs meaningfully lower ones.
What is there to do in Vegas that is not gambling?
Escape rooms, Area15, indoor karting, a shooting range, the Pinball Hall of Fame, axe throwing, a show, or operating construction equipment, which really is available there. The best choice for a group is whatever produces a ranking or a story, because an activity that generates a winner gives you something to argue about next year, and one that just fills two hours does not.
How much should I bring for gambling?
Whatever number you would be genuinely fine losing, drawn as cash before you leave home, kept apart from the money covering your room and your food. The point is not discipline for its own sake. It is that a group trip falls apart when one guy cannot cover his share of dinner on the last night.
Is custom swag worth it for a guys trip?
Only if the joke is specific to your group, because that is the entire value. A shirt a stranger could also wear is a souvenir and ends up in a drawer. Spend it instead on something small and dated. The things this crew still owns are hand-forged bottle openers and year-stamped patches. Ceramic poker chips are the cheap way into the same idea, working as challenge coins at a fraction of die-cast metal with no minimum order, though we have priced those rather than bought them.