Las Vegas: Great odds for cheap frills

With the iffy economy, high fuel costs and tight travel budgets, Las Vegas is dropping prices and betting again on bargain hunters. You can find an under-$40 room on the Strip and book luxury lodgings like the Bellagio and Trump International for less than $200. USA TODAY's Kitty Bean Yancey scoped out the odds of scoring a value weekend.

Lodging:

Hotel deals abound. Best time is midweek if no big conventions are in town, when you'll find under-$40 rooms on the Strip. Hooters Casino Hotel, just off the Strip, has $29 specials. I cruised sites including Expedia.com, VEGAS.com and visitlasvegas.com (the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority site) and looked at individual hotels' monthly rates-at-a-glance charts online. (I love that most Vegas lodgings have these.) For my dates, I did best by calling the Sahara Hotel & Casino directly and snagging $65 nightly, better than its Web rate. The former Rat Pack haunt is on the Strip (a plus), but has seen better days. No tuxes, just T-shirts for sale that read: "I swear to drunk, I'm not God." My bare-bones room had a stained carpet, no safe or minibar and an ominous sign warning you to look through the peephole before admitting anyone. But the mattress was OK, and it passed a bedbug check.

• Sahara Hotel & Casino, 866-382-8884, saharavegas.com

Getting around:

I lucked out on a great Avis rate ($41 for two days, what round-trip airport cab fare can cost). Casinos have free self-parking; a car makes it easy to cruise for bargains. Other options include airport/hotel shuttles, Las Vegas monorail or $5-a-day "the Deuce" bus pass.

Dining:

Cheap food is bait to get you to gamble. But if you eat and run, you're the winner. In two days, I spent what I normally would on a nice Strip joint dinner, thanks to a tutorial from lasvegasadvisor.com president Anthony Curtis. (His members get a coupon book that pays for itself in deals.) He piloted me to off-the-Strip Ellis Island Casino & Brewery, where the draw is a decent $6.99 sirloin dinner with big salad, green beans, potato and home-brewed suds or root beer. All you do is join the players' club. (Like those at other casinos, it's free.) I used a coupon on the placemat to double my winnings on a hand of blackjack. That $10 "dessert" paid for my meal.