Vegas has a way of chewing through a budget before you’ve even unpacked. But a weekend built around watching games doesn’t have to go that way. Skip the tower suites and the bottle service, and the city quietly turns into a pretty cheap base camp for a couple of days of football, good food and too much neon. You just have to know which version of Vegas you’re booking.

Betting Without Breaking The Bank

Nevada still runs more physical sportsbooks than any other state in the country. Real counters, real staff, real odds boards, not just an app icon on your phone. The money moving through those books each month regularly runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the state’s own regulator. All that competition between books means somebody’s always trying to buy your business with a better offer.

Line Up Your Offers Before You Land

Do this part on your couch, not in the cab from the airport. Pull up a FanDuel promo code and see how it stacks up against whatever else is running that week, according to Rotowire, which keeps tabs on live sportsbook offers across the country. Squinting at terms and conditions on a cracked phone screen while a game clock winds down is not how you want to spend the first ten minutes of a trip.

Where To Sleep Without Overpaying

Downtown wins on price, every time, if you don’t need to be within stumbling distance of the Bellagio. Rooms at the older Fremont Street properties run a fraction of what the newer Strip resorts charge, and most still have their own sportsbook and casino floor if you want the action close by. Prefer the Strip itself? A few smaller, older spots there still undercut the big names, especially midweek, and especially if you say no to every resort fee upsell at check in.

Getting Around Without A Rental Car

Don’t rent a car for this. The Deuce, the double decker bus running the length of the Strip down to Fremont Street, is cheap and it comes often enough that you’ll stop checking the schedule. A day pass costs less than one Uber ride on a Saturday night, and it drops you close enough to walk the last stretch to wherever you’re actually headed.

Eating Well Without The Markup

Save the resort steakhouse for a real occasion. The casual spots just off the Strip serve enormous portions for not much money, and a few of the downtown food courts will feed you for less than a single cocktail costs upstairs. Order one drink, nurse it through four quarters. Nobody at a sports bar in this town is going to give you a hard time for it.

Making It Worth The Trip

Treat the games as the anchor and leave the rest loose. A walk past the Bellagio fountains between matches, a detour through the Neon Museum to see the old signs pulled off demolished casinos, neither costs much, and both fill the dead time between kickoffs without turning the weekend into a schedule you have to keep.

Plan The Boring Parts First

The people who get the most out of a trip like this are usually the ones who lock in the logistics early and then stop thinking about them. This rundown of common first time travel mistakes is worth a read before you book if you want a second opinion. Sort the room, the promo code and the bus pass ahead of time, and the weekend runs itself from there.