I played at the Stratosphere on Friday night in the $40+4 rebuy tournament. This tournament had the good, the bad, and the ugly all in one package.
First, the good: The play/players were horrendous, thus enabling my tight aggressive play to get me to the money.

The bad: the dealers were nothing short of terrible amatuers. I mean it quite litteraly when I say that my home games are run MUCH tighter. No less than EIGHT times did I have to correct dealers (how to chop a pot, misreading hands, allowing string bets, etc., etc., etc.). After the first break, I actually had to tell the tournament director to start the tournament clock again (it hadn't been running for five + minutes). The blind structure was also horrendous, and the game was rapidly approaching crapshoot/turbo status when the final five of us struck a deal.

The ugly: When I got to the final table, I was both shocked and dismayed to see who was sitting to my left; the tournament director!! Yes, that's right. The man running a tournament in a large Vegas casino was also playing in it...he mad e it to the $$ and chopped first place to boot. This just had the stink of inproprioty written all over it. The guy who was making the final rulings on all of the dealers MANY disputed mistakes was also playing?!?! Surely there is a law in Vegas that this is violating. Even though I managed to win a respectable $400 in the game, I would NEVER play in it again, and I would strongly advise any "real" players to avoid this tournament...you have better options nearby....

The Sahara has daily tournaments at 11a and 11p. These are decently well run tournaments with decent dealers for the same price as the Stratosphere tournaments. Clearly a better option for any semi-serious player.

The MGM had a Sunday night tournament for $125 & No Rebuy that I played in. The blind structure was much better (30 min. blinds). The tournament was well run. The dealers were outstanding. The only negative was a slightly higher level of competition. Highly recomend this tournament for semi-serious players.