From my earliest days in Vegas, Sam's Town has been one of the casinos I have played at regularly. It offered good video poker, progressives in particular, and strong promotions. Recently, a lot has changed.
Like most Vegas casinos, Sam's Town has been graduatlly removing or downgrading its best video poker games for a long time, but very gradually. Until quite recently, it still offered 9/6 jacks or better for $2 and $5, games rarely found at locals casinos. Two bars offered a $1 9/6 jacks or better progressive, which occuasionally turned positive, especially with point multipliers.
In the past couple of years the big attraction for me at Sam's Town has been senior days. Each Wednesday there is a mystery point multiplier and drawing for those 50 and older. The point multipliers, limited to 10,000 base points a day, range up to 30 times for video poker (50 times for slots). (Boyd Gaming's other Coast and downtown Las Vegas Casinos have similar programs.)
Getting 30 times points was rare -- I think it happened only once at Sam's Town -- but for quite a while I was reglarly getting 10 times point and occasionally 15 times points. Ten times brings the return on 9/6 jacks to 100.5 percent without a progressive. That's an expected $50 profit on the $10,000 coin in needed to earn 10,000 base points, the maximum to be multiplied. On $2 jacks, that takes a little over an hour, for a pay rate (not including any winnings in the drawing) of about $40 an hour. Plus a free lunch and dinner buffet.
The first big blow, a few weeks ago, was the removal of all four of the machines that had the $2 and $5 jacks on them. Around this time, the point multipliers took a noticable dip not only at Sam's but at the other Boyd properties. Instead of 10 times or more, they become mostly 5 or 6 times, making jacks or better break-even or a smidge better. Still, the $1 progressive could be an attractive game, depending on the jackpot amount. And there was the drawing.
The final blow, a couple of weeks ago, was the downgrading of the jacks progressive to 8/5, making it unplayable, even with a huge jackpot. There are still a few machines with $1 9/6 jacks and a couple of $1 8/5 bonus poker progressives that occasionally become attractive, but nothing else for the $1 and up video poker player.
At the same time this was happening, Sam's Town closed its Mexican restaurant, Willy & Jose's, and its Billy Bob's steakhouse, one of my favoriites. At the new steakhouse, called the Angry Butcher, the menu is a la carte, where Billy Bob's threw in a salad and potato with your steak.
My read on the video poker situation at Sam's Town is that marketing game away too much in points, and the slot director fought back by taking out the games on which players could easily earn their maximum multiplied points on Wednesdays (and other days Sam's Town offered 7 times points to the public, in most recent months once a week). Of course, the casino is now losing the revenue from the higher-denomination games when there is no point multiplier and the return to all players is negative.
Whatever the reason, the combination of lower point multipliers, lower denomination games and the loss of a good progressive makes Sam's Town a much less attractive place to play. I'm now spening most of Wednesdays at Stations properties, which offer a better $1 game and no limit on the number of points you can earn with a multiplier.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Gambling goes national -- is that a good thing?
My, have public attitudes toward gambling changed during my lifetime (62 years).
I can remember when New Jersey became the second state to legalize casino gambling, and only in Atlantic City, not a major population center.
Then Indian gaming took off, and other states began legalization. Now, just about every state has some form of legalized gambling. The exceptions are Hawaii (a major source of customers for Las Vegas casinos) and Utah, which borders Nevada.
Gambling was promoted as a way to boost local economies, increase tax revenues and provide relatively well-paying jobs.
Now, the latecomers to the game are playing defense. According to my brother who lives in New York, the industry's argument in that state was not that gambling would provide a huge boost, but that establishing casinos in New York would keep money and jobs in that state that were going to neighborhing states and Canada.
In the 21st century the United States has entered a new era concerning gambling. It is no longer a scarce commodity. Is this a good thing?
I would say yes and no. But mostly no.
First the yes part: Gambling has helped the economies of many states, cities and Indian tribes. The economy of Las Vegas, where I live, is still based almost wholly on gaming and related industries. Tunica, Mississippi, was part of one of the poorest, most backward regions of the country before gambling arrived. Atlantic City never realized the revival it had hoped for, but gambling has provided many good jobs for people living in towns along the Jersey Shore.
But in recent years gambling has become an unstable industry and more jurisdictions allowed it. Atlantic City went into decline as Pennslyvania legalized casinos in the Philadelphia area. Reno has suffered from competition from California.
An industry that traditionally thrived because of scarcity is now operating in an environment of competition and, in some cases, oversupply of its product. At the same time, it is having trouble attracting younger customers -- a combination that can lead only to disaster for some operators. As we have seen with Atlantic City, contraction of gambling centers can and will happen.
I believe the more recent expansion of gambling has been due mostly to one factor: anti-tax sentiment. Gambling is seen as a form of voluntary taxation. Politicians get more money to work with, without rasing taxes and losing votes.
As noted concerning New York, this is no longer likely to work in many areas.
I believe in legalized gambling, just about everywhere. But it seeing it as a cash cow or engine of economic development isn't realistic.
So why should casinos be allowed? For one thing, people will gamble anyway. Legalization offers a degree of protection to gamblers and casino operators.
For those who can gamble responsibly, its a legitimate form of enteratainment. For those with certain disabilities, gambling may be one of the few recreational activities they can participate in fully. For those who work odd schedules, most casinos are open 24 hours a day. And casinos are among the few entertainment venues to which people can feel comfortable going by themselves.
On the negative side, gambling is not a productive activity (except for the miniscule number of professional gamblers). Banging away at a slot machine is not good excercise, physically or mentally. Even though very few gamblers are considered addicted, many spend more time and money in casinos than is good for them or their families.
As someone who as observed gamblers for a decade, I believe most of them would be smarter, healthier and happier if they spent some of their gambling time doing just about anything else.
I can remember when New Jersey became the second state to legalize casino gambling, and only in Atlantic City, not a major population center.
Then Indian gaming took off, and other states began legalization. Now, just about every state has some form of legalized gambling. The exceptions are Hawaii (a major source of customers for Las Vegas casinos) and Utah, which borders Nevada.
Gambling was promoted as a way to boost local economies, increase tax revenues and provide relatively well-paying jobs.
Now, the latecomers to the game are playing defense. According to my brother who lives in New York, the industry's argument in that state was not that gambling would provide a huge boost, but that establishing casinos in New York would keep money and jobs in that state that were going to neighborhing states and Canada.
In the 21st century the United States has entered a new era concerning gambling. It is no longer a scarce commodity. Is this a good thing?
I would say yes and no. But mostly no.
First the yes part: Gambling has helped the economies of many states, cities and Indian tribes. The economy of Las Vegas, where I live, is still based almost wholly on gaming and related industries. Tunica, Mississippi, was part of one of the poorest, most backward regions of the country before gambling arrived. Atlantic City never realized the revival it had hoped for, but gambling has provided many good jobs for people living in towns along the Jersey Shore.
But in recent years gambling has become an unstable industry and more jurisdictions allowed it. Atlantic City went into decline as Pennslyvania legalized casinos in the Philadelphia area. Reno has suffered from competition from California.
An industry that traditionally thrived because of scarcity is now operating in an environment of competition and, in some cases, oversupply of its product. At the same time, it is having trouble attracting younger customers -- a combination that can lead only to disaster for some operators. As we have seen with Atlantic City, contraction of gambling centers can and will happen.
I believe the more recent expansion of gambling has been due mostly to one factor: anti-tax sentiment. Gambling is seen as a form of voluntary taxation. Politicians get more money to work with, without rasing taxes and losing votes.
As noted concerning New York, this is no longer likely to work in many areas.
I believe in legalized gambling, just about everywhere. But it seeing it as a cash cow or engine of economic development isn't realistic.
So why should casinos be allowed? For one thing, people will gamble anyway. Legalization offers a degree of protection to gamblers and casino operators.
For those who can gamble responsibly, its a legitimate form of enteratainment. For those with certain disabilities, gambling may be one of the few recreational activities they can participate in fully. For those who work odd schedules, most casinos are open 24 hours a day. And casinos are among the few entertainment venues to which people can feel comfortable going by themselves.
On the negative side, gambling is not a productive activity (except for the miniscule number of professional gamblers). Banging away at a slot machine is not good excercise, physically or mentally. Even though very few gamblers are considered addicted, many spend more time and money in casinos than is good for them or their families.
As someone who as observed gamblers for a decade, I believe most of them would be smarter, healthier and happier if they spent some of their gambling time doing just about anything else.
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