Notes and thoughts on a few new things:
1. The Orleans has changed its Tuesday seniors program to include a drawing at 4 p.m. This drawing is unusual in a couple of a little unusual. You don't have to activate your tickets -- everyone who has played during the eligibility period is entered automatically. But you do have to present to win. Three names are called. Each winner who is there gets $1,000. Any money that isn't claimed carries over to the following week. The first week, none of the three winners was there. I suspect the prizes will sometimes be substantial, but with everyone who has played during the earning period entered, the chances of winning are reduced. I plan to time my visits to the Orleans to be there for this drawing and see how it goes. Incidentally, exactly what the earning period is is unclear. It was announced in the casino that it's just the day of the drawing, but I was been clicking the "drawings" button on the kiosks and finding tickets for this drawing on other days. Next chance I get, I'll review the written rules, which are on a sign in front of the players' club.
2. I was very disappointed in a promotion at the M Resort that started Friday night. The deal was, earn up to five swipes by putting $250 coin in on video poker. Some swipes would award free play. In my case, five swipes resulted in nothing. My wife got a total of $10. A near-Strip resort has been running a similar promotion this month and the same week I got nothing at the M I got $140 in free play at the other place (which I am not naming because to keep competition at its drawings, which have been very good to me, to a minimum). At both places I play 15/9 "pseudo not so ugly" deuces for $1 on the five-play machines, betting $25 a hand. I would think that kind of play would earn something, especially on the first day of a promotion. I cannot understand why casino executives implement promotions that will tick people off instead of promoting the casinos' business. In fairness to the M, its seniors' drawing on Tuesdays offers a good chance of winning meaningful prizes, but this new promotion appears to be a big stinker. Another disappointment at the M: The convenience store on the property apparently has been sold and no longer accepts M slot club points for payment for gas or other purchases.
3. Guess what's back at the Palms? After all the 100-percent payback games had been removed, two or three weeks ago I walked over the area where the $2 "not so ugly" 16/10 deuces were and found them replaced by two rows of 100-percent-plus payback machines, with big signs on top advertising their presence. The games on two rows of machines are double bonus, double double bonus and deuces wild at 25 and 50 cents. Points are earned at one-quarter the rate on other games, making them worth 0.625 percent. Double bonus, which is very difficult to play accurately, and double double bonus, which pays back barely over 100 percent with perfect play, are still fairly common in Las Vegas and can be found in denominations as high as $1. Deuces wild, which pays back 100.76 percent with perfect play, has become relatively rare even at quarters and is found at 50 cents only in two small casinos in Henderson that don't have slot clubs. So the 50-cent full-pay deuces at the Palms is quite a find. Unfortunately, if history is a guide, it won't last long, so enjoy it while you can.
4. Stations continues its comeback with a surprisingly strong promotion this month. Each day through May 28, players' club members can swipe their card at a kiok for prizes. When Stations has run this type of promotion in the past, the prizes have often been disappointing. In particular, they would often be drawing tickets, which were worse than worthless because any edge an individual would get would be swamped by the extra entries awarded other players. Other prizes included slot club points, dining credits and free play. This time, the types of prizes are the same, but in my and my wife's experience, the prizes are many times more valuable than they have been in the past. Point prizes have ranged from 5,000 to 25,000; free play from $10 to $100, and dining credits from $10 to $50. This promotion is been run in conjunction with daily drawings in which five people at each of the eight Stations and two Fiestas wins $500 and a chance to win a Cadillac in a drawing held that night. Winners who are present get an extra $500. The best news about the swipe card part of the promotion is that the drawing ticket prizes have become quite rare and the number of tickets awarded enough to give the winner a real advantage. I was awarded drawing tickets only once in this promotion and the 5,000 extra entries may have been responsible for me winning one of the $1,000 prizes that night (the free drawing tickets, unlike tickets earned during the promotion, are good for one night only). Kudos to Stations for running a promotion that gives its customers something of real value every day they come in.
5. A small casino in Henderson, Club Fortune ticked me and at least a couple of other players off a couple of weeks ago. At this casino it has long been possible to download free play only on certain machines, but these included virtually every machine in the high-limit room. I walked in one day to find labels on almost all the machines in this room saying "this machine does not accept free play." My wife, who preceded me into the room, heard one player saying he was going to the players' club to complain. I tracked down a slot attendant and asked to speak with a manager. The explanation I got was that the slot director wanted to spread the availablilty of free-play compatible machines throughout the floor to give more people a chance to use free play on their favorite machines. This might have made some sense if I had not also been told that the move was made in conjuction with a doubling of the number of machines available for free play. The only sense I could make of this move is that it is a crude attempt to force customers to play at least their free play on machines with worse pay tables, but I did not express this opinion to the manager I spoke with, because it can be hazardous to become known to casino management as a player who knows too much. At any rate, this appears to be a particularly petty, stupid move by a casino's management in terms of possible gain versus irritation of bigger players. Here are two good rules for casino executives to keep in mind: 1. People don't like to have things taken away, even relatively minor conveniences, and 2. People don't like to be told they can't do something at your casino that they can do at other casinos (at most casinos, free play can be used at all or a vast majority of machines).
Showing posts with label drawings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drawings. Show all posts
Monday, May 21, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Goodbye, old buddy
One of my favorite ongoing casino promotions, the Wheel of Winners at the Las Vegas Hotel and Casino (formerly the Las Vegas Hilton), is no more. The wheel was a drawing held Thursday nights that offered five people a chance to win from $1,000 to $5,000 each. Weekend drawings with a chance to win $10,000 were also offered several times a year.
The best thing about this drawing was that the tickets were paper, which prevented the ticket inflation that has become rampant since most casinos started doing their drawings electronically. The Wheel favored bigger players because tickets had to be earned, but low rollers got a break because the first ticket each day required less play than the rest of them.
Another good thing about this drawing was the prizes. Most of the big locals' casinos that have drawings offer top prizes of $4,000 or $5,000, but the lesser prizes are often as low as $250 or $500. At a Coast or Station Casinos drawing with five winners, maybe one or two typically win $1,000 or more. At the LVH, everyone called won at least $1,000, and the average was probably well over $2,000.
Finally, the number of participants in this drawing was smaller than for most drawings at the big locals' casinos, so it seemed like everyone had a decent chance of winning. Any individual's actual chance of winning, of course, depended upon the number of tickets he or she had in the drum that week. And, I think, that's what did in the Wheel. There were too many repeat winners, some week after week. I do think the promotion caused regular players to play more than they otherwise might have, to earn more tickets. But it didn't seem to bring in a lot of new business for the casino (probably because it wasn't advertised to the public much outside the property).
The LVH still has a lot to offer in competition with the locals' casinos. It has decent blackjack, sometimes for as little as $5. The video poker is actually better than at many locals' casinos, with many games returning more than 99.5 percent. The race and sports book is the biggest in the world. Locals get 25 percent off at all restaurants, which are excellent. But perhaps most important is the LVH's program of tournaments, which is hands down the best in Vegas, with many of the events free to regular, local players.
Meanwhile, concerning weekly drawings, other casinos have picked up the mantle, at least temporarily. Stations, which for at least a year during its financial difficulties ran no drawings, is now offering them at several properties. Perhaps the best drawing this month is at the Silverton, which is giving away an Audi (actually a gift certificate to a dealer for $32,500) each week. Second prize each week is $5,000, which typically is first place in similar drawings.
The best thing about this drawing was that the tickets were paper, which prevented the ticket inflation that has become rampant since most casinos started doing their drawings electronically. The Wheel favored bigger players because tickets had to be earned, but low rollers got a break because the first ticket each day required less play than the rest of them.
Another good thing about this drawing was the prizes. Most of the big locals' casinos that have drawings offer top prizes of $4,000 or $5,000, but the lesser prizes are often as low as $250 or $500. At a Coast or Station Casinos drawing with five winners, maybe one or two typically win $1,000 or more. At the LVH, everyone called won at least $1,000, and the average was probably well over $2,000.
Finally, the number of participants in this drawing was smaller than for most drawings at the big locals' casinos, so it seemed like everyone had a decent chance of winning. Any individual's actual chance of winning, of course, depended upon the number of tickets he or she had in the drum that week. And, I think, that's what did in the Wheel. There were too many repeat winners, some week after week. I do think the promotion caused regular players to play more than they otherwise might have, to earn more tickets. But it didn't seem to bring in a lot of new business for the casino (probably because it wasn't advertised to the public much outside the property).
The LVH still has a lot to offer in competition with the locals' casinos. It has decent blackjack, sometimes for as little as $5. The video poker is actually better than at many locals' casinos, with many games returning more than 99.5 percent. The race and sports book is the biggest in the world. Locals get 25 percent off at all restaurants, which are excellent. But perhaps most important is the LVH's program of tournaments, which is hands down the best in Vegas, with many of the events free to regular, local players.
Meanwhile, concerning weekly drawings, other casinos have picked up the mantle, at least temporarily. Stations, which for at least a year during its financial difficulties ran no drawings, is now offering them at several properties. Perhaps the best drawing this month is at the Silverton, which is giving away an Audi (actually a gift certificate to a dealer for $32,500) each week. Second prize each week is $5,000, which typically is first place in similar drawings.
Monday, January 16, 2012
A good use for comps at the LVH
Comps, or complimentaries, are the things casinos give their customers to keep them coming back -- meals, room nights, show tickets, etc. Casinos use a variety of systems for tracking play and awarding comps, but there has been a trend in recent years to award slot and video poker players with points that can be used for comps and, in many cases, cash back or free play.
The Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, until early this month the Las Vegas Hilton, has a system that's a little unusual. Slot and video poker players earn both comp dollars and points. Comp dollars can be used only for stuff such as meals and show tickets. Points can be used only for free play. This system replaced one a few months ago that awarded only comps, but those comps could be converted to cash. Now there's no way to get cash back from the LVH except by running free play through a machine and cashing out what's left.
In the case of my wife and myself, the comps have been accumulating faster than we can use them for food or entertainment. But we've figured out a way to monetize them -- not necessarily dollar for dollar, but in a way that should be very beneficial in the long run.
One of the reasons we've been regular players at the LVH is the casinos' regular schedule of tournaments. Typically each month there are tournaments with prize pools of $35,000 and $75,000. We are sometimes given free entries to the smaller tournaments and sometimes offered the chance to buy entries for $19 or $39 in comp dollars. Because these tournaments often pay at least $50 to everyone who participates, this is a positive-equity play. This is true even if each comp dollar is worth an actual dollar.
In our case, comp dollars are worth only a small fraction of their face value because we get dining coupons in our monthly mailers from the LVH (and many other casinos). The LVH's restaurants are excellent, but we just don't get many opportunities to use our comp dollars there. So this moth, for the first time, we decided to use $119 each in comp dollars to enter the LVH's $75,000 tournament, which we played in this weekend. I was told the tournament had about 300 entrants, which would make each contestant's equity $250, less the cost of entry. (Equity in a tournament or drawing is the average amount to be won by each participant, determined by dividing the total amount of prizes by the number of participants. If there's a cost of entry, that must be subtracted from the result.)
A couple of other things made this an attractive proposition. Each participant in the tournament was guaranteed $50 in free play, so it couldn't be a total loss. And play during the tournament weekend would give us extra entries in drawings. I don't know how much we won, but whether this was a good use of our time didn't depend on that. Whether a tournament or drawing is worth taking part in must be determined in advance, before you can know how much you'll win. Making a good judgment requires having an idea of what your equity would be. It's often not possible to determine the exact amount because the number of contenstants isn't known or can't be determined. But if you have a rough idea you can determine whether this expectation is worth the time and effort involved. This time, you probably will win a lot more or less that your equity. But in the long run, that's about what you can expect to average in the tournaments and drawings you enter. So that's what you use each time to make a decision.
The Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, until early this month the Las Vegas Hilton, has a system that's a little unusual. Slot and video poker players earn both comp dollars and points. Comp dollars can be used only for stuff such as meals and show tickets. Points can be used only for free play. This system replaced one a few months ago that awarded only comps, but those comps could be converted to cash. Now there's no way to get cash back from the LVH except by running free play through a machine and cashing out what's left.
In the case of my wife and myself, the comps have been accumulating faster than we can use them for food or entertainment. But we've figured out a way to monetize them -- not necessarily dollar for dollar, but in a way that should be very beneficial in the long run.
One of the reasons we've been regular players at the LVH is the casinos' regular schedule of tournaments. Typically each month there are tournaments with prize pools of $35,000 and $75,000. We are sometimes given free entries to the smaller tournaments and sometimes offered the chance to buy entries for $19 or $39 in comp dollars. Because these tournaments often pay at least $50 to everyone who participates, this is a positive-equity play. This is true even if each comp dollar is worth an actual dollar.
In our case, comp dollars are worth only a small fraction of their face value because we get dining coupons in our monthly mailers from the LVH (and many other casinos). The LVH's restaurants are excellent, but we just don't get many opportunities to use our comp dollars there. So this moth, for the first time, we decided to use $119 each in comp dollars to enter the LVH's $75,000 tournament, which we played in this weekend. I was told the tournament had about 300 entrants, which would make each contestant's equity $250, less the cost of entry. (Equity in a tournament or drawing is the average amount to be won by each participant, determined by dividing the total amount of prizes by the number of participants. If there's a cost of entry, that must be subtracted from the result.)
A couple of other things made this an attractive proposition. Each participant in the tournament was guaranteed $50 in free play, so it couldn't be a total loss. And play during the tournament weekend would give us extra entries in drawings. I don't know how much we won, but whether this was a good use of our time didn't depend on that. Whether a tournament or drawing is worth taking part in must be determined in advance, before you can know how much you'll win. Making a good judgment requires having an idea of what your equity would be. It's often not possible to determine the exact amount because the number of contenstants isn't known or can't be determined. But if you have a rough idea you can determine whether this expectation is worth the time and effort involved. This time, you probably will win a lot more or less that your equity. But in the long run, that's about what you can expect to average in the tournaments and drawings you enter. So that's what you use each time to make a decision.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Drawings -- the big picture
A big part of the locals' casino culture is drawings. Most casinos have them at least weekly, often on Friday and/or Saturday nights. In addition, many have added drawings on weekdays at part of their seniors' days. Some have daily, several-times-daily or monthly drawings. Drawings for cars and other big prizes are not uncommon.
Drawings and other events such as tournaments can add to the return on a player's gambling dollars. But with all the drawings out there, which ones are worth entering? (And remember, in most cases, winners must be present to collect the prizes they're awarded.)
Entries to most drawings are awarded based in whole or in part on amount of money bet. So if you're a frequent player and a high roller, you're in a good position to win. If not, your chances are slim. This may seem unfair; many casinos depend on a large number of small players for their profits. If it's any consolation, the prizes awarded in most drawings may be only a small fraction of what the high rolling winners wagered to earn their entries. If you're a low roller, your chances will be better at small, neighborhood casinos than at the Stations or Coasts.
The move by many casinos to electronic drawing tickets has allowed them to award large numbers of entries to each qualifying player. To an individual this may seem advantageous, but if hundreds or thousands of other players also have a virtual drawer full of tickets, it doesn't improve anyone's chances of winning.
For all but the highest of rollers, I believe the drawings that still use paper tickets are best. Among big casinos, the Las Vegas Hilton is the only one I know of that still uses paper for its weekly drawings. This drawing also gives low rollers a good chance. Players can earn two tickets a day by playing any slot, video poker or table game at any denomination for 40 minutes. Regular players get coupons in the mail for a few additional entries if they earn tickets on specified days. Those who play every day earn more tickets, but not so many more that anyone has that much more of a chance of winning than anyone else.
The drawings are held at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays in the Spacequest Casino. Five people are called to spin a wheel, which has spaces for prizes ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. Some of the $1,000 spaces have a decal awarding a bonus that the player claims by picking an envelope. If any of the people called to spin are not present, names are called until five people get a chance to win.
One more thing -- tickets must be obtained at the players' club booth the day they are earned. If you play Thursday, plan to pick up your tickets before 7 p.m. The lines at the players' club can get pretty long as the drawing approaches.
Drawings and other events such as tournaments can add to the return on a player's gambling dollars. But with all the drawings out there, which ones are worth entering? (And remember, in most cases, winners must be present to collect the prizes they're awarded.)
Entries to most drawings are awarded based in whole or in part on amount of money bet. So if you're a frequent player and a high roller, you're in a good position to win. If not, your chances are slim. This may seem unfair; many casinos depend on a large number of small players for their profits. If it's any consolation, the prizes awarded in most drawings may be only a small fraction of what the high rolling winners wagered to earn their entries. If you're a low roller, your chances will be better at small, neighborhood casinos than at the Stations or Coasts.
The move by many casinos to electronic drawing tickets has allowed them to award large numbers of entries to each qualifying player. To an individual this may seem advantageous, but if hundreds or thousands of other players also have a virtual drawer full of tickets, it doesn't improve anyone's chances of winning.
For all but the highest of rollers, I believe the drawings that still use paper tickets are best. Among big casinos, the Las Vegas Hilton is the only one I know of that still uses paper for its weekly drawings. This drawing also gives low rollers a good chance. Players can earn two tickets a day by playing any slot, video poker or table game at any denomination for 40 minutes. Regular players get coupons in the mail for a few additional entries if they earn tickets on specified days. Those who play every day earn more tickets, but not so many more that anyone has that much more of a chance of winning than anyone else.
The drawings are held at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays in the Spacequest Casino. Five people are called to spin a wheel, which has spaces for prizes ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. Some of the $1,000 spaces have a decal awarding a bonus that the player claims by picking an envelope. If any of the people called to spin are not present, names are called until five people get a chance to win.
One more thing -- tickets must be obtained at the players' club booth the day they are earned. If you play Thursday, plan to pick up your tickets before 7 p.m. The lines at the players' club can get pretty long as the drawing approaches.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
