Boulder Station Buffets appear to be going, going, gone

My spouse lured me to Boulder Station tonight with an offer to use her points to buy us dinner at the Broiler. Before the pandemic, we enjoyed the 1960s Vegas atmosphere at this locals casino steakhouse. One great feature of the restaurant was its salad bar, which included two kinds of soup, appetizer-like salads such as shrimp and fake crab, and fruit. We would often order just entrees and maybe a side to share, filling in the meal with trips to the salad bar.

Not surprisingly, we found the salad bar closed. I didn't ask whether it's coming back, but my guess is that it won't. I figure they will be able to sell an average of at least one appetizer, salad or dessert per person as a result of the salad bar being gone, for an average of  $10 additional per person. Maybe they'll lose some customers, but where are those people going to go? I think the loss in patronage will be minimal and that, overall, they will come out ahead. Over time, the salad bar will fade from memory, and any negative effects of its elimination will shrink to zero.

Like most other Vegas casinos, Boulder also had a buffet restaurant, which seemed to be very popular. It was nicely remodeled a few years ago. My recollection is that the regular dinner price before rhe pandemic was $10 or $11, plus $1 or $2 on Fridays and Saturdays, which were barbeque nights. Lunch was a couple of bucks less than the regular dinner, and breakfast $1 or $2 less than that. Members of the players club got discounts of up to 50 percent when paying with points, depending on card level. Those with higher-tier player cards were able to use a special line, with little or no wait to get in.

As for the food, the main attractions were variety and quanitity, though the quality was more than acceptable, especially for the price.

The Las Vegas Advisor recently reported that an executive of Stations' parent company, Red Rock Resorts had told a stock analyst that the company would not be reopening any "money losing" buffets at its properties. It was unclear whether that meant the buffets at all Station casinos, but my guess is that it did.

At Boulder, there were signs advertising the new food court, which pictures made clear was going in to what had been the buffet. The buffet itself was completely walled off, indicating constuction coming soon or under way.

A food court, which Boulder does not already have, is a logical use for the buffet area because of the large central seating area and multiple food preparation stations around the perimeter. It also offers the freedom of people dining together to eat different types of food, and a relatively short dining time. A food court also offers the casino the option of outsourcing one more aspect of its operation.

It will be interesting to see how customers react to this change. I guess it will depend in part on the execution, but I don't think the concept will be popular. How many people go to the mall to eat at the food court? Since the Chuck Wagon at El Rancho Vegas, the first casino on the Strip, buffets have become an expected part of the casino experience. Only one locals casino -- South Point -- has reopened its buffet, and the lines have been double or more the longest I saw before the pandemic. I would not be surprised if more buffets come back, due to popular demand.

The closing of the buffets, ostensibly "because of covid" (the new all-purpose excuse for cuts in amenities and lousy service) is also the result of two secular trends in the casino business -- giving the customer less value and insisting that every part of casino operations be a "profit center." As for the latter, I don't have an MBA like many casino executives today, but it seems to me that if someone comes to your casino to eat at the buffet and that costs you a few bucks, if he stays for a while and gambles, the house is usually going to come out ahead. Yet for some reason it's more important not to lose that $5. Maybe they think he'll eat at another restaurant where the casino can make a profit, but that is not necessarily going to happen.

I don't know how much Boulder Station was losing on its buffet, but I think it was more than it had to. If it were open now, they could at least try to raise the price since none of the other casinos on the Boulder Strip has an open buffet. Also, in my opinion, many buffet discounts have been wasted. As a high-tier player club member, I always had more points than I could use for buffets or other types of comps. I did not need a 50 percent discount. A couple of dollars off would have made me feel appreciated enough. The important thing to me was not having to wait on line, which the casino can give me at virtually no cost. Eliminating buffets before even trying to squeeze more money out of then seems to be classic throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I hesitate to draw any conclusions based on one visit, but the crowd at Boulder Station tonight seemed to about half of what was typical on a Saturday night before the pandemic. One reason we went was to see if they had any promotions such as drawings going on; as best as we could find out, there weren't (except for a bingo promotion).

 I don't know if this affected tonight's patronage, but Stations cut the effective value of its slot points during the pandemic to one-sixth (!) of what they were. Most people aren't going to do the math to figure that out, but eventually they will realize that they're coming up short of the points they need to eat at the casino as often as before, especially if the absence of a buffet forces them into restaurants where they will have to pay twice to four times what they used to spend.

 

 

After the pandemic

 The Covid pandemic pretty much ended my gambling career, which I had been winding down anyway. I stayed away from the casinos almost completely for more than a year because of the reckless conditions under which they reopened. Allowing people to chainsmoke and drink while playing pretty much obviates any protection provided by a mask mandate.

Undoubtedly, the casinos took a big hit from the pandemic. They reacted largely by cutting players' benefits and promotions, which hasn't hurt the bottom line, at least yet. The casinos are benefitting from pent-up demand, which probably won't last forever, especially if people feel that they have been taken advantage of, which is happening throughout Vegas. My advice to prospective visitors is to avoid long lines, lousy service, high prices and continuing closures by staying away for at least six months. Sorry, Convention and Visitors Bureau.

I have been back to a few locals casinos and taken a couple of trips in the past month or so in my new role as a recreational gambler (but still interested in making a little money). 

Most of the casinos in Vegas are no longer mailing me offers, and have cut their benefits to the point where there's no reason to play there. The major exception is South Point, which had a decent promotion in June and was very busy throughout the month. South Point is the only locals' casino with an open buffet, which I would have loved to eat at, but the lines were consistently too long for me to bother with. Whether other locals casinos will reopen their buffets is a matter of much speculation (and trepidation). It's clear they don't want to, but I think some will be forced to by popular demand. I hope so, anyway.

My spouse and I got some good offers from the Eldorado in Reno and Harrah's/Harveys Lake Tahoe. We booked a trip and hit the road a day after the high temperature in Vegas reached 117 degrees. Eldorado recently merged its player rewards system into Caesars Rewards, and it was a disaster. There was no communication at either the Eldo or Harrah's/Harveys on how to use our offers, engendering frustration in casino employees as well as us. Basically, no one knew anything. It is hard to imagine a bigger management failure.

In Reno and Tahoe, as well as Vegas, restaurants and other amenities were limited. The buffets at Eldorado and Harrah's were both closed, with no indication that they'll reopen. The Eldo's buffet is one of the best anywhere, and I looked forward to hitting it immediately upon arrival during prepandemic trips.

Everything about the Caesars system is complex and often frustrating from the players' point of view. I was hoping that since Eldorado bought Caesars, the latter would become more like the former, but it looks as if the opposite is going to be the case.

We just got back from another trip, this one to two casinos in Southern California, Pechanga and Pala. We had been to both before the pandemic and got generous offers from them, particular Pala. Pala's offers ran out just before we were able to visit, but we had free roooms, free play and dining at Pechanga. We decided to spend a couple of nights there and play at Pala as well, in hope of restarting the freeplay gravy train.

We were very impressed by Pechanga, a beautiful resort nestled among mountains and with a casino bigger than any in Vegas, including the MGM Grand's. And it's all nonsmoking! We played $5 NSU deuces wild, which is no longer available in Vegas (only one place I know of, South Point, has even $2 NSU).

We found freeplay and dining credits easy to use. Dining credits were accepted everyplace we ate, including the food court and coffee place. There was a swipe card promotion on Tuesday, which awarded $150 in freeplay to my spouse and $125 to me. In Vegas, this type of promotion has ususlly been worth about $5 to us. The only negative is no free alcoholic beverages for players, which was also the case at Pala. I'll gladly trade that for a smoke-free casino!

Pala also had $5 NSU but I played another game there, $2 9/6 jacks or better Super Times Play. I had never seen STP, which adds more than 0.2 percent to the underlying game, on anything better than 8/5 bonus poker, and the ones I used to play in Vegas are long gone. I had an exceptional afternoon at Pala, hitting a 4-of-a-kind with a 4x multiplier for $2,000 and a straight flush with a 10x multiplier for $5,000. My total take was $8,700! We'll see if I get any more of their generous freeplay offers.

In my opinion, anyone wanting a relaxing vacation at a first-class resort hotel would be at least as happy at Pechanga as at Red Rock, the M or the J.W. Marriott in Vegas.

Somebody's going to get fired for this

The Downtown Grand is a casino a long block from Fremont Street, the center of the action in downtown Las Vegas. Formerly the Lady Luck, the property has been nicely renovated and contains a small but attractive casino. I was no-mailed there a few years ago and haven't played there since -- until this week.

One of the players at a locals' casino told my spouse the DTG had put in lots of full-pay video poker games, including full pay deuces wild, at denominations up to $2. We went there Tuesday, expecting to be disappointed, but we were not. Just about every video poker machine in the casino had been programmed with all full-pay games at denominations up to $2. The only bad news was that stickers on the machines disclosed that points are not earned on video poker.

The games offered were the best generally available versions (that's the definition of "full pay") of bonus poker, bonus poker deluxe, deuces wild bonus poker, double bonus poker, double double bonus poker, triple double bonus poker and deuces wild poker. Some of these games pay back an average of more than 100 percent over time with optimum play and maximum coins bet. Some, like bonus poker, pay back less -- in this case 99.17 percent. Even the games paying back just over 100 percent -- and certainly those paying less -- are in my opinion not worth playing if you're not getting any free play, comps or cash back.

But one of these games is very much worth playing. Full-pay deuces wild pays back 100.76 percent. At a moderately fast 800 hands per hour, a player can run $8,000 an hour through a $2 machine. Multiply that by the 0.76 player edge and you get a profit of more than $56 an hour.

Years ago, full-pay deuces was widely available in Vegas in all denominations, but since I started playing a dozen years ago, it has been found almost exclusively at quarters and nickels, at a shrinking number of locals' casinos. I last saw it for dollars about 10 years ago. My spouse was playing at Red Rock Resort and learned from a player there that Arizona Charlie's Boulder had put in $1 full pay deuces. We went there and found two big banks of machines, a total of about 15 in my recollection, with the elusive pay table. Nothing advertised the machines as offering anything special, and most of them went unplayed during the three or four weeks we hit them hard.

We never could figure out why Arizona Charlie's put the game in, and the motivation of the DTG is equally obscure. Most casinos that have 100 percent payback games use them like a supermarket uses loss leaders (although they probably do make some money because many players fail to use optimum strategy and some play short-coin). The machines usually have special glass or signs identifying them as offering 100 percent payback, and usually there aren't that many of them. And limiting the best games to quarters or less makes them unattractive to video poker professionals. At quarters, even full pay deuces pays only a little over the minimum wage.

The DTG did three big things wrong with its new video poker program. First, it put the full-pay games on almost every machine in the casino, including those at the large central bar. That leaves no bad video poker for the masses, most of whom are blissfully ignorant of pay tables and happy to pay whatever garbage they come across. It's a video poker truism that the bad games and bad players make the relatively few good games demanded by good players possible.

Second, it failed to market the new games to the public and thereby attract the kind of player it can make money off of. There should be signs on the machines and outside the casino; I saw none this week. As a result, word of the new games spread through the advantage player community, resulting in lots of play of the $2 full pay deuces, the worst game for the casino.

Third, the DTG did not have to go all the way to $2 to draw players to its full pay deuces games. $1 would have created almost as much excitement and  cut the casino's risk considerably, as well as eliminating the burden on employees of making hand pays to players hitting four deuces on the $2 game. Even offering full pay deuces at 50 cents would have drawn business from the locals' casinos where it's offered at no higher than quarters. Even offering the game at quarters would have drawn business from other downtown casinos, none of which offer the game at all.

It's unclear how long the $2 games at the DTG will last; my guess is that when the results for this month come in, the games will come out, alienating players, damaging the casino's reputation and leaving it with the task of devising a new video poker program. What the DTG is offering is great for players now, but too good to be true for very long.

A different way to pay a jackpot

The first time I hit a hand-pay jackpot at Harrah's Lake Tahoe, I was asked if I would like it all in cash. "What are my other options?" I asked, having never been offered any before. I had taken payment of some large jackpots in the form of a check, but I had to ask.

At Harrah's they will give you slot tickets instead, in about same amount of time as it takes to get cash. Today I hit an $8,000 jackpot at Tahoe. I asked for $2,000 to be withheld for taxes and the rest to be paid in six $1,000 tickets. These will take up a lot less room in my wallet than the 60 $100 bills I would have gotten.

Before going for this option, I wanted to be sure of one thing: that if I didn't use all the tickets, I could convert what was left to cash. I was concerned about this because the free play on slot tickets Caesars Entertainment properties give for promotional pruposes must be played through at least once (in my experience, this is the universal policy concerning free play in whatever form). I was assured I would have no trouble cashing in any unused tickets.

So basically the tickets are the same as cash except that they have an expiration date, in this case May 11. I will cash out any that I don't use at the end of trip here and be "stuck" at that point with cash.

There are times I would prefer a jackpot to be paid by check, especially if the amount is more than $10,000. It is obviously safer as well as more convenient to carry a check for a large amount; no reports to federal authorities generated when you deposit a check in the bank; and it is unlikely that a check would be seized by the police as part of a forfeiture action. The problem with gettting a casino to write you a check is that it is a complicated and time-consuming procedure. In my limited experience, a 40-minute wait is about average.

I would ask for a check for most jackpots over $10,000, but for payoffs of $4,000 or $8,000 (the amounts for royal flushes in $1 and $2 video poker with full coin bet) I would ask for slot tickets unless I was running low on cash. (I was told you can get paid partly in tickets and partly in cash.)

My spouse thinks Rio in Las Vegas has offered the same option, so it might be available at other Caesars properties. If it isn't offered, I would ask about it.

Thank you, South Point

South Point is a huge locals' casino on Las Vegas Boulevard south of where that road becomes the Strip. It's owned by one guy, Michael Gaughan, rather than a big corporation. And in most ways, that's a very good thing.

Mr. Gaughan is the son of the lengendary Jackie Gaughan, long-time owner of El Cortez, one of the oldest casinos in downtown Las Vegas. Michael got his start with the Barbary Coast, which is now the Cromwell at Flamingo Road and the Strip. The profits from that venture allowed him to build the Gold Coast, the Orleans, the Suncoast and the South Coast, now South Point.

That group of casinos was bought by Boyd Gaming, a major publicly traded corporation. The geniuses at Boyd decided they didn't want the South Coast, in part because there was no Interstate 15 interchange at the cross street it's on, Silverado Ranch Road. So they sold the South Coast back to Mr. Gaughan. The interchange was built a couple of years later and the casino continues Michael's record of success in bringing in the crowds.

South Point is one of the places I play regularly. The main attraction is 16/10 "not so ugly" deuces wild, which is available in denominations up to $2. At most other casinos that have this 99.7 percent payback game, the most you can play it for is dollars. Points at South Point are worth a competitive 0.3 percent (1,000 points = $3). Double points on video poker (and higher multipliers on reel slots) are offered on average about once a month, with no limit on points you can earn. (But don't play only on point multiplier days or you might find that your players card no longer works.)

This month (January 2017) South Point offered a great promotion. It's similar to ones offered before, so I would expect to see it again, possibly with modification. Here's how it worked:

Each Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, players earning 500 points on reel slots or 2,000 points on video poker ($1 coin in = 1 point) would get a virtual wheel spin for prizes ranging from $5 to $100 in free play or 2,500 to 100,000 players club points, worth from $7.50 to $300. Players could earn up to four spins each day of the promotion.

One nice thing was that the virtual wheel appeared when the required points were earned right on the little screen showing points earned. You pushed a button, the wheel spun, and the prizes were added to your account. Free play could be used immediately.

From my own and my spouse's experience, the prizes were worth an average of about $10 a spin. (It's possible that the wheel was weighted differently for different players.) Because the game we were playing was break even with base points earned (99.7 percent payback plus players club points worth 0.3 percent), this meant a profit of $40 each day of the promotion or $160 a week. On the $2 deuces, earning the four spins took about an hour (and actually required less than $7,500 coin in, not the $8,000 specified).

The wheel was definitely weighted toward the lower prizes. My spouse once got $50 free play, and we got $25 a few times. Most point prizes were 2,500 but 5,000 came up pretty often, with a few 10,000s. But here's the great thing: Neither one of us got the lowest prize, $5 free play, even once. We've been conditioned by experience in casino promotions to get the least valuable prize the vast majority of the time. Pleasantly surprising your customer is a marketing technique rarely practiced in such an across-the-board fashion anymore.

Today's mail brought a final "prize" in January's promotion -- a crazy good February mailer resulting from all the play I put in during the month. My January mailer gave me $10 a week in free play, one $15 dining credit, a two-for-one breakfast or lunch buffet and 25 percent off show tickets. For February I'm getting $50 a week in free play, one $150 dining credit plus a $75 credit for the Mexican restaurant, two free buffets and two free show tickets. Woo-hoo!

End-of-year thoughts

"It's getting tough to make a living," I said to the video poker player in the chair next to mine. His laugh showed that he appreciated the joke, but what was gallows humor to him was, to me, a simple statement of fact.

Unless I have a hell of a day today (12/31), I will make only about two-thirds of my average annual income for the past half-dozen or so years. In the past, I would have taken this in stride, gambling being characterized by ups and downs. But now I'm pretty well convinced this is the new normal for what I've been doing.

Most of what I have been doing is playing video poker. In the past few years, games have gotten worse, my mail offers from several casinos have been cut off, and ancillary earning opportunities, such as invitational tournanents and drawings, are not what they used to be. My other game, blackjack, hasn't changed as much, but there are fewer places where I'm allowed to play.

And, I'm tired. Gambling professionally is a notoriously time-consuming pursuit. I've basically been working seven days a week for the past several years. It is not as enjoyable as it used to be.

I've thought about doing other things, inside and outside the casino. A guy I used to work with makes his living betting golf, I sport I enjoy watching. I've done a little research on this and it seems hard, but it might be worth pursuing. I've also thought about playing more blackjack for as long as I can get away with it. And I've considered taking up live poker.

I've also thought about getting a job, but there are problems with that. What's left of the profession I worked in has changed a lot, and not in any good ways. I've been out of the job market entirely for half a dozen years.

I would like to to do more writing and have a concept for a book about my experiences in Las Vegas.

I'm going to be travelling for a few days early in the new year. I've got a lot to think about while I'm gone. Things have got to start changing when I get back. At this point, I'm just not sure how.

A better way to run a slot tournament

In the casino world, a tournament is an event that gives players an opportunity to compete against one another for a flat entry fee or on the casino's dime. Tournament formats include just about all the major casino games, including slots, live poker, video poker, blackjack, craps and other table games. In the Las Vegas area, many locals casinos offer small slot, video poker and blackjack tournaments on a regular basis, mostly weekly, often as part of their seniors' day programs. "Destination" casinos and some locals casinos sometimes offer bigger tournaments, often to attract out-of-town guests during slow weekends.

The latter used to be a significant source of income for my spouse and me. It seemed that we had at least one tournanent opportunity on many weekends and sometimes had to scramble to participate in two on the same weekend. For us, the entries to these tournaments we always free, based on our play. Prize pools of $50,000 or more were fairly common, and I was able to play in a few blackjack 

tournaments at what was the Las Vegas Hilton (now the Westgate) with prize pools of $100,000. Alas, many of those tournaments have dried up since the recession of 2008.

From the players' point of view, the main problem with playing in a tournament has been the time commitment involved. Typically, you would get an invitation in the mail, to which you would have to respond by phone or e-mail to reserve a place. Then you would have to go to the casio during a specified time, usually a couple of hours during the day before the tournament, to register. At registration you would be assigned your times to play, usually in from two to four sessions during the weekend. Sometimes you would get some choice of when to play (but often sessions were linked so you could pick your morning times but the afternoons times would be set at, say, two hours later in an attempt to keep you in the casino). Sometimes you would have to take the times you were given. Often it was difficult to plan other activities, such as playing in another tournament, around these times.

The M Resort in Las Vegas has come up with what to me is a better tournament format that makes things easier not only for the participants but also for the casino's special events staff. About once a month the casino invites both local and out-of-town players to a slot tournament worth about $35,000 with a $10,000 first prize. The first great thing about these tournaments is that you don't have to call to reserve a spot, which means you also don't have to call if you need to cancel. Your plans can remain flexible right up to the first day of the tournament.

The next great thing is that you don't have to show up in person to register. In fact, you don't have to register at all. But wait, there's more! There are only two sessions, one each on Saturday and Sunday. You can play them any time you want, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Before playing, you print out a ticket at a special tournament kiosk. I sure wish this format had been in effect when we were trying to play in two or more tournaments on some weekends.

Given that the traditional tournament format requires players to spend a lot more time in the casino, you might be wondering why the M would allow players to "hit and run." There are, I think, a couple of anwers. First, players know they won't be invited to these events if they don't maintain a certain level of play. They just don't have to do it on the tournament weekend. Second, the M provides some incentives to get people play during the tournament and on the day before. Starting Friday, players can earn up to two extra entries for Saturday and two for Sunday by earning 1,500 base points on slots or 3,000 on video poker for each extra entry. During the same period they can earn entries in a $5,000 drawing at 5,000 base points per entry. The same base points can count towards the extra tournanent entries and the drawing entries.

The M also has slot or video poker tournaments Tuesdays as part of its seniors' day and Thursdays for everyone. Seniors get one free entry on Tuesdays. On both days, a maximum of five entries can be earned for 250 base points each. Also on both days, you can use these same points toward a free dinner buffet, which requires 1.300 same-day base points on video poker, fewer on reels (you keep the points).