I was catching up on “Today’s News” on the LVA homepage and saw this September 24 item: “ECan Tops Market.  According to Majestic Research, which tracks "game usage" (i.e., number of bodies on the games) at Vegas casinos, Eastside Cannery is #1 in the locals market during the third quarter of 2008.” 

I was wondering when they took their survey. If it was on September 15, that was the first day of a 10-times-points promotion and I saw more skilled VP players than I had seen in one place since Tuscany had their 4-to-a-royal promotion several years ago. Some had driven in from Nevada border states and even flown in from points more distant. However, it is not just those players who live and die by their math calculations who are attracted to good promotions. There are hundreds of Vegas locals who may not be able to figure the math of a promotion but when they see 10x points, they will guess that it is good and make an effort to take advantage of it. 

So, if the newly opened East Cannery was wanting to plump up their database, this 10x promotion was a good idea that worked. However, it may have been more successful for the players than for the casino. What was to be a continuing promotion on Mondays and Wednesdays the rest of September was abruptly cancelled after that first Monday. So if the 3rd quarter survey was taken a couple of days later, the results would have been much different – you would have seen a much less crowded casino floor. 

A personal note here: Although this was a super promotion, with a strong EV (theoretical return), Brad and I lost about $4000 that day, even counting the $4000 we earned in bonus slot points. High EV does not guarantee short-term wins. However, after gambling with a good advantage percentage for 23 years, we have proved without a shadow of a doubt that it is the key to long-term profits.    

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The premiere edition of the "Coast Connection" appears in today's Review-Journal. This is a 20-page insert similar to the one Station has been offering the last few months. It contains property-specific coupons (including those valuable match plays!) and information about gaming promotions, food specials, and events for each of four Boyd casinos -- Sam’s Town, Suncoast, The Orleans, and Gold Coast. A handy feature is the October Event Calendar for each casino that lets you see a lot of information with one quick glance.

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Mr. B (he wants to remain anonymous) reported on an Internet forum that he had forwarded part of my blog entry of September 11, “Trippin' in a Casino,” to Gary Loveman, Harrah’s CEO.  He suggested that getting rid of “daily average” would be an easy way for Harrah’s to increase customer retention with no extra cost to the casino. Much to his surprise he got a quick response, not from Mr. Loveman, but from probably one of his underlings who has been delegated the responsibility of responding to dissatisfied customers.  Here is the reply:

From: David Norton

Thanks Mr. B for the note. 

The comments below [from the blog] are quite observant.  Elements of Total Rewards [do] reward cumulative play and more frequent lower play trips, most notably the Reward Credit/point balance [and also] some direct mail offers as well as entries in promotions and some other things. Other things are dependent on the daily play level. I understand the points below [in the blog] but process wise it is very challenging not to make some things  dependent on daily value.

Hosts (do) have the discretion to take care of the customer as
needed to ensure they are properly rewarded.

Thanks again for the comments.

My comment would be that their very complex customer tracking system is based almost entirely on “daily value.” When you worship at the Altar of Daily Average, of course it would be “challenging” to change it. And his comment about using a host will be laughable to many good Harrah’s customers in casinos around the country. Their hosts are telling them their “discretion” has been progressively more and more restricted, that they spend too much of their time apologizing to customers that they can’t do as much for them now as they did in the past.

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Friday, Brad and I got lucky at the Palms. We scored a total of $48 on our six Megabucks free pulls (regular and check-cashing ones) – which is $48 more than we usually get. And when we cashed our checks, although Brad got a free Budweiser (that he can’t drink because of the meds he is on), for the third time in the last four months or so, I got $50 free play! Best results since I got the double-your-check swipe a couple of years ago when I cashed my Social Security check.

Yes, the government keeps encouraging us to use direct deposit. In fact, one government organization told Brad he MUST use direct deposit for one of his pensions (VA or civil service, I can’t remember which) unless it would “cause him financial difficulty.” So he signed and sent in the official request, checking off the “financial difficulty” square (but not explaining about casino check-cashing benefits) and they haven’t bothered him since.

Saturday brought another smile. A 30% coupon had come in the R-J insert from Savers, my all-time favorite thrift store (with branches in all parts of Vegas), and I spent a couple hours shopping, once again amazed at all the bargains you could find if you looked carefully.

Now, before you write any smartsy-fartsy comments, I have plenty of money to buy anything I want in the fanciest (and most expensive) store in Vegas. But that doesn’t give you any extra points in the frugal game that I love. I don’t shop as much in thrift stores these days as I did when my daughter and then my grandkids were little, because I’m into simplifying my life and that kind of shopping takes a lot of time and energy, neither of which I have an abundance these days. But it was fun to go with a frugalite girlfriend: Brad enjoys this game better in a casino. Dollars saved are dollars earned – plus we earned a bunch of frugal points,

Then Sunday brought a really lucky and surprising event. My mystery free play at Green Valley Ranch, usually around $20, plus or minus a few dollars, was a whopping $500!

Sure, we’ve had weekends with bigger wins – much bigger. But probably none that earned us more frugal fun points!

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People often ask me if there is any time you might NOT want to insert your casino players card when you are playing a slot machine. There are few of these times but here is a big one: DON’T USE THE CARD WHEN YOU ARE FEEDING IN COUNTERFEIT BILLS! 

I am hoping these less-than-brilliant crooks didn’t tell the judge that they were only following the advice of the Frugal Gambler.

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In today’s LVA QOD, I discussed the subject of casino “daily average,” one that always generates a lot of e-mails.

A couple of notes before I continue: Remember, anyone can always read the current Question of the Day on the actual day it appears.  However, only LVA subscribers can access past QODs in the archives.  So that link above will not work tomorrow unless you are a LVA subscriber.

And do you not like the black background on the LVA site? I’ve had some e-mails complaining that it was hard on the eyes, and it was giving me some eyestrain. I just realized you can change to a white background by clicking on “Screen Color” in the list on the left side of the page. TA-DA! Like magic, it is clearer for my old eyes to read and maybe yours too!

Okay, now back to the subject of “daily average.”  In my QOD answer I said that there were “nice” casinos that don’t care how often you come in or how much you play on any one day. They reward you with bounce-back/comps in a logical manner by looking at your total play for one month or even longer periods of time.

Then there are the other casinos that punish you if you play often but smaller amounts each time. They “trip” you (call it a play day whether you play or just use your points for a meal or do other “business” in their casino). They give out rewards based on your daily average of all “tripped” days, no matter how high your total play might be for their look-back period.

Someone wrote to the QOD editor with a wish that many gamblers have expressed in their e-mails to me:

“Based on Jean Scott's answer about the trap of daily average: Is there anywhere that one can find out which casinos do not use this as a basis for determining the level of offers? Such information would be a huge benefit to gamblers, and a terrific means of "communicating" to casinos as numbers of us prefer the more rational systems.”

Well, I use my blog to try to publicize players’ gripes about a lot of things. I know some casino employees read Internet blogs and forums but whether this gets to the top, where policy is decided, I don’t know. But I plan to keep trying.

About a list of casinos and what each uses to determine which players get what: If there were such a thing, yes, it would be wonderful for all players. And it would be especially wonderful for me because I could retire from all this writing!! But there are insurmountable problems here. Many casinos want to keep this information a secret – they think gamblers will play more to try to get to some mystery higher level. I have always strongly disagreed with this theory. If the various levels are known and it is clear what you get at each level and how much you have to play to get there, I believe many, even most, casino customers would play more.

A second problem would be maintaining such a list. For years I have been drumming this same tune – the only consistency with casinos is change! Marketing executives love to fiddle with details, and now that most things are computerized there is an unending number of details that can be changed, rearranged, shuffled around and re-organized.

That being said, there are some details that I do know about specific casinos.  I will share some of that information in a few days.  Stay tuned.

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Something free to do on Saturday, September 27, in Vegas - or maybe in your hometown.   It is Museum Day, sponsored by the Smithsonian magazine. With the free Admission Card that is available in the September 2008 issue or downloadable at their site, you and your guest can have free admission to your choice from hundreds of museums and cultural venues nationwide. 

Two museums in Las Vegas are participating in this promotion, the Atomic Testing Museum at 755 East Flamingo and the Las Vegas Natural History Museum at 900 Las Vegas Blvd, North.

You print the Museum Day admission card from the website - link on
upper right hand side of page. Not in Vegas that day? Click on “Find a Venue” to see what museums in your area might be participating.

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From Kevin: “Read your last blog entry about ethics in a casino and thought that I'd add my 20 Station Casinos points (two cents, get it?).

”To me, the ethics line is crossed when I do something that is clearly a violation of the rules. The promo shark that got backroomed at the 4Q was clearly defrauding the casino, in that the promo was obviously intended to be used by any given person only ONCE.

”The gray area is when promo-pounders burn out a good deal, while staying within the rules' boundaries. I for one refuse to enter the gray area, because I realize that the casino's intention in offering a promo is NOT to provide me with a living.

”Now, exclusive of the above delineations, I feel that the casino/player relationship is an inherently adversarial one, and I intend to utilize all of my skills and abilities to create the best outcome for myself. The goals of the casino and of its customers are diametrically opposed: we want to win their money; they want to win ours. The "at war" analogy is therefore apt--but even in war, there are rules of conduct.

”FWIW, I get the impression that you have ethical boundaries similar to what I've stated above while others I can think of routinely cross far into the gray area. I also have a couple of friends who go much farther, into the definite black area, and I strongly dislike their actions, even though the result of those actions is their livelihood.”  

Kevin, I thank you for your input. I welcome other comments on this subject. Just scroll down from here and click on “Add comment.” We could have a lively discussion there!

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I just heard (from a skilled gambler who shall remain nameless) that a friend of his saw a well-known “promotion scrambler” get handcuffed and taken in the back at the 4 Queens casino sometime last month. “He was working several peoples’ cards on their promotion--the same promotion that you wrote about in your blog. Evidently he was paying people to use their cards.”

This report does not surprise me. There is a small number of players who not only feel that “all is fair in love and war” but in casinos too. And juicy promotions can bring out the greed big time. A big slot club signing bonus going on? Gather up some of the homeless and bring them to the casinos – pay them a little bit and take the biggest chunk of the bonus for yourself. A big check-cashing bonus promotion going on? Get your non-player friends to cash their paychecks at that casino and “buy” the valuable bonus coupon they get.

I have been writing about ethics and gambling ever since I had a whole chapter subtitled “Strange Bedfellows” on that subject back in my first book, The Frugal Gambler. Here’s what I wrote in the section called “The Casino as a War Zone”: “After I’d been gambling for awhile, I realized that very little in a casino is black and white, ethically speaking. Going into a casino is kind of like entering a war zone. It’s you against the house, and it starts to seem like the house has a license to steal. So if you get a chance to steal something back, you rationalize that it’s only fair. When I started thinking that way, I knew I had to formulate my code of casino ethics. I’m not going to tell you what that entire code is, because it’s a personal thing. You’ll have to come up with you own code if you intend to ‘fight’ in this battle zone.”

I went on to say that my code is always being tested -- and that is still true today because gambling ethical issues are still in a large gray area. But I must warn you that casinos ARE taking measures to ferret out those that they feel are abusing the system.

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I have gotten a lot of e-mail on this subject over the years, especially from couples. Many like to use one of their cards for their major play days and save the other card for when they are playing a shorter session and don’t want to ruin their daily average, which often determines their mail offers. Or, they want to both play on the same card so they will get to a higher comp tier faster. Or, one plays more than the other so after the frequent-player gets to the top-offer level, he/she plays to get the spouse’s account at the same level so both will get the top mailers. 

Although most casinos have a rule in their players club printed material that each person is required to play on his own card, this is often not strictly enforced, except for some promotions, like a marathon where multiple players on one account would give an unfair advantage.   However, playing on each other’s card is not usually a problem, especially if each has the same last name and/or shares the same address. 

Recently, however, one well-known video poker expert found that this issue could be a problem – a big one! Bob Dancer writes about it in a very interesting Internet column called “When the Rules Are Enforced.”   And you will also want to read his follow-up column, “Subtitle: Hoisted on my own Petard!”  

Bob’s experience does give one something to think about!

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