I love when I read that casino revenues are down. I feel sorry for people who are losing their homes during this real estate meltdown and the resulting financial downturn that is causing our country (and especially our fair city of Las Vegas) so many problems, but I’m looking forward to the casino promotion war. And I believe it has already started.

Case in point, the Palms. They always have been promotion happy, but this month they are outdoing themselves to lure customers into their casino. First came our regular big monthly mailer, with 7 different Free Play Pickup Days scattered throughout the month. (You may have gotten more or less, depending on the mailer level you are on.) In that mailer they also announced their “Swipe and Win Bonanza” on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.   They also announced bonus points on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5x for slot players and 2x for those playing video poker. Plus there were free Megabuck pulls on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Great, they were giving us a reason to stop in almost every day– and some days we had 2 or more reasons! Enough of us must not have come in often enough, however, because Brad and I (and many others we talked to) received an e-mail touting extra free play every Tuesday and Thursday for the rest of the month, and double (or more) the amount of our usual free play. So many promotions I have to write very very tiny on my calendar to get them all in.

However, the thing that topped off all of this was a personal call from someone at the Palms, checking to see whether we had gotten our invitation to an upcoming VIP slot tournament.

This isn’t just a Palms phenomenon. Casino hosts are calling and e-mailing us right and left “begging” us to attend special events. I notice many tournaments are not making their planned-for numbers.  Bonus point days are sprouting up everywhere and more frequently and the multiples are getting bigger and bigger. And our always-heavy casino mail is getting heavier.

Isn’t casino competition great?  

[Email Blogger]