Remember in my last entry, about Station promotions, I wrote: “As the casinos always say – See complete rules at the players club.” 

Well, as usual, that is certainly what we all needed to do, even if one got the mailer announcing the promo, as I did. Since I have done similar promotions at Palace Station before, I should have guessed that there would be restrictions. When I went to Green Valley Ranch yesterday, I picked up the “Bounce Back Bonus Official Rules” flyer at the Boarding Pass desk. 

Rule #7 gives some important details: “Certain machines will not be considered towards the 500 point accumulation for the promotional awards. These machines may not be limited to: Optimum Play, Reversible Royal Bonus Poker, Triple Pay Deuces Wild Poker, Jacks or Better Game King ($1 and $2 only).”

What a convoluted way to say that they can exclude any machine at any time and players won’t have the slightest idea which ones are excluded or included. Station Casinos not only need to hire an English teacher to help them write their rules so they are clear and make sense but they need to hire marketing people who can design a promotion that won’t make players mad. First rule for promotions: Make players feel good and not victims of “dirty tricks.” 

Another rule for casinos should be to thoroughly brief all front line employees on promotional details. I heard of one player who had an employee tell him that there was a mistake on the printed rule list and that there should be a comma after the word “royal” in rule #7, which I quoted above. That would mean that all Bonus Poker games also were excluded.   My experience and from what I have heard from others is that at least most Bonus Poker games are giving the next-day bonus bounce back. 

Some machines do have stickers on them that say they are excluded from this promotion. How hard would this be for them to do this on all excluded machines? 

One way I could tell that a machine was not excluded is that when you put in your card, it scrolls this message: “You are 500 points from a bonus.” However, I am not sure this comes up on all machines that are included. Sad to say, the only way to be sure is by actual experience: Play one day and see if you have the bonus the next day. If you do, then you know you can continue to play that machine – if the marketing powers that be don’t decide to change the rules mid-stream.

As you can tell, I’m a little unhappy with the way this promotion is being run. But I don’t get mad at casinos – I will just try to beat them to death.   I must stop writing and get dressed and get going right away – to either Palace Station or Green Valley Ranch.

[Email Blogger]