A friend of mine, “Paul,” is convinced he’s being cheated at a casino. He played 25,000 points the other day to earn a gift card. He then took a picture of the card reader with his points displayed. He pulled his card and re-inserted it and a total of 24,986 points appeared. He had been short-changed 14 points.
So, Paul turned on his change light. When an attendant showed up, he asked to speak with a supervisor. Eventually his 14 points were refunded. The whole process took him about 15 minutes. While recounting his story the next day, he was quite proud that he didn’t let the casino cheat him. “You have to put a stop to things like this or the casino will steal everybody blind!”
I asked him how much 14 points are worth. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. For him it’s the principle of the thing that matters. Theoretically he could lose every hand putting the extra 14 points on his card and that possibility was much more real to him than what I called EV.
Since this particular slot club returns 0.25%, it takes 40 points to earn a penny — and 14 points is worth about a third of a cent. Add in the gift card and he was shortchanged about half of a penny. And it took him 15 minutes to get it fixed. He plays five or six times a month and goes through this rigmarole each time.
To me, that’s a HUGE waste of time. If they had shorted me $25 and it would take me 15 minutes to get that back, I would have gone for it. Absolutely. But half a cent? On things like this, I’m not much into the principle of the thing.
At that same casino, a very similar thing happened to me—sort of. I was playing for a card worth half as much as the one that Paul got. Mine required $12,500 coin-in, but I played $12,700 before I stopped. Sure enough I was short-changed a few points, but it didn’t matter. I was still well over what was required.
Why do I play more? In addition to avoiding this 15 minute waste to “fix” the shortchanging of points, periodically marketing directors undertake a “purge” of players and decide that this group of players are “APs” and should be no-mailed. Players who regularly play only the minimum to get a specific benefit make for an easy target. Casino players have learned that APs regularly try to squeeze every last drop of benefits out of a casino and that “regular players” don’t keep such good track.
Coast Casinos recently eliminated the mailers for a whole lot of players. (Not me. I was already no-mailed for hitting too many $2 royal flushes at Suncoast.) How did they select who to kick out? Well, it’s always a guess because nobody knows for sure how good any particular player is.
So marketing and slot directors tend to look for “rules of thumb.” One such rule of thumb is to see who only played on multiple point days — and then stopped at exactly 10,000 points, which is the maximum they multiply. Of the players purged, a high percentage of them fit this pattern.
Has the casino Paul plays at done a purge for playing exactly the minimum number of points? I don’t think so. Not yet. But you never know what rule of thumb is going to be used until it is. And then it’s too late to do anything differently.
If you asked someone who had already been no-mailed whether “paying insurance” of $10 per month in EV in order to keep their welcome would have been useful, the answer would obviously be “yes.” It’s harder for many players to see this before they are restricted.
So smart players avoid making it easy to be categorized. They play on single point days some of the time. They play some slots, but not much. They don’t always play on the highest rated machines. If a specific amount of play is needed to earn a reward, they play extra. They play a little extra when they pick up their free play.
Does it always work? No, of course not. You never know for sure what criteria casinos are going to use. But it works often enough that it’s a smart play.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that Paul’s account gets examined individually, because maybe at some time in the future he’ll be “on the bubble” as to whether they wish to reward him. They’ll see that he has dozens of casino adjustments of 12 points, 8 points, 14 points, 6 points, etc. Basically very few other players have that many adjustments. It just might appear to the casino executives that Paul is trying to nickel and dime them to death. That just might be the straw that causes Paul to be no-mailed at this casino. I wouldn’t want that to happen to me, but so far Paul appears to be proud of his methodology.
Remember, when you’re playing a game that returns more than 99%, it’s not too expensive to play a little extra. It can be money well spent.