I noticed a pattern at the Four Queens in downtown Las Vegas. It probably happens elsewhere too.
The casino sometimes, not always, has monthly promotions. While the details of the promotions vary, most of them follow a pattern.
This is a slot club where slot machines require $5 coin-in to earn a point, video poker machines require $8 to earn that same point, and the loosest video poker games require $16 to get that same point.
The promotions require you earn a certain number of points during the month — it could be 500, 1,000, 2,000, or even 4,000 — and when you accumulate that many points, you go to the booth, and they give you your reward. The rewards are some combination of free play, comp dollars, and physical gifts.
The loosest video poker games are for 25 cents and $1, and even with the extra coin-in required to earn a point on these machines, they still represent the best value. There are exactly four $1 machines where you can find the loosest game, and probably 200 players during the month want to play their points on these machines for whatever the promotion is this time.
The thing is, for the first 10 days or so of the month, if you come in to play on these machines, usually all four of them are busy. For the last 10 days or so of the month, if you come in to play on these machines, usually you have your choice of any of the four.
These dates vary, of course, depending on how many points are required this month. If it’s a 4,000-point promotion, meaning $64,000 coin-in on a dollar machine, the machines will pretty much be busy all month long. If it’s a 500-point promotion, the machines will be available more often simply because it doesn’t take nearly so long to satisfy the promotion.
Because of this, I usually wait until the 15th or so to start my play there, assuming I’m going to be in town all month. If I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks late in the month, I’ll get my play done during graveyard shift in the first week of the month. That’s a less popular time to play, so almost always one or more seats are available at that time any day during the month.
In addition to machine availability, there’s another reason I wait until mid-month to get my play done there. If you do your play on slot machines there instead of video poker machines, not only does it require less play coin-wise, but your mailers tend to be bigger. And play done at either the Four Queens or Binion’s (which is catty-corner across Fremont) count. So, when I’m downtown earlier in the month, I’ll check to see if any slot machines are in positive mode. I do have certain machines I check in both properties. There are a lot of slot hustlers checking machines downtown all the time, so finding a playable machine at any particular time is hit or miss, but I’ll still check.
I never know how many slot points I’ll accumulate. I have rules of thumb for when these machines are worth playing, but they are usually playable only until a certain bonus feature goes off. I’ve had bonuses go off on my very first spin, earning virtually no slot club points, and I’ve had bonuses take a very, very long time to go off.
If I need 500 points on slots, if I find a good machine and play off my points, it will typically not be a good time to leave the machine. If a machine is of the type that it’s a play if ever the minor bonus is at least 25 spins, I might get on the machine at 27 spins and by the time I’ve played 500 points it’s now up to 33 spins — which is considerably more positive than merely being at 25 spins. (After all, when it goes off, you get eight additional chances for something good to happen.) When this happens, I’ll play considerably more than the minimum points required for the promotion.
The thing is, though, I cannot be the only player who has noticed that the loose machines are usually busy early in the month and usually un-busy later in the month. While out-of-towners need to play while they are in town, locals, generally speaking, should be equally comfortable playing during the last week of the month rather than the first week of the month.
And yet, I don’t see this happening. I wonder why?
