There was a rumble in Manhattan on the 22nd. Proponents and foes of New York City casino descended upon a town hall to duke it out. In this corner, opposed to casinos is state Sen. Liz Krueger. In the other, favoring a megaresort is state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal. “We do need to center the community and insure community members have the opportunity to have their voices heard,” said the latter, adding, “I’m going to be using my involvement with the community advisory committee … to do just that: insure that the proposals—and there are two of them in my district on the west side of Manhattan—are first and foremost beneficial to and desired by the community around it.”
Bonnie and I regularly played at an out-of-town Caesars property where part of the monthly mailer was $200 in resort credit apiece. If we played our usual amount, our host would pick up food charges. So that left the resort credit to be spent at gift shops. They had a women’s store, a men’s store, and a jewelry store, in addition to a typical small gift shop where you could get various sundries.
Generally speaking, you don’t expect casino gift shops to compete on price. At the men’s store, I was told that if I paid with cash or credit card, I’d get a 35% discount. If I used Reward Credits, I’d get a 20% discount. And if I charged to my room, I’d get no discount. Part of the deal with the $200 resort credit was that you had to charge it to your room.
The resort credits weren’t worth anywhere near face value to us — but they were obviously worth something and made the play worth more to me than if I didn’t get to spend them. So how much are they worth?
No gift shop is worth the same amount to every player. I would wear a few of the shirts sold by this particular men’s store — but not all that many. A younger man — or a man whose taste is different from mine — might find he liked a much larger percentage of the inventory than I do. Bonnie is usually with me on these trips — and she can usually find something in one of the gift shops. If I tell her she has $400 to spend at such and such a selection of stores, she’ll find at least that much for one of us — or for one of our relatives or friends.
If I were thinking a $200 gift shop award might be worth $100, I asked myself, “Would I pay $100 in cash to get that $200 gift shop award?” For me, the answer was, ‘No.’ But I might pay $50 in cash. So, I figured that’s what the award was worth.
I find it useful to turn this into a percentage — so I can add it into the mix along with the return on the game, the slot club, and other such awards. If I regularly played $10,000 and they gave me this award worth $50 to me, the award would be worth 0.5%. If I played $100,000 (which is closer to what I actually play), the award is worth 0.05%.
Frankly, something worth 0.05% would rarely be enough to tip the play-or-not-play scales into positive territory. Maybe if a play were already worth 100.3%, which is about the minimum I’ll play, I’ll make a play I might otherwise pass on. But that exact circumstance rarely happens.
It turns out that I find such awards most valuable for “keeping Bonnie happy” reasons.
Bonnie and I keep our finances separate. If I win or lose $40,000 on a trip, it basically doesn’t affect her finances at all. But if I have the advantage on the play, and I can play on her card as well as mine, it’s good for her to make the trip with me, even if there is not much for her to do once she’s there.
So, gift shop awards, at least one nice dinner per trip, free movies in the room, and excursions to sight-seeing places are all part of what we do while we’re there. Sometimes I give her half of my win in a drawing. She’s 80 years old, I’m 77, and staying happy together is a significant part of our game plan. If there is suitable music, we dance for a few hours. If we earn cruises, she gets a big say in where we go. Bonnie’s generally a good sport about coming with me when I take these “business trips,” I want her to look forward to our time together. If getting to go shopping brings a smile to her face, I’m all for it.
In this week’s video Anthony and Andrew talk about the jaw-dropping gaming revenue on the Las Vegas Strip, how to fix a video poker mistake, a MASSIVE jackpot, and more.
This post is syndicated by the Las Vegas Advisor for the 888 casino group. Anthony Curtis comments on the 888 article introduced and linked to on this page.
AC Says:
There’s no shortage of bad gambling advice out there, as well as misinformation and faulty assumptions. Perhaps at the front of the list for blackjack is the notion that the skill level of the other players at the table affects your results. Or specifically, that a bad player, especially one who’s last to act before the dealer, will negatively affect the overall outcome of good players. You’ve heard it a thousand times, but it’s not true. Anyone who’s ever felt this needs to read this article in which Henry Tamburin presents evidence that settles the matter. It’s your skill level that determines your results, not the play of others. Pay attention also to the list of things that do matter. I’ll take slight issue with the last bullet point that observing a lot of small cards having been dealt in previous rounds signals a good time to raise your bet. That’s certainly the essence of card counting, but simply “observing” isn’t likely to yield solid information. You need to become proficient at counting to detect favorable situations.
Several years ago, I wrote an article that contained misinformation about blackjack that originated from players, dealers, movies, and the Internet. I thought I had heard and read all the nonsensical misconceptions about blackjack that have been spoken or written over the past 50 years; however, I was wrong, dead wrong.
That’s because I recently received a print magazine published in the USA for casino players that contained an article on blackjack strategy, which floored me…
Managing expectations was the order of the day for Caesars Entertainment, which had guided Wall Street to expect cash flow of $930 million. That included a 5% revenue disappointment on the Las Vegas Strip, despite 98% occupancy. The quarter could have been better were it not for salary increases (we thought the company had made provision for that; it certainly said it had), construction-related disruptions in New Orleans and Indiana, the loss of 65,000 room nights at the Versailles Tower of Paris-Las Vegas and Colosseum Tower at Caesars Palace, and adverse sports betting hold as punters did well. Caesars execs warned stock boffins not to anticipate too much from 1Q24, saying January was “a debacle” thanks to dreadful weather. In the same breath they said, no matter, it’s “a seasonally slow month.” So which is it?
Frustration is setting in with the players, the fanbase, and Chris and Eddie, as the VGK struggle with inconsistent play.
For the first time since the Stanley Cup run of last year, Adin Hill has had multiple subpar games back to back. Is this a fluke or a regression?
But the huge story coming out of Tuesday’s loss to Nashville is the injury to Captain Mark Stone (and the return of Shay Theodore after 35 games on the shelf).
Given the history of the Injury Bug biting the VGK, GM Chris Chapman talks about what he and the VGK should do with potentially $19 million in LTIR cap space.
All this and much more on Episode 70 of Hockey Knights in Vegas!
Dear Readers: For the day we turn over the S&G bully pulpit to Frank Sutton, who airs increasingly frequent concerns that more sports betting equals more disordered gambling. Take it away, Frank.
There are 10.9 billion reasons to consider sports betting a success since the Supreme Court struck down a federal ban against it in 2018. That’s how many dollars in revenue the American Gaming Association said the sports book industry accrued this past year, per Front Office Sports. It was a number that, along with the $119.8 billion countrywide handle from 2023, blew past projections and marked a record high for a single year. Compared to 2022, sportsbook revenue grew a whopping 44.5%, and more than $40 billion alone was bet during 2023’s final financial quarter, 34.4% higher than it was during the same period the prior year.
They’re rare, but $1 oyster specials still turn up in Las Vegas. Here’s one.
Get dollar oysters all day on Tuesdays at Cap’t Louie Seafood Boil, a non-casino restaurant on the west side of town. The deal runs all day and there’s no limit. The oysters are Virginia blue points, served with cocktail sauce, fresh horseradish, and lemon.
The setting is pleasant, though it’s just a restaurant. There’s no bar, though beer and wine are available. The restaurant offers several seafood plates, mostly fried baskets and seafood boils. They look good and are mostly priced under $20 (along with market-priced crab, lobster, shrimp, mussels, and crawfish), but we didn’t try anything besides the oysters.
Cap’t Loui is located at 9430 W. Sahara, about seven miles from the Strip. Heading toward downtown on the Strip, turn left on Sahara and keep driving till you hit it. There are Cap’t Loui restaurants in several other states, but this is the only one in Nevada. Hours are 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Taking a sharp dip in the harsh month of January were Pennsylvania casino grosses. The $252 million of revenue represented a 12% falloff from last year and a 1% dip from 2019. Factor out newer casinos and the picture worsens: -13% from 2023 and -18% from 2019. With the exception of Parx Shippensburg ($2.5 million, +438%), everybody got walloped and some pretty hard. Parx Casino led the state with $44 million but took a 13% hit. Other Philadelphia casinos fared better with the exception of Harrah’s Philadelphia, which plunged 21.5% to $10.5 million. Valley ForgeResort inched a few dollars ahead of Harrah’s (above), grossing $10.5 million, while Live Philadelphia ($20 million, -9%) bested Rivers Philadelphia ($18 million, -8%).
The latest in a growing line of immersive digital museums, the Arte Museum, opened in early November at 63, the new shopping center between the Cosmopolitan and the Shops at Crystals. The entrance is in back on Harmon Avenue. “The Eternal Nature Exhibition” is the most elaborate and ambitious of this type of museum (Van Gogh and Disney at Crystals, Space, Safari, and Monday Night Football at Illuminarium, etc.), with several rooms of varying themes on two floors.
In fact, the lighting, mirrors, and maze make the Arte Museum more like a combination of the immersives and the Paradox and Illusion museums.
The tour starts out in the Infinite Waterfall room, where you get your first taste of the mirrors and reflective floors, not to mention the sound effects (a fourscore roar).
You’re then directed (by arrows) into the Flower room, which has an upright piano for some reason.
From there, you traverse dark hallways to the Wave and Forest rooms, beautifully presented.
The Star room is, perhaps, the most confounding, full of hanging light globes and hemmed in by mirrors.
The Jungle/Live Sketchbook room is alive with bird calls; in addition, it’s the only interactive feature we’ve seen in the immersives. You grab a piece of paper with the outline of an animal and color it in, then place it on the scanner, and they magically and immediately appear on the screen. Fun!
Then comes the Seashore room, complete with rolling breakers and Northern Lights—don’t get your feet wet in the virtual surf — unless you’re 10 years old.
The last room is the climax, a combination of Masterpieces (Van Gogh, Gaugin, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Klimpt) and Light of Las Vegas, produced especially for this venue (there are six around the world).
The rooms can be a bit disorienting and you’re wise to be careful where you’re walking, at least until you become accustomed to the spaces. Also, like all the digital museums, the equipment has to be kept cold and advertised as a 90-minute experience, you definitely want to bring a sweater, wrap, or jacket, so you don’t freeze to death.
Note that the only bathroom is up front, so go now or forever hold your caprice. And other than the floor throughout, there aren’t any chairs or benches, definitely an inconvenience at best or hardship at worst by the end.
You walk through the Tea Bar on your way out, where you can get a black or strawberry milk tea or caramel latte ($7 each). They’re all served cold. By then, you’d kill for something hot to hold in your mitts.
You can’t buy tickets at the door; you must buy them online in advance. We were there over the first weekend and attendants came out to the waiting line with a QR code and showed the ticketless how to scan it to get to the app and pay via cell phone. We’re not sure if they still do this (but probably). Also, the tickets are expensive, if you pay retail, $50 Mon.-Thurs. and $60 Fri.-Sun. and holidays, $10 discount for seniors, kids, military, and locals. There’s another $10 off for showing up between 10 (opening) and 11:30 a.m. But there’s also a $5 service fee for booking online, even though it’s the only way. Our ticket came to $35, which is about as cheap as you can do it.
