I usually participate in drawings at the Palms one weekend a month. I play all week long to earn tickets and on either one or two nights over the weekend they call some names and give away some money. All their drawings are a little different from the others, but they are all usually “about the same.”
Not this month.
In September, the first player chosen gets a chance to throw a football through a 16-inch hole from a distance of 10 feet ($3,500 if successful), 15 feet ($5,000), or 20 feet ($7,000). A miss from any distance earns $2,500. Players who are called second through sixth form a “cheering section” and receive 10% of whatever the first player earns. So if the first player is unsuccessful in throwing the ball through the hole, the casino gives away a total of $3,750 ($2,500 + 5x$250). If the player makes the longest throw the casino gives away $10,500 ($7,000 + 5x$700). You can work out the other possibilities should you like.
To find out how much each throw is worth, you need to deduct the $2,500-if-you-miss guarantee. This means the shortest throw is worth $1,000, the middle throw is worth $2,500, and the longest throw is worth $4,500. Since the difficulty of the throw is proportional to the square of the distance, a twice-as-long throw should be worth four times as much as the shorter throw. Here it’s worth a little more than that. To me this means the longest throw is the best bet and that’s the one I would try if chosen. It’s a close enough decision that whichever distance the thrower wants to attempt is the best distance for that person. The confidence level of the thrower is important.
There is also a question about what type of throw to use. Overhand? Underhand holding the side of the ball? Underhand holding the end of the ball? Part of this is related to how big the thrower’s hand is as well as the athletic experience of the player.
While the ball is slightly undersized compared to a professional football, it’s still pretty big. Since many women play at the Palms, I would imagine that a large percentage of them have hands that are too small to effectively grip the football. (Obviously there are many men with small hands also, but on average, women’s hands are smaller than men’s. It might be politically incorrect to suggest that on average Asian hands are smaller than non-Asian hands, but many Asians play at the Palms and many of them have small hands — especially the women). A number of players have other physical or psychological reasons why they wouldn’t want to throw the ball. The rules suggest that the first player who is chosen to throw the ball may select one of the five players from the cheering section to substitute as the thrower. The main money still goes to the person called first, but the actual thrower has a strong incentive to make a good throw because he gets 10%.
I didn’t have a lot of tickets in Week 1. I had played about $70,000 during the week. As far as I was concerned, Week 1 was the best one to play because the PEW (Play, Earn, Win) Monday, Wednesday, Friday promotion was for free play — which effectively meant double points. I like PEW promotions when they give away cash (or free play). For the next four weeks, the PEW gifts come from a list. Some items on the list are attractive. Some aren’t. But if you’re going to be playing for the drawing, you might as well take some of the gifts home with you.
Still, I wanted to be at the drawing on Friday night August 31. The Palms is one of the sponsors for my Gambling with an Edge radio show and I needed to speak about the promotion while on the air. For me, reading the rules is usually adequate preparation if the promotion is “normal,” but this one was sufficiently different that I wanted eyes-on experience.
I wasn’t called the first night. The guy whose number was called, “Sammy,” is someone I know and like. And I knew a couple of others in the “cheering section.” As soon as they had selected all six winners and I knew I wasn’t one of them, I went over to where they had the football cutout set up (the former poker room), pulled up a chair for a front row seat, and waited until everybody else got there.
Sammy asked if he could practice a few times first. He was told he couldn’t throw at the actual target but he could throw over to the side if he wanted. I didn’t have a financial stake in whether he was successful or not, but I was strongly rooting for him to succeed. I jumped up and stood as a target with my hands held approximately as wide as the target hole. Sammy practiced a few times, announced he was ready, and then tried “for real.”
He missed. Groan. The promo was over for the night. The staff then let anybody who wanted to “practice for next time” try it a few times. I threw a total of three times from 20 feet, connecting once.
On the next night, Sammy was called first again. While he had considerably more tickets than I had, there was at least one player with even more tickets than Sammy who wasn’t called at all. I believe that all drawings at the Palms are fair, but I also know from experience that having the most tickets doesn’t guarantee that you will be called.
This time I was called to be in the cheering section. This meant I was guaranteed $250 — and more if Sammy’s aim was good. As soon as we checked in, I asked if we could borrow the football to go practice. This was allowed. So Sammy and I, along with a few others, went over so he could warm up.
He had decided that throwing underhanded from the middle distance was best for him. This was fine with me. I wanted him to be happy with his choice. He practiced maybe 20 times and connected on about 15 of them. Our odds were definitely better than they were the night before. Although I had a stake in his success this time, it didn’t change how much I wanted him to succeed.
When it got time for the real throw, Sammy lined himself up and threw the ball. He missed again. Not by much. But he missed. Oh well. He did it the right way. He practiced and then gave it his best shot. That’s all he could do.
The next two weekends I have other commitments and definitely won’t be there for the drawings. Maybe I’ll try again at the end of the month.