The D and Golden Gate update

They had a promotion surrounding two sporting events this year the NASCAR race held in Las Vegas in March and the Kentucky Derby in May. The promo revolved around earning
tickets that you could then use to select the driver or horse that you thought would be the winner. They clearly stated in the promotional literature that "there is no limit to the number
of tickets that you can earn". I took them at their word and set out to earn as many of these as I could as inexpensively as I could. I expected to lose money gambling to earn these tickets
with the hope of having enough tickets would give me the opportunity to make multiple selections of drivers/horses that would win the respective races.

The ways to earn a drawing ticket were as follows

Buy in for 300 at any table game - My preferred method. There were no other restrictions just hand them 300 and get your chips.
I usually would then play for 15-30 betting the table minimum of $5 It might be a blackjack shoe or two, couple of crap shooters, etc.
I had a max stop loss of $50 per buy in and only hit that a couple of times. Most results were +10, minus 17 plus 25, minus 40 etc.

Doing this all week starting on Sunday afternoon I scooped up about 20 tickets a day and I lost about 500 in the process, most of which
was making bets for dealers as even if you win that bet they get the initial wager you made as well.

There were a couple of ohter ways you could earn a ticket. If you were betting at least $25 a hand, you received a ticket for every natural
blackjack dealt to you. Or if you made a winning field bet of at least $100. Both of these seemed to risky for my blood, so I just stuck with
the buy in method. Their anger at me had nothing to do with counting.

I want to stress I did not just buy in for 300 play one hand and walk away, I could see them not liking that. In every buy in session I tried to
play thru at least one blackjack shoe (takes about 15 min) and if I was not getting slaughtered, I might extend that to two shoes. My average
play was probably 20 min each time so I did put some money into action, just not enough for their liking.

Because I had accumulated so many tickets I was able to spread them out into all the potential horses/drivers and I also know a little about each
sport so I had probably 10 tickets in Tony Stewart for the NASCAR race and since there were only 100 tickets in the each ticket was worth 500.
50,000 promo/100 winning tickets.

So I took 10% of the total pot for the NASCAR race and about 16% of the pot for the Derby. They felt I didn't gamble enough to warrant such success and
even when I offered to play longer and increase my bet size they would have nothing of it. What I was told was that "keep doing what you are doing thru
Saturday, but after the Derby we no longer can have a relationship with you". I felt like saying, WHAT YOU ARE BREAKING UP WITH ME??, but bit my tongue.
In terms of the chips, I don't know we converted their promotional chips of 5,300 into a little over 5 K and when we went to the cage to cash them, it just took a
long time with phone calls back and forth from the cage to the pit. 15 20 min which I am sure didn't make the people behind us happy.

They cleaned off all my comps (because I have played there frequently over the last 3 years it was about 500 and said I was no longer welcome to step into their
casino. I asked the Marketing Director if we could still eat at DuPars at the Gate as we like to dine there sometimes and she shrugged her shoulders and said I don't
see why not we don't own the restaurant, but that came to a head last week when I went in to use some of my comps (I did not know they wanted to wipe my comps
clean) and one of the ladies at the players club said I hadn't used a $25 comp they had mailed to me for May. I said terrific, let me have it and I will give to my son who
is visiting. When I went over to Dupars to take my son the comp, I went back to the players club to return the pen I signed with. When I got there two security guards
were waiting for me. They were a bit abrupt asking me my name and saying you have been 86ed from here, you can't step in the casino. I rebutted that I had not gambled
there at all, I was only coming to get a comp to eat at the restaurant. One of the guards responses was you don't have any more comps we are wiping them all out and you
can't go to Dupars because you have to walk through the casino to get there. Made me feel dirty, didn't like it. I am not a criminal, I did not cheat. I followed their rules to
the letter and they make me out to be some sort of dirtbag.

I hope that is the info you were looking for. It has really made me angry at the people who run those casinos, feel like I didn't get a fair shake as I offered compromise and they
just wouldn't have any part of trying to come to a mutually beneficial agreement that would have been fair going forward.

If I didn't clarify things for you, let me know and I will try again.

Thanks for reading. These guys are not good guys in terms of trying to give you a good gamble, they just want you to be stupid give them all your money and go home. Winners not allowed.

OK, that sounds legit. Did you use abusive language? Did you think that you were doing anything that might get someone who was close by upset or fearful? Were you warned about the over-acquisition of tickets and then continued after being warned?

no absolutely did not use abusive language. I did tell one of the pit bosses at the Fitz he was gutless when he waited for me to play for half an hour and then
when I asked for a ticket he said "NO YOU ARE NOT GETTING ANY MORE TICKETS, YOU ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE PROMOTION". He should have been straight
with me right when I sat down and bought in.

It was one of these guys who thinks it is their money. No I was never warned and even after I found out there was a problem I tried to work it out and ask told them I would accept an
adjustment of determining how long I had to play to earn tickets, just tell me up front what their revised rules were. They were just lazy and didn't want to deal with the real problem that
their rules were worded poorly and could be taken advantage of. Please read earlier comments. I don't drink when I go into these places, dealers and players club employees love me as I tip liberally and I
am not rude to anyone, but I will stand up and bark back at someone who has an attitude towards me. Hope all of you would do the same.

Was never warned until the encounter with the Pit Boss at the Fitz, (thurs nite) then waited a day to track down the GM for both places which took 24 hours. Would never make
a scene. I do this to be successful, I don't want people looking at me, wish to keep a low profile. Don't drink, don't make noise, nada. Followed his direction after meeting
to keep doing what I was doing at Gate, didn't acquire any more tickets at Fitz. I've told my version, it is accurate and not slanted, I don't have to slant it in my direction,
it stands on its own.

Would love to hear their version. I asked Anthony Curtis previously in this forum to look into it. If somebody does, love to hear the response. The silence so far is deafening.

Thanks for explaining. All you did was take advantage of a flaw in their contest rules. If it takes a $25 BJ natural or a $100 field bet to earn an entry, why would they also give an entry for a $300 buy in? Whoever created these contest rules wasn't thinking. They left themselves open for people to take advantage of them. I'd be surprised if you were the only one that took advantage of it.

I dont think you should have been 86ed. Shame on them.

Well, it seems like they were trying to generate action, and pull in customers. It seems to make sense after a change in ownership. Maybe a limit of one ticket per day for the buyin would be best.

What doesn't make sense to me is their objection to chet having so many tickets. It wouldn't affect the promotion that much, IMO. He probably wasn't going around making a big deal of how many tickets he had. It's purely rational behavior for the customer to try to get more tickets. If he didn't violate a warning, it almost sounds like THEY were the ones cheating, not him.

The usual response when a casino runs an ill-advised promotion is to either change the rules to fix it ("rules are subject to change...") or to end it early. Not to 86 people who are taking advantage of their screw-up.

I appreciate all the responses. If you play at either of their venues, I hope your experience is better than mine in terms of treatment. I don't like the feeling of being kicked and I have indirectly asked Anthony Curtis in this forum to help, but to no avail. Will probably try to speak directly with them in a month or so and ask them to reverse their poorly thought out (using the words "thought out" very loosely) decision, I will keep you posted if anything changes or I speak to them. Thanks again for your comments. Hope you are winners when you visit the Casinos.

Never could quite figure out the strategy of a casino or any business for that matter going to the expense of a promotion and then making people upset for any reason. A few bad decisions by the casino can cause lot of bad vibes and it hardly worth the effort and expense of running them. We had a bad experience at the Mirage after waiting in line only to find out the coupon was not going to be accepted for the buffet. The cashier said we could not use the coupon on Sunday that it was a holiday. This was just a normal Sunday. We ran into a supervisor on the way out and questioned him as to how it worked. He was more upset with the cashier than anything for being just stupid over the ordeal. It is kinda like a grocery store advertising an item and beng out of it 1/2 hour after they open.

Chet - I am calling your bluff. What was the real reason they 86'd you?