Room pricing

My friends and I usually make a reservation for March Madness in April or May. (We don't gamble enough to count on comped rooms, though we usually end up  getting one or two nights free.) After that inintial reservation, we check a couple times per week, cancelling and re-booking as the prices change. For example, as of today I've re-booked 7 or 8 times, reducing my overall cost by about $400 for the stay. We'll continue to check frequently until at least February.

But what I'd love to know is how the resorts adjust prices. They go up and down all year (sometimes rising significantly to coincide with a "sale"). I wonder to what extent a human being is weighing in on these decisions, or if it's all controlled by an algorithm tracking occupancy, market conditions, etc., etc. 

It's almost always an algorithm, though there is usually a supervisor of some kind to@l approve really large changes.

There's not a lot of logic in those rapid room rate swings, but you're employing the right strategy.

we go every year and a friend always books and rebooks on agoda.com and always seems to get his MM room pretty cheap each time if you need an alternative site to book through.  

But you may have a hard time getting anything other than resort fees waived if you are talking to a host at the end of your trip to get some comps.  Charge some F&B and maybe they'll give you that, but they usually can't comp the room since you came in through some 3rd party booking.

I'm guessing strip hotels are all algos running the pricing, Fremont casinos might have a bean counter using a spreadsheet of historical pricing and anticipated bookings.