TR Atlantic City

For Brent and PJ, I should have added that the charter trip offers are for two people.  If one gets the offer, he/she can bring along someone as his/her 'guest'.  Of course that means you share a room, which is fine for spouses or others who don't mind.   The MGM offers usually include some Free Play, and if you go in your birthday month there is additional Free Play.  The guest isn't obligated to gamble.

As long as you don't go walking on Pacific Ave or more than 100 yards from the casinos on the Boardwalk (especially after dark) AC is fine

Actually, the Murder Death Kill gambling demon's name was originally "Fred"--but he decided that it didn't really have the proper panache.

I just wanted to remark on having or not having a so-called mathematical mind...I think that anyone who gambles any significant amount of money should try to get a sense of how much it should cost: an average of all aggregate wins and losses. I broadly estimated your expected loss at $2000 per trip--without knowing, for example, how well you play those games where skill is a factor.

But there's a way to reverse-engineer this. Casinos these days comp at about 20% of "theo," or theoretical result (loss). And I assume they track your play at the tables and machines. So if they comp you a room for the weekend that has a rack rate of say, $600 for the three nights, that means that they expect you to lose $3000 on average. Now, how you actually do on any given trip is irrelevant to them. They just want to figure out what you're worth to them.

So assuming their tracking is accurate, what was the total value of the comps you received? Multiply that by five to get your expected loss.

Frequent/heavy gamblers who live in Vegas and/or are frequent visitors soon figure out that slots and carny games (Flush Your Money Poker and such) are just too expensive, so they migrate to video poker and blackjack, where prudent game selection holds the house edge to under 1%. For you, that would represent a savings of $1500 per trip. And your comps might not even be affected (some joints comp VP like slots and all table games the same).

What I'm saying might be falling on deaf ears, but if you slightly modify your gambling, you could save up enough to buy several thousand Happy Meals at McDonald's. Or whatever else you might want to do with that "extra" $$$.

What would it benefit if the guest DID gamble? Would they be targeted for offers on their own, or would the action they gave be added to your own for future offers?

(Parenthetically, I can't think of any place that would be more repulsive than AC if you didn't gamble-except maybe in the summer.)

Thanks Candy

Kevin, as with any 'new' player, or any existing players club member, their action would likely result in marketing offers to them, if they used a players card.

I don't know whether or not the primary passenger/card holder gets any points/credit for the play of their guest. I kind of doubt it.

Candy

Actually, the reason I asked is that over the years, I've seen rewards being offered to established players who brought in new players.

One such deal you might be amused by was about 20 years ago, back in the day when Laughlin, one of your present haunts, was an absolute gold mine of deals and promos--not to mention $19 rooms. My friends and I would often cram into one car and go bucketing down there from Vegas--a 90 minute trip through an ugly, repulsive wasteland--just to loot, pillage, and burn. It was always worth it. It was a notable exception that Harrah's never offered any decent promos. Our impression was that they targeted their business to other Harrah's customers who could be persuaded to fly in on junkets.

Anyway, I think it was the Riverside that offered this promo: if you were Big Fish level or higher (not that hard to get there), and you brought in a new sign-up, both you AND that sign-up would receive:

$25 free play, plus the $10 FP that all new players got as a matter of course

Two free buffets (edible if you were drunk)

One free night

Two free drinks

Two $5 matchplays 

Complimentary tetanus shots if you were dumb enough to set foot in the river

The unbelievable part was that there was NO STATED LIMIT to the number of times you, the Big Fish, could do this. So:

A friend of mine borrowed/stole a minivan, scraped the streets of Vegas for volunteers, and chugged down to Vegas with NINE "friends" in tow. Must have been one hell of a trip.

The boothlings were nonplussed when the ten of them showed up at the players' club, but they duly signed up the newbies and gave them their players' cards and the requisite coupons. The more prudent/thoughtful of them Immediately went to book a room for the night, but most of them zoomed for the bars/slot machines. My friend, meanwhile went to play off his $225 free play on a 100% return VP machine.

The following day, he borrowed a forklift and reloaded his van with the nine new members of the Riverside players' club. Arriving in Vegas, they were still in no shape to get out and walk back home, so he opened the back hatch, accelerated hard, then slammed on the brakes. They all spilled out onto the sidewalk, most of them still unconscious.

Good times!

Ha ha. Kevin.  The good ole days for sure.

I don't do Laughlin anymore, mainly because the charters are always 4 nights, one night too many for me.  They had a very good buffet, until...can't recall if it shut down before Covid or after, but as far as I know it is gone.  They have a Guy Fieri which is awful, IMO.  We had Hosts who gave us a suite, as you say easy to score.  Two big separate rooms, very nice big bathroom, refrig, coffee maker and microwave oven.  I might have still be taking the charter to Laughlin if not for the four nights.

While I pretty much loathe Harrah's (the company as well as that specific property), that's a pretty sweet deal for you; the action you give would barely make you a medium roller in other markets (and in Vegas, it would get you a coupon for 50 cents off a plain bagel). Laughlin's clientele isn't exactly the moneyed jet set, so anyone who is above the one nickel at a time slot player level is treated very well.

I share your opinion of El Burro Barfo by the way. It's pretty hard to screw up Mexican food that badly, and it takes real hubris to then charge premium $$$ for it.

I had a lot of good times at Harrah's Laughlin back in the day.  As you say, not many jet setters there. 

And, their margaritas at Guy Fieri were awful too.   Hard to mess those up so badly, but they did.

Also, I should have mentioned re Caesars AC, table minimums were always $10 (not counting the bonus bets of course).

And tables were smoke free.  I saw a guy with a big stogie in his mouth at my favorite table, so I avoided it for the longest.  Finally realized he wasn't lighting it, and that the tables were all, far as I could tell, smoke free.

Candy