January, 2018

Questions and Comments

Time to do a little computer housecleaning and tackling my Must-Catch-Up file.

First, I want to thank everyone who gave greetings on our recent birthdays – Brad’s #86 and my #79.  Don’t worry if you missed mine – I plan to stick with celebrating #79 on December 29 every year for many years to come.  The seventies just sound so young these days!

Next, some comments about the “Comment” section here on my blog page.  Although I welcome many different viewpoints and encourage details from players from all denomination levels and varied goals, I do occasionally have to refrain from “approving” a comment and it will not appear.  I will not tolerate uncivil discussion.  I do often approve remarks with which I do not fully agree –  and readers must remember that they are the opinions of the commenters and not necessarily mine – when I feel they will generate some helpful information from others.  I cannot approve comments of an extreme political or religious nature since they often would plunge us into a chaotic argument that takes us far away from the spirit and purpose of this blog.

Now on to your questions.  Frequently someone will ask, “Why do you play at XXX casino; I can’t find anything good to play there?”  I have addressed this issue many times down through the years, emphasizing that not every casino gives every customer the opportunity for a “good” – that is, an advantage play.  Perhaps these good plays are at higher denominations that would not fit a lower-level player’s bankroll.  Or alternatively, good lower denomination inventory may not be attractive for those who can find options for higher level play with the potential for bigger profits.  Location plays a big part in choosing good VP plays; many serious players must travel far and wide if there are no good options locally.  And sometimes – actually almost always – much of the EV (expected value) of a play is made up of extra benefits and you rarely know how much a player is getting just by a casual look at “what they play.”  You don’t know how much coin they play through, how much free play they get in their mailers, or what special-promotion invitations they receive.

A related question Brad and I get: “Why don’t you play at XXX casino; they have good games there.”  Some of the explanation in the above paragraph applies.  But there is a bigger factor here for us.  We just don’t have the energy to “scramble” as much as we used to.  We are most comfortable with a casino schedule that includes several “days off” a week. Right now we play regularly in only 3-4 local Vegas casinos, all off the Strip and fairly close to where we live.  There may be other good plays in far-away areas of town, but unless we lose some of the nearby ones, we choose to avoid the horrendous time-consuming Vegas traffic whenever possible.

And related to the above discussion, there is one question I have been avoiding answering: “You said you were going to write a book containing yours and Brad’s personal life story.  When is that going to come out?”

I really did have a firm plan for this and actually had spent many days and weeks gathering and organizing years of notes.  But a couple months ago I suddenly “woke up” with the realization that I was tired of being on a never stopping merry-go-round, with another deadline looming when I finally met the previous one.  I love to write and will continue to do short pieces – like for this blog.  However, a book is a major project and tends to monopolize and overwhelm the author’s whole life, seeping into every spare hour and pushing out even more-loved druthers.

So, this planned book is now on my not-to-be shelf.  But don’t worry missing stories about our personal experiences, both in and outside the casino world.  I will continue to include them, as I always have, here in this blog.  Some of you will remember the 17-part series I wrote several years ago, telling the story of Brad’s gambling path that began when he was 5 years old.  If you are a newer blog reader, you can go back in the archives (Search “Brad Stories” under “Category” on the right side of the blog home page) and find that.  Actually, those archives go clear back to April, 2000, with the first article I wrote for “Frugal Fridays” and then continue every year until it morphed into the “Frugal Vegas” blog, telling of our gambling journey over the last 17+ years plus some personal details of our pre-casino life.  (You need to sometimes click on “continue reading” to get to all the articles for one particular month.)

In future blogs I will continue to talk about current subjects but occasionally I will reach into my notes and dig out some of the stories that go back 75-85 years, ones that I haven’t shared before.  Did you know I heard the word “discount” on the day I was born?  That will be the beginning of one story I am anxious to share!

Still Playing the Comp Game?

After I wrote about a family reunion at the Harrah’s Tahoe casino in December, I received a lot of requests for more details, specifically about comps.  I guess that should not have been a surprise for someone whose nickname is Queen of Comps.  😊  And in this present environment of major casino cuts decreasing comps is a major concern to most players.

Some of you will remember my writing many years ago when we first started casino gambling that we called comps the “gravy.”  We never counted their value in our “profit” for the simple reason that we were earning more of them that we could have paid for on our limited budget at that time.  They were just an extra that allowed us to enjoy more luxurious vacations that we couldn’t have afforded otherwise.  We couldn’t have used comps to make up any of our actual monetary gambling losses. That would have been a fast way to go broke!

Now we are in a much different time in our life; we have enough money to pay for any activity or vacation that we wish to do.  Therefore, now any comps we can use to decrease our costs become a monetary plus, adding to any profit we earn in our gambling or making up any losses we might incur.  That is very important at this time when the opportunities for advantage play are rapidly disappearing.  We still do most of our casino play only when we have an edge, but that edge is often very slim and our records don’t always end up in the black at the end of each year.  The “long term” doesn’t always have the same end as our arbitrary date of December 31. Comps are still “gravy” for us most of the time, but I predict that in the future they will become a much bigger factor in how we choose where and when we play video poker.

However, this 5-day vacation for 7 adults and 2 kiddies did require major involvement with a casino comp system and the value was quite high.  We had 3 mini-suite rooms comped for 4 nights.  We never had a food bill.  We had free ski passes for the family.  (Brad and I declined to participate in that activity but it wasn’t for the lack of free ski passes!!!  😊) A party-bus was provided for group transportation to and from the Reno airport, including regulation car seats for the kiddies. And an unexpected shopping promotion running while we were there provided $450 in the sports shop for ski equipment rental and winter clothing.  Left-over comps of $350 not used for food gave opportunity for splurging in the gift shop.

Although Brad and I had both attained Harrah’s 7-Star status for 2017 and had saved up over the year a good number of comp benefits for this family vacation, the expenses were not covered completely by comps.  It is what I refer to as a discounted comp benefit and in this case let us keep hundreds of dollars in our pockets to spend for other expenses.

I must make an important observation here.  It is unlikely that we will be able to take this luxurious a vacation and have so much comped in the future.  Caesars has made major cuts in their higher-tier benefits for 2018.  And we have found that the perks and what hosts can do for you vary greatly from one property to another even within the same company.  And it is not just the bigger Strip companies cutting comps.  Casinos that serve mostly locals are also cutting benefits right and left.

We still play the “comp game,” but just as it is for the actual casino games we play it takes more work these days to find advantage situations.  I constantly research casino players club details and look for changes that affect extra benefits.  I talk to other players, who sometimes give me little-known information about various comp systems.  And I am continuing to develop friendly relationships with hosts.  Even though at many casinos their “power” is limited, we still use the Just-Ask maneuver and at times see surprisingly positive results. Some of that is probably due to the accompanying Be-Nice-and-not-Demanding attitude.  I find that grousing to hosts about casino cuts is not an effective technique, even sometimes having a negative impact.

Gaining an advantage anywhere in a casino has never been easy.  And today you just have to work harder than ever!

Skill and Luck – and Karma?

A blast from the past here while I’m coping with a major meltdown when my computer died and I am busy trying to retrieve old data and learn how to use all the new programs on my new machine! ☹  This is a condensation of a 2-part blog from 2003.

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A couple of weeks ago, Brad and I were doing a bounce-back collection run on the east side of the Strip, going around the block to pick up our rewards at Ellis Island, Tuscany, and the Hard Rock. I hadn’t been feeling well that week, so our plan was to head straight back to our condo without playing anywhere.

However, I suddenly realized that the Frugal Van was in need of gas and we were going right past Terrible’s casino where, using a coupon that we keep in the vehicle for just such last-minute change of plans, we could play for about a half-hour and get a comp for $25 worth of gas at a Terrible’s gas station. So we pulled into the casino parking lot.

We often play at Terrible’s, since they have very good promotions. I don’t know exactly how to put this politely — how about, Terrible’s isn’t exactly the Mirage! — but we enjoy being with the colorful group of gamblers in their customer mix, all seeming to have such a good time. Hey, we’re all a little eccentric at times! And I like a place where I can fit in when I’m in grunge mode. Brad can wear anything he pleases without checking with me to see if it’s “looks right.”

Anyway, we got out of the van in the parking lot and immediately met up with a panhandler. Brad is always a sucker in this circumstance, so I wasn’t surprised when he pulled out a roll of small bills (careful not to make a mistake and pull out the roll of big bills he usually keeps in the other pocket) and peeled off a single to donate. I’ve quit trying to convert him to the idea that it’s better to give money to charitable organizations so they can give longer-lasting help to the down-and-out. He doesn’t think that’s a bad idea and we send a check to the Salvation Army frequently. However, he also believes in crisis management – this guy probably really needs a drink or a cigarette right now!

But this time, I didn’t chide Brad for being an enabler. I really felt sorry for this person, who might’ve been the dumbest beggar in Las Vegas. The majority of the customers at Terrible’s are nickel bettors; quarter players are considered high rollers. We play $1 and $2 denominations and feel like whales. The pickin’s were probably pretty slim for this panhandler, so I felt uncharacteristically cheerful about Brad’s donation and agreed with him that it might do some good — maybe even help us break out of our recent losing streak.

We entered the casino and picked our machines. Brad reached in his big-bills pocket, looked at me, shook his head, and said, “I didn’t think we were going to play tonight, so I didn’t bring our regular gambling bankroll.” At which point, we both searched our pockets and billfolds and came up with a little over $600. We usually play $2 VP, but with this little bit of money, it would’ve been touch and go to last until we got the necessary points for $25 worth of gas. So we decided to play dollars and hope for the best.

I know many of you are thinking, “What’s wrong with this picture? Why would anyone risk $600, or even $100, to get $25 worth of gas? Why not just buy the gas and not risk any money? Wouldn’t that be a wiser move?”

The explanation for this involves a long discussion of the various personalities and goals of gamblers, something I talk about at length in More Frugal Gambling. But most of all, it gives a concrete example of our acceptance and use of the mathematically correct concept of “long-term” advantage gambling. We know that anything can happen in any one session or series of sessions. Skilled players can lose, and seat-of-the-pants players can get lucky and win. However, we believe strongly — and have proved the concept in actual experience — that if you gamble only when you have some kind of an edge, the longer you play the closer you will get to the long-term profit that the EV (expected theoretical return) holds out to you.

Therefore, we say to ourselves on any play, like this play at Terrible’s, “We will not look at one session loss to judge whether this was a good play.” It was, of course. The game return was less than 100%, but slot club points for gas put it well into positive territory and a promotion giving a bonus on a royal gave it extra value. So, although it’s never as much fun to lose as it is to win, we’re never surprised if we have a loss, even a big one, in any one session. We’ve experienced them many times and actually joked when we started playing at Terrible’s, “Well, how much is our $25 worth of gas going to cost us tonight?” But we were only joking, for we knew that this night’s play would just be tossed in the big bucket that holds the results of every session since we started casino gambling almost 20 years ago, a bucket that has been full of our original bankroll and overflowing with profit since 19 years ago.

So much for math talk and down to the rest of the story. We managed to play almost to where we would have had enough points for our $25 coupon for gas. But our $600 was almost gone and we were nervous. Would our smaller-than-usual in-our-pocket bankroll stretch long enough, even though we were playing a dollar game instead of our usual $2 one? Up to that point, Brad’s belief that helping the down-and-outer would reap some good wasn’t even helping us get one set of quads to assure we could get over the hump.

But suddenly, in the nick of time, his belief came through like a trooper and I hit a royal for $4,000 and was also given the $2,000 bonus.

Was this skill? Yes. By playing a good game, we would lose less in our numerous losing sessions, so when we did hit the royal, it would put us in profit territory and not just cover some of our previous losses.

Was this luck? Yes. You could say we were lucky that we hit a royal this particular session, since a royal comes around only about every 80 or so hours on average.

Did karma make us lucky that day? There’s no mathematical answer to this question. You decide what’s the “right” answer!

Food News

I am definitely not a foodie, but I do have to eat.  However, I don’t live to eat, but eat to live.  Therefore, you will almost never read anything I write that talks about gourmet meals or celebrity chefs.  I would never watch a whole show on the Food Network, but occasionally when I’m browsing I see some chef yelling and screaming and generally acting rude and wonder why that helps anyone choose what they want to cook or where they want to go out for a meal.  But that’s just me.

However, I will talk about eating when I need to help people choose frugal food options in a casino.  In my last blog I talked about the new buffet at the Palms, called A.Y.C.E, and how you could use the popular money-saving technique of timing your visit toward the end of one lower-priced meal and then staying for the next one with a higher price.  (The Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace is one where this method will save you big-time!)

Now I can give you the details on a promotion which could possibly save you even more money on the Palms buffet.  Advertised as running in January and February, on Tuesdays and Thursdays you can get a free buffet voucher by earning (but not having to redeem) players club points:  200 for breakfast, 400 for lunch, and 600 for dinner.

Now I immediately wondered if this could be a double-dipper on your promotional ice cream cone, because they are also continuing the Tuesday movie and Thursday carwash promos for earning 300 points.  So, I did an experiment last Thursday, checking to see if you could use the same points for two freebies.  I wanted to eat lunch at the buffet so I earned exactly 400 points and went to the kiosk and printed out my free carwash coupon.  I had heard the buffet offer would not be on the kiosk; you had to go to the players club desk.  So, I went to the club and gave them my carwash coupon and asked if I could also get my free lunch buffet coupon or did I have to get 300 more points.  It was explained to me that probably the casino did not mean for points to do double-duty, but that was the way it was set up. My 400 points covered both promotions.

I do not guarantee that the casino will change – “fix”? – this before the promotion ends, but in the meantime, this is one of those times – at least for now – that a savvy player will be able to combine promotions.  I think some players may even be able to make this a 3- or 4-dipper, if their free play can also be picked up on those days and/or their multiplier bonus-days hit those same days.

By the way, Brad and I liked the buffet better this 3rd time we ate there.  We took a little more time to really scout all the many offerings.  There are so many to “figure out.”  We found more hot items that hadn’t cooled down too much, and I found the majority of my really-likes in the salad section.  The sliders still got a big fat “F” – make them smaller – someone who wants that as the main dish could take two – the rest of us want to just have a small “taste” of a lot of items.  And get rid of hard stale tasteless big buns – think small and moist, like White Castles, or artisan, like tiny flavorful pretzel buns.

Brad still thinks some of the food in this buffet is weird but he is able to find enough he likes to satisfy him.  However, I can’t get him near the Palms coffee shop, the Lucky Penny – even with a free coupon.   We ate there twice and he decided that this was the most bizarre place in which he had ever eaten since he was served a hot dog on a hamburger bun in Portugal 20 or so years ago.  In yesterday’s  R-J there was a glowing review of this restaurant describing a couple of meals that “upend tired coffee shop images.”

“Upends” is a good word to describe this place.  They put together items in an unusual way that makes the menu actually unreadable – you just don’t know what you will get when you order most things.  I don’t think the reporter ordered the potato soup. So, they want to make everything different?  You will get a big bowl in which the bottom is filled with a few tablespoons of “soupy” pinkish-orange liquid that had no identifiable flavors and then dumped on top is a large order of French fries like you would get at McDonald’s.

It is enough to get us back to the Food Court where the food may not be gourmet but at least you know what you are ordering.  The big problem is that I  suddenly found out this is no longer as option if you have a food coupon.  Now all Rewards Dining Offers you punch out at the kiosk have this in the printed details: “The Eatery/Food Court excluded.”

I must confess that this recent major change caught me by surprise because I did not heed my own much-repeated advice:  Always read the fine print every time because you never know when the casino will change the details of an offer.