Do you have your February gambling calendar made out? You do – especially if you visit a casino quite frequently and want to be a wise gambler and make your gambling bankroll go further.
Not all gamblers have the same goals, but if you want to have the best chance to see a long-term profit, I will tell you how I organize our casino schedule to do that. No one will do it exactly the same way we do, but most successful players follow the same general concepts.
Know when and where the bonus points days are. You can check this for Las Vegas, at the Bonus-Point list on this LVA site. We will definitely be at South Point earning 2x points on President’s Day (the 15th). You sometimes might find Brad at Tuscany on a Wednesday or Friday earning 10x points – or at Ellis Island after 3 p.m. on Saturdays when 10x is also in effect.
Look for promotions. We just spent the weekend at Harrah’s in Laughlin because our host called and invited us to a special VIP event, one which had not only a 3x-bonus-point element but also included cash and food comps. This was stong enough for us to change our original plan for January and make an unexpected out-of-town trip – a bonus of being retired!
If you are a video poker player, you will want the best combo deal you can find – a good game and all the extra benefits you can find. A local will add in valuable bounce-back cash or free play. Out-of-towners may be looking for room comps in their “playing package” but may also have some bounce-back benefits and they will look for promotions and bonus points during their stay. When we lived back in Indiana, we tried to plan our Vegas trips to hit as many holidays as we could because we could snag extra slot club points that we could turn into cash and/or comps.
Now, please don’t ask me what games we play at any of the casinos I mentioned – go back to my January 3rd entry for a discussion on why I can’t answer that. But I can tell you all the games we play are on vpFREE2 – we have no “secret games.” Scour that Web site for “good games.” And then pile on as many promotions as you can find!
Most casinos will not count bonus points for tier status. In fact, I can’t think of any casino that uses anything but “base” points to figure tier levels. A good general policy to remember!
Thanks for the link. I’ll have to remember to check it out before my next trip.
BTW, have you considered talking to David McKee to see if you two can put links to each others’ blogs on your pages?
Seems to me that it would increase traffic for you both.
We were at the Orleans on 12/15/09and enjoy a day of 5x points for age 50+. But we discovered later that it did not apply to our tier points