Recent headline: “Casinos getting nervous as Las Vegas revenues drop and their stocks slump.”
Will this generate even more extra fees to try to pump up a casino bottom line – or perhaps lead to more and better promotions to increase customer visitation? I am cautiously optimistic about this latter result. Although our regular monthly mailers are pretty much as they have been for quite a while, we are finding a few extra offers mid-month in our snail-mail box and computer Inbox. Maybe this is the beginning of a long-lasting trend?
Now for some promotions you might have missed or ones that didn’t show up during your casino website scouting. You do scour casino websites, don’t you?
El Cortez
From an ad in the R-J, a good idea for casinos that have limited in-house options for utilizing the comps you earn: “Club Cortez comp dollars can now be used at all of these downtown dining destinations: Eureka!, The Naked City Pizza Shop, Siegel’s 1941, Rachels Kitchen, Subway, and Tazueria El Buen Pastor.” Check players club for details and locations.
Tuscany Suites and Casino
Check out promotions at their very-detailed website, including some of the following:
Walmart Gift Card Give-away – An earn- and-redeem promo on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Tuesdays 2-for-1 promo for Tuscany Gardens and Pub 365. You keep the points for this one.
Senior Thursdays, with new and increased benefits. The all-month 20% senior benefit moves to the gift shop in August.
SILVERTON
Have brunch or lunch with a mermaid – now there’s a new and unique casino promotion! For adults and children! See the details at the Silverton Casino website.
BOYD GAMING
I won’t be giving any details here since we don’t know much yet, just the big news that they are introducing a brand-new casino management system that will make major changes to how they track customer play through their B Connected players club. It will be set up, not only in their older established casinos, but will fold into the system those recently-acquired Vegas properties, like the Cannery and Aliante, as well as new sales pending in the Midwest. This roll-out process at 29 gaming properties will take time, the company says, lasting the rest of this year and well into 2019. When completed this will be one of the largest player reward systems, topped only by the one of Caesars Entertainment.
I have always feared how “new and exciting” changes a casino touts will affect me personally. I usually am not excited about them! However, maybe one of my pet peeves will disappear with these new changes – the” slowest kiosks in the West” at the Gold Coast!
Kevin, what you said about “tighten things up, slash comps, make games worse and jack up prices” is exactly what Atlantic City did after Pennsylvania opened their casinos and started whipping AC’s butt. It backfired. Almost killed AC. Four casinos closed and one might be on the brink. [1] Why would anyone drive 2+ hours when they can get the same or better treatment 15 minutes from home? Same applies to the time, expense and inconvenience of flying 4+ hours just to be nickel-and-dimed to death in Vegas. Comped rooms are almost non-existent and rental car rates are ridiculous.
[1] Two casinos have recently opened. They seem to be doing okay, but this is peak summer season here. We’ll have to wait to see how they fare in the cold winter months.
My wife and I go to vegas 2 times a year and stay at 2-3 casino,s comped. we shy away from Caesars because they charge RESORT FEES on comped rooms,which is crap (comped is comped) also i am retired military and 50% disabled, you would think they could wave the RESORT FEES,guys like me already paid more than the diamond and seven star cardholders who are totaly comped.
I can’t figure out why the Vegas bean counting management can’t / won’t see the merit in offering a decent gamble as it once was ( I realize that’s self-serving, but let me make the case). Let’s just take 3:2 blackjack games with reasonable rules and table minimums and full-pay video poker tables as starter points.
They’re all recently complaining about quarterly (1 in, 1 projected) visitation drops / reduced hotel occupancy, which translates into lower REVPAR ( likely THE metric that keeps these monkeys employed). Vegas is still a gambling center despite the fancy chefs and restaurants, themed nightclubs, and soon-to-be robots serving drinks. LVCVA data indicates that 75+% of all Vegas visitors gamble somewhat. How can these casino management people not look to offering reduced house edges/ better gamble on long-standing mainstay games as a means to draw people in, improve their occupancies, and ultimately improve / maintain the almighty REVPAR numbers? Why in the name of Geezy H Peezy are they afraid of that? It’s beyond senseless.
Part of the problem is the consumers fault..those numbskulls who play 6:5 blackjack and poor pay- tabled VP machines. The casinos have made the argument that they offer these poor game conditions because they can..people still sit down and toss their money away quicker. I’d be willing to allow the resorts to devote 30% of their floor space to party pit / carny games and skill-based slots to assuage that part of customer demand. Just revert part of the floor space back to gamblers who care a whit about house edge, skill games, and the like. A trial period..6 months…then if your numbers suck big green ones, you can go back to the gouging process. What have you got to lose..comparatively?
The Buffet at Main St used to be great for the Seafood on FRI. No more. The only time Boyd’s will wake up is when people stay away. Look what happened to the Malls.? The Co operates out of the 70’s .
We live about 2,000 miles from Las Vegas and used to fly there twice a year and stay about 8 days in comped rooms at 2 0r 3 casinos until they stopped giving us good food comps. We go to gamble, not use the pools, night clubs, or other amenities, and we put a lot of time in at the tables and machines. Now they have made the machines and the tables so unplayable that we won’t be back. So now we go to Biloxi, about 5 hours away, about 4 times a year and stay for about 5 weekdays each trip. While we have stayed at most of the casinos there, we now concentrate on Beau Rivage and Boyd’s IP. I mostly play BJ or live poker while my wife plays VP. Unfortunately the Beau took out all the 96 JoB machines and have only 75’s now. They also replaced all the VP chairs with fixed chairs that she cannot sit back comfortably and reach the buttons. My wife finally said she can’t play there anymore, so we only go the IP now. I really loved the Beau with its great rooms and nice casino, and I have written many comments urging them to fix this but they fall on deaf ears. I just hope Boyd doesn’t screw up the IP or we will have to stop going there also. Why are all the casinos trying to run off their good repeat customers?
had one person working and 5 new people getting new cards. Do they realize how much money it costs them to have people standing in line instead of playing? Also why do I have to waste time swiping in for multipliers they know Im here as soon as I put my card in. Another waste of time waiting for a kiosk that works. Boyds is so antiquated I just wont waste my time standing in their lines anymore. Their cash out machines are always down also. Someone needs to realize the more people standing in line the less money they are putting in machines.
Susan, I believe you are correct, I’ve probably played in all the casinos you have and they are very slow. The only ones I think could be slower are at Soaring Eagle in Mt. Pleasant, MI.
I, too, would like to think that a new era of bargains and promotions (however short-lived) may be dawning—in the past, including as recently as last year, July and August were, understandably, promotion time–but so far, this year–not at all!
In general, it seems like lately, the Vegas casino response to hard times has been to tighten things up, slash comps, make games worse, and jack up prices. This is the opposite of what used to happen–for example, during the 2005-2009 Dubya recession, casino bargains abounded. But now, I think their mindset is to squeeze the people who are coming to Vegas no matter what.
Also, one advance notice of change for Boyd. When my card anniversary hit at the end of August, it didn’t renew for a year. It now expires at the end of this year. Here is the reply to my email inquiry “All cards will expire on 12/18 – we will be rolling out a new program which will be much better.
The roll out is August 27th and at that time we will be explaining the new expiration dates.”
Jean,
Having played at all the Boyd casinos in Las Vegas and in the mid west from Michigan City, IN to South in Biloxi, MS, I think I can say that the Boyd kiosks are the slowest everywhere!!