4/5/2002
Some time ago in this column, I described the new Ray Charles slots — a bit sarcastically. I want to apologize for this unfeeling attitude. I received a letter from a friend who told me about a blind man he knew who loved to play the slots and what a nice thing it would be for him to be able to play a machine and experience its bonus features all by himself. This would be possible by the Braille on the button deck of these machines and a feature called “”Audio-Assist,”” which gives audio cues to the player. This feature was given the Access Award from the American Foundation for the Blind. Ray Charles himself did much of the voice-over work and appears in the live-action video clips on the bonus screen.
BRIEFS
Any idea what might be the biggest complaint of local savvy video poker players in Vegas? It’s that all the good VP keeps them TOO busy to run around town and collect all their bounce-back cash. I imagine some of you out-of-towners would love to have that “”problem.”
“”If you don’t mind eating with smokers, ask to be seated in the smoking section whenever you check in to a restaurant. Although there will be a line of people wrapped around the building, asking to sit in the smoking section will get you a seat faster than being an ‘invited guest’ of the casino. In addition to getting seated immediately, it’s rare that anyone is smoking anyway! Plus, since the non-smoking section is only a couple feet away from most smoking sections, what’s the difference?”” A tip from a reader of the weekly e-mail newsletter Everything Las Vegas (subscribe at [email protected]).
“”Slot machines really are unappreciative little bandits with minds of their own, obeying neither the commands of the players that so generously feed them or the casinos that give them life. Last week, the Isle of Capri Casino in Missouri was stunned by the waywardness of its Munsters nickel slot. Even though the notice on the machine promised a top jackpot of only $25,000, the illiterate little slot decided to award one player a double jackpot worth $50,000. The casino had no idea that one of its own could do such a naughty thing, but the Missouri Gaming Commission says the casino has to pay the winner just the same. So the next time you’re disappointed by the behavior of the slot machines you’ve been feeding, remember that the little crooks have also been known to bite the casinos’ hands, too!” The above was written by Regina Naslund, editor of CasinoWire (subscribe at www.casinowire.com)
Have you ever had a complaint about a casino that you wanted to take to the Nevada Gaming Commission? Their e-mail address is [email protected].
Also from CasinoWire, our corny gambling joke of the day: Have you heard the one about the superstitious casino gambler who saw a fly land on the roulette table? Thinking it was a lucky sign, he placed his bet on the number where the fly had landed. He lost, shook his head, and muttered, “”It must have been a house fly.””
4/12/2002
Brad and I have just returned to Vegas after a week “back home in Indiana.” (For you non-Hoosiers and non-race fans, that phrase is from the song Gomer Pyle sings before the Indy 500 every year.) The trip was a mixture of business and pleasure. Of course, we were glad to visit with relatives and old friends in Indianapolis. Then for a couple of days I was a speaker at a Host Development Conference at the Grand Victoria riverboat casino down on the Ohio River at Rising Sun, Indiana. I enjoy “teaching” casino hosts and other casino employees. It’s a rare chance to share some of our pet peeves about the casino host and slot club systems in general and suggest some things we players would like to see implemented.
We enjoy doing these conferences. It gives us a chance to visit casinos outside Las Vegas and see what’s happening in the rest of the casino world — one can get narrow-minded, living in the Mecca of gambling. It’s also an opportunity for us to meet with other players who embrace frugal gambling, many with whom we have become good friends on the Internet.
Here are some of the conferences coming up; we would be happy to meet with any players who might be the area at the same time:
Laughlin, Flamingo Hilton, May 1+2 — We will be free the evening of the 1st and off and on (between conference sessions) during the day on the 2nd.
Gulfport, Mississippi, Grand Casino, May 4-7 — On the 5th there will be a Frugal Fan Fest at the Copa in the afternoon, with a book signing, a short talk, a Q+A session, and then just time for everyone to chat. For specific details, e-mail Linda Mabry [email protected].
Palm Springs, CA, The Spa Resort Casino, May 12-15 — We will be free off and on the 13th and 14th.
Blackhawk, near Denver, CO, Jun 24-25 — We will be free the evenings of the 24th and 25th.
Additions And Corrections to Past Columns
I said: “The Suncoast has greatly modified the coupon book you get when checking into the hotel. All those wonderful matchplays are gone. The only valuable coupon left is one for a 20-coin bonus for any video poker hand over 500 coins.”
A friend writes: “I’m sure you have some readers who are not VP players. The coupon gives a 20-coin bonus for a jackpot of 500 coins or more on video poker AND slot or keno machines.”
Good point! And I should add that the coupon book has many other coupons:
1,000 free bonus points for new members
Bingo bonus
2-for-1 bowling bonus
Free souvenir
Food discount at Via Venetoís
Free drinks and ice cream
Discounts for gift shop, shoeshine, childcare center, Seattles Best Coffee
About the casino credit-card situation I discussed a couple of weeks ago: Although I got some conflicting information from Harrah’s employees at first, it seems settled that points you earn on a Harrah’s credit card do NOT go toward getting you to Platinum and Diamond status. They DO earn cashback at the rate of .5%. And the Visa Las Vegas credit card seems to be “in transition” and I don’t know how or whether you can apply for one at the moment. The 800 number I put in a previous column is not helpful. We who already have a card may or may not have a change in the casinos where we can collect our 1% rebate. I’ll certainly give new information on this card if and when I can get it.
4/18/2002
Note: This week’s Frugal Fridays is written by guest columnist Deke Castleman, editor, Huntington Press.
Jean Scott finished writing More Frugal Gambling, the long-awaited sequel to her best-selling The Frugal Gambler, late last Monday night. Three years in the making, this was a marathon — epic — project, in which Jean was driven to take nearly a half-decade’s worth (from the day Frugal the First went to the printer till, well, late last Monday night) of playing, living, breathing, and dreaming about casino gambling, wrench it out of her head, and put it into words on the page.
We’re talking fourteen chapters, plus an introduction, postscript, resources, a couple of appendices… all new material on slots, slot clubs, video poker, promotions, other games, coupons, comps (four chapters on comps), money, tipping, even a detailed treatment of gambling and taxes. Unlike The Frugal Gambler, which weighed in at a svelte 240 pages, More Frugal Gambling is a big fat fattie, which might give War and Peace a little pound-for-pound competition.
And did I mention Jean’s a perfectionist? It wasn’t enough to crowbar it all between the front and back covers. Oh no. It had to be perfectly written, and edited to a high sheen. She taught English for a couple of decades, you know, so she’s kind of a stickler for clarity, sentence structure, diction, grammar, punctuation, tone, theme, little things like that we commoners might let slide, but a Queen simply must demand.
And this regal insistence doesn’t stop at the content. Jean has an artist’s eye for (all right — she’s obsessed with) heds, sidebars, call-outs, pull-quotes, bullets, lists, charts, drop caps, dingbats, and all the aesthetic tricks of the print-media trade. People don’t want to read long tedious passages of prose anymore, she tells me, so in most cases no more than three paragraphs in a row appear on a page — without some graphic element to break up the big black blobs of text. I sometimes suspect that this particular author will never be satisfied with any page design that’s denser than the National Enquirer.
And, of course, the immediate and extended Scott family had to play a big part in Frugal the Second. The Frugal Princess contributes a heapin’ helpin’ of basics, offering up hundreds of beginner’s tips culled from the direct experiences of her and her husband Steve in the casinos. And Brad — long-suffering, laid-back, generous-to-a-tee Brad — is the other main character, always hovering between the lines. The grandkids romp in and out, full of noise, kidisms, and wide-eyed wonder. Even Jean’s sister and an ex-husband or two make cameo appearances. And there’s a supporting cast of thousands — friends, locals, pros, hosts, e-mail correspondents, and fellow gambling writers (especially Huntington Press’ own Jeff Compton and Max Rubin).
In short, Queen Jean has poured her head, heart, and soul into this title. And typically, at the end of such a project, most writers have nothing left. They’re sucked dry by the demands of ambition, completion, publication. They’re expunged of brain content. They’re drained of life’s juices. They’re nothing but empty shells. That’s why I’m filling in for her this week. That’s why Jean hasn’t been heard from since late last Monday night, when she handed in the last gasp of the last draft of the last chapter.
Usually, as her friend and editor, if I don’t hear from her every few days, I start to grow concerned. But this time, I’m not worried.
After all, we’ve got the book. It’ll be out in the fall.
4/26/2002
I’m back — after a week of resting from writing Frugal the Second. Had time to stop and smell the roses — and get acquainted with Brad again!
GIVE ME THE TRUTH
I read a lot of stories about mega jackpot winners, but much of the time I hate them. Recently a Canadian man hit $2.4 million on a Wheel of Fortune dollar machine at the Flamingo Las Vegas. It was reported he had only invested $10. Now I don’t play this machine, so I don’t know what the max coin is. But many of these big-jackpot games require three coins to hit the motherlode. How come people always hit after putting in a multiple of $10? Just once I’d like to hear they had put in $9 or $12. And how many times have you played a machine and hit even a little $200 jackpot while still on your first roll of coins? Sure, maybe once in a blue moon. I’d like to read just one account of someone who tells the truth: “I have been playing this machine off and on for years and lost thousands and thousands of dollars. This jackpot was not luck — I earned it.”
Another thing winners always say, “At first I didn’t know how much I had won.” I want to shake them and say, “Isn’t the jackpot why you’re playing this machine, which is probably the most likely of all the machines in the casino to leave you a loser if you don’t hit it?” Now I’m not saying that this winner was cool enough to make up a good story so it would impress the press (pardon that pun) later, but it was reported that he immediately called his wife back in Canada and told her he had won $2,400. Then he had to call back a few minutes (“Hmm. Maybe she’ll find out the truth and then I really will be in the doghouse.”) and say he actually had won a big more: $2,423,302.85.
In the end, I was glad to read that he finally opted to tell the bare truth. There was no silly stuff, like, “Well, right now I reckon I’ll keep my job at the insurance agency.” Instead, he admitted that his wife would decide how to spend the winnings!
SHOULD YOU DOUBLE UP IN VIDEO POKER?
This video poker option is basically a 50/50 bet with no casino edge, but it’s a volatile one, so you need to consider whether your bankroll can withstand the ups and downs. Most people, if they use it at all, double on only the lowest payoffs, to reduce their risk. The main reason I don’t use it is that the double-up money you risk doesn’t earn slot club points, with the possible exception of casinos that are on the coin-out system, and it takes up my time when I could be playing at an advantage.
Go to casinogaming.com/columnists/dancer/072401.html and read about a unique situation Bob Dancer had when doubling-up was a good tactic. (And while you’re there, check out the index for a large selection of other interesting articles he’s written.)
I LOVE THE NAME
The Las Vegas Sun reported that an entertainment company has proposed a Halloween parade, called “”Boo Ga Loo Las Vegas,”” down the Strip the Saturday before Halloween. This company wants to hold the parade from 5 to 7 p.m. — something that’s currently not permitted by county ordinances. “”It’s not just the closing of the Strip,”” one executive commented. “”It’s the whole concept. It would be very difficult, with the kind of crowd it would draw, to monitor what the crowd would be doing. With events like these, people sometimes come half-clothed. How do you regulate what costumes they can wear? We do not want our regular guests exposed to those kind of things.”
www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/gaming/2002/apr/19/513334103.html
“Ex-Lax and casinos both accomplish the same thing. They clean you out, although one is a hell of a lot cheaper.”” “”VP Pappy”” (T. Murphy)