12/7/2007
Here are some players club hints that might put money in your pocket, help you earn more comps, or at least save you some frustration. Some are for specific casinos and some are general ideas that can be used in many casinos.
1. Is your problem you don’t play very often at a Harrah’s property, but you don’t want to lose the Harrah’s Total Reward points you’ve already accumulated? You know you have to put at least one point on your card every six months or they’ll go away, but earning just a few points will ruin your daily average. I have a remedy for this problem. Get the Harrah’s Visa affinity credit card, on which you earn one Bonus Reward Credit for every $1 you spend in net retail purchases. Use this no-annual-fee card at least once every six months and your Reward Credits will never expire –- and you won’t ruin your daily average! Apply for the credit card at harrahs.com by clicking on Total Rewards.
2. When you join a new slot club or a casino changes its slot club system, ask for a brochure that explains the club benefits and how the new system works. Don’t assume it works like the old system or like other slot clubs. There are many variations. To collect free play in some casinos, you merely download it and start playing, like at the Palms. In others, you must “prime the FP pump” by putting enough of your own money in for the first bet, like at the Station casinos.
3. If you need more explanation about a slot club than you can get at the booth or from casino employees, two Internet resources with casino databases can usually give you all the information you need to determine whether this is a casino where you want to play. The vpFREE homepage is at groups.yahoo.com/group/vpFREE, where there’s a link for joining the forum. Vpinsider.com also has a searchable database.
4. If you’re having trouble with the card reader and can’t download free play, it often pays to ask someone at that bank of machines if there’s any “secret” they know. This might save you having to try umpteen different machines, which sometimes works, or going to the slot club, which is a big bother. This happened to me at Red Rock and several people were nice enough to tell me to punch in my pin number with a pointy device, like a ballpoint pen, a key, or the stubby end of a cell-phone antenna. Ah ha –- so that’s the secret!
5. Check at any Harrah’s slot club to see what free or 2-for-1 shows are available for the various tiers of Platinum and up. The list may vary from month to month and there may be a monthly limit, but in Vegas, 7 Stars and Diamonds have a good choice of free shows. Platinums have a good choice of 2-for-1’s
I’ll probably leave the subject of slot clubs for a while, but I want to warn you that more changes are coming this month. Imperial Palace will be joining the Total Rewards program. And I just got word that the club at the Venetian will be changing completely in December (and probably sweeping in the soon-to-open Palazzo), but I have no details, except it’ll be called Club Grazie. They’re saying it will make it “easier to earn points” and they’re very excited about all the exciting changes. You all know me well enough now to know that I’m not holding my breath in anticipation of this excitement!!
12/13/2007
Many of you may have heard about the night a couple of weeks ago when lightning struck Brad in the form of a dealt royal on a quarter Hundred Play video poker machine at the Palms. In this columm I answer some of the questions we were asked on the various Internet forums.
Q: How much was that jackpot?
A: $100,000. Brad was playing all 100 lines. And yes, before you ask again, that takes $125 a hand to play max coins.
Q: You must be rich to afford to play that much per hand?
A: The only reason we can afford to do this is that I have been frugal for almost 69 years, which led to being successful at gambling for 22 years, which has accidentally allowed us to pile up a large gambling bankroll. When we first started playing video poker 17 years ago, our goal was only to break even and earn lots of comps. This whole fairytale life we live has surprised Brad and me as much as it might surprise you.
Q: What do you tip on a jackpot this big?
A: We usually tip 1% on smaller jackpots ($10 for $1,000) and go down to ½% or lower as jackpots get bigger ($60-$100 for $20,000). If we would have hit this at any other casino, we probably would have tipped $400-$500. However, the Palms is our “”home”” casino and has been since it opened: It’s less than two miles from our condo and Brad is there probably 4-5 days a week, although not playing on all those days. He stops by to bring me home a Sunrise drink from the Coffee Bean or Chinese from the food court. He picks up and drops off our football-contest cards and makes bets on our beloved Colts. He sometimes stops by to play for a couple of hours on one of the progressives when I’m busy in my office. We play together when there’s some good promotion or offer going on.
In addition, we’ve also done numerous TV shoots at the Palms and George Maloof graciously sponsored a big book signing for More Frugal Gambling. Therefore, most people who work there know us and we’re on a first-name basis with many of them. So, we tipped more than we would have in other casinos where we didn’t know so many people personally.
Brad gave $500 to the change gal who brought his check. That was shared with all the change people. Then we started passing out $20 bills to everyone connected to the payoff: the slot mechanic who checked the machine to see if the jackpot was “”valid”” (he isn’t allowed to take tips, but he couldn’t help it if we stuffed a bill in his shirt pocket); the security guy who stood by the whole hour it took to finally get paid; all the employees who came around to congratulate us; the porter; the cocktail waitress who brought us champagne; and the two camera people (yes, our picture is up on the slot club wall). Then I went back and passed out bills at the salon where Brad and I had just had our nails done.
By the time we finished taking care of friends on the Palms staff whom we saw later, it took almost $1,000 total to express our thanks. Plus, the Salvation Army got their usual share of any of our big jackpots.
Q: Did you go out and celebrate this wonderful event?
A: Well, if you call eating at the Palms buffet celebrating, yes. And when the estimate came in the next day to replace our sick heating/cooling unit, the $8,600 didn’t make my frugal brain hurt and that was cause for celebration!
Q: Did you all quit playing after Brad hit that jackpot?
A: Oh no. The only reason we were playing was to get enough points to max out a 4x coupon we each had, and he got the dealt royal on his first hand. So we had to play for about an hour longer. Actually, we continued to have good luck. I was playing for my coupon while Brad was waiting to get paid and I was dealt a quad, a first-time event for us on this game although we had played it quite a few times. And to explain the title of this article, Brad got one more royal (holding a lone K) a few minutes after he went back to playing!
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On another note: We had a fun and successful Atlantic City trip the
12/20/2007
The holiday season is in full swing and much of the country will be preoccupied the next few days with gifts — the shopping, the wrapping, the giving, and the receiving. And then the frenzy of gifts will cease for another year. But if you’re a frequent casino player, the gift season is never over.
For more than 22 years, casinos have been giving Brad and me presents year round to reward our play. It’s said that you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but in terms of value, the range has gone from “treasured forever” to “forgotten immediately.” The ones we’ve kept we either use or derive pleasure from looking at. Some we no longer own, but they’ve left a lasting memory.
A life-sized furry black gorilla comes to mind in that latter category, bought with points many years ago in the old Frontier gift shop. “George” sat in the back seat of our car for years, startling strangers, then bringing smiles, all over the country. When we moved to Las Vegas, we sat George on our patio glider where he amused all who passed by. Even after he got raggedy and bleached out by the sun, we still loved him. Sad to say, some thief must have loved him too: One morning George was gone, never to be seen again –- but certainly never forgotten.
In the practical category, almost every day I wear a Fendi watch I got in a high-level tournament, though I forget which one. And something Brad and I sink into every day with a thankful heart is a comfy massage easy chair that we chose during a Harrah’s holiday shopping promotion.
Many gifts that have special meaning for us are those we can give our grandchildren. When they were little, it was stuffed animals. Now that they’re older, it’s big-kid “toys”: TVs and computers for their rooms, iPods and DVD players they use when they fly to see us. And once they arrive at our house, they love to play the video poker machine that Brad won in a casino drawing, to practice for the day they turn 21 and can play in a real casino. It’s no wonder they say Santa Claus doesn’t stay at the North Pole very much: He’s busy visiting casinos all over the United States.
Gifts don’t have to be large or expensive to be appreciated. Many casinos have regular giveaway programs, offering several gift days per month. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and not all these smaller gifts are worth a special trip for me. But some of the things I’ve liked enough to make an effort to get: logo terry bathrobes; “As Seen on TV” items like a battery-powered under-cabinet AM/FM clock radio, a Tap and Go can opener, and a Robo Maid sweeper; a 104-piece arts-and-crafts set; and a safety kit, including jumper cables, to keep in the car.
We like surprise gifts when we check into a casino room. Fruit baskets are welcome, but we’ve been happy when there’s something different: a basket of regional food delicacies we could take home or a one full of luxurious bath and spa products. We’ve been especially pleased when a host has noted that we don’t drink wine and ordered us, instead, the caffeine-free sugar-free soda and snacks we like. And probably the item, a very small one, which gave us the biggest smile when we walked into our room was a cute little rubber ducky sitting on the sink. We brought it home with us and it sits in our bathroom, always reminding us of our stay at a casino with a sense of humor.
Although most of our casino presents come from our comp points, regular casino giveaways, playing in tournaments, holiday shopping sprees, and participating in casino drawings, once in a while we’re surprised by a FedEx knock at the door. We feel like impatient little kids as we tear open a package we didn’t expect. Several times it’s been a fancy birthday cake, and once it was a birthday-in-a-box, including a decorated cake, streamers, balloons, and noisemakers –- everything one needed for a party. Recently, we were really amazed by a 7 Star box that came to Brad from Harrah’s Rincon in California.
12/27/2007
I knew I would quit writing this column at some point and I’m frankly surprised it didn’t happen long ago. When I started, I never dreamed it would continue, every week, for almost eight years! But I’ve always enjoyed writing “”Frugal Fridays”” and every time I threatened to quit, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. One evening a couple of weeks ago, however, I really felt the need to slow down and I sent a resignation e-mail to Anthony right away before I could change my mind. I told him that although I loved writing the column, the constant pressure of a weekly deadline was getting to me.
He wrote right back and said he understood completely, but that he and his staff had been talking just that day about asking me to contribute to a new feature they were cooking up for the Web site, a blog section. And he suggested that perhaps switching from my weekly column to a blog format might free me from the deadlines from which I wanted to escape, but would let me continue to chat away in the informal style I liked. That idea appealed to me immediately, as the teacher in me would still have a place to impart information about the constantly changing Vegas scene and the innumerable facets of smart gambling.
I’ll add a few personal notes here before I take my leave, although I guess I might talk about my family in the blog once in a while. Many of you have asked about Steve, my Army Ranger son-in-law. In November he was halfway through his 15-month tour of duty in Iraq and was due his R+R back in the States. And you can imagine that those 18 days with his family were pure heaven for all of them! They spent Thanksgiving weekend with Steve’s mother and their extended family in Ashland, Kentucky, celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas at the same time. The rest of the time Steve just wanted to live “ordinary life” in their home in Columbus, Georgia, giving Angela a rest from taxi duty for the kids’ busy schedules, watching Kaitlynn play in soccer tournaments and Zachary perform in karate demonstrations, and puttering around the house doing those man jobs that had piled up.
He’s back in Iraq now and has the same address as before, since he’s back leading his men on missions from the same base of operations.
1SG Steven R. Howard
A Co. 2-69 AR
APO, AE 09312
He appreciates all the boxes people have sent, because he can share them with his men, but he’s also grateful to you who have sent letters of encouragement and support. And he and Angela are both so thankful for all of you who are praying for him.
Angela and my two grandchildren are here with Brad and me this holiday season. They couldn’t bear the thought of celebrating Christmas in their own house without Steve being there. Our job is to keep them busy so they don’t miss him quite so much! It’s been a fun job for us.
So, in closing, although this is a fond farewell to “”Frugal Fridays,”” it’s not a goodbye to talking to you, my faithful frugal fans. Sometime after the first of the year, look for my Frugal Vegas blog to begin — along with three others: Stiffs & Georges, David McKee on the gambling industry; Gambling in Space, David Matthews on Internet gambling and technology; and Las Vegas Real Estate, Robin Camacho writing about the RE market.