7/3/2000
A couple of weeks ago, I suggested that readers visit the Suncoast Web site and bone up on their planned slot club, Club Denaro. I also suggested that while there, you sign their guestbook to be notified when you can join the slot club online. That way, you’ll be given special bonuses for people who join up before the casino opens.
It’s always a good idea to check the Web sites of casinos being built. It usually gets you on their mailing list and I’m constantly surprised and delighted by the flood of discounts and freebies my mail brings because we are on so many lists. Don’t be put off by the “”fancy”” nature of a new resort casino and figure you could never afford to stay there. New casinos — even the most luxurious — have to scramble to fill rooms their first year before they’ve established themselves in the marketplace. I was amazed how many people who had played at very low levels at the Venetian when it first opened were getting generous room offers for such upscale suites.
Speaking of slot clubs, I just heard about a good idea at New York-New York. They have a “”Follow Me Countdown Program”” that allows you to move from machine to machine without losing any point credit. In many casinos, if you’re only part way to earning a point and remove your card, the countdown starts over on that machine, as well as on any other machine you move to, so you lose that earlier part-point credit.
Briefs
Hint for a nervous or new blackjack player: don’t sit at 3rd base, the “”last”” seat on the dealer’s right. Although what the 3rd base player does, hitting or standing, correctly or incorrectly, does not change the odds of the game over the long term, many uninformed players think the 34d baser is responsible for the dealer’s hand results. And even if you play absolutely correctly and hit a 12 against a dealer’s 2, when you “”take”” the dealer’s face card, the one that would have made him bust instead of making the 21 that beat everyone, well, you will often be nominated Villain of the Year by the whole table. You don’t need that pressure!”
7/7/2000
A post by a good friend of ours made me start thinking about the subject of speed in video poker play. He wrote, “”If you’re ever playing a Game Maker that takes forever to add up your credits when you make a hit (quads, for example), just hit the Bet One button on the left-hand side and your credits will be added to your total immediately. Since someone let us in on this hint, it’s been saving us tons of time.
By the way, hitting the Max Bet button will do the same.
On IGT multi-line video poker machines, you can make the credits rack up faster by hitting the Draw/Deal button. I automatically do this on every hand, because I like to play fast. Why? Well, if I hold good starting hands (especially four to a royal) and they turn out poorly, I don’t have time to cry. If I’m losing, I figure I’ll get to the winning long-term faster. And if I’m winning, well, Brad says I just do everything fast.
Brad isn’t as concerned with speed. He hits the buttons quickly, but he likes to study the results, particularly on multi-line. I think he probably gets more enjoyment out of Ten Play machines than I do. He loves to sit and analyze the ten hands, comparing the short-term results on any one play to the long-term math odds of that particular play. The fun for me is racking up slot club points (translate that as sure cash) as fast as possible.
Briefs
One of the strangest casino stories I have heard for awhile: A 36-year-old woman was carded twice by security while in a casino and on the same day was offered an “”over 50″” discount at the buffet!
If you want to play a casino game where the casino is not your “”enemy,”” take up live poker. Although you “”pay”” the casino a small amount for the privilege of playing in their game (through the “”rake””), your real foe is the other players, who are determined to get your money.
Want a real slot machine in your house? Brad always did, but we lived in Indiana where it’s illegal to own one. Now that we have a condo in Vegas, Brad is the happy owner of a beautiful antique Golden Nugget “”Golden Girl”” slot machine. It takes only one quarter at a time and is a hit with our grandkids and all our visitors. We call it our Salvation Army machine, because all profits are donated to our favorite charity. If you want to buy one, check the Las Vegas Yellow Pages and then shop around, by phone and in person. Prices vary considerably. And any store that sells slot machines can tell you if there are restrictions on owning one in your home state. This is highly regulated by Nevada and the store has to fill out paperwork on each one they sell. They will not ship one to a state where it is illegal.
One of my favorite sayings: The only sure thing about gambling is that it will be streaky.
7/14/2000
I had another column already written for this week’s Frugal Friday, but there are so many changes going on in Vegas that I’m putting it in storage and replacing it with some important updates. I know how frustrating it is to read about a promotion and make a special effort to take advantage of it, then realize that the information was not accurate or up to date. “Paper publishers” must contend with the problem of advance deadlines. Even the LVA, which prides itself (and rightly so) on extremely accurate information, faces this problem month in and month out.
However, Frugal Fridays is a perfect example of the beauty of online publishing, as I can give you real-time information that’s as up to date as humanly possible. Tune in weekly — I’m going to emphasize updates more in my future columns — to save you unnecessary travel and wasted time.
Here is corrected information for Arizona Charlie’s East (ACE) and West. Bonus-point days for July are as follows.
• Tuesdays — triple points from midnight to 8 a.m. ONLY
• Wednesdays — double points all day
From a very reliable source: Your comp points from the old Sam’s Town slot club system will “go away” when the new club switches over the middle of this month. Use them as soon as you can.
The Desert Inn has posted a sign at the slot club desk that all slot club cash points must be redeemed by July 21. If you have cash coupons to redeem here, do it ASAP— the rumor is that the DI will be closed long before the official Aug. 30 date because so many employees will be leaving sooner. I’m guessing it will be history by the end of July. I know that the slot host staff will be gone right after the last invitational slot tournament, which takes place July 13-15.
(By the way, most or all of the DI host staff is going to Harrah’s, and they have promised us that we will be on their Number One List to invite to tournaments and promotions there. This is a great custom in Vegas and probably in every casino area, although it usually flies against company policy. Hosts take their cherished customer lists with them!)
I saw on the marquee at the Fiesta that they’re giving 5X points on Sundays in July. This is in addition to the previously published information that only mentioned 3X points on Mondays.
Here is corrected info for the slot machine giveaway at Reserve. They give away three video poker machines at 10 p.m. each Friday, Sat., and Sun. night in July. Machine players get one drawing ticket for each 100 points they earn on THAT day until 8 p.m. (You cannot stockpile entries over several days’ play; each day has its own color-coded ticket!) If you’re a keno or table player, you can participate; ask an employee how you can earn tickets. One person can only win once. You MUST have a Nevada ID to qualify; no exceptions allowed, since these video poker machines were actually on the floor of the Reserve at one time and the Nevada Gaming Commission has very rigid rules to track where each machine goes when it leaves the floor.
Brad and I really want to win one of these machines. They’re modern machines, either full-pay deuces wild or a deuce variation with a kicker called Acey-Deucey. We had a tall stack of entries the first day we entered this drawing (playing 50-cent Triple Play generates a lot of points) and it took us most of the time between 8 and 10 p.m. filling in our name and slot club number. However, despite the big proportion of the tickets in the drum being ours – we didn’t win! But look for us the rest of July — we haven’t given up!
Although this information is correct as of Thursday, July 13, I must advise you to always call a casino before you make a special trip for a specific promotion. Casinos are notorious for changing and discontinuing promotions. You know the fine print on all of their material: “We can change our minds about this coupon or promotion anytime we want to, for any reason or for no reason, and there’s not a thing you can do about it. So there
7/21/2000
I woke up this morning (Thursday) to the Las Vegas Review-Journal headline, “Station Agrees to Buy Fiesta.” I felt like going back to bed, pulling the covers over my head, and having a good cry. The Fiesta has some of the best video poker opportunities in town, while the Stations’ trains have been steadily chugging away from good video poker for years. And now they seem determined to see that no good stops are owned by competing railroads along the way. The Sante Fe and Fiesta can be remodeled into video poker wastelands, well camouflaged by heavy advertising of showy promotions, non-gambling activities, and endless eating and drinking places.
Am I sounding like Chicken Little? Well, the sky’s not falling. Brad and I will survive, and so will you. There are still lots of places in Vegas to play winning video poker. The intense casino competition will see to that for many many years. A player just has to be more flexible these days.
The lesson here is: Do not “marry” one casino. I do suggest that new Las Vegas visitors choose one core casino where they can find the games they like and establish a playing history that makes it easy to get comped rooms. However, I also suggest that you play the field. Add other casinos to your repertoire as quickly as possible. You never know when your favorite haunt will be the next implosion special on TV!
BRIEFS
Speaking of stations, a slot club has finally been launched at the downtown Plaza casino, formerly called the Union Plaza, which was Las Vegas’ train station for many years and may become so again if/when the “”bullet”” train from L.A. becomes a reality. The No. 1 Main Club has .2% cashback, and that will please the quarter players who like the good video poker selection. You get 2,500 points (worth $5) as a signing bonus. There doesn’t seem to be a clear comp feature to this club–at least not yet–since they’re still issuing food comps under the old clubless policy of giving a dinner for two at the Center Stage restaurant to anyone who hits a jackpot of $200 or more.
I call this a “”like-father, like-son”” slot club, since points are added on coin-out rather than coin-in, just like at the Coast properties. Who owns the Plaza? Jackie Gaughan, father of the Coast properties’ owner, Michael Gaughan. I’m surprised they used this system, which many people don’t like; they think they aren’t getting any slot club credit when they have a losing session. See my May 19th and June 23rd Frugal Fridays columns in the archives to learn the not-so-bad truth about a coin-out system.
Are you not only a gambler, but also an investor who is interested in gaming stocks? I’ve found a Web site that could be very helpful to you: http://www.gaminginvestments.com. It has some free features, such as a message board and gaming news updates. You can also subscribe and receive a couple of good newsletters, with frequent updates on gaming stocks and news that could be important to your investment decisions. The publisher, Frank Fantini, has an entertaining writing style that keeps the newsletters from putting you to sleep with too much technical jargon.
Finally, the more you study, the “luckier” you’ll be — that’s what I write when I autograph all copies of The Frugal Gambler.”