5/7/2004
I bet you’re a person with good sense!
In the stock market you look for books to read that explain the basics. You keep up with changing conditions by reading the newspaper and magazines. You look for experts who have been successful themselves and read to learn their winning techniques.
Before going to the grocery store, you scan the ad circulars you get in your mailbox and see which store has the things you need on sale before you decide where you will shop that week. You clip coupons to take with you in order to make your food budget go further.
For your day-to-day needs you shop at a no-frills discount store, like Wal-Mart, because you aren’t interested in the ambience — you just want to get the best value at a reasonable price.
When you want the fun of shopping in a big mall with upscale stores — and prices to match — you mostly window-shop and only buy something if you find it on sale.
If you’re tempted to overspend your budget when you go shopping, you leave your checkbook and credit and ATM cards at home and take only the cash you can afford to spend that day.
Look how sensible you are!
And then you walk into a casino without any advance preparation. You haven’t read a book about gambling to learn what the successful experts say. You’ve never researched the basics to see what game gives you the best odds. You haven’t opened the freebie magazine in your hotel room or at the bell desk to see if there are any coupons that can cut your expenses. You go on tilt when you’re losing, hitting up your friend for a loan or your spouse for the money that you put away for the rent. You hit the ATM until it will no longer spit out bills for you to stuff into a VP machine for which you have never studied the correct strategy you should be using. You choose glamour and luxury that seem so important at first, but in the end doesn’t give you enough satisfaction to justify its expense.
Why do you, a sensible person in all areas of your life, throw common sense out the window when you enter a casino?
5/14/2004
Wow! Great new format for my home at LasVegasAdvisor.com, don’t you think? I might be sentimental, but of all the new design features and functions on this Web site, the piece that touches me the most is the phrase right up at the top of the home page: “”Covering every facet of the Las Vegas experience since 1983.”” I still recall stumbling across my first Las Vegas Advisor sometime in the mid ’80s and feeling as if I’d just discovered the Ophir silver mines of King Solomon. And as I wrote in More Frugal Gambling, “”I’ve been married to the Las Vegas Advisor ever since.”” Obviously, Anthony Curtis and the Advisor have been a huge part of my success in this business, both as a player and an author. And I’m especially proud to be associated with Huntington Press, its entire staff, and this Web site.
What amazes me about this group is that, although they’ve been doing what they do for 21 years and could easily rest on their laurels, they’re always expanding, improving, tinkering, and generally making it easier for all of us Vegasphiles to get the most up-to-date and in-depth information about this wild city. The site’s new design is just another example of Huntington Press’ dedication, not only to its members, but to the world of Las Vegas visitors at large.
But enough of the mushy stuff. What strikes me about this new design is that the LVA Web site now encompasses five distinct areas of the aforementioned Las Vegas experience. First, of course, is the Advisor itself, including the newsletter, the coupons, LVA Lite, and access to the Web site. Armed with those alone, anyone can greatly improve upon their knowledge about and enjoyment of Las Vegas.
Second is the GreatStuff4Gamblers.com catalog of books, software, videos, strategy cards, and other products. Since they only carry what they recommend, the catalog is valuable in terms of its inclusion of only the very best products on whatever gambling subject you’re interested in.
Third is the forums. You have to be a member to avail yourself of this giant online community, but the amount of information gathered and shared by everyday visitors alone is well worth the $37 a year it costs for the online subscription.
Fourth is the coverage of the exploding online gambling scene at LVAGO.com and fifth is the sports pick services provided by Dan Gordon and Fezzik.
Spend some time clicking around the LasVegasAdvisor.com’s new format. Features I especially like are Question of the Day, the new poll, and Blair Rodman’s inside coverage of the World Series of Poker. And you won’t be surprised to hear that the best thing of all about the new format is that, other than the few members-only places, such as the forums, the online LVA, and the LVA archives, the whole thing is still free!
5/21/2004
As locals, we get a lot of postcards from casinos, offering us what we usually refer to as “”please-come-back stuff.”” Sometimes it’s neat stuff we can use: a handy little tool kit for minor jobs around the house, a nice-looking picture frame/clock combo. However, most of it ends up in the “”comp museum”” set up in our garage: a suitcase set (so flimsy it wouldn’t survive airline luggage handlers for even one trip), T-shirts (to add to our growing stack that we don’t wear), a gardening set (which is no use to us in condo living), a car-tool set (which looks handy but our idea of car repair is the emergency number of our favorite mechanic). We make everyone who comes to visit us take something home from our garage (whether they want to or not), but the museum is like a bowl of spaghetti—the more you eat, the more it seems you have left.
So we’re getting more discerning in the stuff we go to get from casinos these days. We usually don’t go out of our way for it; if we’re driving right by the casino, maybe we’ll take the time to stop by. However, recently we got a postcard from a casino inviting us to pick up a tranquility fountain. Now, although Brad doesn’t have this need, I can use all the tranquility help I can get. So I thought this was one would be worth the trip. And since it was only about 10 minutes from our house, we could be there and back in less than an hour with two tranquility fountains—one each in two rooms.
Wrong! First off, most casino customers must be wound as tight as I am. We got into a monumental traffic jam, just before the turn into the casino. The whole database must have decided they needed something to help them relax. In fact, two carloads were so anxious to relax that they ran right into each other. So we sat in this line of tense drivers waiting for the accident-clean-up crew. When the police, who also seemed more exasperated than tranquil, finally got the traffic moving again, we entered the casino parking lot—where we had to dodge those who were coming out. Even though I knew they’d picked up their tranquility fountains (I saw the boxes in their back windows), they didn’t look very relaxed. We soon knew why: It took us 15 minutes to find an open parking space and when we started toward the casino, we saw more bad news—a line snaking out the door.
We’d battled our way this far and I was determined to find tranquility no matter how much stress and aggravation it took. The line crawled throught the double doors, past the vestibule, into the casino, around the slot machines, past the buffet, and finally we arrived at the gift-giveaway desk, where a harried clerk was checking IDs and slot club cards to be sure they matched the name on the postcard. Heaven forbid someone wanted to find tranquility who didn’t deserve it.
We clutched our two boxes containing my slowly fading hope for tranquility, spent 10 minutes getting out of the parking lot, and finally headed toward home. I told Brad we needed to stop at Walgreens to get some Pepto-Bismol— my stomach was upset. He let me off by the door and I ran in, grabbed a bottle, and went to stand in line at the check-out. There on display were “”Tranquility Fountains on Sale—Two for $9.99.”
5/28/2004
A reader poses the following question: “Do hosts receive a percentage of the action of the players they host?” In other words, when a high roller loses a bundle at a casino, does his host earn a percentage of that loss?
A good question and one of many about hosts I’ve fielded since More Frugal Gambling, with its big section on casino marketing executives, was published. It appears that there’s lots of interest in and curiosity about hosts – primarily, I suspect, because hosts, and the personalized service they provide, have traditionally been out of the reach of most players.
In this day and age, the vast majority of gamblers, even low rollers and recreational players, are aware that they’re entitled to some level of comps for their play. Partly thanks to the book Comp City by Max Rubin, first published ten years ago, casino complimentaries are no longer the deep dark secret they once were. Hosts, however, if my reader mail is any indication, remain an area of the casino business that’s still deep in shadow.
Luckily for us players, a new book about to be released tells the whole host story from start to finish. The book is called Whale Hunt in the Desert – The Secret Las Vegas of Casino Superhost Steve Cyr. And it’s written by my illustrious editor and old friend, Deke Castleman.
Some Frugal Fridays readers are no doubt familiar with Deke, who’s co-written the Las Vegas Advisor and been the editor at Huntington Press for I don’t know how long, probably close to 15 years. I’ve seen an advance copy of Whale Hunt and I can say with confidence that this book will do for hosts – and the whole system of the handling of high rollers – what Comp City has done for comps. No writer, to my knowledge, has previously pierced the obscure world that high rollers (especially whales) inhabit, that rarefied realm of casino jets, stretch limos, penthouse villas, butlers, personal chefs, show-up money, rebates on losses, lavish gifts, shopping sprees, and the like. Compared to whales, who are able – and willing – to bet up to $100,000 a hand at blackjack and $250,000 a hand at baccarat, we’re all low rollers!
Don’t quote me, but I’ve heard that Whale Hunt will be available later this summer.
I asked Deke to answer the reader’s question about how hosts are remunerated and here’s his reply.
Hosts who are on a casino’s payroll earn a salary. Hosts are basically salespeople, and like most salespeople, they’re incentivized; in other words, they get bonuses based on their performance. (Not all hosts get bonuses, but most do.) A host’s year-end bonus, particularly, can be based on his or her players’ losses. Which means that yes, hosts can and do earn a percentage of loss, though that percentage is necessarily quite small, often fractions of a point.
Independent player representatives, who are under contract to more than one casino, are paid in various ways. For example, Steve Cyr, the host on whose story my new book, Whale Hunt in the Desert, is based, worked for the Las Vegas Hilton for 10 years before starting his own hosting company; he’s now a player representative at the Golden Nugget, Barona in San Diego, Atlantis in the Bahamas, and a few other casinos. At a couple of his joints, he’s paid a percentage of the losses of players he brings in.
This is a double-edged sword. First, he can make a lot of money this way. Say a player goes to Atlantis and loses $400,000 over a weekend. Cyr can earn a quick $40,000 (if he’s paid 10%). However, if the player wins, he earns squat. Second, hosts, especially independent reps, usually become friends with their players. But when their pay is based on loss, they have to root for their “”friends”” to lose. (I delve deeply into this conundrum in Whale Hunt.)
A better deal for the host (though not necessarily for the casino) is when his pay is based on the “theo,” or a player’s theoretical result.