10/6/2000
From The Dealer’s News: “The Frontier has been using shills on table games recently.” Shills are people hired by the casinos, using the casino’s money, to play games and encourage others to join them. I have seen very bored shills playing in the small “slot” casinos downtown, slowly and half-heartedly pulling the handles of the slot machines, their trays too full of “won” coins to be believed. And even if they had won them, what a terrible experience that would be — to hit a jackpot and know it wasn’t yours.
Shills used to be used frequently in poker games to get games started and keep them going, but poker rooms are now more likely to employ “proposition players.” These “props” play with their own money, but are assigned by the manager to play in the games where they’re needed.
I had never heard of shills being used on casino table games, but I talked to some long-time Vegas gamblers who said it had been done in the past. They were surprised to learn that it’s still being done. Employing shills for table games does make sense. Many people do not want to go up to an empty blackjack table. Table shills are not subsidized like slot shills, but play minimum bets with their own money while waiting for other people to come to the table.
BRIEFS
Are you a beer-drinker? Do you think you might be thirsty sometime when you’re at the corner of Sahara and the Strip? Go to http://www.holycowbrewery.com/index.htm and print out some emergency free-beer coupons.
A frugal tip from a report in the Viva Las Vegas Newsletter – (subscribe at www.billhere.com) “Madame Tussauds at the Venetian was pricey at $13.50 per person. It was late in the evening when we arrived and they told us it was 2-for-1 an hour before closing.”
Mahoney’s E-mail Buddy program seems to send different offers to Vegas locals and out-of-towners. So, just read the offer you get and follow the rules carefully.
There have been some questions about the bonus-point times this month at the Orleans. ALL Coast properties (Barbary Coast, Orleans, Gold Coast, and the new Suncoast) have double points all day on Columbus Day (October 9) and on all Monday nights from 6 p.m. until midnight. If they stick with last year’s plan, this will continue through the entire Monday Night Football season.
The Orleans, however, has an extra bonus time this month, taking the place of their usual monthly promotion of drawings, double royals, etc. The Monday Night Football double points promo continues Tuesday from midnight until 6 p.m. So if you have more stamina than I do, you can start playing your favorite machine at 6 p.m. on Monday and get double points until you fall off your stool at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. And on Columbus Day, you can start at midnight Sunday night and put in a real marathon until 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Good news: The Hard Rock has a new general manager, who immediately okayed a new cashback policy. You have a choice: You can take it with the Free Play “credit card” (saves going to the cashier if you want to go right back to playing a machine that will take the card) or in good old American dollar bills — my personal choice.
The Simply Poker machines reported at Harrah’s — the ones that contained 100%+ VP games — have been removed. They were there only under a temporary manufacturer test program — that’s why they didn’t have card readers. That leaves Harrah’s with no VP, even counting cash-back, that is close to 100%.
You would have to hustle comps shamelessly to reach positive territory here!
Just in case someone really needs/wants this information: Olympic Gardens and Play It Again Sam are two places in Vegas where you can play VP at a strip club. Brad wanted to check this out for “accuracy” — but I said that wasn’t necessary as I got it from a reliable source!
10/13/2000
A FRUGAL VACATION Part I
“Taking the Kids Too” by the Frugal Princess, Angela Sparks
Our family has just returned from a week-long vacation to Las Vegas and my mother, Jean Scott, has asked me to write a guest column about some of our experiences. As an update, Zachary is now a front-toothless seven-year-old and Kaitlynn is a six-year-old bookworm. They both, of course, are brilliant frugal children who take right after Grandma.
The first question we get asked when we return from Las Vegas is, “Did you win?” But the topic that people are most curious about is what we do with the kids. Although in the last few years Las Vegas has become more family-friendly, some are still skeptical about bringing children to Sin City. One couple (they’ve never been to Las Vegas) asked if we just let the kids run loose somewhere while we gamble in the casino!
Well, yes, in a way we do exactly that! We have discovered three different child-care facilities where we can drop off Jean’s grandchildren while we go couponing, play video poker, etc.
The Gold Coast has FREE child care for up to 3-1/2 hours between 9 am and midnight for ages 2-8 (child must be potty trained). As with all casino child-care facilities, you must stay on the property — they don’t want you to use their facility to go gamble at another casino! This facility is smaller than most, but the kids enjoy the crafts, movies, and grandmotherly caregivers. Important note: Food is not available at this facility.
The Orleans and Suncoast have Kids Tyme for children six months to 12 years. The fee is $5 hour, with a maximum stay of three hours. These facilities are much larger, with a two-story tunnel “playground,” video games, crafts, and a snack bar. There’s an extra charge for snacks; however, when Mom and Brad get a comp, we can write “unlimited” on the snack instructions. Kaitlynn and Zachary show their budding comps skills here — running up a bill that would make the Queen of Comps and Max Rubin proud!
Station properties have a similar place called Kids Quest, which has even more activities, like computers, Nintendo, and Kaitlynn’s favorite, a place to dress up and sing karaoke on a stage. Kids can stay here up to five hours. Mom had a coupon good for $1 per hour off for both kids that came in a funbook mailed to all Vegas residents, but you may be able to get one at the slot club desk if you ask. Surprisingly, we were able to use that discount with a comp, thereby using a smaller number of slot club points.
Wet ‘N’ Wild was a great late-September-afternoon activity for all six of us, with the temperatures in the 90s. Did we pay for this otherwise expensive outing? Of course not. Mom and Brad got free tickets in exchange for points they built up playing at Arizona Charlie’s, but you can get discount coupons on the Internet (Billhere’s site), in the LVA coupon book, and in all the freebie magazines. In the summer months when the park is open late, you can go in after 3 pm for half price. Of course, Mom packed us snacks and drinks. She knows concession prices are very unfrugal.
From there we went to the Stratosphere to try out the new kid’s area at the base of the tower. We were very disappointed in the rides — the bumper cars were missing and the other two rides were too tame for our kids. The video bowling game was fun, but the rest were the typical midway games.
After Stratosphere, we thought Coney Island at New York-New York would be just as disappointing, so Steve and I went alone to check it out. We had two free coupons that we could use for any of the three main attractions. We got them from Billhere’s site, but we also saw the same coupons in a rack full of flyers at the Barbary Coast. We also had 2-for-1 wristband coupons, but we opted to use the two free coupons since we didn’t have much time to spend. Coney Island was also filled with lots of money-grubbing midway games, but the kids would have had fun playing laser tag, riding the larger bumper cars
10/20/2000
A FRUGAL VACATION Part II
“Coupons, coupons and more coupons” by the Frugal Princess, Angela Sparks
Last week, I reported on our family trip to Las Vegas. This week, as promised, I’ll describe how we did on our couponing runs. My mother, Jean Scott, and her husband Brad provided the initial bankroll. The deal was that they’d fade any losses, but we’d split any profits. What a deal!
We drove directly from the airport to Vacation Village. Showing our plane ticket, we spun the promotional wheel for a chance to win anywhere from $1 to the amount of our one-way airfare to Vegas. You must get to VV within 12 hours of arriving in Las Vegas; alternatively, you have 24 hours if you bring a coupon found in several of the freebie magazines. Remember they only conduct the spins once each hour, on the half-hour, from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
You also get a coupon sheet at Vacation Village, with food, drink, and gambling offers. The most valuable are the three $5 matchplays for BJ, craps, and roulette ($14+ expected value). This is one place where two of you are allowed to bet your coupons on odd and even at the same time on roulette. So you’re assured a $5 win — except for the rare time that the nasty green zero or double zero shows up, which happened to Mom and Brad the last time they did it.
We decided to forgo using the free Vacation Village hot dog coupon — a little too early in the morning for that! But, as is becoming a family tradition, all four of us used our LVA coupon for double pay on a full house, taking turns watching the kids run around outside, getting the all-night-flight fidgets out of their legs. You cannot get discouraged using this coupon, even when the full house turns out to be elusive. We’ve had some pretty big losses some years, but they’ve been more than covered by the wins other times. We’re still waiting to use the Vacation Village coupon for the bonus on a royal!
One of the better coupons of the trip Steve and I found on our own at Circus Circus, of all places. (I’m always thrilled to find a promotion that the Queen of Comps doesn’t know about!) We saw a sign in the front advertising WinCards for slot club members. We’d done this promotion at other casinos on previous trips (Sunset Station, Lady Luck, Four Queens, Excalibur). You pay $10 and get $15 in non-cashable chips to bet at table games. When you win your bet, you’re paid off in real chips.
We also had a coupon for a funbook at Circus Circus, which had matchplay coupons for blackjack, roulette, and craps. They allowed us to use our WinCard chips WITH our matchplay coupons — Mom calls this “double dipping.” We weren’t risking anything except the initial buy-in of $10 each. We walked out of there with $50 profit (we have an excellent teacher).
We used LVA $5 matchplay coupons at Imperial Palace. At the Sahara, Sunset Station, and Santa Fe we used LVA coupons that gave us extra “funny chips” for a cash buy-in, and made $5 blackjack bets. So when Mom pulled out four $50 matchplay coupons at Sunset Station (from mailings to locals), Steve and I, extremely low rollers, were nervous wrecks. And when Steve had to double down, he practically went into cardiac arrest, even though it wasn’t even our own money!
At Silverton, we picked up the monthly funsheet. At the New Frontier, you have to pick up a funbook from the person at the timeshare booth, but we’re old hands at this and know not to be sucked into an hour-long presentation. This coupon book is no longer as valuable as it used to be. We used only one $5 matchplay. I’ve never had such bad luck with a matchplay coupon before. I had to split twice and lost all three hands! Leave it to the dealer to make 21 in 6 cards with a 6 showing! Remember, couponing is profitable in the long run, but can sometimes be downright demoralizing in the short term.
Sometimes you find coupons unexpectedly. We took the monorail from Bally’s to the MGM and were handed a funbook as we disembarked. They were
10/28/2000
Grandma Jean is back, well rested. It was only fitting that my daughter, the Frugal Princess, took over the FF writing chores the last two weeks — it was HER children that wore out Grandma and Poppy Brad!
My favorite holiday — Halloween — is coming up and it’s especially fun to celebrate in Vegas. Many casino employees will be in costume, and casino Halloween parties abound. I will be dressed up for the occasion, but not attending any of the numerous parties to which we’ve been invited. Too many slot club bonuses on October 31 — it’ll be hard to pick. The Hard Rock, for example, will be giving 4X comp points. You can earn double points at all four Coast properties. (Note: Suncoast is awarding double, not triple, points, as was earlier reported in the LVA.) Look in the local newspaper for last-minute promotions. However, a word of caution: Make your costume as funny, as scary, as unique as you wish — but don’t wear a mask when you are in the casino. Masks make Security very nervous!
Speaking of costumes: A Discovery Channel TV crew was at Silverton last Friday night, filming all of us in our jammies. It was a “Graveyard Slot Tournament,” in which Silverton guaranteed to double any cash prize if the winner was wearing nightwear. Even Brad, who usually hates costumes, got into the spirit, although I had to go to the store to buy him a pair of PJs. Don’t worry — I shopped for them frugally at a local used-clothing store. And they’re now packed away carefully — in case he ever goes to the hospital and would need them.
Silverton has other interesting promotions coming up in November. On Election Day, all 24 hours on November 7, they’re giving 4X points — plus, if you hit a natural 4-of-a-kind (no wild cards, max coin) on any VP machine, you can get a free buffet. Every Monday in November, when you hit 4-of-a-kind in 10s, you receive a gift certificate from Honey Baked Ham Company for a complete Thanksgiving dinner. Sounds like a good promotion for me; my oven would probably die of shock if I ever turned it on to cook ANYTHING.
We have now, several times, used the coupon for $5 of free gas, mentioned in the Sept. 8 column, printed out from http://www.strip76.com/. It works fine. We put $10 on our credit card and are able to pump $15 worth of gas. You can print out and use as many coupons as you wish to, one per purchase. The coupon expires at the end of November, but I expect them to put in another one later. The gas is higher than many other places in town — regular is $1.99 rather the more usual $1.79 — but it’s still an easy savings of about $3.50 if you’re in the area anyway (on the west side of the Strip, just north of Monte Carlo). I wouldn’t make a special trip on a Saturday night, however; you might waste more gas than you save with the coupon, idling in Strip gridlock traffic.
Finally, you can fire up your VCRs. Although Dateline still has not set a date to air the segment of us they taped last summer, we do have an air date for my appearance on “To Tell the Truth”: Friday, November 3. I cannot tell you the time or the channel, because it’s a syndicated show and could be on any channel at any time in your area. In Vegas it’s on Channel 8 at 9:30 a.m. In L.A. it’s on Channel 9 at 7:30 p.m. In Seattle it’s on at 2:30 AM! So you’ll have to check your local TV schedule. I signed a statement that I wouldn’t reveal the outcome — but I can say that I couldn’t even fool a frog. Yes, Kermit was one of the celebrity panelists.
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