Jean Scott's Frugal Vegas

6/1/2001

“I’m mad and I’m not going to take it any more!”

I’m hearing an increasingly loud roar on the Internet about the extra charges some hotel-casinos are imposing on the guests whom you’d think they would want to keep happy, so they’ll continue staying and playing with them. It’s a fact that most visitors mostly play where they stay.

As I recall, the fuss about extra charges began smoldering several years ago, but the new energy surcharges poured gasoline on the fire. I guess the hotels thought we would “understand” the need for the extra charges and embrace them as our patriotic duty. NOT!

Consider this laundry list of charges that Billhere heard about from his readers and put in his online newsletter, Viva Las Vegas:

Bally’s: $3 per day for a room safe. (I heard of another hotel that charged a fee every time you opened it.)
Imperial Palace: $5 for a package delivered to room.
Mirage: $30 per night for a third person in a room.
Riviera: $4.91 extra if you pay by credit card.
Venetian: $3 charge for delivering a FedEx to a room.

The prices for items from a hotel room mini-bar have always made my frugal heart darn near stop — and now I hear of one hotel that charges you for an item if you take it out and look at it, EVEN IF YOU PUT IT BACK UNOPENED. This makes me too wary to even open a mini-bar door; I’d probably die of hunger or thirst first.

However, the biggest roar of discontent seems to be about telephone charges. I have long complained that I can get hundreds of dollars of room, food, and show charges comped, but can I get two $1 charges for toll-free calls taken off my bill? No, there it shows up on my next month’s VISA bill: TOO CHEAP HOTEL-CASINO — $2. I hear that one casino charges $1 for each dial tone! Gee, better not let the kiddies play near the phone; you might have to mortgage the farm to pay next month’s credit-card bill.

But the scariest new policy for us laptop devotees is a rapidly growing policy of a time charge for local calls. A flat $1 per local call suddenly seems very reasonable after you get socked with an XX-cents-a-minute bill after surfing the Internet for hours. A more-frugal-than-I cyberspace-loving friend of mine is still reeling from $100 in phone charges for local calls on his hotel bill when he checked out.

Is there a happy solution? Probably not. But you can protect yourself from unexpected charges by reading ALL printed material in your room: the “About” book on the desk; the phone card in the top drawer of the bedside table; the instructions on the safe, the phone, the cable TV box, and the mini-bar. And if you don’t see detailed phone instructions, call the operator and ask what the charge is for toll-free and local phone calls; ask specifically if there are extra charges based on time. Then you can decide what alternatives you have: going to a pay phone, using your cell phone, or skipping all phone business entirely and losing yourself in a crap game.

BRIEFS
A frugal tip for Las Vegas visitors from Southern California. Hate to drive for hours and fight the I-15 gridlock? Or tired of flying to Vegas and spending too much time getting from the airport to your hotel? Go to www.vegasnow.com to read about a convenient and reasonable alternative –van service from your home to the hotel of your choice. Relax and watch a movie while someone else worries about the traffic. The phone number is 800/669-1443.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has a new Internet site: http://www.vegasfreedom.com

Trivia Time from Everything Las Vegas: What three denominations of slot machines won the most money for Nevada casinos during the 12 months ending Feb. 28?

Answer: Quarter machines won the most money from players, earning Nevada casinos $2.44 billion. Nickel machines won $1.54 billion and dollar machines won $1.48 billion. (You know this is accurate if you’ve ever tried to get on a nickel Triple Play or Reel ‘Em In machine on a Saturday night!)

A slig

6/8/2001

My computer finally let me access my notes on bounce-back cash bonuses, so here’s the information on this valuable casino perk that I promised you some time ago.

Some people use the term “bounce-back” to describe any cash coupon you get from a casino that requires you to “bounce back” to the casino on another day to cash it. However, many casinos use this method for you to redeem cashback you’ve earned through the players club. I differentiate between EARNED cashback, however you can collect it, and BONUS cash coupons. It’s the latter that I refer to as bounce-back cash.

I’ve been noticing, for the past couple of years, that a bounce-back cash “war” has been going on all over the U.S. This is due, in my opinion, to a weak economy and to the increased number of casinos vying for gamblers’ hearts and wallets. I see it most in gambling venues that cater to casino daytrippers: Atlantic City, riverboats everywhere, and even some Native American casinos where there’s competition.

However, nowhere is it stronger than in Vegas, where most locals casinos, and even some of the Strip casinos, are getting on the bounce-back cash bandwagon. Although some “tourist” casinos send bounce-back cash coupons to out-of-towners, Las Vegans are being heavily courted with big cash. For example, our own “welfare” checks (that’s what we locals call them) run from a monthly total of $700 to way more than $1,000 for our $1-and-up play of about 20-25 hours a week. Even quarter players, especially those who put in mucho hours, are finding substantial cash bonuses in their mailboxes. Since most of the locals casinos send these only if you have a local address, a good number of players from nearby states and/or who visit Vegas a couple of times a month get a local mailbox so they can collect these goodies.

The first of every month I spend a good chunk of time scheduling the redemption of all of our bounce-back cash coupons, since they always have a specified pickup time, ranging from one day only to a usual period of three to four days, and sometimes all month. I combine these with coupons we want to use and promotions we want to take advantage of, so our running around to more than one section of town in a day is decreased. However, sometimes we have to make a decision whether a cash coupon is worth a special trip to the other side of town. This is where couples have an advantage, because often their two coupons make it a more frugal trip than for one. Speaking of couples, although many casinos give separate bounce-back cash coupons for play by both members of a joint slot club account, not all do. This is yet another reason to ALWAYS have separate slot club accounts.

Who gets how much bounce-back cash and why is one of the most mysterious questions in a casino. Although it’s usually based on the premise that the more you play the more you get, bounce-back coupons are also sometimes given for “we-haven’t seen-you-for-awhile” and “how-about-visiting-one-of-our-company’s-casinos-in-another-area.” Even the ones based on your play seem to be the work of mad-scientist researchers in a marketing department somewhere in the dark bowels of a casino. Demographics they say! I like to change the color of my hair just to mess up their demographics that says a brunette doesn’t need more cash incentives than a blonde!

Okay, I get wound up discussing casino marketing. I’ll go to the garage to do some sorting and packing and pitching to wind down. Tune in next week and I’ll give you a list of Vegas casinos that send out bounce-back cash and all the details that I have been able to uncover in my never-ending self-assigned task of trying to understand casino marketing.”

6/15/2001

Last week I promised you the skinny on Vegas casinos that send out bounce-back cash coupons. This is either information that I’ve gleaned from actual personal experience or have received from reliable sources. Where I’m unsure of a fact I put a question mark within parentheses. I make no guarantees that this information is 100% accurate or complete when you read it. I wouldn’t put it past some casino marketing departments to read about themselves herein, then immediately change their bounce-back policies.

1. Suncoast and Gold Coast — You must have a local address to receieve the regular monthly mailing; three levels based on a quarterly coin-IN requirement (although slot club points are based on coin OUT — we wouldn’t want to make it easy, would we?); amounts range from $5 to $25 — food, show, and gift offers included. Ask at the slot club desk for the coin-in amount to reach each level and the cut-off date for qualifying for each month. They don’t necessarily remain the same month to month.

2. Orleans — You must have a local address to receive the regular monthly mailing; amounts range from $5 to $25 — food, show, and gift offers included. Presently the three-level plan is based on lifetime points, but I expect it to change in the future to the plan used by the Suncoast and Gold Coast.

3. Barbary Coast — Local address is probably needed(?); out-of-towners get free room and food offers instead; irregular mailing schedule, but often monthly; amounts range from $5(?) to $25. The amount of play needed and cutoff dates are unknown (at least to me.)
4. Hard Rock — Has sent monthly mailings (usually) to regular local players and on a more irregular schedule for out-of-towners; amounts have ranged from $25 to $100, but the marketing department prides itself on changing its offers so you won’t “get bored.” So each month is a surprise. I call it the “play-and-hope” bounce-back program.

5. Station Casinos — Usually sends only to locals, but I’ve heard of some out-of-towners getting them occasionally. Often you get four to six cash coupons in one monthly mailing, plus bonus-point and food coupons. They’ve just put in new system with five clearly defined and published levels, but cash amounts and specific benefits for each level are a big secret and they seem to change frequently. Station sometimes supplements its monthly mailings with other coupon mailings, but no one can figure out exactly what it takes to get them. Station Casinos does not give earned cashback. However, despite all the unknown elements, the Station bounce-back program seems to be a very good one, with more cash benefits than many casinos that also give earned cashback.

6. Fiesta Henderson (it will always be the Reserve to me) and Fiesta Rancho — Although both are owned by the Station conglomerate, they’re supposed to be a separate “brand,” with its own slot club program. From the looks of the club that was started at the Fiesta Rancho, then immediately suspended for revision, I predict that it will be very similar to the all-Station one. I know the Fiesta Henderson is trolling hard to bring old Reserve customers back, with generous “please-come-back” bounce-back cash coupons. Brad and I EACH got five $50 coupons to use one each week last month. We were in Vegas to pick up the first $300; I cried all the way home over the last $200 we had to miss because of coming back to Indiana.

I just realized that I could probably write a book about bounce-back cash — and I do talk a lot about it in Frugal 2. So — I’ll cut this off for now and start-up again next week with some more specific information about casinos bounce-back programs I have known and loved.

6/22/2001

Sometimes I feel overcome by information about Vegas and casinos and gambling. My head gets so full that it threatens to explode. My files, likewise, threaten to explode my computer; my old-fashioned filing cabinets are bursting with cardboard file folders. For example, the main problem with bounce-back cash is that it’s constantly changing. I’ve had to add, subtract, and change information since I started writing on the subject in this column just two weeks ago. But I am going to finish talking about bounce-back cash in this column. Much as I love this casino benefit, I’m getting tired writing about it — at least for now.

This week I was going to talk about more casinos that have bounce-back programs and their specifics.. However, the list is getting too long — I haven’t really added it up, but it seems to me that more casinos are using this marketing tool than aren’t. It’s rapidly becoming as common as slot club benefits — in fact, it is a slot club benefit — one that’s becoming almost as important as comps. Will the Queen of Comps turn into the Queen of Bounce-Back Cash? A little too wordy for a title, probably. But Brad and I can eat only so much free food and go to only so many free shows and attend only so many free parties. The truth is that we now earn more comps than we have the time, energy, or interest to use. But can you ever have too much money? I rest my case.

So, instead of listing details about more specific casino programs, I’m going to recommend a resource that’s one of the greatest aids in keeping you educated in the field of bounce-back cash: www.vphomepage.com. Skip Hughes and John Kelly (Lodestone) have a VP Web site full of current information and mailing lists you can join that will help you find the very best bounce-back cash programs that fit your playing style. The yearly fee to access all the features of this Web site can easily be recouped by learning just one piece of information.

Here’s an example of a recent post from one of the mailing lists:

Fiesta Henderson bounce-back program requirements as follows: $750 coin in per month = $5. (One hour of deuces is all it takes to get the minimum.) $9,000 = $10; $25,000 = $20; $35,000 = $25.

Isn’t that easier than running all over town digging out this information yourself? True, that was the skinny the day this poster found out the information. Will it be the same next month? Maybe. Or maybe not. But when it changes, you can be sure someone will post about the change.

Briefs
Now for some lighter fare: this from CBS.com Home Office Archive.
Top 10 Signs Your Kid Is Addicted to Gambling from “”The Late Show with David Letterman,”” April 5, 1995:
10. Keeps asking if he can double down on some cookies.
9. Has converted hamster’s treadmill into a crude roulette wheel.
8. For a six-year-old, he seems to know too much about jai-alai.
7. His school lunches are comped [wonder why I like this one?].
6. Knows the Vegas odds on where Waldo might be.
5. There’s a bookie sleeping in his treehouse.
4. Changed his middle name to “”The Greek.””
3. He’s nine and he’s dating a showgirl.
2. Says things like, “”Daddy needs a new skateboard.””
1. He likes to ride Amtrak.

6/29/2001

It’s time for cleaning out my Frugal Fridays files.

I’m hearing rumblings about the Coast properties looking to merge their slot clubs. No date given. Mostly questions. Will they have just one card–a la Station’s Boarding Pass? Will the Barbary Coast, a Strip casino catering to out-of-town tourists instead of Vegas locals, be included? Some say it won’t, because it’s ripe to be sold? Will all the casinos continue to offer cashback and bounce-back cash? Will they continue to offer good VP schedules that give a gambler who is willing to study hard a good shot at winning? Brad and I are looking forward to the answers, because we play a lot at all four Coast Casinos. With the Orleans a short 15-minute walk from our condo, we would love to be able to earn comps at any of the four casinos and use them as a convenient dinner choice there.

Troubled by dry air in your Vegas hotel room? Linda, an e-mail friend, offers a couple of easy suggestions for dealing with this problem: 1) Turn on shower before going to bed and open door to add humidity to room. (You can also do this to take wrinkles out of clothes. Hang them on hangers, leave the hot shower on for five minutes, turn off the shower, then keep the door closed.) 2) Fill an ice bucket with water, place a towel partially in it, and leave it near the beds so water will evaporate. 3) Place a wet towel over air duct/vents.

You can use your Station’s slot club points for a car wash at Boulder Station.

From a poster on Skip’s VP List: “There is an art school in St. Tropez and many of its students attempt to hawk their wares to tourists. As you might expect, they always try to get tourists to pay top dollar though the quality of the work can be hit-or-miss. For this reason the French sometimes use the term “”St. Tropez”” to refer to something that is high-priced, but of questionable quality. Therefore, I was a bit amused to see a buffet at the Suncoast called “”St. Tropez.”” Fortunately, despite its name the buffet is reasonably priced with decent food!”

You haven’t played very much and just plan to pay for your meal, but the buffet line seems endless? Don’t forget one of the easiest comps to get–a buffet line pass. Go ahead and ask a pit boss or slot host if you can have just a line pass. I’ve never known one to refuse–it doesn’t cost the casinos a dime. And once in a while, you might find the host in a generous mood and they’ll make out a comp for the buffet too!

Don’t forget July 1 is the deadline for booking the Frugal Gambler Cruise to get the early-bird saving of $50. See May 4th column in the Archives if you missed the details of this fun trip coming up in February.

Our smile for the week comes from FullofJokes.com:

Six guys are playing poker when Smith loses $500 on a single hand, clutches his chest, and drops dead at the table.
Showing respect for their fallen comrade, the other five complete their playing time standing up.
Roberts looks around and asks, “”Now, who is going to tell the wife?””
They draw straws. Rippington, who is always a loser, picks the short one.
They tell him to be discreet, gentle, and not to make a bad situation any worse than it is.
“”Gentlemen! Discreet? I’m the most discreet man you will ever meet. Discretion’s my middle name. Leave it to me.”
Rippington walks over to the Smith house and knocks on the door. The wife answers and asks what he wants.
Rippington says, “”Your husband just lost five hundred dollars playing cards.”
She hollers, “”TELL HIM TO DROP DEAD!”
Rippington says, “”OK.””

4/6/2001

I just realized this is Frugal Fridays column # 54. Can it be possible that I’ve been talking to all of you every week for a whole year? Anniversaries seem to bring out the tendency to ruminate, but I really don’t have time to do that. However, I thought I might “celebrate” by answering some of the questions you all have had about the writing of this column.

Q: Do you ever run out of things to write about?
A: I just counted the notes in the hard-copy and computer files named Frugal Fridays. 329! Sometimes I never even get to my note files because so much is happening in Vegas in real time.

Q: Do you get tired of writing this column?
A: I have to stop writing this column at 2 in the morning! Yes, I get tired — but never tired of writing this column. It is my favorite writing task.

Q: Why don’t you write more basic information for the beginning gambler? Or, your column is too simple: Why don’t you give us experienced gamblers more advanced gambling and comp techniques?
A: I can’t write to fit every reader’s specific gambling situation every Friday. As it is, I always spill over the 500-word length that Anthony originally suggested. But hopefully, after a number of columns, I will have written something to help the slot player as well as the video poker player, something to interest both the beginning gambler and the seasoned pro. I try to touch on many different games, both machines and tables. I try to give information for the new Vegas tourist and for the local who has lived here for years. I address issues that interest the casual casino visitor looking purely for entertainment, as well as the intense gambler dedicated to the goal of making a profit.

Q: Why do you talk about your own experiences so much? Or, what is it really like being a gambler living in Vegas?
A: I love writing in what I call the diary or journal style, which I use in this column. There are plenty of other places where you can read articles about gambling in a more traditional journalistic style — shoot, I write them myself in Strictly Slots and Casino Player. But people seem to like proof that what an author writes about is not just all theory. That’s why I tell you about our life in Vegas, warts and all. You all know that we don’t gamble every day, that we have long losing streaks, that we make mistakes — in short that we are “regular” human beings who just happen to have video poker as their favorite hobby.

I plan to continue writing Frugal Fridays with the same purpose that I have had since column #1: to throw out umpteen helpful ideas that can be used in a casino. I hope that many of you will catch at least some of these ideas, making your casino visits more entertaining and more profitable.

Remember: To be a successful gambler, you never stop studying and learning.

4/13/2001

Bounce-Back Cash

The good free-credit coupons from the Venetian I told you about several weeks ago got me thinking about one of my favorite casino promotions — bounce-back cash. The name is self-explanatory: The casino uses a cash incentive to get you to “bounce back” through their doors. Let me tell you, it gets Brad and me into a casino faster than almost anything else.

In Vegas we locals call them our “welfare” checks. Brad and I together regularly get at least $1,000 a month, with hundreds more some months, depending on the irregular mailings of some casinos. The first of every month I spend a good chunk of time scheduling all of them on our calendar since most of them have a specified pickup time, ranging from one day only to a usual period of three to four days and sometimes all month. Most of the bounce-back checks in Vegas come from the locals casinos, and you can get them only if you have a local address. (This is why a lot of players from nearby states and/or who visit Vegas a couple of times a month get a mailbox here!) However, some casinos do send these coupons to out-of-towners, usually with a much longer period for picking up your cash.

Casinos have a sliding scale for the dollar amount, depending on your level of play. Sometimes one coupon is sent monthly; other times your monthly or “sometimes” mailing will have four to six coupons to use at specific periods over a month’s time. Most come with additional coupons for meal comps and many include coupons for free or reduced-rate show tickets and other casino activities and benefits, none of which reduces your regular cashback or comp bank.

These bounce-back cash coupons come out of the casino marketing department, which decides what criteria is fed into the computer that generates an electronic mailing list. You really have to search to find out what kind of play it takes to progress up the ladder and get increasingly better benefits. Sometimes you can get details by asking a supervisor at the slot club or talking with your host, but often the fastest way to get this information is to join an Internet bulletin board that discusses casinos and gambling. By this sharing of information, often a casino’s “secret formula” can become known. Skip’s VP List and Lodestone’s are my frequent haunts to get this sort of valuable information. (Go to www.vphomepage.com to subscribe.)

However, much of the time, who gets what coupon seems to be a deep dark secret in the bowels of casino marketing, and you have to “experiment” with different play amounts to detect a pattern. Recently Brad and I each got a bounce-back cash coupon from a casino — mine was a large one and Brad’s was a small one. You might assume that I had played a lot more at that casino than Brad had. Wrong! Actually I hadn’t played at that casino for many months. Explanation: Brad’s coupon was a reward for his recent play — mine was a “we-missed-you-and-want-you-to-come-back” coupon.

Next week I’ll talk about some of the best bounce-back cash opportunities in Vegas, with details to help you make money by being a “bouncer.”

A Brief
From the there-must-be-a-VP-god-for-hapless-players department, this incident was related by an Internet friend: “Saw a woman get dealt 3 queens, a six, and a jack. I guess she knew she should hold the 3 queens, but her son’s name must be Jack, so she decided to hold that too! She hit the fourth queen!”

4/20/2001

I know last week I promised you a list of good bounce-back cash casinos—but my computer is acting up and hiding things from me. So there will just be lots of briefs for a couple of weeks until I can get it fixed and am able to access my lost notes.

BRIEFS
The Las Vegas Hilton has revamped its cashback system and I give it an A+ for simplicity and generosity. Cashback is 1.1% for all denominations of slot machines and .55% for all video poker. This is the highest cashback offered for slots in Las Vegas; only the Golden Nugget downtown beats the video poker cashback with its .66%.

Attention all closet Double Double Bonus players: You can now play DDB in the open without trying to avoid the disapproving stares of all your advantage-player friends. The Regent has put in a brand new version, 10/6 instead of the previous best of 9/6. This new version will put you just a smidgen over 100%. The Regent gives .25% cashback, and your best bet is to go on Tuesdays this month when they’re giving double points. A warning: This game takes twice the bankroll of Double Bonus and has a slightly lower return.

Late-breaking (and shocking) news: Harrahs, the Rio, the Riviera, and the Frontier have tacked on a $3-a-night surcharge to their room rates to cover the surge in electricity rates. Watch for other casinos to follow suit.

I’m waiting for a week or so to go back to the Orleans. The switchover to the same system found at the Suncoast and Gold Coast is not going smoothly. First, you MUST get new cards—the old ones won’t work—and the lines are out the kazoo. What’s worse, a major computer crash is causing a delay in redeeming any points. When the system is back up and working, you can keep your old comp points to use for meal comps, OR you can take a 20% reduction and collect them in cash. The latter is a good deal for us, since we have more food comps all over town than our waistlines can stand.

Say it ain’t so: At Terrible’s last week Brad and I earned our points for each of our $5 coupons for gas, but we never got to the slot club to get the certificates! The two times we tried the lines were so long that we would have had to wait 30-45 minutes. We decided our time could be spent in more valuable gambling activities. So, Terrible’s, we’re going to visit you once a week to use our $25 matchplays. We’ll drive a bit out of our way for a $24-EV quick stop, but we won’t be playing any of your video poker machines, even though you have some good schedules, until you solve the problems of your overwhelming success.

Don’t bring the kiddies. If you want to see a topless show in a casino in Vegas, but can’t stay awake past 8 p.m., go to the Flamingo any day but Sunday at 2 or 4 p.m. Bottoms Up is a slightly risque mini-production show of music and comedy and a first for bare breasts in Vegas afternoon casino entertainment. Only $12.95.

Do take the kiddies — and right away: The marshmallow factory in Henderson will close sometime in June 2001. First goes the potato chip factory, then the cranberry plant, and now my grandchildren’s favorite factory tour. The only good ones left are the Ethel M Chocolate Factory, where you get a free candy sample, and the Ron Lee’s World of Clowns — no samples, but it does have a merry-go-round ($1). The only other merry-go-round in town that I know of is in the Belz Outlet Shopping Mall south on the Strip past Mandalay Bay.

In the get-a-life news, from a gambling e-newsletter: “[Name deleted to protect the guilty] will offer goldfish racing live on the Internet via streaming video. There will be two races of six fish every day. Six different colored fish line up at one end of an aquarium behind a barrier and are released to swim freely. The first fish under the bridge at the other end of the tank is the winner. Each fish will start the racing season with 5-1 odds.

As the season progresses, a form guide will b

4/27/2001

Best Hint for the Week: Never give up on a casino completely. I’m getting reports right and left of good casino changes. Boulder Station, which hasn’t had full-pay deuces for years, just put them in. The Regent took out most of their good VP at one time; now they can’t get good machines back in fast enough. Several months ago I heard that Bellagio had taken almost all video poker players off their list for mailed offers; now I hear about VP players getting all sorts of generous offers of free-play credits. The Aladdin opened with dismal VP; soon they had to put in the better-paying 9/6 machines. You might’ve avoided Station Casinos because they didn’t offer cashback for their slot club points; now the bounce-back cash program puts them on a par, or even higher, than many casinos that do give cashback. Silverton did away with cashback, but they’re running some terrific promotions, giving same-as-cash-in-your-pocket gift certificates that are quick to earn and end up being the highest non-cashback “cash” percentage in town.

Sure, some casinos are cutting benefits. Sure, good video poker machines on the dollar-and-higher levels are disappearing too fast. Sure, some casinos are excluding any machine that might be good from their bonus-point promotions. But Brad and I are finding more good opportunities than we have time to take advantage of.

My advice: Don’t become “married” to one casino; Vegas is the place to flirt with them all!

BRIEFS
Club Mandalay has discontinued the promotion in which they gave 3x points for new members earning their first 200 points. However, I heard one report of someone using the “Just Ask” technique and got the extra points anyway.

Don’t panic! It was a false rumor that the full-pay deuces at the Trop had been removed. The $1 9/6 WERE removed, but the deuces are still there — for now. The few scattered ones are in deteriorating condition.

I’ve been working on the comp section in Frugal 2 — it turns out to be a fat one — and have asked some of the Internet forums I’m on for input about comps for casino attractions. One member said he has received mailed room offers that included the shark exhibit at Mandalay Bay, the Star Trek ride at the Hilton, and the King Tut exhibit at Luxor. Others have said that they’ve gotten comps from their host for the gondola ride and wax museum at the Venetian — but they must be requested in advance, as there’s special paperwork involved. Many have gotten ride comps from their host at NY-NY and at the Primm resorts on the California border. We have received comps for the movies at Buffalo Bill’s. Again, the key is “ask nicely.”

A Casino that Went the Extra Mile: A friend of mine was playing VP at the Four Queens. Evidently, when he was finished playing, he walked away from the machine, absently-mindedly leaving $250 worth of dollar coins in the tray. Hey, the tray is silver; the coins are silver. I can see myself doing this, but then I can plead old age! Anyway, when he got home a few days later, he had a phone call from the Four Queens, wanting to verify his address. They had checked the “eye in the sky” and the slot club system (good thing he was playing with his card), established it was he who left the money, and wanted to send him a check for $250! All I can say is that my friend is VERY lucky; I just turn around to talk to someone at the Four Queens and there’s a shabbily dressed person waiting to see if I’ll forget to scoop up my coins!”

3/2/2001

A new month — new promotions! Check out “Slot Club Promotions” under Free Stuff on this Web site’s homepage. We’re trying to keep this as accurate and up to date as we can, considering that casinos can and do change and/or cancel promotions without notice. If you notice an inaccuracy or find a new promotion, we would appreciate an e-mail to [email protected] (this will be amended to a more specific e-mail address within a few days).

And if casinos will cooperate, I’ll try to get as much promotional information as I can in advance, to assist out-of-towners in planning their trips. This will not be a 100% success, since many casinos plan their promotions only about a month ahead, some with even less lead-time. But I’m going to work on it; I remember my frustration when we lived in Indiana and I had to guess about the best dates to come to Vegas because of a lack of advance information from the casinos.

I’ve just been working on the chapter about promotions that will appear in Frugal 2. I’ve changed by mind since The Frugal Gambler. Promotions aren’t the gravy in a casino “meal.” They’re the vegetables in a hearty stew called smart gambling. To use another figure of speech, promotions are the lifeblood of our gambling, and even more so since we’ve become Vegas locals.

BRIEFS
The Castaways is running a promotion that gives me another frugal tip to share: Always keep your slot cards when a casino is sold. The Castaways is giving a coffee mug and key chain, plus a chance to win cash and cruises, to anyone who brings in a slot card from the Showboat (the former name of the Castaways). This doesn’t apply only when a casino changes owners or names; it’s also happened when a casino merely changed the name of its slot club. And since casino paraphernalia-collecting is all the rage now, I wish I’d kept every slot club card we had ever had. I bet some of those oldies of long-gone casinos are valuable.

Are you mourning the removal of the popular 10/7 Bar at the Hard Rock? Don’t be discouraged. There are eight new multi-denomination slant-top Game Kings on the main casino floor, just below the VIP room, that include quarter 10/7 DB. Since these are IGT machines, not Bally, the straight flush is the standard 250, not 400. But this is still the best quarter play at the Hard Rock (except for one lonely fuzzy quarter deuces wild machine). Learn very accurate strategy, and with the slot club cashback/comps for VP at .5%, you’ll be able to play with a half-percent edge in a very cool casino.

Do you find that Bob Dancer’s articles in Strictly Slots and Casino Player help you play VP better? Then bookmark http://casinogaming.com/columnists/dancer/index.html and find a long list of very interesting and helpful weekly VP columns that he has written for this Web site over the last year.

A comment on the Internet about the Suncoast by an out-of-town visitor who puts in quite a few hours of VP on most days he is in Vegas: “Their coinless machine system easily (makes it possible) for me to add an hour a day to my playing time.” I’ve been hearing a lot of good reports about being able to get a room comped at the Suncoast with far less play than at other locals and Strip casinos.
A comment posted on the Internet after a Vegas visit, staying at Circus Circus: “All my nightmares are now in pink!”

3/9/2001

Last week I wrote about how important promotions are for the smart gambler. I would like to continue on that subject this week and give some examples of good promotions that are going on in Las Vegas this month.

Vegas locals have an edge in this department, with a large choice of promotions all month long. If they’re retired, they can be very flexible in their playing schedule as well.

Visitors, on the other hand, don’t have as many options. They often can’t take advantage of drawing tickets they earn because the drawing takes place after they leave. They rarely know about promotions far enough ahead to schedule vacation time or get bargain airfares. They often don’t rent a car, and public transportation can be time-consuming.

However, everyone, tourist or local, IF THEY WORK AT IT, can use promotions to put more money in their pockets. Let’s look at some examples:

1. Gold Coast — Double points all month 24/7 is probably the best “all-purpose” promotion this month — a great .5% cashback (CB). There’s good VP to boot — full-pay deuces on the quarter level and 10/7 DB in dollars. Brad and I, as locals now, will play there a lot all month in order to get our lifetime points up to the max level, where their monthly mailing for locals will net us the highest benefits, including $25 each. Visitors staying on the Strip who don’t have a car can take the free frequent shuttle from the Barbary Coast to take advantage of the double points, even though out-of-towners don’t get the monthly mailing coupons.

2. St. Patty’s Day will be a Coast property promotional overdose for us — as is true on most holidays: double points at the Orleans (.4% CB) and the Suncoast (.5% CB), 3X (.75%) at the Gold Coast, and a whopping 4X points (.8%) at the Barbary Coast. All Coast properties have quarter full-pay deuces, and all but the Barbary Coast have dollar 10/7 DB. Holiday bonus-points days are good times for locals to work at moving up to higher levels for the valuable Coast property monthly mailings and/or to put some play on their cards to keep qualified for the mailings. Visitors who can play on holidays will qualify faster for room comps.

3. Silverton has 3X points on Tuesdays and Thursdays all month. You can also get 5X points on Mondays IF you ask for a coupon sheet at the club AND you register with the 5X-points coupon before you start playing. Don’t count on these extra points for use right away — it may take up to a week for them to manually add them to your account. Silverton no longer gives cashback, just comp points, so we don’t play there much; Brad says we probably won’t live long enough to use all the comp points we already have in our Silverton comp bank. That fact — and the thought of very long lines — kept us from getting excited about one coupon on the sheet — a totally free (not buy-one-get-one-free) brunch or dinner buffet any Sunday in March. We also didn’t get to use one coupon that we would have liked; a 4-to-a-royal “miss” gets you a pewter keychain, one that we would have added to our growing collection of casino keychains.

However, there’s one coupon on that coupon sheet I mentioned, one that all slot club members can get at the slot club, that got us back to Silverton fast: Earn 1,000 points on one Friday in March and you can get a $25 Home Depot gift certificate. We double-dipped this promotion by using the LVA 50-coin-bonus coupon while we were earning our 1,000 points. This promo is worth the drive for locals, as well as tourists with rental cars. I suggest you don’t wait to do this on the last Friday of the month. Silverton is known for “running out” of both the coupon sheets and gift certificates.

There are bonus point days at many other casinos– click on Slot Club Promotions at the top of the homepage — and many other promotions around town. Are you getting your fair share of all that promotional money?

3/16/2001

ALL BRIEFS

St. Patty’s Day is tomorrow and many casinos have special promotions. The biggest might be the free St. Patty’s Two-Day Bash downtown, sponsored by the Fremont Experience. They advertise free entertainment on two stages: on Friday March 16th from 7 to 11 p.m., Kinship and Craicmore are playing, and on Saturday March 17th from noon to 3 p.m., it’s the Twilight Lords and Craicmore, then from 4 to 8 p.m. it’s Brother and Kinship. (Never heard of these bands — but then I don’t think there has been any good music since the Four Freshmen!) At the block party will be food and drink specials and, of course, green beer.

Terrible’s Casino has some terribly good promos. If you got a copy of the February/March coupon magazine, that alone will keep you busy. The best coupon for us was the one where you trade 500 points (worth 50 cents if you turn them in for cashback) for a $5 gas coupon — we got one each for a $9 bonus. However, a warning. You cannot use the gas coupons at just any Terrible’s. It must be one that does NOT have a car wash — the girl at the slot club desk says all the stations with car washes were sold, although they get to keep the Terrible’s name. How confusing!

Other good Terrible’s specials, and you don’t need a coupon for them, include a 6-pack of Pepsi (diet or regular) for 50 points (limit 2 per person per week). A case a week for us for 20 cents! We’re going to have to give it away or float away. There are also ridiculous wine specials and food bargains. We go and play at 5X points after 9 p.m. and earn enough in a few minutes to get all the specials we can handle for the week. That means just one trip to the slot club, so we can be patient if there’s a small line. Food comps are good for a week.

Never book a room or spend money in a casino restaurant or retail store or any casino facility like a spa, childcare center, movie, etc., without whipping out your slot card and asking if it entitles you to a discount. You’ll be surprised at the number of places where this saves you money. It’s yet another good reason for getting a slot club at a casino even if you never plan to play there.

One good promotion that the Stationization of the Reserve has not changed: You can still eat free, meaning the points don’t come off your account, by earning them on Friday for a meal that day or during the next week: 500 points for the buffet, 750 points for Serengeti’s, and 1,000 points for Tusks.

Been hearing some bad reports on the Monte Carlo comping policy — TIGHT! No casino rate upfront, even if you have a history of play there.

Good information from an Internet friend on the Skip Hughes VP List: “You can almost always find phone numbers (and more) for any casino in the world at http://casinocity.com/. Click on Casino Directory, then Location, then either the state or country. (For example, it lists 18 casinos in Romania, in case you ever wanted to know such a thing.)

One can sometimes snag a free room offer by applying for credit at the casino. It doesn’t have to be a large amount — usually $500-$1,000 is enough if you stay away from the major resorts. And you don’t have to use the credit line. This will not work at every casino, but it’s something to try at a casino where you’d like to stay.

I noticed that Vacation Village has a new ad in a recent issue of What’s On, a good freebie magazine. The ad increases the time period, after you arrive in Vegas, during which you can do the free-spin promotion. Without this ad, it’s only 12 hours and that often doesn’t work out for many visitors. But the promo is extended to 48 hours IF you bring a copy of the ad. Look for freebie magazines at the car rental desks at the airport and near bell desks at many hotels.

From the Internet: “In the film Twenty Eight Days, starring Sandra Bullock, one of the characters defines insanity as ‘repeating the same behavior over and over, but expecting different results.’ If this is true, does playing video poker qual”

3/24/2001

I was going to talk about something other than promotions this week. I don’t want to run a subject into the ground. However, Brad just brought in the mail and he had a big smile on his face. He said, “I love being a Vegas local,” then handed me two letters from the Venetian, EACH with 4 coupons of $75 in free slot play at the bottom. We get casino offers almost every day in the mail, but rarely one worth $600 from one casino! No, this isn’t actual cash—but free play in a casino where we plan to put in a certain amount of play anyway is as good as cash to us.

The amazing part of the offer is that Brad and I each got the same amount. We have used Brad’s account, both of us playing on his card, almost exclusively to build up our level of play to where we would get invitations for all their free tournaments and upscale suites and food comps for out-of-town visitors we wanted to impress. In fact, I didn’t even have a card in my own name for a long time. It was only when “Dateline” was filming us at the Venetian last July and we wanted my name to scroll across the card reader that I applied for my own account. (We follow the advice in The Frugal Gambler: when Brad signed up, he did NOT add my name to his account. Therefore, I was able to easily get a second different-numbered account later. Don’t know about the Venetian, but some casinos give you a very hard time if you want to change a joint account to separate ones.) And the only time my card was ever played was when I was “tutoring” Bob McKeown, the “Dateline” correspondent, in proper VP strategy — probably 10 minutes at the longest.

These identical mailings illustrate two important facts. First, we probably doubled our cash value because of having separate accounts. Some casinos do consider the individual play of each person in a joint account and reward EACH of them with separate mailings. However, the majority of casinos will send only one offer per joint account. This is especially true with room offers; we would have never been able to stay in casino hotels for such long periods through the years if we hadn’t used the separate-account tactic.

Second, never expect to understand completely the criteria casino marketing departments use for promotions, such as type of offer, timing of offer, or recipients of offer. These Venetian coupons are for April. That is not ordinarily a slow month for tourists in Vegas, but I could guess maybe that the Venetian doesn’t have as much convention business booked as usual. Or, maybe the stock market drop or the expansion of Indian casinos in California IS making Vegas casinos scramble to fill rooms, as some financial experts say. In the letter that came with the coupons, they say, “There’s never been a better time to be a local than spring in Vegas,” so I know it’s a local-only offer. But then they say they’re “rewarding you for being such a valued player.” Brad’s I can see — we’ve put hundreds of thousands of dollars through their machines and are net losers there at the moment. There’s only 10 minutes of play on my card there last July — true it was $5 Triple Play (we were playing with NBC’s money) — but we won over a thousand dollars. When I can’t figure out why Brad and/or I get an offer, I just kick back and enjoy the money!

Parting Shot: Researchers at the University Of Minnesota have found that a drug named naltrexone, commonly used to treat alcoholics and drug addicts, often reduced the urge to gamble in people with a gambling addiction. I like the reaction to this, on Skip’s Internet VP List: How about a “”winning pill”” to treat long losing streaks in VP? Now THERE is a useful pharmaceutical research project.

*** FLASH * FLASH * FLASH ***

We’ve just heard from “”Dateline.”” The segment featuring Jean Scott is scheduled to run this Tuesday evening (March 27). Check your local listings. You can also go into the Frugal Friday’s Archives to read about the shoot.

3/30/2001

The flood of e-mails is threatening to drown me. So to save my sanity — and not delay the finish of Frugal 2 even more — I’m using this column to discuss the ““Dateline”” show of last Tuesday night.

First, I want to thank everyone who wrote to say nice things about our segment — and who didn’t criticize those much-too-busy touristy outfits we were wearing. Next time I won’t depend on the fashion judgments of an all-male crew!

Although we felt the 10-minute piece (if you don’t count all those “hook” previews) gave a good overall view of what our life in a casino is all about, obviously there were some inaccuracies and significant gaps of information. Someone wondered if “Dateline” purposely gave it a more positive “spin,” as the media is often accused of doing — and is often guilty as charged. I didn’t see any of that here; inaccuracies were the result of a whole crew who knew almost nothing about gambling in general and absolutely nothing about “smart” gambling. They were with us for two long days (last summer) and I was “teaching” as fast as I could talk the whole time — I’m sure you can believe that!

Someone wondered why they wouldn’t have had us look over the piece before it airs. Sounds like a good idea, but it just doesn’t work that way. You would have to be a world leader, I imagine, before you would be permitted to “edit” a story; the media prides itself on its independence.

Okay, now to the specifics. No, we don’t “make a living” gambling. And no, we did NOT buy our condo with one monster jackpot hand; we grind out small wins that turn into big figures — sometimes! — over a period of a year or two. No, “Lucky Lady” was not a good title for the piece. I would have liked them to show more clearly how I was teaching Bob McKeown proper strategy and how I kept him from keeping a pair of nines in that dealt 4-card straight-flush hand. It WAS luck that on this particular hand we made that one straight flush. But it was skill that allowed that luck to happen. Someone suggested a better name for me would be “Frugal Optimizer.”

One glaring error was saying we usually play $1.25 a hand, 600 hands an hour, and sometimes for eight hours a day. I’d told Bob that this was the way we did it when we first started many years ago. Obviously, you wouldn’t get all those luxurious comps they showed, at the Venetian or any other high-level resort casino, playing single-line quarters. The crew never did really understand how much money we would put through a machine when we play $1 Five Play at $25 a hand just a few hours a day, a more common routine for us these days. And we don’t do that every day.

Do we ordinarily play $5 Triple Play? The camera crew spent two hours setting up the cameras before I came along and saw that they had chosen a FIVE-DOLLAR Triple Play machine for me to use to teach Bob how to play VP. (The previous day I mentioned just in passing that it had a good VP schedule.) We balked at playing $75 a hand. We’ll make some sacrifices for a TV shoot, but we do have our monetary comfort limits for such a short period of time. So the producer ponied up $1,000 of NBC’s money — and the United Way ended up being the real winner.

Do we do TV shows for the money? Actually, it always costs us because they’re very time-consuming. We have NEVER been paid to be on any TV show. My appearance on “To Tell the Truth” was under the same arrangement as for any other guest: What you earn depends on how many people don’t guess who you really are. I fooled only two of the panelists — so I got $666.66.

However, usually (not always) The Frugal Gambler is mentioned and even prominently pictured, as it was on “Dateline.” And so we benefit by the increase in book sales; Frugal jumped to #2 on amazon.com (it’s hard to beat that Harry Potter kid!) and, as I write this Thursday afternoon, it’s still #3.

In case you missed the show, you can go to http://www.msnbc.com/news/549115.asp#BODY where they have a still shot and

2/2/2001

Alert!

By the time you read this, Station Casinos will have taken over the Reserve. I’m going to reserve judgment (I’m not sure whether that’s a pun intended or not!) on whether this will be a positive event for serious video poker players — or, as so many of them fear, it will be another good playing opportunity biting the dust. I try to stay positive until the negative hits me over the head.

Anyway, you still have time to pick up any cashback you’ve earned –until the end of February. Five-times-points Mondays are history, but according to a reliable source, Senior Days last until the end of February, along with the Friday food specials at the buffet, Serengetti and Tusk. I hope none of these restaurants will be changed. The Reserve was one of our favorite places to eat.

The Stationization of the Reserve, Fiesta, and Santa Fe has been the subject of much discussion everywhere, especially on the Internet, where it seems easy to moan and groan about changes in casinos. I understand the human tendency to hate change. We all have our favorite casinos, with our favorite machines and/or promotions, and our favorite restaurants. However, the casino landscape is one of the most changeable scenes in the world. We all have to learn to adjust. We don’t play at the same casinos now that we did 18 years ago when we first came to Vegas. Some of them no longer even exist! And those that are still intact certainly are not the same as they were then.

But we remember that it’s not just the casinos that change. Gamblers change too. We have different goals now that we live in Vegas. Back when we were tourists, we played where it was easiest to get room comps. Now we like the cashback feature better. We used to play only quarters; now we look for playing opportunities at a higher level.

The only thing that stays constant is change!

From the Skip Hughes VP List

Question: About the Stratosphere offer to refund your losses during your first half-hour of play. Do you have to play for 30 minutes? Suppose you lose $120 in 10 minutes and quit playing. Do you still get the rebate?

Answer: I played the dollar slots and lost $120 in 10 minutes. I sat at the machine, with my card in, for the next 20 long and irritating minutes. I got my rebate.

This next update comes from an FF reader, commenting on the free tours to Stateline and Laughlin given by Guaranteed Tours that I wrote about in the Dec. 8 column: “The fine print stipulates: Free for those over 21 ($15 for ages 2-20); $2 ‘fuel surcharge’ per person, and you need a coupon for each person.” You can print the coupons from their Web site at www.guaranteedtours.com; click on “Specials.” They advertise a free Hoover Dam tour, but that’s a fooler: It’s buy one, THEN you get one free.

If you want to read a most amusing report of an interview with Brad and me, go to http://www.vny.com/cf/news/upidetail.cfm?QID=153887. This is by Joe Bob Briggs, homepage http://www.joebob-briggs.com. And if you know his quirky humor, you’ll realize that he has twisted, somewhat, a few of the facts of our life. However, a lot of it IS true! He refers to us as Brad and Jean Smart. Some wag commented that this must be a pseudo-pseudonym.

Angela, the Frugal Princess, will be the guest columnist next week, since Brad and I will be out of contact with the world, relaxing on a cruise ship touring the Hawaiian Islands. Seven long glorious carefree days without my computer, the first time it will not be in close reach since I got it several years ago.

Aloha!

2/9/2001

Guest columnist Angela Sparks (The Frugal Princess)

LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER — Part 1

What the Queen Has Taught the Princess.

Since Mom and Brad are taking a well-deserved vacation and are cruising around the Hawaiian Islands, I was tapped to be guest columnist for a couple of weeks. I thought it might be helpful if I shared with you this week some of the important things that I, as a beginning gambler, have learned from the Queen.

Like all daughters, I’ve learned so much from my mother that I can’t even remember it all. Some of my most important lessons have been about how to be frugal. I laugh to think of it now, but when I was younger I didn’t realize my mother was even being frugal; I thought everyone spent (or didn’t spend) money the way she did. So it’s no surprise that she’s taught me all about being a frugal gambler. Here are some lessons I’ve learned over the years that greatly improve my Las Vegas visits.

1. You need to study and read as much as you can before going to any casino or spending your vacation in Vegas.

2. No matter how well, or how badly, you’re doing, you need to take breaks from gambling. Taking a break will help your bankroll last longer and help your concentration when you return.

3. If you don’t know something, ask. If you want something, ask. Mom recommends the “honey, not vinegar” approach. A pleasant, polite, undemanding tone will yield more than a gruff I-deserve-this request.

4. Sightsee all over town, but focus your play in just one or two casinos to maximize your comps. All casinos have a minimum of play required for the comp system to kick in. I learned you should play in one casino until you reach this basic activation level for meal comps. In addition, if you want to start earning free room comps, you need to continue to play at this casino until you reach this higher comp level. Only then do you want to pick up another casino and start working your way up their comp ladder.

5. Hosts have what’s called “the power of the pen,” meaning that they can write out comps for players, depending on their level of play. After you have been playing for awhile, and this time varies according to the size and luxury level of the casino, you can ask a change person to have a slot host paged for you. When the host arrives at your machine, you can find out what comps you’re entitled to.

6. The more you know about the casino’s player reward system, the more you can get out of it. Although some casinos spell out in black and white their criteria for giving out their valuable booty, most do not. The clerks at the slot club desk can often answer many of your questions that the literature doesn’t address. But it often requires talking to a host to get the most details.

7. The casino WANTS to give you comps to reward you for playing with them. You can get free drinks, even if you’re a penny bettor. Or you can get a beautiful luxury suite in the hotel if you’re a higher gambler (or the daughter of high-level gamblers!). Even as a low-level gambler, I’ve come home from a trip to Vegas with enough free casino gifts to give souvenirs to every child on the street!

8. You cannot get anything from a casino if they don’t know you’re playing there. Join the slot club at every casino you walk into, even if you don’t think you’d ever play there. Every time you do play and put your player’s card in the machine while you play, the casino knows you’re giving them your valuable business — and they’ve already put it into their budget to reward you.

9. Couponing is one of the best ways to stretch money in a casino, because it allows you to gamble in such a way that you, not the house, have the edge, often a large one. I’ve learned to be tough competition for the casinos while I’m on a coupon run.

Next week I’ll talk about a possibly surprising subject — what the Queen has learned from the Princess.

2/17/2001

Guest columnist Angela Sparks (The Frugal Princess)

LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER — Part 2

What the Princess Has Taught the Queen

Last week I talked about what I’ve learned from my mother, Jean Scott, about gambling — and I could have filled many more columns. But although I’ve learned most of what I know about casino gaming from Mom, she’s learning a few things from me too. She says I’m teaching her a new, more relaxed, way of looking at life in general and gambling in particular. (It’s also possible that my presenting her with two grandchildren has also greatly contributed to this new more carefree person!)

Here are some of what I think the Queen has learned from the Princess, either things that are brand new to her or things that perhaps she’s forgotten from her early Vegas days.

1. Most people go to casinos strictly for entertainment. They go to Vegas to have fun. Therefore, they don’t want to make gambling too much “work.”

2. The new nickel slots can be good inexpensive entertainment. I told Mom she could never write a good chapter on slots for her next book if she had never played them. So she and Brad took $200 and played slots for research purposes. Well, they had so much fun, especially with the new video slots. They said they enjoyed being abducted by aliens, playing a round of Yahtzee while the dice dance around, catching fish in Reel ‘Em In, and playing Paper Scissors Rock with Hand from the Addams Family. And they still have money left in their “research” bankroll, so don‘t be surprised to see them at JUMBLE or Winning Bid. And Mom can’t wait to try out Scrabble — she hopes it will be as challenging as the board game that is her family’s treasured competitive activity.

3. Not everyone has the bankroll to play positive expectation video poker with any good chance of coming out a winner. This is a long-term proposition for the patient player. So Mom is becoming more understanding of people who want to choose other games, and she’s trying give advice that will help gamblers play any game smarter.

4. Vegas vacations can be great for families with young children, but you have to plan very carefully and realize that some adult activities, such as gambling, will have to be decreased. Some parents take turns in order to supervise the children and fit in gambling too. (Of course the perfect situation is to have doting grandparents who live in Vegas!)

5. Low-denomination players can have just as much fun as those who play at a higher level. I think that watching Steve and me brings back memories of when she and Brad first came to Vegas, short on money AND gambling knowledge. And she remembers how much fun they had for many years as strictly quarter players, although they’ve now progressed to dollars and higher.

The more Mom watches our family in Vegas, the more she sees that I represent the typical reader of gambling writings. I’m the casual casino visitor who’s on vacation and wants to take advantage of the first-class entertainment, the incredible range of dining options, and the unique shopping opportunities that Las Vegas has to offer. Yes, Steve and I like to gamble some too. And I’ve studied video poker and try to play it skillfully. But our gambling is just one part of the whole entertainment package called Vegas.

Mom and Brad will be back in Vegas next week, hopefully tan and well-rested. So I can return to her this task of providing frugal gambling hints every Friday.

2/23/2001

Hawaii was very relaxing — no casino visits for two weeks! Sightseeing, visiting grandchildren, watching umpteen movies — Brad and I enjoyed the change from the intensity of our gambling life. But now we’re back in the thick of things–Vegas.

First, we returned to a very tall pile of mail, a big chunk of it from casinos. This provided a vivid picture of how much of our casino activity depends on being in casino databases. There were the funsheets from the Gold Coast, Suncoast, and the Orleans, which come monthly to Vegas locals. These included coupons for free shows, meal comps, little gifts, bingo, bowling, and, most importantly, cash. The value of the coupon sheets goes up as you increase your lifetime points; we’re at the highest level at the Suncoast and the Orleans, so each of us gets a $25 coupon each month. We don’t play as much at the Gold Coast, so we’re only on the $5 level there. The Coast property mailings are a perfect example why a couple should always join the slot club as separate accounts; we double our coupon cash!

We haven’t played any at Silverton since they did away with good dollar VP and cashback many months ago, but they aren’t giving up on us. We had a total of seven different mailings from them in our stack, including a free birthday buffet for Brad, invitations to a free tournament, and free entries into a cruise drawing. We won’t disappoint them; we’ll play there soon.

We had four pieces of mail from the Hard Rock, both very valuable. Two were coupons for $75 and $100 in free-play cards — Brad and I don’t always play the same amount of time so don’t always get the same coupons. The other two were invitations to the Playboy Music Awards Party. Brad may have just turned 69, but his ears perked up just a little when I said that the April “Girls of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino” and Playboy playmates and bunnies would be at the party. Although we don’t always go to every casino party we get invited to, we’ll probably attend this one!

Station Casinos noticed we hadn’t been to the Reserve for quite awhile — so they sent us both offers for triple points on Mondays and a free buffet for 300 points that wouldn’t come off our cashback balance. It was just like the good ol’ pre-Station days, although these came with a notice that our cashback had to be collected by February 28 or it would be magically turned into comp-only points.

There was an entry-free invitation from the Venetian for a March VP tournament. I immediately e-mailed my host there and accepted this one. Invitational tournaments are one of the big perks that we enjoy since we moved from playing quarters to dollars. Although a heavy quarter player will get some of these invitations, it usually takes dollar play to reach the required level. Our individual tournament equity — total cash prizes divided by number of entries — is often several hundred dollars. Although this is a long-term figure, we play in these often and can add tournament equity to the EV (expected value) of our VP play at that property.

We had a lot more casino mail — but I don’t have time to write about it now. We need to get out of our condo and into the casinos to take advantage of all the offers that have piled up!

1/5/2001

I’ll title this column Bits and Pieces; one of my New Year’s resolutions was to clean out my “Good Ideas for FF” file.

Spin Poker and Fifty Play are the only two multi-line machines that I know of that allow you to play less than the maximum lines and still wager 5 coins per chosen number of lines to get the full bonus on the royal flush. (Matrix may also allow this; I haven’t played it yet.) And I’m guessing that when Hundred Play comes out (and God save us all when it does), you will also be able to play less than the max lines. One caution about multi-line machines:

Overwhelmingly, the paytables range from pretty bad to terrible. You have to look long and hard to find a full-pay. So I suggest you only play them for recreational purposes – and then set yourself a limit that you can afford to lose. I LOVE multi-line VP – but it is certainly “addictive.” I’m afraid that it’s causing many formerly “sensible” VP players to lose control. Multi-line can reek havoc on your bankroll. Tread carefully!

I just found an old letter from someone complaining that I covered the Suncoast so enthusiastically and “it’s way out in the boondocks,” while I never even mentioned the Aladdin, which is right on the Strip. I try to talk about all sort of subjects that appeal to all kinds of gamblers, but I must confess I do talk about VP – GOOD VP – more than anything else. When the Suncoast opened, it had (and still has) literally hundreds of over-100+% VP games; the Aladdin had some of the worst paytables I’ve ever seen. So we play at the Suncoast. Recently Brad and I were invited to a slot tournament at the Aladdin. (They must have gotten our name from a host or casino executive who used to work at another casino where we played.) So we had several days to explore that casino. We thought it was a beautiful property: pleasing theme in the casino (Brad likes belly dancers); comfortable luxury rooms; interesting shopping mall (but like all others in casinos – with too much “stuff” no one needs and overpriced as well). And we were surprised and pleased to find that they’ve added a number of 9/6 jacks or better on the $1 and higher level. Not over 100% – true – but good occasionally when slot club benefits and tournament equity puts them in positive territory. Which casino do I like better now? Well, I can’t be objective at the moment – a few days ago I hit an $8,000 royal at the Suncoast!

Continuous shuffler machines are never good for BJ players. Card counters can’t count when they’re in use. Bad players will lose faster. And even good basic strategy players are playing at a disadvantage, albeit a small one, so they’ll lose more money per hour because they’re being dealt more hands on tables with shufflers. From www.blackjack.casino.com

Do you know there is a difference between the Vegas Hard Rock Hotel and the Vegas Hard Rock Café, the latter being the free-standing retail store/restaurant in front of the hotel on the corner of Harmon and Paradise? The Hard Rock Hotel is a separate company from the one that includes the Hard Rock Cafes all over the world. Watch for this difference when reading the ads and using the coupons in the Las Vegas freebie magazines.

From Norm’s column in the R-J, quoting Howard Crossman, an Atlantic City BJ player: “I don’t gamble. I invest with risk.”

1/12/2001

The good and the bad!

A good quarterly Sahara funbook: You must be a slot club member before the quarter begins to get this good book of coupons. For example, you must be a member prior to April 1 to get the one for the second quarter of 2001. But it’s probably worth the effort for most people to make a special trip to join to be eligible for all future funbooks. There are dining, show, drink, food, and shopping discounts, as well as a coupon for a free painter’s hat. There’s a 2-1 coupon for Speed for you roller coaster fanatics, and 2-1s for virtual rides — for the less adventurous like me! Coupons for keno and table games include $50 in non-negotiable chips for $40 and First Card Is an Ace. A good bonus coupon gives you matching slot club points for your first 100 earned; that turns .25% cashback to .5%.

The bad: The $50 slot bonus coupon for any top-award jackpot sounded good, so I planned to keep it handy while we played a VP machine with a good paytable. However, I must give you this warning. Some people have been extremely disappointed by the Mickey Mouse way some floorpeople have been interpreting this coupon. One player got one royal on the 4-line Lucky Draws, but was refused the bonus. Why? Because “the top jackpot is getting a royal on all four lines.” Another was refused the bonus for a “simple” royal because the machine had a sequential royal jackpot.

I plan to write an article one of these days for a magazine that goes to casino executives. You can bet that I’ll talk about casinos that make their coupons and promotion so complicated they defeat the very purpose of them in the first place — to get people into their casino and feel good about playing there.

BRIEFS
Mandalay Resort Group, a la Harrah’s and Station Casinos, is planning to launch a new slot card system in the spring, one that will connect many, if not all, of their properties in earning and using slot club points. The company is, however, very secretive about the details. (I’m waiting anxiously to use my Mandalay points to see the Blue Man Group at the Luxor. It’s against my religion to pay for a casino show!) I hear that MGM Mirage also has a similar plan in the works.

Read in Casino Player: According to Websense.com, there are 21,000 gambling-related Web sites as of August 2000. This compares to approximately 7,000 such sites just one year ago. No wonder I just can’t keep up.

CAPS (Certified Airline Passenger Service) now has 13 locations where you can use their service. They will take your baggage from a hotel to the airport and check it in with some airlines — all for $6. Airlines include Southwest, American West, Delta, Canada 3000, Royal, Skyservice, Sun Country, and Virgin Atlantic. Participating hotels are the Aladdin, Bally’ s, Flamingo, Imperial Palace, Las Vegas Hilton, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Paris, Riviera, Sahara, Bellagio, and Mirage. They will also pick up luggage at Alamo.

If you tend to overspend while gambling, take some advice from columnist Andrew Glazer: “”If you can’t leave your ATM and credit cards at home altogether, then find a friend to be your designated card-holder.”” http://www.casinowire.com/archive/200012/2140.shtml

From a friend who is putting off visiting Terrible’s, the new locals casino: “It’s just hard for me to imagine going to a place that tells you up front it’s going to be awful.”
1/19/2001

Andy Rooney said, “Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.” I think if Andy had lived in Las Vegas he might have used another word picture — something like life being a perpetual-motion machine whatever your age!

People sometimes ask us what all we do in Vegas. Well, let me tell you about this last week or so.

First, we spent the better part of two days with a camera crew shooting a series on Vegas for the Travel Channel, which will air in May or June. They wanted to show our lifestyle, so they filmed us in our condo and in our garage, which Brad has fixed up as a “casino comp museum.” Then they filmed us in several casinos, explaining and playing “good” VP machines, collecting cashback, asking for comps, and couponing.

We’ve been asked to do many these TV projects recently. They’re fun, but time-intensive and tiring. No, to answer a frequent question, we do not get paid to do them, but hopefully they will mention The Frugal Gambler and help sales of the book The only time I was ever paid to be on TV was the “To Tell the Truth” appearance — and since the impostors and I fooled only two panelists, my share came to $666.67. I may appear in reruns — but there’s no contract for residuals.

My sister and her husband, from Indiana, were in town for most of the week and we guided them to good video poker and helped them learn how to use the comp system, while sharing some of our abundant food, room and show comps. All four of us had an LVA coupon book and I’d collected coupons from various other sources, so we were well prepared for one of our favorite team activities — coupon runs.

We didn’t play as much video poker ourselves this week as we usually do. We played so much in December because of the abundant promotions that we were taking it a bit easier this month. But we did play for five hours at the Orleans on Wednesday since they were giving double points. The Orleans is one of our core casinos, not just because it’s an easy one-mile walk or drive from our condo, but it offers a very good choice of VP games and their slot club benefits are very generous. We also played a couple of three- to four-hour VP sessions at the Rio, since they’ve launched a new very aggressive program of mail benefits for locals. We receive a cash and food coupon a couple of days after each day we play.

We attended two parties at the Hard Rock, the first a special one put on by Peter Morton, the HR #1 guy. The second was a monthly VIP party for very frequent players and it provided me the answer to what to give Brad for his 69th birthday on the 18th. My ticket was picked in a drawing and the prize was a man’s classy black-leather Hard Rock jacket, price tag $395. Brad now calls it the “ultimate” in his casino logo jacket collection.

Then there was working on Frugal 2, writing a Strictly Slots article, and reading and answering a ton of e-mails each and every day. There were our yearly doctors’ visits, the complicated record collecting to close the books of Low Rollers, Inc. to give to our accountant, and talking to our broker about whether to sell one of our casino stocks.

We listened happily to our grandchildren chatter on the phone how excited they are that we can come and visit their school while we’re in Hawaii next month. We did aerobic and weight-lifting activities every few days in our condo complex exercise room and took brisk walks other days. We ate a late breakfast at home every morning and an early dinner every night in a casino, always available free somewhere in town. Brad watched a lot of TV with his eyes closed (his special skill); I read the newspaper every night with one eye on a TV show if it was about Vegas.
And if there was time, I slept, which is what I am going to do when I get this column finished. Good night.

1/26/2001
Last week in this column I mentioned that my sister and her husband, Starr and Garvie, were here in Las Vegas for a week, learning how to play video poker and utilize the comp system. This was the first trip on which they felt they “knew what they were doing.” One or both of them had been in Vegas several times before, but they’d either paid for their rooms or we used our comps to get them free for them. They’d dabbled in video poker and slots some, but craps was their first love, especially for Garvie.

However, since their last trip a year ago, after seeing the condo that we bought with our video poker winnings, they decided that maybe they’d try to follow in our footsteps. They dug out their copy of The Frugal Gambler and started studying. They bought the Dancer Video Poker Reports, Dan Paymar’s book Video Poker — Optimum Play, and WinPoker. They subscribed to Strictly Slots, Casino Player, and the LVA. They soaked up information like a couple of sponges.

I recommended, as I do to all beginning VP players who are going to play in Vegas, that they play only quarters and learn only one game to start, deuces wild. They studied the strategy chart and practiced endlessly on WinPoker until they felt quite confident that they knew the right strategy.

Starr surfed the Internet for information on Vegas, and e-mailed me her questions frequently. She wanted to be as prepared as she could be. “We don’t want to always have to depend on you; we want to start getting comps on our own.”

For hotel rooms they employed a technique that I have found very successful in the past. Through our host at the Orleans, they reserved a room for four nights and were given the casino rate as a courtesy to us. Most casinos will give a casino rate to friends/relatives of good customers (that means gamblers who have a fairly long history of heavy play there). Our host also put our name on the room in addition to theirs. That way, although Starr and Garvie logged a lot of quarter play, which will probably qualify them for future room comps, Brad’s and my higher level of play added enough that they could get all four nights of this visit comped. It’s difficult for a quarter player to qualify for a free room in many “deluxe” casinos on their first visit — especially if they win. Many casinos want to see a history of play over several visits, which I can understand. And they aren’t as willing to comp a winner as much as they do a loser, a growing casino policy that I do NOT understand. (But that’s a subject for another column.)

Their other two nights were at the Frontier, in Brad’s name only, and he played enough both days to keep him qualified for future room offers. However, this allowed them to have time to establish a history at other casinos. They did play enough at the Frontier to qualify on their own for future comped rooms and, at my suggestion, played at the Barbary Coast and Gold Coast, hoping to get mailed offers from those marketing departments. Hopefully, when George Maloof opens The Palms next December, there will be lots of good video poker opportunities and it will provide another casino to add to my list of good places to play.

We have an abundance of food comps to share since we now play at the dollar-and-up level, so we took care of many of our meals together. But they were excited to learn that on one of their days at the Orleans they could earn double points. They earned enough cashback and comps to cover all their meals we hadn’t covered. They agree with us — cashback is king!

All four of us love to coupon together. It’s a great “team sport,” since both couples contribute to the coupon kitty, then divide it at the end of the visit.

Starr and Garvie are back in Indianapolis now, but they’re already studying and planning for their trip here in April. I’m proud of them! They’re doing all the right things. I am happy to continue to be their teacher. After all, what’s a big sister for?

12/5/2000

From a writer on the Net: “The slot club host would really not give me a direct answer and I asked at least three times.”

Communication is one of my most frustrating problems in dealing with the whole comp system. Few casinos have things spelled out anywhere in black and white. Talk to several hosts at the same casino and you’ll get a different explanation from each one. Talk with the same host a month later and you’ll get new explanations. Talk to some of them and you can’t get a direct or helpful answer anytime at all.

This week an out-of-town friend stopped to talk to me while I played VP at a local casino and told me this story:

“Several months ago I talked to a host at this casino and she said she would comp our room for the nine days of our current trip, just as they’d done on our last three trips. We checked in six days ago and started playing our usual number of hours. Today I checked our bill and found out that we weren’t getting all of our nights free. I put in a call for our host and found out she no longer works here. So I talked to another host, who informed me that they had no record of the promised comped nights and, furthermore, our play did not warrant that many free nights. We would have to pay casino rate for four of our days. Case closed.”

My friend was understandably upset. “We could have stayed somewhere else where we can always get free rooms if we’d known in advance.”

I had no words of advice for him at this point. Getting comps is not an exact science and “the best laid plans of mice and men …” I’ve learned to try as hard as I can to “follow the rules” in getting the comps I think I’m earning as I play. And most of the time I get more than I expect. But once in a while, when everything doesn’t work out just the way I think it’s going to, I remember that, after all, comps are “gifts” that the casino gives you. I may decide to go to another casino the next time, but I’ll remain a mannerly guest at this “casino home” and show proper appreciation for whatever I receive.

BRIEFS
I’ve found a new valuable resource, the free weekly CASINOWIRE online newsletter, which provides a great summary of the stories featured on CasinoWire during the past two weeks and links to the whole story if you want more information. Subscribe at http://www.casinowire.com/. I recommend this newsletter especially if you’re not a Vegas local and your local newspaper doesn’t cover gambling news much. This newsletter keeps you up on the casino happenings all over the U.S., with some information I don’t even get in the Review-Journal. They also include some interesting and oft humorous gaming trivia—a sample below.

To make the game of 21 more enticing in the early days, some card rooms began offering a 10-to-1 payout to any player whose first two cards were the ace of spades plus either of the black jacks (the jack of clubs or the jack of spades). That is how 21 came to be known as “”blackjack.””

Staying on the subject of BJ, a quote from Card Player in an article by Arnold Snyder, the Bishop of Blackjack: “One of the weird facts about surrender is that it has very little value to basic strategy players, but immense value to card counters. In this sense, it is similar to insurance, which has no value to basic strategy players (since basic strategy for insurance is simply don’t take it), yet is the most valuable decision a counter can make.”

HEARD THIS WEEK: The funniest “complaint” in a casino. A man was waiting a long time for a hopper fill. When the supervisor came with the bag of money for his machine, he wryly commented, “I sure hope this doesn’t take much longer. I have to catch a plane and fly back home to Florida to vote again.”

12/8/2000

I really should declare a temporary moratorium on writing about gambling in December and just gamble. Inquiring minds might ask why. Well, I’ll tell you. There are so many promotions in Vegas this month that Brad and I shouldn’t even be sleeping. Double and triple points all over, drawings, free gift shopping, invitational tournaments (we’re going to juggle three in one weekend!) — I have to write really tiny to get everything down on my calendar.

From December 11 (when the rodeo leaves town) until the 26th (when people have discharged their holiday obligations and start pouring in), this is one dead city. So casinos try to lure visitors with super promotions. Some are so desperate for customers, in fact, that they’re actually giving rooms away in order to have some warm bodies to gamble, eat, shop, bowl, or attend movies in their casinos.

I like this non-busy time of year here. Casinos put up beautiful holiday decorations and sometimes play carols over their speakers. NY-NY is putting on a lovely free ice show outside in their “harbor.” I watch happy families visiting Santa Claus at Sam’s Town and Excalibur and it helps me not miss my “Army-brat” grandchildren so much. (Besides, we’re going to visit them in Hawaii in February.) But most of all, I enjoy the atmosphere of increased “joy and peace.” Employees — whether Christians or Jews or atheists — seem caught up in the spirit and casinos seem like “kinder and gentler” places at this time, even if you’re losing.

Want to learn more about how the casinos view the December holiday season? Go to http://vh60009.vh6.infi.net/business/docs/inside120300.htm and read a very informative article from the Gulf Coast newspaper the Sun Herald. “You can’t fight Santa Claus.”

BRIEFS
Vegas casino dealers are moving swiftly to organize and demand better pay, benefits, and job security. They’re looking at the bartenders, who are unionized and making at least $14.50 an hour plus tips.

Some casinos offer free prizes, which can be redeemed in their casino, while playing casino games on their Internet sites. Want to know which ones? Send an e-mail to [email protected]. On the subject line of this e-mail just write: subscribe-casino games list. Another one of the multitudes of valuable lists that Billhere provides for free.

Guarantee Tours (775/369-1000 or 800/777-4697) advertises in the Vegas paper that they offer free bus trips to Laughlin, Primm, and Pahrump. All trips include a free buffet lunch. Good way to sample casino offerings outside of, but near to, Las Vegas. They also have 2 for 1 Hoover Dam trips and day trips to the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, and Bryce Canyon National Park. All the freebie magazines also advertise many of these same trips, provided by other companies. We haven’t done a Laughlin bus trip for many years, so I can’t recommend any specific company. However, never pay for a trip to Laughlin. There are always free trips available.

From CASINOWIRE: According to Don Gilmer, Michigan lottery commissioner, the numbers most often bet in the “”Daily 4″” are 1-0-2-8. Why? Because October 28 is the feast day of St. Jude, the patron saint of “”desperate cases”” or “”hopeless causes.””

12/16/2000

The Hard Rock has changed its slot club (again). It’s a simple system.

You earn 1% on all coin-in on a slot machine and ½% on all coin-in on a VP machine. This earned amount then can be “spent” on comps in any Hard Rock Hotel outlet (restaurants, hotel rooms, box office, or retail store), OR taken in cashback; you get the same dollar amount for each. Card readers display points, which are equal to actual values for cash or comps –e.g., 50 points equals $50.

It’s going to be interesting to see if this system is successful. Other casinos with the cash-or-comp system give you an incentive to use your points for comps. For example, points at the Reserve are worth twice as much if used for comps rather than cashback. At the Suncoast and Gold Coast, your points are worth .3% if you use them for comps, and only .25% if you take cash. I’m guessing that the folks at the Hard Rock figure that people will eat in their restaurants, see their shows, and shop in their stores anyway. But if they turn in the points for cash–well, what will they do with it? Put it right back into a machine maybe? It might prove to be a smart move by the Hard Rock.

Do I like this new system? Well, a big “yes” and a little “no.” The system is extremely simple and it’s easy to understand exactly how it works–I wish more casinos would be so up-front. One-half percent is an excellent cashback return for VP; I love high cashback. However, whenever a casino has a cash-or-comp system, I feel a little frustrated. Maybe I’m weird–Brad says I AM weird about being frugal–but if I use my points for comps instead of cashback, I don’t feel that I’m really getting things free. I used to love to go to the Hard Rock spa for a nice long relaxing hour massage because I used comp points that couldn’t be turned into cash anyway. Now I’ll have to think a long time before I shell out $100 for that same luxury, even if I “earned” that money playing VP.

One great feature about this HR slot club change: All comp points accumulated before Dec. 1 have been transferred into the new system with no loss in value, at a rate of $1 for every 250 points. So you might have an unexpected cash holiday gift waiting for you at the Hard Rock slot club desk.

BRIEFS
Note for Vegas locals: December is always a good time to live in Nevada.

Besides the fact that you don’t have to fight snow and sleet, many casino shows (when they aren’t dark) offer 2-for-1 tickets to locals. Special room offers for locals also crop up in the local newspapers. I just saw this one: “$99 for the world’s largest standard hotel room–at the Venetian–through December 21. Must show Nevada ID at check in.” Hey, you don’t have to put up all those sponging relatives who depend on you for a free vacation room.

Proof that it pays to sign up online for a player’s card before a casino actually opens: I just got a large booklet in the mail from Terrible’s, the new “locals” casino that recently opened at Paradise and Flamingo, with pages and pages full of information about their casino and player’s club. (Check the Slot Club Promotions on the lasvegasadvisor.com home page to learn about all of Terrible’s bonus points days.) And there were coupons galore. Although I won’t use those for bingo and discounts on meals and logo wear, I certainly will use some of the gambling offers for matching points. And I’ll make a special trip to use the table-game matchplays. You can use them on any bet up to $25, making each of the 8 coupons for Dec.-Jan. worth about $12+, depending on what game you play them on. That’s a whopping total value of more than $96. Unfortunately, one coupon had expired when the mailman finally decided to deliver the newsletter. Wonder if I can sue the U.S. Govt. for $12!

Great ad writing from the Primm Resorts’ newsletter: “Pump away for a Free Buffet”–that’s how they describe their on-going promotion that gives a 2-for-1 buffet coupon to anyone who buys 10 gallons of gas

12/22/2000

I hate to spoil your holiday celebrations, but I feel I must talk about a depressing subject — taxes. The mailman will be delivering your tax forms very soon now, and before you know it you’ll be facing the task of filling them out. If you’re reading this column, there’s a very good chance that you might have to ponder how gambling wins and losses should be handled on your tax return.

“Oh,” you say, “I don’t have to worry about that. I win sometimes, but my losses are always bigger by the end of the year so I don’t have to mess with it on my tax return.”
Wrong! You better “mess with it,” especially if you hold any of the following mistaken beliefs:
1. If I don’t get any W2Gs (given for a jackpot of $1,200+), I don ‘t have to report any gambling wins.
2. If I do get a few W2Gs, I can just count that total as my gambling income for the year and be safe from an IRS audit.
3. I can lump together all my wins and losses for the year and, if I have a net loss, I don’t need to put wins or losses on my tax return. After all, I didn’t have any gambling income.
4. The IRS can not “catch” me, even if I win a lot of money gambling, as long as it’s done slowly over a considerable period of time in different gambling venues and I get no official forms like a W2G.
5. The IRS knows most gamblers lose over the long term, so they aren ‘t very interested in auditing gamblers.
Instead of my explaining why these beliefs are false, I’m going to steer you to a terrific Web site, one that will probably teach you some surprising facts about gambling and taxes.

Brad and I have been filing as a gambling business for several years, including both our actual gambling wins/losses and the proceeds from writing about gambling. I felt I was very knowledgeable in this area, but, as I read the information on the Website, my eyes were really opened about how complex this whole tax area is and how the IRS is changing its emphasis as casinos proliferate all over the U.S.

http://www.rbstaxes.com/ is the website of Yolanda Smulik-Roche, E.A. and Roger C. Roche, E.A., in their words, “tax consultants specializing in the tax issues that face professional and recreational gamblers.” They’re well-known in the industry for their book, The Tax Guide for Gamblers, which is the most comprehensive book on the subject currently on the market. They’re also known for their articles on gaming tax issues, featured regularly in a number of gaming publications, as well as various gaming Web sites. I’ve been reading their articles in Card Player for several years. They’re now based in Las Vegas, and we plan to pay them a visit to go over our tax situation to see if we are fully compliant!

The whole Web site is chock full of valuable information for gamblers, including the new agreement between Canada and the U.S. that will interest all Canadian gamblers. Although I suggest you read the complete article file, you must not miss the following two articles: “”Court Rules that NOT Reporting Gambling Activity When Net is a Loss is a CRIME!” and “”Beware, The IRS Criminal Investigation Unit is Now Looking for Gamblers.”

I’m not judging how you report or don’t report your gambling. I’m well aware that the IRS does not usually audit people just to find out whether they’re keeping track of every little win or loss, especially low rollers who do not generate W2Gs. Why don’t they? It would be an impossible paperwork load, and the IRS does figure that most people lose anyway.

However, as more and more people gamble, the IRS is becoming more interested in this area. It’s becoming more likely that you’ll be questioned about gambling if you come to the attention of the IRS for other reasons, even a routine audit. Or, if you report any W2Gs, or don’t include them when you do have them, you’re likely to be asked to provide more details of your gambling. Because of this, I feel it’s my duty to pass on information I have found. How you use this information is your

12/29/2000

My birthday is this month (today, in fact), but I have pretty well gotten over the trauma of reaching Social Security age, with all the casino birthday offers that are flooding our mailbox. And I’m so happy to see that casinos don’t hold it against me that my birthday comes just four days after Christmas. They don’t just hold back one of my Christmas presents to give me on the 29th — as I used to think my parents did when I was growing up. They’re being generous with Christmas AND birthday gifts — bonus points, meals that don’t come off my slot club points, even beautiful gifts. We received a few of these holiday and birthday benefits when we were out-of-town Vegas visitors, but they’ve greatly multiplied now that we have a local address and play more in the locals casinos. Vegas was always Bargain City for us when we traveled here from Indianapolis. Now that we live here, maybe we would have to call it Super Bargain City.

BRIEFS
Last week I talked about the dreaded subject of taxes and provided the URL of a Web site address where you could get some good tax information for gamblers. This week I found another great resource for gambling taxpayers –a tax and financial-planning firm that’s extremely knowledgeable about the tax ramifications of gambling.

It is Accu-Tax, with offices in Henderson, Nevada. Accu-Tax is going to take over the task of doing our very complex tax returns, as well as helping me set up a better record-keeping system. The president is Stephen Schuneman, an Enrolled Agent who has a very good relationship with the IRS — this is all-important in case of an audit! And he has a deal for anyone who comes to them by referral — a 20% discount on your 2000 Federal Income Tax return, PLUS your name will be put in a drawing for $500. (The “Vegas factor” is strong hereabouts, even in non-casino businesses!) So you can call 702/732-1040 and tell them the “frugal gambler” sent you and be eligible for this discount and bonus. Or e-mail [email protected]

If you’re in Vegas Jan. 6-9 during CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, or during any large convention, go to the Venetian corridor that leads to the Sands Convention Center. You’ll usually find people passing out Venetian matchplay coupons. A friend told me you could find “scads” of them in the nearby trash cans or just lying around and that the Venetian doesn’t seem to mind your using more than one of them.

Ah, memories! I still remember those days 16-17 years ago when a high point of my day was finding Westward Ho free mini-breakfast coupons in the trash cans. A little mustard or catsup on the coupon? No problem; it could be scraped off and the snack bar didn’t require coupons in perfect condition.

Read a good quip from a recent hearing involving Station Casinos, which gobbled up three other local casino in the past few months, reported in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Steve DuCharme, member of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, cracked: “Your client [Station Casinos] is apparently a member of the Columbia House casino of the month club.”

Interesting turnabout: Some years ago, before I wrote The Frugal Gambler, one casino wouldn’t give permission for “48 Hours” to film Brad and me there, so we had to film undercover. We went into their gift shop recently and what book do you think they had for sale?

11/3/2000

I love living in Las Vegas because it’s such an exciting city that it energizes me and makes me feel young. However, this last week I really felt old. First of all, I signed up for Social Security. Yes, Vegas has Social Security offices as well as casinos. I’m in shock that the government thinks I’m old enough “to be taken care of” — I certainly don’t feel that old.

Then, while I was trying to get over this blow to my belief in perpetual youth, I visited the Hard Rock on a Friday night about 11 pm and stopped in the restroom. Boy was I dated. All I could think was, “These girls need to go back home and finish getting dressed.”

But the final shock came last Saturday night. I was glad that we were to be at Mandalay Bay for a special promotion, because I knew that there was going to be a big Halloween party there. I’d heard that the costumes were spectacular at these events — and they were. We parked ourselves on a low stone wall that lined the walkways, then oohed and ahhed as gorgeously costumed gals came prancing out of the restroom. They must have spent a fortune on the yards and yards of satin and fur and sequins and feathers.

Then Brad interrupted my excited comments. “Honey, you do realize that these beautiful creatures are coming out of the MEN’S room.” I turned my head to the other restroom. Yes, THAT definitely was the women’s — the girls streaming out of there were definitely girls; you could see all the clues clearly. Those girls at the Hard Rock the previous night looked like nuns compared to these. Nightwear was definitely the style, but I can only describe it as “beyond Fredericks”: see-through ensembles, bandage-size tops, string-only bottoms. We noticed one cowgirl who, we commented, was bucking the trend, with thick sheepskin chaps modestly covering her in the front. However, when she turned around, we saw, that to compensate for the must-have-been-hot chaps on the front, she opted for a cooling nothing to cover the back.

Now I’m not a prude — and we weren’t offended. But I must say I was shocked. I guess I shouldn’t have been. The name of this annual party, Club Rubber, had been changed in order for Mandalay Bay to provide the venue. I had known the previous name had been Pimp ‘n’ Ho Ball. I couldn’t help myself; somehow all I could think was, “In my day…”

On the way home from Mandalay Bay that night, I thought about stopping by Walgreens and picking up some Geritol.

BRIEFS
Here’s a night-owl promo I won’t be taking advantage of this month. The California is giving 2X points from midnight-4 am.

A casino is not always the cold-hearted empty-your-pockets business we sometimes think. Charity benefits are sponsored by or contributed to frequently by many casinos in town. Silverton is running an unusual one every Wednesday in November, noon-10 pm, in the buffet. Bring in a canned-food donation that will go to HELP of Southern Nevada and get an all-you-can-eat prime rib meal for $1.99. Those under 21 or without a food donation will pay $6.99. I always love to see a frugal idea that does good too!

I hope you went to www.strip76.com when you first read about it and printed out all the $5 free-gas coupons you would need until Nov. 30. Because if you didn’t, you’re out of luck; they’ve changed the coupon. Now you must buy $15 worth of gas instead of just $10, and you only get a $3 gas bonus. Not worth the bother unless you happen to be there. You can still use the old coupons until the expiration date — glad I printed out a bunch!! Must have been a popular promotion. And don’t accuse us of abusing it — we only gas up once a week!

Want to get a free copy of Casino Player? Go to http://www.casinocenter.com/bow/main.tpl and vote for your favorite gambling-related Internet sites. The results will appear in a future Best of the Web issue of CP, which they will send to each person who participated in the survey.

Something to think about: Breaking even, compared to losing, is winning.

11/10/2000

My “Briefs” file is bulging. So this week I’m all “brief.”

Romantic place for lunch: The Stratosphere’s Top of the World revolving restaurant. From 11 am until 3 pm, they offer sandwiches and lower-priced meals than at night, and the view is stunning even in the sunlight.

One of my favorite and most profitable gaming tips: You can “piggyback” promotions and play in a casino where two are running at the same time. For example, a casino is giving triple points one day during the month when they’re giving out jackets for royal flushes. One time we were able to play four different promos in one casino in one day — monthly, weekly, daily, and out-of-towner deals.
Only in Las Vegas: The newest rage in luxury transportation — stretch SUVs. Some are as long as 36 feet and feature disco lights and a laser light show. In a Review-Journal story about these behemoths, they say that Shaquille O’Neal finally found a vehicle big enough for him.

Read in the Review-Journal: “For a typical [Vegas] hotel-casino, only about half of its revenues are derived from the casino. Five, six, seven years ago that was probably 75% to 80%.” It’s hard for me, an intense video poker player, to believe that people actually come to Vegas to shop and eat and see shows — and then just “happen” to gamble. Maybe that isn’t exactly how people would put it if asked why they come to Vegas, but the figures prove that this is how they are “voting” with their wallets.

“With the exception of the surrender rule in blackjack, Let It Ride is the only casino game that lets players take back part of their initial bet when their chances of winning don’t look good,”” writes Henry Tamburin, in an excellent article in the October Casino Player. He covers the basic rules of Let It Ride and explores why this is such a popular table game. I was surprised that there’s such a range in the paytables from casino to casino. For the basic game, the house edge ranges from 2.66% to 4.63%. The side bet (true of the side bets of almost all games) is where the casino “gets you” the most. The casino edge there can range from about 5% to 54%, averaging 25%. Ouch! Visit the author’s Web site at www.smartgaming.com

A frugal Vegas transportation tip from the Internet: “You can use a free transfer on the LV buses to go on another route (except between the #301 or #302) for up to two hours. I got a transfer when I got on the #108 (downtown) to the Stratosphere, and I got on the Northbound #302 (to go back downtown) an hour and a half later using the transfer, saving the $2 return trip. I also used this trick when I toured the Stratosphere tower on Sunday on the way to the Tropicana.” Ah, I remember the days, back when we were younger, that such a tip would have been music to my ears!

A warning on the Internet about bargain meals: “Arizona Charlie’s East or West has a graveyard special for 77 cents that’s decent. Note, however, that if you order tea or coffee, you will more than double your bill.”” This “drinks extra” is common all over Vegas, especially on late-night specials and coupon meals.

Something to think about: “In gaming, the anticipation of pleasure is pleasure itself.” (Mike Roemer, IGWB, April ‘98)”

11/17/2000

From the NO PLACE TO HIDE department: A company specializing in casino advertising has been given a patent for its concept of promoting brands with slot machines. Instead of Flaming Sevens, for example, you might have Flaming Burgers, with a McDonald’s Big Mac, Burger King french fries, or Wendy’s Frosties as the symbols on the reels.

I can see it now! On slots aimed at senior citizens, you’ll see a whole bank of blue-haired ladies screaming for three Depends or Ensure symbols to line up for the jackpot. Or a dozen grandpas in a row hoping for a line of canes or wheelchairs to activate that second screen.

Bonus screens could pay out in grocery credits. A jackpot might be good for a bottle of Dom Perignon, while an even-money payout might be two cans of Friskies cat food.
And what about the progressive jackpot — a complete funeral package, including a deluxe Batesville casket, tuxedo-clad undertakers from High, Flutey, and Costabunch Funeral Homes, and 25 professional mourners trained by Actors ‘R Us.

Applying for Social Security has definitely had its effect on me.

BRIEFS
My choice for the all-time best name for a slot club: Barley’s Ultimate Rewards Program, the new player’s club at Barley’s, a small brewpub-casino in Henderson. What’s so special about the name Barley’s Ultimate Rewards Program? The acronym is BURP. Pretty apt for a brewpub slot club, I’d say.

From an Internet friend: “I have an even more frugal transit suggestion than you suggested in the November 10 Frugal Fridays. What people can do is buy a bag of 40 CAT tokens for $20, and on bus lines other than the Strip 301 and 302, it costs two tokens (valued at $1) instead of the normal $1.25 fare. You can get a round trip from downtown Las Vegas for $1 (transfers are good for two hours). The tokens are good until used, so they never expire.”

A good hint I had forgotten. We bought tokens back when we traveled all over Vegas without a car. However, it turned out not to be a money-saving idea for us; Brad was always giving them out to poor people who were “stuck” at the downtown bus terminal. Sometimes there are more important considerations than saving money.

Downgraded promotion: Mahoney’s E-mail Buddy program has changed. Most of the offers now are for bingo. If there are any slot/VP promotions, they’re for earning drawing tickets. The weekly e-mail now seems more like an advertisement — friendly and down-home in tone but with little usable information for locals or out-of-town tourists.

Useful gambling tip: Don’t throw away your expired casino coupons. Ask the casino if they’ll still honor them and they will often extend the date. This doesn’t always work, but I’ve had good success with this by talking to a host.

Just got Steve Bourie’s new American Casino Guide, the 2001 edition. As usual for the last 11 years, it’s a resource I wouldn’t be without. No matter where you travel in the U.S., you can look up the nearest casino and get all the details you need, including directions, addresses, phone numbers, Web sites, lists of games offered, and much more valuable information. But this book is not just a directory. More than a third of its pages contain articles by most of the best gambling writers of today (and I’d say so even if I didn’t write four pages myself!). The last section of the book, of course, is my personal favorite — pages and pages of coupons for casinos all over the U.S. It’s for sale at Huntington Press’ www.greatstuff4gamblers.com bookstore.

Overheard: “”I go to casinos to visit my money.”””

11/24/2000

From the BAD TREND Department: Harrah’s Las Vegas no longer looks at your play over your last several visits to determine comps on your current trip. It’s a “spend-as-you-earn” comp policy. No more sitting down to a nice relaxing meal when you first get off the plane, tired and hungry, based on previous play. Now, no matter how much you played on your last trip, you must first fire it up at the tables or slots to earn a meal comp.

Harrah’s has taken a very “scientific” route, using psychologists to determine what will keep people coming back to their casinos. Cut the cashback. Cut the comps. Cut the paytables on video poker. The players are too unsophisticated (read: “dumb”) to notice. Give them a good time and they won’t feel the pain of bigger losses.

I’m not so sure the average player is that dumb. Sure, most gamblers are in a casino just to have a good time and they don’t mind “paying a price” — that is, losing — for this entertainment. But that cost must be reasonable. And all the make-you-feel-important moves a casino might make will not keep a gambler who feels he is just losing too much to call it fun.

I’m going to watch when the economy takes a downturn or Indian casinos start putting the hurt on Vegas. I’m guessing some of these Vegas casinos will fire some of their psychologists and abandon their slash-and-burn tactics. We “dummies” might not be quite as dumb as the casinos think we are!

BRIEFS
Brad and I adore playing at the Suncoast. Coinless machines are the “cat’s pajamas.” They save us time: no waiting for non-W2G handpays or hopper fills, no time-consuming scooping/racking of coins. (A useful hint: Cashing out a small amount that will be paid in coins? Feed a bill into the machine to get to the voucher-only level.) They save us money — lots of it — because the tipping occasions are cut WAY DOWN for our $1-$2 machine play. They save us aggravation, because there’s no more cashing out $1,000 at the end of a $3,000 losing session and being congratulated by hustling employees. They save us inconvenience: You can take a bathroom break, quit temporarily for a drawing, or meet someone for dinner without having to make major advance plans for cashing out. And they keep our hands clean and my nails intact.

The Sierra Leone poet who is being given “refuge” in Las Vegas, as the first person in a national program to provide international writers at risk in their homeland a safe place to write, lives in our condo complex, Opulence. Haven’t met him yet, but I hope to soon.

Add the Stratosphere to the list of the sadly growing list of casinos that dole out comps according to whether you win or lose. Numerous reports on the Internet indicate that those players who win, when they take advantage of the get-back-your losses promo for the first hour of play, do not get nearly as good future room offers as those who lose.

A trend I like: Many hosts now have e-mail addresses. This makes it so much easier to communicate with them than playing telephone tag.

I’ve already started getting holiday cards from casinos. And that means my biggest pet peeve about casinos is upsetting me again. Why do casinos name a department Player Development? Or, if they’re going to name it that, why do they have those people send me holiday cards. I don’t like ANY cheery card from someone I don’t know, but I certainly don’t want to get one from someone who is going to “develop” me!”

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.

“

9/1/2000

Attention serious video poker players who have a computer. You can’t do without Tomski’s Video Poker Strategy Master (VPSM). This miracle—that’s what I call it because it saved my math-challenged life—will give you, in mere seconds, the strategy for almost any video poker game you will ever run across. Just type in the pay schedule and up pops the correct strategy. You can buy this software from Huntington Press’ www.greatstuff4gamblers.com or at the Gambler’s Book Club in downtown Las Vegas.

With so many new video poker games being introduced all the time, it’s hard for the studious player to keep up. Plus, if you want to play progressives accurately, changing your strategies as the jackpot builds, this program is a necessity. Many people buy the video poker tutorial software, such as the excellent WinPoker, but they don’t realize that they also need a strategy chart to show them where they’re making mistakes. You can get good strategy charts from many sources, but they’re only for a few of the most common games. That is sufficient if you’re just a recreational video poker player or a beginning video poker student.

However, if you want a tool that will help you from your first halting steps to the time you become a very experienced player, this is it. You have your choice of a basic or advanced strategy for each game and you can print out your schedule in “organized color,” making your own strategy cards.

How strongly do I feel about this? I probably would give up my coupon file before I would let someone take away my VPSM. If you know me at all, you know we are talking serious here! Best of all, it’s a frugal bargain at $29.95.

BRIEFS
“Slot Candles Light Your Way” and “How To Read a Slot Machine” are a couple of interesting articles at http://casinogambling.about.com/hobbies/casinogambling.

From the Hope-It-Ain’t-True Department: There’s a rumor circulating around various newsgroups that Mandalay Resort properties are doing away with the casino rate, and will offer only “”comped”” rooms to qualified players. These properties include: Monte Carlo, Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, and Circus Circus. I’m not sure whether that makes me glad or sad we sold our Mandalay Resort Group stock, but it certainly would make a lot of my low-roller friends sad when they’re looking for a room bargain in Vegas.

A reader wrote and asked why he couldn’t get comped rooms at a number of casinos where he played. I answered: “I’m wondering if you are spreading your play around a little too much. To get established at one casino, we always played mostly at that one casino until we qualified for full comps. Then we picked up a second one, and so on.”

What’s in a name? Terrible’s Hotel and Casino will open in Vegas in a few months on the former site of the Continental Hotel. It’s being developed by the Herbst family, well-known locally for their Terrible gas stations and car washes all over the Vegas valley. They say they plan to cater to both locals and tourists. Hummmmm. Locals, okay: They’re used to filling up their tank at Terrible’s. But tourists? Can’t you see Mr. and Mrs. Out-of-Town Visitor going home and raving over their trip. “I stayed at the Terrible Hotel and played blackjack at the Terrible Casino.” I would hate to be their Director of Public Relations.”

9/8/2000

It’s the time of month when I provide the corrections, changes, and additions that will save a smart gambler time, energy, freeway hassle, and frustration while chasing the wrong promotions and missing the good ones. Hold on — it’s a long ride this month.

Orleans: The bad news is it’s not double points all September, as has been published all over the place. But the good news is that Monday Night Football bonus time is back again: double points on Monday night from 6 pm until midnight at all Coast properties. This will probably continue throughout football season as it did last year — but I can’t guarantee any casino promotion!

More Orleans: Running all month is a double-on-second-royal promotion. Hit a second royal in 24 hours after your first and you get paid double. The tricks you might think of usually aren’t allowed: i.e., playing nickels to get the first royal, then switching to the $100 machine to go for the second, or playing a wild card game. The royal has to be natural, so you’ll actually get slightly fewer royals on a wild-card game. You used to be able to play multi-line games — even Fifty Play — to increase your chance of getting a royal. However, the Orleans has put all multi-line games off-limits for this promotion; other casinos are beginning to tinker with their rules, as well. For example, the Fiesta counts only bottom-line royals on multi-line machines, to make it fairer for all machine players. As with all promotions, go to the slot club and read the details, including the fine print, before you sit down to play!

Hard Rock: You get 4X comp points Sunday noon until Friday noon, through Sept. 24 when the 4-of-a-kind promotions ends. After that, it may be double points, but you need to check to be sure.

Mahoney’s: The E-mail Buddy offers have changed in the last few weeks. You still have your choice of three offers, but as always, just one per day. Here they are. 1) The bingo offer is $40 in cards for $20, except on Saturday at 8 pm, when it takes $30 to buy $50 in cards. 2) They no longer just match your $20 when you first sit down at a machine. On video poker you have to hit a natural 4-of-a-kind, then they’ll put $20 in your machine. On slot/keno machines, you have to score a $15 win on one play before they’ll deposit the $20. 3) We now like the 21 Pit Offer best — buy in for $20 and get $20 in matchplay chips; the $2 minimum allows Brad and me to almost always play long enough so that together, we make a profit.

Go to http://www.strip76.com/, where you can print out a coupon for $5 worth of gas with a $10 gas purchase. The station is at 3758 S. Las Vegas Blvd. (at the south end of the Strip). The coupon expires 11/31/00, but you can register at their Web site and they promise future specials and coupons.

Another gas play: Hit any natural 4-of-a-kind at Silverton on Fridays in September on any 10-cent machine or above and get a $10 gas certificate. (Note: The certificate is $5 only for nickel machines.)

Bob Dancer is starting his free video poker classes at ACE (Arizona Charlie’ s East) on Tuesday Sept. 12. Each class will have a beginner’s session from 11 am to 12 noon and an advanced session from 12:30-1:30 pm. The September 12 class will cover jacks or better; Sept. 19 will be on joker wild. There will be no classes on September 26, but they’ll continue after that every Tuesday, covering one game each day, including standard deuces wild, NSUDs (a lower-paying deuces game), double bonus, and Super Aces Bonus.

Miss being in Vegas for all the football contests? Go to http://app.sportsrocket.com/lvrj/fb-pickem00, and play the free online contest. Weekly and season prizes are offered by the Coast casinos. Or miss being in your hometown bar during the football games while you’re in Vegas? Go to http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2000/Aug-27-Sun-2000/lifestyles/14123757.html and see if your favorite team is on the list of local Vegas bars that cater to the fans of a specific team. Remember”

9/15/2000

An interesting site on the Internet for getting information about shows playing in Vegas is www.showvegas.com. You enter your trip dates and it gives you all the details about the shows that are on during that time period: times, prices, age restrictions, and whether the show is sold out. You can also book the tickets there, though the fee seems high. I would try the toll-free number of the casino first and ask to be connected to the ticket office where you might be able to buy tickets with no fee or a lower one.

Some tips for getting show tickets. If you’re a dollar-plus machine player at a casino, you can almost always get show tickets, even for a “sold-out” show, by talking to your host, who has access to the tickets that are held back for comps. Quarter players who play long hours (out-of-towners) and/or regulars (locals) can usually get show comps for all but the top-rated shows. Table players can ask the pit boss for a show comp (the betting required depends on the level set by the casino).

However, almost all gamblers, even low-rollers, can use the following technique to get comped to a show that’s not selling out every night. Wait until 30-45 minutes before showtime and talk to a slot host or a pit boss. Performers do not like to see a lot of empty seats — so the hosts and pit bosses often have last-minute tickets that they can give out to anyone they consider a “good” customer. To get one at the tables, you should be playing when you ask, unless you’re known by the pit boss. If you’re a machine player, you should be able to show some play on your slot club card.

BRIEFS
Mahoney’s E-mail Buddy weekly offers now say that you can use only ONE offer per week, instead of the old rules that allowed you to use all three offers as long as you used only one per day.

Hard Rock Update: Brad and I just got letters in the mail stating that 4X comp points will continue through September, and they will offer 3X points in October. As usual, these bonus times run from Sunday noon until Friday noon. The mailing also included a bonus of $50 each, paid as the “credit card” that I’ve discussed (complained about?) in past Frugal Fridays. If they continue sending these bonuses, I may have to “eat” my complaints. Hey, I might even learn to love (gasp!) a slot club change!

Want to play full-coin Fifty Play video poker and not worry about losing? Go to www.videopoker.com and play for free — just for fun. Or, for the least amount of risk in an actual casino, try the penny Fifty Plays at Joker’s Wild, a little casino in Henderson. They’re in the multi-denomination machines. Remember, however, that it’s still $2.50 to play full-coin pennies on all 50 lines, TWICE as much as you play per hand on a QUARTER single-liner. Be sure your bankroll will handle it!

Good bonus for NEW Bellagio slot club members: Earn 150 points and get a comp for two at Bellagio’s top-rated buffet. See a slot host.

The downtown Plaza has discontinued giving dinner coupons to players who hit a royal.

Frugal travel tip: Are you in possession of a restricted United Airlines ticket on which you want to change the travel times or dates? Ask the telephone agent if you can change and have the fee waived. This worked for us the other day when we changed the day of our flight back to Vegas, mentioning that we’d read in the newspaper that they were doing this to make up for all the delays and inconvenience their passengers had to put up with all summer. I’m not sure how long United will be in this “Please Forgive Us” mode. But remember — it never hurts to ask!”
9/22/2000 ” Nothing ever stays the same — especially if you’re talking about casinos. That’s one reason why I feel the need to write a sequel to The Frugal Gambler. So much has changed so quickly in the last few years. For example, about getting comps for machine play, I used to say, “It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose or what game you play, casinos give you comps based on the money you risk — in other words, your coin-in.”

That was then; this is now. More and more casinos are taking other factors into consideration. I know — because a lot of players complain about it to me! A host will tell them, “I can’t give you such-and-such comp because you’re a big winner.” No host would have ever said that a few years ago. And even if some still don’t say it (in so many words), their inconsistent decisions seem to be based, at least somewhat, on the win/lose factor.

Then there’s the new comp system I’m hearing about more and more, one that’s based on a “theoretical loss” that varies by machine. Each machine is assigned a percentage, based on its average player loss. The casino comps players a percentage of that loss. Now machine selection is the key factor. Someone who plays slots that have a huge casino edge will earn a lot more comps than those who play the equivalent coin-in on a video poker machine with a small, or no, casino edge.

Remember, this is based on the average OVERALL loss on that machine, not whether you personally win or lose in any particular session. It’s not based on whether or not you play the game skillfully. Some VP machines have a pay schedule that, if played with correct strategy, will give a player a profit and the casino a loss over the long term. However, playing these machines doesn’t mean that you won’t earn comps. Even these machines have a theoretical win for the casino over the long term, because the average player doesn’t use proper strategy. If a certain machine gets played only by pros, you’ll see that machine disappear or its pay schedule changed!

BRIEFS
Did you know that Vegas has the fastest growing Jewish community in North America? Go to http://www.lvlife.com/aug2000/features/story01.html for this interesting story. Las Vegas Life, where this article appears, is a controversial weekly newspaper, one you might love and hate at the same time. But you’ll get some Vegas information there that you won’t see anywhere else. Be sure, however, to keep a questioning mind and don’t think that just because you read something in print that this makes it a fact!

From the Fantini Gaming Report at http://www.gaminginvestments.com: Park Place has become the latest casino company to open a registration desk at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. Arriving passengers can now get their hotel room assignments and keys for Paris, Bally’s, Caesars, and the Flamingo Las Vegas (the Flamingo’s new official name) before ever leaving the airport. Already in place with this same service is Harrah’s and the Rio with National Airlines. MGM also has an airport registration desk and you can check-in there for NY-NY, too. Look for the addition of the former Mirage resorts now that they have been added to the MGM stable.

In addition to the classes I’ve mentioned before, at Arizona Charlie’s East (ACE) and the Fiesta, Bob Dancer will also be teaching a series of free video poker classes at the Reserve on Wednesday evenings. All classes have a beginner session from 7 to 8 and an advanced session from 8:30 to 9:30 Here is the schedule: October 4 — Deuces Wild; October 11 — 16/10 (NSU) Deuces Wild; October 18 — Secrets of a Video Poker Winner.

The Desert Inn is just a memory now, but the Megabucks slot machine that hit there in January for a record $35 million jackpot will not disappear. The machine will be converted into a display-only model and given to jackpot winner Cynthia Jay of Las Vegas as a gift at the request of Jay’s husband. At last report, this most lucky-turned-unlucky l

9/29/2000

Steve Wynn once said, explaining his plans for the luxurious Bellagio, “Rich people like to hang around with rich people. Poor people like to hang around with rich people. No one likes to hang around with poor people.”

If you’re a low-roller, don’ t be shy about going in and checking out the exclusive high-stakes/high-roller gambling areas in a casino. According to Nevada gaming regulations, no gambling can be private in a casino; all gambling areas must be accessible to the public. This makes it easier to keep the games honest.

However, use some common sense to avoid feeling uncomfortable. If you’re able to sit down and play at the high-minimum games, you can dress any way you want. Casinos don’ t have dress standards for taking your money. But I would not feel comfortable “just moseying around,” looking like a homeless person, and I imagine security would become very “active” if someone in this conditions lingered very long. Even dressed appropriately, you should not stop and watch one table for longer than a few seconds. If there’s a security guard posted at ANY table, you know that this is a “whale” or a famous person playing. Do not even stop — casinos strictly guard these customers’ privacy.

This open-access policy does NOT apply to special VIP rooms where no gambling occurs. Many of the bigger casinos have luxurious lounges where designated players are pampered with drinks, food, and comfort amenities. Casinos usually restrict entry into these places of special perks, often by special cards issued to eligible gamblers. Playing regularly at the dollar level will give you this special status; occasionally, at the swankiest rooms you need to be playing at least $5 machines. However, some of these lounges are not “guarded,” and no one will ever question whether you “deserve” to be there. Have a slot card that shows some play, dress halfway decently, use good manners, act self-assured, and no one will question your status as a VIP.

BRIEFS
Do you know why it’s getting harder to get food comps these days, especially at the new Vegas megaresorts? The casinos do not themselves own many of the restaurants, so they have to put out hard cash to pay the restaurant for the comped meals. They can still comp you to these restaurants, but it takes a little higher play than it used to.

LATE NEWS FLASH! Sorry I didn’t get this exciting news in earlier, so that you out-of-towners could arrange your vacation time, airfare, and lingerie shopping. The “”Rocky Horror Picture Show”” Fan Club will be coming to Las Vegas on Oct. 13-14 to celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary. Their convention headquarters is Circus Circus — I’ m still trying to figure out if this is the best or worst choice I could imagine.

If you’ve never seen the film, you won’ t understand this: But I have cleared my busy calendar to watch the parade from Circus Circus to the Hard Rock (where the anniversary party will be held) and have stocked up on squirt guns, candles, and rice. I won’ t be in costume, but you can bet the 500 or so paraders WILL be — so leave the kiddies at home. Take my word on that one!”

8/1/2000

Last month, I was looking through a little coupon book that came in the local newspaper. I noticed a coupon page for the Gold Spike in downtown Las Vegas. There was one “buy one meal, get one free” coupon. It took me back at least 15 years to when I saw this same coupon, back to when we first started going to Las Vegas and ANY coupon was worth cutting out and investigating. The fact that we actually used this coupon (but only once) is probably is the nicest thing I can say about it, although I’ve seen it often in various publications through the years. But it did get me thinking about promotions and how they come and go — some staying only briefly, others lasting a long time. I’m wondering if this Gold Spike coupon might be the longest running promotion in Vegas. If any LVA members have an entry for the Oldest Las Vegas Promotion, perhaps a thread could be added onto the Las Vegas General members board. If any non-members have one, e-mail [email protected].

BRIEFS
There’s a slight correction in the description of the August Orleans promotion in the August LVA. You get double points every Wednesday from midnight until 6 p.m. I have a friend who just moved to Vegas and he complained to me, “”What do they have against the ordinary working man whose weekday hours are nine to five?”” I had to let him in one of the facts of life in Vegas. The marketing gurus at the casinos that cater to locals aren’t dumb. They know that their casinos are busiest in the evenings, without promotions; they want to bring in some customers during the slower hours. That’s why we retirees have it made around here!

If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. Remember last week I told you that Brad and I failed in our first attempt to win a video poker machine at the Reserve? Well, the second time was the charm. Last Saturday we became the proud owners of a Double Acey-Deucy machine. Yes, it’s a negative-expectation game — Gasp! But believe it or not, that’s what we wanted. We play “”good”” machines in the casinos when our hard-earned money is on the line. So, at home we will have a chance to play a lower-pay but fun “”kicker”” deuces game.

This drawing forced us to try a new casino tool — a “”make-your-own”” stamp kit — and now we won’t leave home without it. We had so many entry tickets that we never would’ve had time to fill them all out by hand; in addition, we would have been wasting valuable playing time (at 4x points we were at a good hourly rate). We found this kit at Office Max for about $20. It includes an ink pad, two sizes of stamps (a one-liner and a four-liner), umpteen tiny letters and numbers, and a small tweezer to put them into the stamps. We already had name and address stamps and stickers we could use on drawing entries, but often other information is needed. In this case you needed your name and slot club number!

One final word of warning. Some casinos are trying to discourage the pros who come to drawings with garbage bags full of entry tickets, so they’ve banned name stickers and stamps. They’ve even disqualified any entry that’s crimped or folded. (Ouch — that is one of our tricks!) Part of this new drawing problem is the fact that casinos haven’t adjusted their contest rules to take into consideration multi-line games. The Reserve was giving one entry for every 100 points earned. Back in the good old days, when there was only single-line video poker, this might have been a good system. Now they have Ten-Play and Fifty-Play. Even Triple Play, which we were playing, makes far too many entries possible per person. But until the casinos realize this, you should always check first to be sure there are no restrictions, then get the kit and stamp away!

By the way, this Saturday at the Reserve was a day video poker players dream about. Brad not only won the video poker machine, he hit TWO $2,000 royals.

8/4/2000

Because too many casinos are guilty of planning or changing promotions at the last minute, here is my first-of-the-month report, which will probably become a regular feature. This list of August changes from published information has been verified by me personally, either by phone checks, reading casino’s advertising in the local newspaper, or visiting the casino personally.
The Orleans is awarding double points on Wednesday from MIDNIGHT to 6 p.m.

Arizona Charlie’s East (ACE) does NOT exclude multi-line video poker from triple points on Tuesday from midnight to 8 a.m. or double points all day Wednesday. Check on this at Charlie’s West before you start playing, since some multi-line and large-denomination machines ARE excluded.

The Hard Rock is giving FOUR times comp points from Sunday noon until Friday noon.

And speaking of the Hard Rock, they’ve done it again. They’re changing their slot club program. I’ve just recovered from the big change at the beginning of the of year! Everyone knows what I think about slot club changes — I hate them. Why? They rarely say they’re changing; instead, they’re almost always “”improving.”” Most of the time, however, the only thing improved is the casino’s bottom line. Only once in a long while do I see some improvement for the player.

Well, although the Hard Rock doesn’t say they’re “”improving”” the club, they do say they’re “”excited”” about the new program. I read the details and I wasn’t excited. It isn’t the worse change I’ve ever seen. The Cash Back Program has been replaced with the Free Play Program. You’ll still get “”paid”” for your play at the same rate you did before, .5% for reels and .25% for video poker. However, you get this “”pay”” in the form of cardboard “”credit cards,”” which you insert in the same slot where you insert your slot club card. Your “”cashback”” is then put on your machine in the form of credits, WHICH YOU MUST PLAY OFF!

Casinos have always hoped that you’d redeem your cashback and put it back into the machines. But the Hard Rock has stopped hoping and devised a system to force you to do it. I have hopes too — that this system will not spread! However, there’s no profit in complaining about changes. The Hard Rock will not completely switch over to this system until Sept. 1. Next week I’ll give you some hints on how to survive this change and make the new system work the best possible way.

BRIEFS
In past Frugal Fridays I’ve given you several recommendations for valuable online sources for Las Vegas and gambling information. Here’s another one I highly recommend: a twice-weekly e-mail newsletter called Everything Las Vegas, put out by Steve Schrette, a.k.a. MrVegas98. Everything Las Vegas is packed with all kinds of Vegas info, including restaurant and show reviews, air and hotel specials, and contest details. I especially like how he mentions items from many printed and online Vegas publications and gives the link, which you can use if you want to read the whole article. I use these links heavily since I can’t keep up with all the Vegas-info magazines. And when I’m not in Vegas and don’t read the local newspapers daily, these links keep me up to date. Sign up for this newsletter at [email protected] — and tell him the Frugal Gambler sent you.

Brad wanted to contribute an “”ouch”” ending to this week’s column. It was reported in a couple of places that there was an unfortunate accident during one of the rehearsals for Melinda, The First Lady of Magic, a show that is opening soon at the Venetian. It seems that one of Melinda’s male assistants was impaled during the sword trick. The man was supposed to levitate over three swords, but the middle sword was not secured. In the words of Kate Maddox, columnist at the Las Vegas Sun, “”The sword went right through his, oh, how to say this, family jewels?”” Brad says for you not to worry, though. According to subsequent reports, the accident victim is doing fine, although he won’t be “”in action”” for awh”

8/11/2000

Last week I complained about the Hard Rock’s new slot club system, which now gives you machine credits instead of the cold hard cashback. Okay, so I don’t like the new system as well as the old one. But whining doesn’t get you anywhere. Rather, let’s learn how to make the new system work to the max.

Although you have to play off the credits they give you, you don’t have to play off the winnings. The free-play or “credit” cards come in $5, $10, $20, and $100. Let’s say you have a $20 Hard Rock credit card and you’re playing a $1 video poker machine with a 5-coin max bet. Just play four hands with max coins and cash out any winnings you accrue. If you get the $100 card, you’ll have to make a special effort to remember the number of hands you’ve played; just checking the credits will not work because they include winnings.

As in all casino credit systems, there’s some fine print. For example, quite a few machines will not take the free-play cards. I found this out quickly when I put a card in an Odyssey machine I wanted to play and it was rejected. There’s a list of excluded machines at the slot club desk, although it’s not all-inclusive. Generally, the cards work in IGT machines, but there are exceptions. If you’re a slot player, it won’t be hard to find a machine that takes the cards. If you’re a video poker advantage player, the news is not good. None of the few remaining video poker machines that have over-100% schedules take the cards. The best game I found that did was 9/6 jacks at the bar beside the sports book.

Since the new free-play system will not be fully implemented until Sept. 1, you do have a window of opportunity; you can still opt for cash instead of credits the whole month of August. In both systems you must earn $50 before your first redemption. After that you may get the credit cards in multiples of $5.

So, if you can, run, don’t walk, to the Hard Rock in August to collect your cashback. We did. And while we were there, we signed up for their FourPlay Video Poker Promotion, running from Aug. 1 through Sept. 24. When you hit four of a kind in the card of the day, posted at the slot club booth, you get a hundred-coin bonus (paid off in a free-play card). Also ask for the new Six Pack coupon sheet. We liked this sheet. Each of us redeemed the $5 in free slot play for earning 1,000 points and got a free Lucky Dog T-shirt after earning 500 points. These can be earned concurrently and the points are not taken off your account. Other coupons: one table-game matchplay up to $10, free dessert at the Pink Taco, free admission to the August beach parties, and your choice of a souvenir shot glass or deck of cards with no purchase required.

BRIEFS
If you’re a video poker player, you need to subscribe to the monthly online newsletter, aptly named Video Poker Player. It not only gives you valuable information—where and how to play VP better—but it’s one of the most humorously written publications I’ve ever read. But just because it’s funny, even irreverent, don’t think it’s superficial. The bottom line is you shouldn’t go into a casino to play video poker without reading it. Video Poker Player is published by Skip Hughes and John Kelly, aka Lodestone, and both have terrific companion video poker Web sites. Video Poker Player is available via e-mail or on Internet at the very frugal price of $20 a year. For Web site and newsletter information, go to www.vpplayer.com.

Finally, in the Some-People-Just-Can’t-Be Pleased Department. We saw a lady get dealt a royal on a 50-cent Triple Play machine. Was she rejoicing over the $6,000? Nooooooo! She was complaining that the casino would give her only one jackpot T-shirt, instead of the three she felt she was entitled to!

8/18/2000

DOUBLE UP (A TRUE CASINO STORY)

Strictly Slots is a very informative gambling magazine. I would strongly recommend it for all machine players — even if I didn’t have a monthly column in it! Anyway, In the September issue, my Frugal Tips column talks about mistakes Brad and I have made in casinos. Some people think anyone who writes a book is perfect in his or her field. Think again!

I’ve been gambling in casinos for more than 17 years, but yesterday I felt like a rank amateur. I was playing a variation of deuces wild on a $1 Five Play video poker machine, and up popped four deuces on one line ($1,000), plus an assortment of little pays on the other lines — a jackpot total of $1,155. Needless to say, I was pretty excited.

Then with the suddenness of a guillotine, up popped another little message with this questioning phrase: “Double Up?”

This option hadn’t appeared on my machine before, so I began madly searching for the “Hell no!” button.

What happened next, I couldn’t tell you. Even now, as I try to reconstruct it, I just can’t figure it out. Yes, I’m eligible to draw Social Security in four months; was this what they call a “”senior moment?” Anyway, all of a sudden, on my screen appeared a poker hand, a 9 as the first card and four blank cards following. The machine was taunting me: Pick one card and try to beat the 9 to double your money. Somehow, I still don’t know how, the machine had gone into the double-up mode.

My body was frozen, but my brain quickly counted the cards. I realized that I had only a 50-50 chance of beating this 9. More to the point, I had a 50-50 chance of losing, in one split second, $1,155! Brad looked at me in sincere surprise, then went back to playing his machine, muttering, “”I’m sure glad I didn’t do this.”” (He has a calm quiet way of dealing with such crises.)
Okay, I finally started to think. Remember, Jean, I told myself, all you have to do is ask. I called over a change girl. I explained that my machine had just made a terrible mistake. She summoned a slot tech who could fix the machine.

I explained to the slot tech that I’m sure I didn’t hit the Yes button. He checked the machine. Yes, the Yes button had been activated. Perhaps, since it was a touch screen, I accidentally touched the Yes spot. He called a supervisor.

I explained to the supervisor that I don’t even double up for a $5 win; I certainly wouldn’t double up for $1,155. She was very sympathetic and said she’d consult the casino manager. In a few minutes, she came looking glum.

“”I told him I knew you guys and you were very good customers here and you never doubled up, but he said that once the machine locks up, there is nothing we can do.”” She was more upset than I was, if that was possible. I thought she was going to break out in tears.

“”Okay,”” I said, putting on a jolly demeanor to cheer her up. “”Whatever will be will be!”” After all, there was now a crowd around my machine; other customers had joined the change girl, the slot tech, and the supervisor. “”Who is this daring gambler?”” they all whispered to each other. “What will she do now?”

Oops! I’ve gone over my allotted word count for this column. And I do have an important item to report: Arizona Charlie’s East (ACE) has joined its sister, AZ Chaz West, in excluding some of their high-denomination multi-line games from double- and triple-point promotions.

So, tune in to Frugal Fridays next week for the thrilling conclusion of “Double Up, a True Casino Story.”

8/25/2000

Wow! I never dreamed I’d cause such a stir with last week’s double-up cliffhanger. I didn’t receive any hate mail, but some gamblers were pretty upset — and they weren’t shy about conveying some strong (negative) opinions. Hey, once in awhile we have to add a little excitement to our lives. I mean, 50 million people waited all summer to see who’d survive “Survivor.” And I only made you wait a week.

Anyway, here’s the rest of the story. (If you didn’t read last week’s column, STOP. Go back to the archives and check it out before you continue reading any further!)

With the 9 to beat, I drew an ace! A winner. Beating the 9 turned that $1,155 jackpot into $2,310. I never got that much relief from Rolaids!

Some answers to questions I’ve received:

No, an ace was not the highest card I could have drawn; since it was a deuces wild game, the deuce was the high card.

Yes, I could have had the double-up feature removed by a slot tech. I didn’t do that from the first because I didn’t know it would be activated automatically on a lock-up hand. I’d been playing for hours, not even noticing that it was an option. After this almost-disaster, the supervisor did ask if I wanted it deleted. I declined — I was quite sure I could handle the next lock-up jackpot correctly that day. But I think I might check IGT multi-line machines pretty carefully from now on. Judging from some letters I’ve received, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.

No, I don’t like to double up even on small wins. Why not? It’s only a break-even proposition and I play only games that are over 100%, so it wastes my time. And, more importantly, the money you risk for a double-up bet doesn’t earn slot club points.

Yes, I’ve risked much more than $1,155 in a short time before. But even on dollar Ten-Play, I like my $1,155 to last a bit longer than a nanosecond!

BRIEFS
Get a free lunch or dinner entree on your birthday at Guadalajara’s Mexican Restaurant in Boulder Station. Scott will give you the details of this and many other good promotions at http://americancasinoguide.com/promotions/vegas-values.

Senior Saver Tip: At Arizona Charlie’s East, anyone 60 or older can enter their video poker tournaments for $5 or 2,500 Charlie Card points, one-half the regular entry fee. They’re held on Mondays at 6 p.m. and Tuesdays at 10 a.m. This is a 100%-plus tournament, since all the entry fees are given back as prizes, and there may be extra prizes awarded. In addition, each player gets a 2-for-1 buffet coupon.

People just won’t believe that slot machines are random and that no machine is ever “”due.”” I see people repeatedly pass up identical progressive machines with higher jackpots to play their “”favorite”” machine at close to reset. This is especially true on the Blazing 7s. Recently, I saw someone playing a $5 machine that had a $9,532 progressive jackpot. On both sides of him were the same machines with jackpots of $65,098, $39,247, $27,065, and $13,369. I’m sure this player hoped to hit the progressive. If I were playing these machines and hoped to hit the jackpot, I think I would at least try for the biggest one available. Wouldn’t you? When lightning strikes, I want to be the happiest I can be!

Why does this make me think of the advice I heard (and rejected) a long time ago when I was just a young girl: It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one!”