I had already started this blog when earlier this week I read Bob Dancer’s article on a closely related subject. That article talks about why he would not like some casino promotions. I – and most frequent players – could echo his sentiments and tell stories about their painful experiences with promotions that did not produce positive feelings or good results.
Recently I came across a promotion that reminds me why some promotional problems are caused by the casino itself. It’s not just that “picky” players want everything their way. Case in point: Last month the Palms ran an earn-a-gift promotion that was advertised in our mailers to run all of June, with specific dates to redeem gift points. Many of us, especially the oldsters who are in down-sizing mode, do not need more “stuff” so blew off this promo when they saw it described in their mailers. However, some of us, through word of mouth, heard that there was a free play alternative to the gifts. No mailings gave this information, but if you stopped at the players club and asked about details of this promotion you were given a booklet that spelled out the free play details. Fortunately, a friend of ours heard about this from a friend of hers and passed the word on to me and I told every player friend I met.
I call this casino technique the lets-plan-a-party-but-not-tell-anyone-about-it. There is not much a player can do about this kind of problem except to cultivate a lot of player friends.
Then within this same promotion I just described the Palms pulled another unwelcome surprise. On Thursdays you could earn double gift points, but there was no printed notice anywhere that these double points could not be accumulated all month like the basic ones could. So, there were a lot of unhappy players who lost those double points because they didn’t redeem them the same week that they earned them. Again, the only way a few players avoided this promotional hazard was due to their networking.
Not picking on the Palms again – many casinos put up this kind of promotional roadblock – but this month they are running an earn-a-gas-card but have given few details in the monthly mailer. A friend went to the players club to ask for details and the clerk said she didn’t have a flyer to give out that explained it and she didn’t know the details herself. My friend is an old-time player with lots of experience with this kind of problem. He said that perhaps she could check the “master book,” the loose-leaf tome that most casinos have behind the players club desk that has the official printed details of all promotions going on in the casino. The clerk pulled out the book – reluctantly – and turned to the gas-card promotion and showed it to my friend, who calmly asked if she could make a copy of that page for him since the redemption chart was pretty long. I wish I could tell you that getting this page copy solved my friend’s problem. No, the details were not complete enough that he could decide whether this promotion was good enough for him to play.
I used to laugh at a casino – particularly Harrah’s – that would give you 3 sheets of paper about a promotion – full of single-spaced small font legalese – but that beats a casino who will not give you enough details so you can make an informed decision.
And when I was about finished with this blog, I was informed by a friend about a new Suncoast promotion he saw advertised in the casino that is an example of what he called “tricky” actions by a casino. Some video poker machines have signs on them that state on these you can earn tier credits two times faster. You can read the details here. The catch is that the paytables on these machines are dismally worse than on other similar games in the casino. Technically this is not untruth in advertising. However, we could point out that this is bad public relations. Casinos already have a reputation for seemingly having their hand constantly in your pocket or purse. Players don’t like to think they are also trying to trick you so you will contribute even more.
Most promotions primarily only benefit the casino. As a for-profit business this is not illegal. I don’t disagree that they have a right to run whatever program or promotion they wish as long as they stay within legal boundaries. They are within their rights to target promotions for certain categories, i.e., high rollers or locals. They can choose details that encourage visitation during slow business days, even though those times may exclude some groups.
However, a wise knowledgeable player will know that, for whatever reason, only a few promotions can be of benefit for any one player. He will accept that and spend more time scouting and studying more details than complaining about the ones that don’t meet his/her individual wishes and needs.
And a final person comment here: Trying to help people make sense of promotions has given me fodder for my writing for almost 20 years. If casinos started “doing everything right,” I just might finally get to retire!
Tony,
I just got back from Palace Station on the gas card promotion. It takes 25,000 points to get another $100.00 in gas cards. They gave me 5 $20.00 cards when I first went to the rewards club. I used one to put gas in our car and had no problem at the Circle K. One other perk was the coupon booklet they gave us at check in. It may have been the same ones mailed out to locals. It has coupons for June, July and August. I received a second mailer for August under the gas card promotion and set it up before we left on the July trip. It really is nice to live close so we can do all the promos we feel good about. May the royals be with you….Rich
Tony.
25k = $100, Limit $300. YMMV.
Kevin.
Get over it. Some promotions target the low roller by capping the number of tickets one can earn or giving tons of free tickets and making tickets difficult to earn. Focus on those. Other promotions are designed to get increased play and are designed to REWARD those who bet a lot, not the quarter VP player who is worth next to nothing to a casino.
Personally, if I were running a casino promotion, I would ALWAYS give tickets based on coin in, would NEVER give any free tickets, and would ALWAYS give about 10x more tickets per dollar wagered to slot/keno players. The other thing I would do is give a lot of smallish prizes. If my promotion was to give out 20K, I’d give out 40 prizes of $500. If I did give out a big prize, each small prize winner would be given an equal chance to win it. The Bob Dancers of the world would probably not see these kinds of promotions as being worth their time because they would be hard pressed to dominate the ticket drum and the ploppies would receive most of the tickets and win most of the prizes.
I wish people would stop using such inflammatory and derogatory terms such as “the great unwashed” when posting because it shades everything they say and comes across as a rant instead of information.
I don’t understand the people who hate drawings because of the big players. People like Dancer can be down a few thousand dollars prior to the drawing while the quarter player may be down $100. Should he not have a proportionate number of tickets for his investment? If the quarter player is putting in the same time learning the games and plays at the same level, they most likely have a technically higher EV because the first few tickets are often free or practically free. (Yes you may have to play for decades to realize that advantage, but it does exist.) If you know there are 10,000 tickets in the barrel, it does not matter if 10 are yours and 9990 belong to a single person or 5000 other people. (They still have a 99.9% chance of winning) Now if you think that without the pro’s there would only be 2000 tickets in the barrel, you would have a point. That still does not mean I am mad at them, just like I would not enter a poker tournament if many of the players were top professional players. With no animosity, I would just stay away from that promotion.
That is why we read Jean Scott’s posts along with many other sites to try and decide what works for us. The casino is not running promotions for the advantage player. They are looking for the recreational player who is happy to drop a few bucks each week for the fun. We are the ones trying to take advantage of the casinos. The vast majority of us that patronize this blog are in fact part-time players looking to cut the house edge knowing full well either we don’t have the time, energy or perhaps the desire to become actual advantage players. (Just less disadvantaged)
The vast majority of casino players just want to have fun and budget accordingly. Any little incentives or rewards are looked at as freebies because they were going to drop their allocation into the machines anyway. I applaud them. They are having fun and life should be full of fun. I don’t look down on them in any way and I love playing next to them because they are fun to be around.
That said, I want to know the rules up-front, fine print and all. I am there to have fun, but I guess I am not an “Idiot”. Well perhaps I am because I like spending Friday nights drinking and playing Pai-Gow poker. Perhaps not because on average I spend less than my brother who likes to play pool and drink on Friday’s. My point being is that sometimes it really is a win-win situation.
I received a Palace Station Gas Card/Hotel promo offer for August. It’s part of the hotel stay offer. I’m out of town, non local. It was “x” amount of Shell gas cards up front. But, I noticed on the mailer it also says, additional gas cards can be earned based off play. Not sure what the coin in requirements are for the additional cards. I haven’t called to ask, but I’ll figure it out next month when I’m there.
I hate promotions that are advertised with deceptive wording. Usually, if you’re an experienced player, you can sniff out the flim-flam, but most of the great unwashed will fall for it. They’ll think they’re getting something wonderful when they’re really not.
And then there are the promotions that simply assume you’re an idiot. Like “EARN TWICE AS MANY POINTS FOR YOUR PLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and the redemption value of points has been simultaneously cut in half. Or for that matter, any multiple-point promo that has significant restrictions on who is eligible, or when, and THAT information is either in 4-point type at the bottom of the ad or not there at all.
I particularly dislike “earn tickets for this drawing” promos because I know that the big players will have a 99.9% chance of winning, while little ol’ quarter-playin’ me–I shouldn’t even bother to show up for the drawing. As far as that goes, I have perceived that APs like Dancer are often disliked for that very reason–they can, and often do, strip-mine promos that are based on total coin-in. As this eventually obviates the whole point of promotions–to get more people to play–offering such promos in the first place is counterproductive, engendering ill will while fattening the pockets of a couple or three APs.
Jean,
Happiness is knowing the’re eagle eye people who read the details.
Thanks again.