Comments on: You Ask – I Answer

By: Keith and Elaine Seitz

Keith and Elaine Seitz — Fri, 13 Dec 2013 16:08:17 +0000

We recently attended a dinner and cash givaway event at the Fiesta. I was very surprised to hear the GM announce “we always have plenty of rooms. If you have friend or family guests come to town give us a call for a room comp.”

All these years we have thought we had to make the casino think we were staying in a comp room.

By: Kevin Lewis

Kevin Lewis — Sun, 08 Dec 2013 05:12:59 +0000

One example of how you can push even a lousy game well over 100% is this month at the Hard Rock. The best games they have are 8/5 BP and 9/7 DB, both a little over 99.1%. Their slot club return is a pathetic 0.05% (or 50 cents for every $1000 you play), but that’s boosted up to 0.35% (7X) for everybody on Saturdays and for seniors (50+) on MTuWTh. On Sunday, everybody earns 1% additional freeplay. On MTW, $600 coin-in gets a $10 food comp (+1.66%). Also, I believe every day though I’m not certain, you earn a $25 Macy’s gift card for $2000 coin-in, which is 1.25%. I believe you keep your points as well; if that’s the case, you’re actually getting a 101.1% return on your first $600 of play and 100.7% on all subsequent play up to a total of $8000 coin-in (since the Macy’s cards max out at 4/day). It’s not clear whether you can “piggyback” these offers, as in, in your first $600 of play, do you earn the $10 food comp AND those points count toward a Macy’s card as well?
Worst case scenario would be you only get one offer at a time, and your points are spent toward it, so you get first a 1.66% boost (food) and then a 1.25% boost (gift card). Best case scenario would be a piggyback as noted above. You should expect your play to generate some kind of mailed offers as well (local or not). Bottom line: this is an excellent play, and confined to the non-weekend days for the most part, which seems to be pretty much the norm these days. On Fridays and Saturdays, the best strategy is to play some no-benefits FPDW at the Palms or Stations–or better yet, stay home. Next month, the Hard Rock may be worthless to play in and some other joint with lousy games may offer the best net deal in town with good promos. As Jean has said, you can’t fall in love with any one casino. My cycle has been to play hard at a given place during a +EV promo, STOP PLAYING when the promo runs its course, take advantage of any mailed offers my play generates, and move on.

By: queen of comps

queen of comps — Sat, 07 Dec 2013 07:09:14 +0000

Bev and Jim: There are several other choices, depending on what you can find where you play, but mostly advantage players will need to choose a minus-EV game and boost it over 100% with extra benefits. This is easiest to do with 9/6 JoB or NSUD’s, but sometimes you can find enough extra benefits to play 8/5 Bonus or 9/7 DB. A few who work hard at it can push 9/6 DDB or Airport Deuces over 100%.

By: Gerda Sisson

Gerda Sisson — Sat, 07 Dec 2013 03:55:27 +0000

Those of us non-locals , not in driving distance , but have to fly out to Vegas have voted with our feet already . We have been to Las Vegas 60 plus times since 1992 . Back then even Strip casinos had good VP play . When that disappeared we stayed at locals casinos , Orleans, Gold Coast, South Point, Station Casinos etc. When their offers got worse and worse and resort fees were introduced even for comped rooms we stayed closer to home , in our case Biloxi , a 5 hour drive away. We live in Georgia and it just wasn’t worth the hassle of flying and spending big bucks on air fare anymore . If casino marketing assumed we’ll be back no matter what , they were wrong and I’m sure we are not alone in playing closer to home . Years ago that wasn’t possible , today most of us have casinos in driving distance . Biloxi gives us comped rooms , more free food than we can eat , generous freeplay , special invites to tournaments and free shows and good VP is available . We usually go once a month for 4 days . We’re not high rollers (we’re quarters , 50 cent and dollar players). We always loved Las Vegas but once we experienced much the same as Kevin did we looked and found a better alternative to Las Vegas .

By: Bev and Jim

Bev and Jim — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 19:05:22 +0000

Hello Jean, Could you please write about which games the advantage players should learn to play now that FPDW and 10/7 DB are disappearing. Happy Holidays from Indiana.

By: john marley

john marley — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 10:11:46 +0000

i totally agree with kevin about the palms. kevin usually calls a spade a spade and hits the nail on the head in his valuable comments to the articles posted on this site.

By: Kevin Lewis

Kevin Lewis — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 18:10:41 +0000

Jean, thanks for clarifying re the Palms. I’ve alluded before to the fact that it’s easier to get to +EV if you’re a local: many casinos make ONLY locals eligible for promos, bounceback free play, etc., and of course, earning drawing tickets only does you any good if you are able to be present for the drawing. Many of the locals’ casinos are implementing such restrictions, including Coasts, Palms, Stations, South Point, etc. Since I’m not a local, I can only calculate EV on the basis of the return I receive directly and immediately. I used to, in fact, receive at the very least room comps from locals’ casinos. Now, I get nothing, nothing, nothing. Playing good games seems to be the killer, and the Palms and others seem to have included games such as NSUD and JOB–still money makers for the casino–in the definition of “good.” Certainly, in marketing to locals, those casinos realize that they are fighting for the attentions of a much more savvy and dwindling customer base of often very skilled players. Thus, if they were to no-mail or no-promo locals, those people would vote with their feet. The Palms can shun me for putting in $40,000 coin-in over a weekend of JOB (which is what I did last June, and what happened; I have never received even a postcard from them), when they couldn’t afford to shun a local who gives them the same action. So the distinction is very significant and should be drawn: advantage play is MUCH easier these days if you’re a local. Casino marketing evidently assumes nowadays that if you’re a visitor (steenkin’ tourist!), you’ll be back no matter what, so rather than any kind of incentive to return, you receive a boot in your ass and the derisive shout, “Go home and earn us some more money so you can come back, LOSER!!!” This, coupled with the fact that I loathe the Palms’ “ambiance,” means that I need a very good reason to play there. If you get goodies like spa treatments, car washes, drawing entries, and mailed bounceback, of course that greatly inflates your return. By both practical considerations and deliberate design, that stuff isn’t available to scum such as myself who only dump a few grand into the machines every month or so instead of on a continual basis. Therefore, my calculations of EV are harsher than a local’s might be.