Is It True that the El Cortez Has Downgraded VP and Free Drinks?

I've heard that the El Cortez has placed the red/green lights on bartop video poker machines for the bartenders and also gutted the pay tables. Is this true?

Anthony Curtis says, “The drink-activation meters have been in place for close to a year. You don't get a drink on buy-in, but the first one is earned after only $5 coin-in, so it’s not really an issue.

"The pay schedules at the bars were also changed at about the same time to ‘be consistent with other downtown bars.’ Hence, some of the better schedules were downgraded, so no more 8/5 Bonus Poker or 15-9-4-4 Deuces Wild.”

A.C. stresses that many machines with good schedules remain at the El Cortez.

However, the video poker website vpFREE2 shows a pattern of higher-payback machines being swapped out in favor of more lower ones, although the sampling method isn't scientific. (The El Cortez was unresponsive to our efforts to open a dialogue.)

Jean Scott also takes a dim view of the changes at the El Cortez. “No downgrades surprise me anymore. They're happening all over town— so quickly that it makes the head spin. That leaves very few opportunities for advantage play. One has to scout hard and chase promotions even move intensely than in the past.”

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Comments

Kevin Lewis May-21-2019

Specific changes

The "Cortez Deuces," which were the best machines in the entire country, returning 101.6%, were recently removed. I expected them to get killed off long before this. The only other +EV machines were three .25 10/7 DB; I know for sure that two of them are still there (the third one was in the process of being moved, but may appear again somewhere; the other two are still in the annex). Aside from those, the only remaining even halfway decent machines were one .25 Super Double Bonus (which got moved at the same time the .25 DB machine I mentioned did), one .25 8/5 Bonus upright, and several remaining multigames at the south bar that have .25 8/5 DB. That's it--everything else there is terrible.

There were some scattered Double Deuces .25 machines, most of which have been moved--I think those returned 99.62%, but I never paid much attention to them. VpFree2 is very much out of date on the machine inventory here. What was once a great place to play is just...mediocre now.

black jack May-21-2019

ElCo vp

VpFree2 is actually very close to accurate for ElCo games. Plenty of playable vp at better than 99.5% return. $1 SDB and 0.50 DDW are my got-to machines, along with the 0.25 DB games.

David May-21-2019

Like so many things ...

... it is a race to the bottom. Employees and customers get screwed while leadership solves exclusively for shareholders. When history looks back on the collapse of Las Vegas (I'm not going to even try to predict when this will happen) it will be traced back to resort fees, 6/5 Blackjack, and reduced pay video poker.

cabber May-21-2019

El Cortez Video Poker

DDBP at Ike's bar - 25¢ still works for me. Just returned from a visit and day before I left it dealt me 4 Aces plus the kicker, just like that. Can't complain....yet. :-)

LVNow May-21-2019

ElCo Video Poker Inventory

The El Cortez video poker inventory at vpfree2.com looks up to date to me. Someone did a very thorough job of surveying the paytables based on what I've seen there recently. Too bad that only a few of the better paytables remain as Kevin and Black Jack have already commented.

Jennifer Opitz May-21-2019

VP wasteland

Looks to me that any time a hotel casino upgrades their rooms and renovates, all the great pay VP goes in to the abyss and the casino becomes a wasteland of horrible pay tables. I was really enjoying playing the old school Deuces and *poof* there they were, gone into the abyss and that's that. I'm running out of options for any half decent machine play and now hotel comps as well. Vegas is losing me as a player and hotel stayer.

Question of the Day - 21 May 2019

Comments