Which Game Should I Play?

Bonnie and I were attending a square dance convention where we had to stay for two nights. Close to the dancing venue was a Harrah’s Casino. Having Seven Stars status within the Caesars Entertainment system gets me a room “for free,” but a certain amount of play is expected. I don’t have to play every time I stay at one of these casino/hotels, but a certain percentage of time I do. And it’s a guess as to what that percentage is.

I decided to give them a minimum amount of play, which I arbitrarily defined to be 1,000 Reward Credits a day.

For their “regular” video poker, which takes $10 to earn a Reward Credit (meaning I would need to play $10,000 coin-in daily to earn the minimum I decided upon), the loosest game I found was 9/5 Jacks or Better, returning 98.45%.

For their “premium” video poker, which takes $25 to earn one Reward Credit (meaning I would need to play $25,000 coin-in for the same benefits), the loosest game I found was 9/6 Jacks or Better, returning 99.54%. 

For both games, they had $1 and $2, Triple Play and Five Play. Playing this much for these stakes is acceptable to me.

So, the primary choices are:

1. Play $25,000 daily at 9/6 Jacks?
2. Play $10,000 daily at 9/5 Jacks?
3. Avoid the problem by paying retail at another hotel where no play is expected?

They had a full array of games in each category, so if you’re a Double Double Bonus person, or a Deuces Wild player, or perhaps some other particular game satisfies your itch, you could find a tighter version to play at $10 per Reward Credit or a looser version to play for $25 per Reward Credit. The same technique I describe below may be used for these games as well, but since they all return less than the Jacks or Better games at this casino, I’m personally not interested.

First the math: For 9/6 Jacks, $25,000 * (1-99.54%) = $115 daily expected loss. For 9/5 Jacks, $10,000 * (1-98.45%) = $155 daily loss. The other hotel, $80 + tax + $15 daily resort fee, but you get a free continental breakfast.

For me, the other hotel is not a good option. The dollars came out to be similar, but I receive extra benefits at Harrah’s. Access to the Diamond Lounge, which offers snacks and free drinks, easily offsets most free continental breakfasts. For every Reward Credit you earn, you also earn a Tier Credit, which go towards your tier level One thousand Reward Credits in a day earns you a bonus of another 1,000 Tier Credits.  Consequently, for each day I earn 1,000 Tier Credits, I reduce my annual Tier Credit requirement to stay at Seven Stars by 2,000. (It takes 150,000 Tier Credits annually to remain Seven Stars and I’ve made the decision that it’s worth getting.)

So, between the two games, the looser game is the better choice, even though it requires 150% more coin-in to earn the same number of Reward Credits. This is a conclusion that was for these particular games only. For specific games at other casinos, the “lesser” game may well turn out to be less expensive.

Another consideration is how much time it takes to play. Clearly it takes longer to play $25,000 than $10,000. If I were a single-line quarter player, that would be a showstopper. I could play $10,000 per day for quarters if I basically played all day, not but $25,000. (But even then, I wasn’t in town to gamble but to participate in several hours a day of a square dance convention. Playing quarters was simply not an option.) But someone willing to play, say, $2 Triple Play is going to be finished in less than an hour, so that wasn’t a consideration for me this time.

Another consideration is the variance. Even though playing $25,000 at the better game has a lower expected loss than $10,000 coin-in at the lesser game, if things go badly, you can lose a lot more playing $25,000 than you can $10,000. 

Another consideration is the theoretical (i.e., “theoretical” is the percentage of coin-in the casino expects to win from all play on a particular machine or game). Very possibly, you’ll receive better offers down the road playing $10,000 at a 98.45% game than $25,000 at a 99.54% game. Will those offers be $90 better? Who knows for sure? 

Also, it depends on whether you’re planning on coming back or not. If you regularly visit a casino, the size of your offers is important. For Bonnie and me at this particular casino, probably not so much. One reason we attend this location is Bonnie’s daughter lives somewhat close to here and that’s an attraction. But Bonnie’s daughter is moving in a few months, so it’s very possible we will not be coming back to this casino again. Building up offers here, then, isn’t that useful. Where Bonnie’s daughter lives doesn’t matter to my readers, but adding personal considerations into a decision makes a lot of sense.

Still, Caesars has local offers and national offers. Even if we won’t be back to this casino, we will likely remain in the Caesars system for several years and we don’t want to leave dirty footprints behind us.