Bonnie and I took a trip to Reno and played at the ROW, the threesome of connected casinos (Eldorado, Silver Legacy, and Circus Circus) that are now part of the Caesars system. I’d played there previously but this was Bonnie’s first trip.
When we swiped our cards at the kiosk at the start of our visit, we discovered that we each received 20,000 bonus drawing tickets for a drawing coming up in several weeks, and a 20x ticket multiplier for all of our play that day. Every day we were there, we got another 20x multiplier. When we departed Reno, we each had several hundred thousand drawing tickets. I’ve never had so many drawing tickets in my life!
Turns out we got so many bonus tickets and such large multipliers because we are Seven Stars members. Diamond members get 15x multipliers and 15,000 tickets. Platinum members get 10x and 10,000 tickets. And Gold members get 5x and 1,000 tickets.
Generally speaking, I only show up at drawings where I have a good chance to win. Lots of tickets generally mean a good chance. And now we both have a lot of tickets. Actually, what I just said isn’t exactly true. It’s not just the chance to win. It’s also the size of the win. A really, really good chance to win $50 wouldn’t be worth getting on an airplane to go and try to win. A moderately good chance to win $100,000 just might be.
So, do we go back for the drawing?
Most likely not.
If all players who show up get so many free tickets and there are such big multipliers every day, everybody will have a lot of tickets. If we have 500,000 tickets out of several billion in the virtual drum, that’s really no different percentagewise than having 500 tickets out of several million. If the second situation isn’t a “must attend” event (which it isn’t), the first one isn’t either.
To be sure, our Seven Stars status earns us tickets at a more rapid rate than lower-tier players get. But not that much more. It’s true that you only need one ticket in the drum to win, but the odds favor the players with lots of tickets. As a general rule for me, if everybody is getting free tickets, I’m not interested. No matter how much I play, if tens of thousands of players receive free tickets, I can never earn enough to have an excellent chance of winning.
There are players who will attend as many drawings as possible, no matter how many entries they have. Not me. It takes time and energy to attend drawings. Since Reno is hundreds of miles away from where we live in Las Vegas, it’s easy to see it’s not free for us to get to that drawing. But even for drawings in Las Vegas, it’s time-consuming to attend the drawings. And you can only be in one place at a time.
Turns out this drawing in Reno is a three-night affair. On Thursday, 20 players get $500 each. Since they say the number of players winning is guaranteed, I guess that means if not all 20 prizes are claimed within a certain time limit, they’ll keep drawing until they are. Friday night another 20 players get $500 each. Saturday night, 60 players win $500, and one of those 60 wins a $50,000 Mercedes Benz in addition to their $500. (I might be misstating the rules. I don’t have the exact rules in front of me. Still, this blog is about the thought process involved in deciding whether to attend a drawing rather than this particular drawing.)
Bonnie told me we didn’t need a new car, which is true, but I tried to explain that this wouldn’t be a problem. The odds of winning the car are very small, and even if we do, they usually have a cash option instead of forcing you to take the car. And even if they don’t have that option written into the rules, it’s not that difficult to sell a car. It’s better to win a $50,000 car than to not win a $50,000 car.
Bottom line for us is that while these drawings create a small amount of equity, in and of themselves, they wouldn’t be valuable enough to make a special trip. If there were other significant reasons to spend three days in Reno over that time period (which there might be, depending . . .), then yes, we’ll have enough equity to be present when the drawings take place.
Thanks Captain Obvious!
You can fly direct to Reno from Vegas!
Bob is obviously a student of time and motion studies, a work measurement technique to maximize output and/or profit.
So Bob would have to make a careful calculation of whether the time spent traveling to and staying in Reno would be more productive than spending that time in the home office, Dotty’s.
Would be modestly more attractive if “warm bodies” didn’t get a slew of tickets just for showing up. That right there dilutes considerable value in the drawing.
a similar strategy can be found in the old fashioned “multiplier days” at several casinos. Ellis Island and Silver 7s are ofering something that sounds great but in reality is worth not much.
I really wonder how come most casinos are no longer offering videopoker multipliers but rather slotmachines multipliers or drawing ticket multipliers….
From Switzerland
Boris
I tend to look for drawings that are one ticket per person.
Only earned on drawing day.
And you have to be present to win so even though there might be 2,000 tickets in there there’s only a thousand people present so one and a thousand for you know $500 prize isn’t bad.
I like it when they split the drawing up by tear level that way you all have similar Bank rolls to get tickets so the elites and black cards aren’t getting millions of tickets.
I like the El Cortez system. You can earn your drawing tickets and you decide on which day you will participate in the drawing. At least it seems that way as the other day while I was staying there I noticed that I had several hundreds of tickets available and the kiosk had me opt the day for the drawing (there was a drawing on that day but they had 3 different drawings scheduled that week in November. Since it’s clear that I couldn’t earn that many tickets from just playing 1 or 2 days at the quarter level I took it that the tickets are being accumulated until you redeem them and participate. So, before inserting the tickets into the virtual drum I made sure that I would be there that night. I got even lucky and my name was drawn for one of the standard prizes, which was absolutely surprising. I was playing on a machine when I suddenly heard my name so I started running towards the club zone and was given a warning for “speeding” in the casino which is not allowed. No running on the floor and anyways I had 2 minutes to claim my prize. It was one of my luckier days at the El Cortez last November.¨
They also have multiplier days for drawing tickets and not sure if videopoker gaming applies to that or not. I guess so because how else would I have earned so many points? So once again, the E-C is definetely a fun place to play. They give something back to the players and in the end, everybody wins.
From Switzerland
Boris
Also Bob and Wifes plane tickets,meals,etc.would be subtracted from winnings.we play in Atlantic city,and Harrahs,Caesars has changed a lot.They took out machines fun to play like jokers wild progressives,dollars,quarters ,also other machines that won quite a lot.our friends went to Borgata and other casinos now.
In making your decision to attend the drawing or not, do you factor in the number of people who won’t be present for the drawing? How do you come up with a guesstimate on how many people will be present for the drawing?
We were at a local casino on New Years Eve years ago and there was a drawing you had to be present to win. After 15/20 minutes of drawing people that weren’t present, they had everyone put their card in a machine and were able to pick winners from that.
As a Sparks resident, I go to the El Dorado weekly on Fridays to pick up the free bottle of wine or spirit with 100 tier points. At the kiosk, you swipe to receive your tickets and a ticket multiplier. The actual drawings are a big deal with lots of decorations, an obnoxious emcee and dancing girls. You have to activate your entries and be present within five minutes of being called. Therein lies the issue: The Row is three city blocks long…it would take you at least 15 minutes to traverse one end to the other. Add in the fact that the PA system is difficult or impossible to hear in some parts of the complex means that A LOT of people do not show when called. I’ve actually been called as an alternate a few times and staked out a VP seat at the El Dorado, not far from the proceedings at the Silver Legacy. BTW the video poker has been downgraded drastically there as older machines are pulled out in favor of newer machines with poor schedules. The only decent machines are a section that they use for slot tourneys and at the Sports Bar…25 cents up to $1.00 25-coin NSU Deuces and 8/5 ACE$ Bonus poker…although they are starting to put in the newer 6/5 Bonus games at the bar now too. Bad buttons are a problem on the older machines, so beware. Silver Legacy and Circus Circus are non-starters.
more and more casinos are eliminating the good machines and replace that floorspace with the new geneneration of video slots. If that trend persists we will see the end of all good videopoker in approximately 5-10 years. The “new full pay” version will probably be in the range of 98.50 per cent then and along with all possible comps etc you will not get it any higher than 99 per cent. That’s my vision of a very dark future for videopoker.
From Switzerland
Boris