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Good Guys & Bad Guys

See that fella? It’s certified Bad Guy Sen. Mike Crapo (R) and he’s grinning because he stuck it to you big time and looks to get away with it. To steal from Vital Vegas author Scott Roeben, Crapo has the perfect last name for someone who gleefully took a big, steaming dump on the gambling public. He’s the evil genius behind the OBBBA tax hike on gamblers, which got passed because most of Crapo’s colleagues were too clueless to study the bill … and because they were under heavy White House pressure to move the damn thing.

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Monitoring the Midwest

It’s been two days since Hollywood Joliet opened and the reviews are in. Suffice it to say that Wall Street is raving about what Penn Entertainment accomplished on a mere $185 million. (One analyst even likened the finished product to Durango Resort in terms of quality.) It will be October before we know how much of a sparkplug it will prove to be, but solid business should (thanks to superior access) solidify into something quite a bit more. After all, Joliet hasn’t seen a new casino in 30 years.

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Downgrade at Four Queens

Bob Dancer

For decades, the Four Queens in downtown Las Vegas has had dollar single-line 10-7 Double Bonus. A few years ago, they cut the slot club in half on those games (leaving players with a 0.16% cash and 0.3125% comps), along with monthly mailers and promotions. Still, with a game that started at 100.17%, it was a decent play for dollars. It was the only single-line dollar game I still played.

A few months ago, they downgraded the last four 10/7 machines to unplayable pay schedules. The highest returning video poker games they have now are single-line quarter and fifty cent 9/6 Jacks or Better — with full slot club benefits meaning 0.3125% cash back and 0.625% comps. They still have mailers. They still have promotions. There are some advantage slots there and sometimes I can find one that is playable.

The thing is, I’ve been playing games for $25 up to $125 a hand for a long time. Switching to a game that requires $1.25 or $2.50 a hand to play really doesn’t float my boat. I’ve heard it said that for gambling to be interesting, it has to hurt when you lose. There is no reasonable loss at fifty cents or lower which will affect my bankroll or well-being at all. 

So, will I still play there? 

Yes, but not for the reason you might think.

At the current time, Bonnie and I together have more than $6,000 comp dollars, which can be used at either Four Queens or Binion’s, located catty-corner across Fremont from the Four Queens. Magnolia’s is a decent-enough coffee shop for when I’m downtown, and Hugo’s Cellar is an excellent old-fashioned steak house where we enjoy taking friends. There are a few other food options and they are building more.

If I quit playing for six months (or possibly it’s for one year), our comp dollars will evaporate. But so long as I continue to ti give them some play, the comp dollars will last until we use them up. So, I will continue to play some.

This summer, for example, you could play 400 points ($3,200 coin-in on video poker; half that on slots), and get $40 in free play. You could do this up to four times at Four Queens each month, and four times at Binion’s, where the best game is $1 8/5 Bonus. This is a 1.25% promotion, which is decent, but it’s for low stakes. I earned some of the bonuses for Bonnie and me in June and July, but not all four at each place. In August, I’ll be out of town for almost half the month, so I’ll probably do similarly.

Although we currently each earn $80 per month in free play, that amount could be reduced or even disappear because I’m not playing as much as I used to when they had dollar 10/7. 

This is the one casino where I can say I’m not playing for the money — I’m playing for the comps. And it’s not so much to earn additional comps (which I will do to a minor degree), but mainly to retain the comps I earned previously.

Even if I give up gambling at the first of the year because of the new tax law, I’ll retain this play until the comps are gone — which could easily take three or more years.

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No Hope for ESPN Bet?

Penn Entertainment opens its new, $185 million Hollywood Joliet tomorrow. It could use the boost. Land-based casinos continue to perform for Penn, despite CEO Jay Snowden‘s dubious competence. Its much-vaunted digital strategy is another matter. Online return on investment just got reduced 25%, meaning that Penn will lose $200 million on sports betting and iGaming this year, not a mere $160 million.

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Wynn Wins

Delilah (Wynn Las Vegas)

While bigger rivals Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International were spinning less-than-stellar results, Wynn Resorts actually had something to crow about in 2Q25. For thing, it hit record levels of cash flow at Wynncore. True, the company came in under where Wall Street had forecast it. But The Street was duly impressed with what Wynn delivered.

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A Different Sort of Advantage Play

Bob Dancer

When I’m in Las Vegas, I usually drive my own car to go places. Sometimes, though, using rideshare is convenient. Like going to or from the airport. Or taking me to physical therapy appointments when I’m recovering from one surgery or another and I’m not supposed to drive. While I do enjoy a glass of wine with dinner periodically, I haven’t been too impaired to drive safely since my college days more than 50 years ago, but I suppose it could happen again.

I have both Lyft and Uber accounts set up, but in 20 trials, Lyft was always cheaper than Uber. So, I only use Lyft. It’s possible that Uber might be cheaper than Lyft some of the time. Since many of the Lyft drivers also drive for Uber, I’m assuming the experience itself is pretty similar between the two companies.

Bonnie and I go to Reno 20 times a year or so. While most of our play is at one casino, we do play at others there and so earn free play. We schedule our trips, among other parameters, so we can pick up any free play we’re offered.

If we have three or more casinos to visit during a trip (or if Lake Tahoe, which is 60 miles away, has one of those casinos), we’ll rent a car. But if it’s only two casinos, we’ll take the shuttle from the airport to get to the first casino offering free play, and Lyft our way to the casino where we’ll stay. While we could take a shuttle back to the airport and get another shuttle from the airport to the second casino, that can easily take an hour or so and Lyft is much quicker.

On one occasion, we did this in reverse. That is, we took the shuttle to the main casino we were going to stay for the trip and used Lyft to take us to the second. From there, we would take a shuttle to the airport. 

On this occasion, I brought most of our luggage down to the video poker machine I play, and was waiting for Bonnie to join me. She was still in the room and was going to meet me at the machine. I opened up the Lyft app to check how much it would be to go to the second casino and found out it was $12.50. I didn’t order the ride (Bonnie wasn’t there yet), but I left the app open. Five minutes later, the price was $9.75, and ten minutes after that it was $18.

While I knew rideshare pricing is based on supply and demand, I didn’t realize it jumped around so much so quickly.

When Bonnie arrived, the price was $14.35. I waited a few minutes and it dropped to $10.95, which I took. That wasn’t the lowest price of the day, but if I took the earlier price of $9.75, the ride would have come and gone before Bonnie got there. And leaving Bonnie behind wasn’t an option.

But $10.95 was a relatively low price. It was much lower than $18 and was the second-lowest price I’d seen in the last half hour. It’s possible the next price would be $8.35, but it’s also possible it would be $17.70. I have to pull the trigger some time, so I pick a price that is relatively low.

It’s possible that the first price I see will be the lowest one for quite some time. I won’t get that price, usually. Unless we’ve taken the same route at the same time of day several times, we don’t know a good price from a bad price. So we almost always get a few prices and pick a relatively low one.

Now, Bonnie and I make a game out of which Lyft price to take. If the price drops when we’re ready to go, we jump on it and feel good about saving $1.25 or so. Never mind that we might be up or down $40,000 for the trip.

In Las Vegas when we take Lyft from the airport home, I expect the price to be rather stable. During normal business hours, there are always a lot of people wanting to use Lyft to get away from the airport. The last time we took it, the price was $19.99, and it stayed that way for almost ten minutes. Finally, it dropped all the way to $19.85. I took it. 

When I “bragged” to Bonnie about saving a whole 14 cents, we both laughed. This time, what we saved was essentially zero. But doing this over and over again, we’ll get lower prices in total than if we blindly just take the first one.

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Strip Snaps Slump

After months of the bow planes being locked in “Dive,” the submersible U.S.S. Las Vegas Strip finally righted itself, at least for June. Gambling grosses nudged upward 1%, nabbing $765 million. Slots carried the freight, as the one-armed bandits took 10% more, year/year. Baccarat wasn’t the usual disaster but it was down 7%, while all other table games slumped 9.5%. So score one for the low rollers, who saved Las Vegas‘ bacon … and damned little gratitude can they expect for it.

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