Three weeks ago, I addressed end-of-year considerations about emptying your slot club accounts — or not. Today I’m addressing a different, albeit related, subject. And that subject is reaching a specific tier level.

Some casino slot clubs have tier levels — silver, gold, platinum, or whatever. Often these are annual awards earned January 1 through December 31, although they don’t have to be. 

I was prompted to look at this for personal reasons relating to Caesars Rewards. As I wrote this, I was planning one last trip to Harrah’s Cherokee in order to reach some not-well-known goals — and I needed to plan accordingly. It may well be my last trip to Cherokee, ever. The planning I’m doing may be applicable to some of my readers. Some of this is speculation because as I write this, I haven’t received the December mailer yet.

If you play at a Harrah’s or Caesars property, you know that Seven Stars is the highest tier level and that level requires 150,000 Tier Credits (TCs) per year. For slot and video poker players, these TCs are earned in one of three ways: playing the machines, receiving bonuses for reaching predetermined daily levels, and TC multipliers — which are promotions occurring periodically throughout the year. In the last few months of the year, TC multipliers are more common as players strive to reach the next tier.

Making it to Seven Stars is huge — with their $1,200 retreat, five $100 dinners, highly discounted cruises, and some other goodies. Ending the year with slightly less than 150,000 credits is a big mistake. But we’re played a lot of high stakes video poker at several Caesars properties, mostly Reno and Cherokee, and we’re far beyond the 150,000 level. For the past few years, we’ve reached this level before the end of February.

Most players don’t realize that you can earn quite a bit more than the 150,000 TCs required for Seven Stars, and get rewarded for doing so. For every 250,000 TCs earned, you get one Seven Stars Experience Credit (SSEC), which may be redeemed for a variety of things. For Bonnie and me, we redeem each of these SSECs for $450 in free play at either a Las Vegas or Cherokee property.

While the following numbers aren’t exact, they’ll give you an idea of how I went about my decision making — and may well be applicable to you in a similar situation. I planned a 10-day trip. At the start of the trip, Bonnie needed 90,000 TCs to reach the next SSEC and I needed 260,000 TCs. (Actually, I only needed 10,000 but I figured I could complete that and make it all the way through the next one as well.) There was one TC multiplier where you received 5x TCs up to 25,000 points. And I can comfortably play about $180,000 per day, split between Bonnie’s card and mine. At Cherokee, $180,000 played on video poker will result in 18,000 TCs. I play primarily video poker, but also some slots, which accrue TCs twice as fast.

For the TC multiplier, I don’t know if the bonus is 25,000 or only 20,000 and they count the 5,000 I’d earn as part of the 25,000. I’ve seen it both ways at various properties and sometimes the people at the booth don’t understand the difference and so can’t give precise answers. At Harrah’s Cherokee, they usually have one or more high level people at the booth, so I expect to get accurate answers there. But for planning purposes, I’ll assume the “worst case,” which is that I only receive 20,000 extra TCs. I don’t want to assume the best and possibly miss the next SSEC (and my $450 bonus) by 5,000 TCs.

For normal daily play there, earning 5,000 TCs ($50,000 coin-in) per day is pretty standard because doing that earns a 10,000 TC bonus. Here, though, Bonnie only needs 90,000 TCs and the multiplier day she’ll earn 35,000 (the 5,000 played, 20,000 multiplier bonus, and the daily 10,000 bonus). That will leave her needing “only” 55,000 other TCs to accumulate over nine days of play. So, I’ll play on her card 5,000 TCs for four days and skip playing on her card the rest of the trip.

On my card, ten days of 15,000 TCs (earning at least 5,000 daily with the 10,000 per day bonus), plus the 20,000 TC multiplier bonus means 170,000 out of the 260,000 needed. Earning an extra 8,000 TCs per day for the five days I’ll play on Bonnie’s card earns me an extra 40,000, and earning an extra 13,000 on the five days I don’t play on Bonnie’s card gives me an additional 65,000 TCs. This adds up to 285,000 — which is more than the 260,000 needed. Good. I can always play less.

They have Next Day Bounce Back (NDB)at Harrah’s Cherokee, and I think the current rate of free play is earned at 0.375%. I will try to earn my points by the ninth day. I don’t want to earn it for the 10^th day I play because our plane leaves before the NDB is available for me to play. Playing $180,000 coin-in on a day when I’m not getting NDB costs about $675 in EV. Doing that to earn $450 in free play doesn’t make sense. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll have met my goals before the 10^th day and so I won’t have to play at all that day. It’s also possible that playing $50,000 that last day and earning the 10,000 TC bonus will be required, but that’s only around -$165 in EV so it remains an option. Or, better, maybe $25,000 will be enough earning half the amounts as $50,000. That will only cost $80 in EV for missing out on NDB.

NDB on your card lasts for 30 days there, so if I were a local and planning to come back within a month, I could play right up to the last minute. But since I’m not planning on coming back, I sit out playing on the last day of my trip — other than picking up NDB from the day before and any other free play that might be available. If the mailer has weekly free play starting on Monday, for example, I might well plan my departure for a Monday.

While this trip actually ended the first week of December, and I have three additional weeks to earn the SSEC goals in Las Vegas, there is a Great Gift Wrap Up that ends December 14 where every Reward Credits earned throughout the year at any of the Caesars or Harrah’s properties counts towards gifts (or free play), I want all of my play done before that. 

My lesser play on Bonnie’s card compared to mine will mean she’ll receive lesser offers down the road from Cherokee than I will. But unless the tax law changes, we won’t be going there anymore so how big the offers are is irrelevant.

My host at Circa called me up to invite me to a promotion in late November. I had actually been napping when she called (I had played graveyard the day before) and was a little fuzzy on the details she told me. I figured out that I’d have to play to earn tickets to a drawing — and while I do play at Circa, it’s mostly slots and I don’t play enough to have a real chance in drawings. 

I started to decline but she prompted that this one was really a good idea for me because only 50 or so people were being invited.  

She texted me a flyer announcing a drawing where 10 people would get $500 each. You could earn one drawing ticket for every 100 points you earned from Thursday noon to Saturday 2 p.m. If 50 people were invited and we all played the same, my EV for the drawing was $50. I didn’t study the text carefully. I would play some, but not a lot. 

I usually study rules carefully but this one was for a giveaway so small, I didn’t figure it was worth it. I couldn’t figure out why my host thought this was a good deal.

When I got there, I found out. They were also giving away a Ford F-150 Raptor truck! And for that, it didn’t matter how much you played — everybody got one ticket! The truck, including with big “Circa” stickers on both sides, was in the lobby of the drawing area. I had seen the truck displayed, but I figured I had no chance to win it, so I paid no attention. And now I had a 1-in-50 chance? Not sure how I got that chance, but here I was.

I’m not a truck guy and had no idea of what an F-150 sold for. I looked it up on my cell phone and learned they went for $85K each when new. I wondered how much they sold for if they had “Circa” logos on the sides? 

Would they offer a cash or free play option instead of the truck? I didn’t know. My host didn’t know. Probably not because it was now “used.”  But surely, I could sell it for $60,000 at least to somebody, couldn’t I? A 1-in-50 chance to get that much was worth $1,200 in EV. Now I understood why my host strongly encouraged me to be here.

They made a pretty big deal out of the drawing. There were only 48 contestants and two of them had two entries, because they had been runner-up in a previous drawing. When they called your name, you walked up to the stage down a big aisle they had set up to pick one of 50 small boxes. One of those boxes had a key fob in it.

They had already had the drawing for 10 $500 winners, and these were announced when you were called up to get your small box. When they called my name, they didn’t say I had won $500 — which was disappointing, but not surprising. I had played considerably more than my weekly average — but not really all that much.

Also surprising was when they called my name, they said I was one of the two people who had two entries! I had been runner-up for a previous Raptor drawing and wasn’t even aware of it!

How could I possibly not know of this? I don’t believe I even entered a previous Raptor drawing. I really must be losing it! Seriously, this doesn’t strike me as something I could forget.

Now I had two chances to get this truck. My EV just shot up to $2,400. When called the second time, I dutifully walked up and picked up my second box. 

Most of the entrants were from out of town. Some flew several friends and family members to witness their 1-in-50 chance. I thought I was doing Bonnie a favor by not inviting her. She’s a good sport and would have come if I had asked, but I was getting downtown at 9 a.m. and staying all day. I checked all three properties (Circa, Golden Gate, the D) twice, looking for games to play. And then Bonnie and I were hosting four family members to a Hugo’s Cellar “Thanksgiving Dinner” later that night because for Thanksgiving Day itself, we’d be in Cherokee.

Bonnie isn’t a slot player — although she’d definitely be willing to hit the buttons should I tell her which ones to hit. I have to watch her, though, because not infrequently she hits a button she shouldn’t and changes it to another game or denomination which isn’t such a good play. But it was going to be a long day and she had packing to arrange for our out-of-town trip, so I suggested she stay at home. Her sister and brother-in-law, invited to dinner, live only a mile from us and were very willing to bring Bonnie along with them. But had I known what a big deal this was, Bonnie would have been there with me.

This is the point in the blog where you’re expecting me to reveal that I actually won the truck. Well, I would if I did — but I didn’t. Some lady from out-of-town had picked the correct box and was quite happy about it. As she should have been!

To me, this story is about my legitimate concern regarding how this snuck up on me. Being on top of drawings and knowing what promotions are going on and how to succeed at them is something I’ve done for more than 30 years. And I’m really good at this part of my “job.” And I totally missed this one. As they said in the 95-year-old movie Little Caesar: “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?”

I’m planning on quitting gambling at the end of the year because of the new tax law. Maybe this was a sign I should quit now!