I recently entered a local casino shortly after 4 a.m. and swiped my card at the kiosk. On the screen read words to the effect of \u201cUnable to Access Your Card at This Time!\u201d I swiped at an adjacent kiosk and received the same message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This could mean several things. One possibility was that the casino was doing daily maintenance — such as, for example, calculating multipliers from the previous day. This happens sometime \u201cearly\u201d in the morning. Maybe 2 a.m. Maybe 3 a.m. Maybe 4 a.m. Depends on the casino. This was the most benign thing that could happen. I hoped this was the explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
It could be, however, that I\u2019d worn out my welcome. This periodically happens to many strong players — including me. I know players who have run out of places to play in greater Las Vegas. I\u2019m not at that point yet, but I\u2019m closer to it than I\u2019d like to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you run into a situation where your card doesn\u2019t work, you need to go to the club booth (usually not open at 4 a.m.) and find out what is wrong. Maybe your card has been demagnetized and a simple replacement will fix the problem. Or maybe the casino is going to take your card away — with or without allowing you to cash out your points first.\u00a0 You won\u2019t know until you go to the booth and ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was not at a casino where I needed to swipe at the kiosk before starting to play, and I already knew what my multiplier would be that day, so I went to a video poker machine to get some more information. I knew how many points I had accumulated on my card and if that number showed up when I inserted my card, likely everything was okay. If my card wouldn\u2019t work at the machine, that would tell me that it was more serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My card didn\u2019t work at the video poker machine. Damn! This might not end well!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I then examined the card closely and discovered the problem. I was trying to play with a card from another casino! These senior moments keep happening more and more frequently these days, although I sometimes did this kind of thing even before I became a senior. I\u2019m sure that this has also happened to many of you who have a sizeable collection of slot club cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Okay. Fine. No problem. I got out the correct card, went back to the kiosk, and everything worked just fine. I had a tiny \u201cscare,\u201d but everything worked out this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it won\u2019t always work out. Sooner or later, another casino will restrict me in one way or another. So, the question is, how do I prepare for that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When a casino restricts you, some places have a reputation for allowing you to cash out your already-earned points, and some don\u2019t. Some casinos have a policy of letting you redeem your points for full value using free play, or half value if you want cash. (I will ALWAYS want free play in these situations.) If they take away my card, they\u2019ll cash me out at the lesser rate. I don\u2019t want that, of course, so every time I accumulate $200 or more in free play at such a casino, I redeem it. That way, when I lose half of what I have accumulated, it won\u2019t be very much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It can be trickier if there is a third option, such as redeeming the same amount of points for $1 cash, $2 free play, or $3 for food at restaurants. If you use the restaurant(s) at this casino, redeeming all your points when you earn them is costly. You\u2019ll need to work out for yourself how many dollars to keep in your account based on how often you eat there and whether you think you\u2019re close to being restricted.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other casinos have the reputation of not cashing you out at all. How do I know this? I ask players who have been restricted! If somebody tells me they have been restricted at a particular place, I ask them if their points were redeemed when they were restricted. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it\u2019s no. I keep balances accordingly.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I prefer to keep larger balances as a sort of \u201csavings account\u201d to be drawn down during the inevitable losing streaks. Since these balances have tax implications only when withdrawn, on a winning year I tend to keep large balances and on the losing years, my balances become zero before December 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is my preferred way of handling balances. But when playing at casinos that might not redeem at full value, keeping a small balance trumps savings and tax considerations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently entered a local casino shortly after 4 a.m. and swiped my card at the kiosk. On the screen read words to the effect of \u201cUnable to Access Your Card at This Time!\u201d I swiped at an adjacent kiosk and received the same message. This could mean several things. One possibility was that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":6498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"No Time to Panic! by Bob Dancer","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[558,643],"tags":[561,1014,711],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}