Win a house promo

My dreams are getting desperate and even casino-centric. This one this morning had me playing at a craps table that had a "Win a House Promotion!", kind of like "Win a Car Promotion!". I rolled a hard 4 and won the promotion. So I walked away from the table a winner of the promo, and chased down the promo club person and asked her if I could trade in the house for a cash value. Since no mention of the value of the house had been made, I expected it to be say $400,000.
So I asked if I could get $400,000 cash instead of a house.
She said "You'd get twelve hundred dollars."
"What? The house has got to be worth more than that. Pay me the $400,000, and I'll come back next month and win it again and take the house."
She just kept walking down halls and backroom corridors and did not respond again.

Quote: ChumpChange

My dreams are getting desperate and even casino-centric. This one this morning had me playing at a craps table that had a "Win a House Promotion!", kind of like "Win a Car Promotion!". I rolled a hard 4 and won the promotion. So I walked away from the table a winner of the promo, and chased down the promo club person and asked her if I could trade in the house for a cash value. Since no mention of the value of the house had been made, I expected it to be say $400,000.
So I asked if I could get $400,000 cash instead of a house.
She said "You'd get twelve hundred dollars."
"What? The house has got to be worth more than that. Pay me the $400,000, and I'll come back next month and win it again and take the house."
She just kept walking down halls and backroom corridors and did not respond again.
link to original post

I won a car about 25 years ago at Sunset Station in their "Car a Day" giveaway. I had a choice of a Ford Mustang, Ford Taurus, Ford F-150, or $15k in cash. I took the cash because I was single and already had three cars.

If you take the car, it's like buying a car for the value of the tax you have to pay on it, which could be 30% or more of the value of the car. If you don't have that kind of money, just taking the cash value allows you to take out the taxes owed easily enough. I don't know how much of a discount the cash option is from the retail value of the car, but cars lose value as soon as they are driven off the lot.
If winners keep taking cash, the casino can keep offering the same cars.

Quote: ChumpChange

If you take the car, it's like buying a car for the value of the tax you have to pay on it, which could be 30% or more of the value of the car. If you don't have that kind of money, just taking the cash value allows you to take out the taxes owed easily enough. I don't know how much of a discount the cash option is from the retail value of the car, but cars lose value as soon as they are driven off the lot.
If winners keep taking cash, the casino can keep offering the same cars.
link to original post

You are right about the cash but 25 years ago I was in a much lower tax bracket. If I remember correctly those three cars were selling between $16k and $18k.

Just saw a headline: "Burger King worker who never missed a day in 27 years gifted $400K for retirement."
***************************************************************************************************************************
3rd generation: In 1996, its starting cost was about $18,000 (equivalent to $34,969 in 2023) - Ford Taurus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Taurus

Ford discontinued sedans in 2019, but apparently there's a 2025 Ford Taurus coming out now with prices from $27.8K to $43K.

That's the thing about casino cars, they come stock with whatever, they probably aren't custom orderable that jacks the price up considerably from the minimum.

Quote: ChumpChange

That's the thing about casino cars, they come stock with whatever, they probably aren't custom orderable that jacks the price up considerably from the minimum.

The way my casinos handled it was you won a "base model" but you could pay the difference for whichever model you wanted. The casinos don't generally own the cars, they just have a deal to buy them from the dealer.

Quote: DRich

Quote: ChumpChange

That's the thing about casino cars, they come stock with whatever, they probably aren't custom orderable that jacks the price up considerably from the minimum.

The way my casinos handled it was you won a "base model" but you could pay the difference for whichever model you wanted. The casinos don't generally own the cars, they just have a deal to buy them from the dealer.
link to original post

That’s how it worked with the cars that I won . They had a value of 65-70k and if you wanted to upgrade you just paid the difference.