Making sense of casino promotions

Hi Everyone,

So I'm a Vegas local. I've been living here about 3 years. Prior to that I'd visit about 4 times a year.

Anyhoo, I'm trying to make sense of casino promotions. For starters I NEVER play for comps. If I get them it's a nice bonus.

I'm primarily a slot and video poker player. Sometimes I'll play with an edge (FP poker) Most times im just having negative ev fun.

My offstrip and strip offers are downright awful. They used to be fantastic before I moved here.

It makes no difference if I do 20k coin in per week or 2k.

I get roughly the same offers.

Stations: $10 freeplay twice a month
Boyd: $10 freeplay a month

Venetian: $20 a week

South point/Silverton: nothing

I even kept my wife's account coded out of town for both strip and off strip casinos and offers are deplorable as well. I then had her give them a local address and now she gets no offers from MLife whatsoever.

I've tried staying away from properties for a period of time. Increasing play. It's always the same junk offers.

In fact if I stay away for more than 2 months I get absolutely ZERO offers.

This makes no sense to me. Wouldn't casinos want to get you to come back if you had negative ev established play? Who would drive all the way to a casino for 5 or ten bucks?

Is it that just comps have gone to the wind?

Just begs the question, that if one moves to Vegas, would it be wise to keep mailing address out of state?

After a while your potential gets into a groove where there isn't much deviation expected. Casinos are always looking to see what the least you're willing to accept and also have the most they're willing to give. If they thought you were someone completely new and different, they would probably treat you better obviously. At this point, it seems like they own you and could care less if you show up or not. Seems they think they can't really influence your actions anymore and trying to do so would hurt themselves more than help.

I've kind of wondered seeing Hollywood be such a lowball wonder how they don't seem to care if people use a card or not. They have really low participation, but don't seem to care. One guy I notice spends thousands and they never know he is there unless he hits a jackpot. If he decides to not return, how could they do anything about it? Leads me to ponder the possibility they know more than what the card in the slot tells them. I have to wonder where the information comes from like tracking automobiles, web surfing data like google, facebook, NSA, background checks, who knows. To the extreme it seems crazy, but having almost no care with terrible rewards makes me wonder.

It's not the only possibility. Maybe the core just is so dependable, but when they crack in large enough number, they would leave themselves defenseless. I'm advertised all the time on yahoo by Hollywood, so they know more than they're letting on.

Not saying I'm sure this stuff is going on, but just believing there is a possibility leaves the option open.

Quote: DeMango

Just begs the question, that if one moves to Vegas, would it be wise to keep mailing address out of state?

Yes, I mean No, no no wait, I mean it doesn't really matter. Hold on maybe it does matter.
Some places it really matters some places it doesn't matter at all.
That's all part of the game, figuring all that out sometimes it takes months to get a good grasp on how things work. Just being short $1 coin in can be the difference from getting something or getting zero.

There's also a matter of convenience, you might have a out of state address and get bigger offers less frequently however it may be a lessor total amount or require a stay.

There's many other things that factor in. Someone could tell you one thing and someone tell you something different and the could both be right.

IMO Stations and Boyd really suck. Someone else might feel different.

To the OP: Do you know if you're offers have dwindled because you haven't kept up the same volume of play?

The Vegas locals scene was a real gravy train for quite a while, starting when locals' casinos started to open up as the city grew and there was a viable internal gambling market. For a time, there was cutthroat competition for that market. Then Stations started to Borgify the outlying casinos that were doing well. First Fiesta (now Fiesta Rancho), then the Santa Fe, then the Reserve (now Fiesta Henderson) got Stationized. They're also in the process of eating the Cannery. Other locals' casinos, like AZ Charlie's Decatur, got devoured by large casino conglomerates as well. South Point got eaten by Boyd. Et cetera.

Now, there just isn't much competition out there. Just like the Strip is basically owned by MGM and CET, the Vegas locals' market is owned by Boyd and Stations. But that thundering herd who moved to Vegas 10-20 years ago--they're still around, and they crave amusement. So they have continued to patronize those casinos even as the games got worse, and worse, and worse, and promotions got more stingy. The current sorry state of things is the result.

You can expect to get nothing but crappy offers from now on, sorry to say. I would concentrate my play on the struggling, smaller joints, not the Boyd or Stations monoliths. Ellis Island, for example, though not as good as it used to be, occasionally offers some good promos. Tuscany is another possible shot. Emerald island has occasional recurring +EV plays and decent mailers.

Bottom line, get on everyone's mailing list, run through a small amount of play every month at just about every location you can think of, then track your results. Sometimes, there is absolutely no correlation between your play and what you get in the mail.

Lower amounts in FP/comps is usually either because you haven't been keeping up with the same amount of action (ie: coin-in per trip) OR because the casino is giving out less FP/comps as a whole. Sometimes there'll be a month where you get more FP or less FP than expected, in which case it's a casino-wide thing and not specific to you. ie: The casino has more (or less) money to use for marketing so they give out more or less FP to everyone that month (as a whole).

But I'd say overall, in the last year or so, FP (via mail) has been decreasing in LV. It's getting pretty scarce, finding a place that has decent mailers.


Last I was at South Point, they were NOT owned by Boyd.