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Bob Dancer writes a video poker column for beginners to experts. He also writes a column with Jeffrey Compton, "Player's Edge", featuring information on promotions at various Las Vegas casinos. Player's Edge is published each Friday in the Neon section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Click here to send Bob Dancer an e-mail.

For more details and a schedule of Bob's free classes, visit www.bobdancer.com.

March 11, 2008

What it takes to Stay on a Mailing List

A few years ago, I played on Shirley's and my cards at Tuscany for a while. It is as dollar play (10/7 Double Bonus at the time --- now long gone), and I wasn't crazy about playing for dollars anyway, so I eventually decided not to play anymore. I collected my free play until it ran out (just playing it off --- not playing anything more), and eventually the mailers stopped.

Unbeknownst to me, when they saw that we were no longer playing but just collecting already earned free play, they marked our accounts "no more mailers". This didn't really affect us because I'd decided to not play there anymore anyway.

Late last year, I discovered that they had $1 Five Play 8/5 Bonus Poker (99.17%), with occasional 10x point days --- totaling 100.17%. This wasn't enough to be interesting --- unless we got regular mailers to boot. So I played on both cards to get mailers.

Except the mailers didn't come. When I called the Marketing Director, she told me that our cards were marked with "no more mailers" but that if I promised not to just collect the free play without playing, she'd get my account reinstated. I promised --- and kept that promise.

A few months later, still no mailers. I called and left messages three or four times and eventually she called me back. The Tuscany has decided that if you ever had the "no more mailers" designation, they would not reinstate you if you primarily played on 10x point days. You need to play a significant proportion of your play on lesser point days or you won't be reinstated.

Is it worth it? I'm not sure. Probably not for me, but things may change in the future. It would be possible, I suppose, to play on lesser point days, get reinstated, and then begin to play on 10x point days only. Whether they would re-86 us or not, I really don't know.

This casino has taken a point of view that the players who play at maximum advantage are not particularly good customers and they don't want to encourage them. At this casino, anyway, we're still welcome to play, but we won't receive monthly mailers.

Tuscany is hardly the only casino with this or a similar point of view. Several years ago, Coast casinos removed a significant number of video poker players from their mailing lists. In most cases it was players who only played their better games on multiple point days. South Point appears to have taken the Coast list (South Point USED to be a Coast casino, after all) and not send mail to these same customers. Station Casinos now does not send monthly mailers to players who only play their loosest machines. Wynn refuses to send mailers to locals if you ever get to be $100,000 ahead.

Video poker players tend to be whiners. Each of these "negative" changes has been met by a chorus of players who see the end of video poker Nirvana around the corner. Players who don't like these changes call the casinos "greedy." Casinos who would like to have an advantage over every player have their own bad words for the better players. "Advantage Player" might be a badge of honor among smarter players, but it's synonymous with "undesirable" to a lot of casino managers.

I don't see this name-calling as particularly useful. There is no doubt in my mind that in two years, the games we have today will be considered the "good old days," just as today this is true of games we had a few years ago. Casinos will continue to tighten games/slot clubs/promotions as they attempt to remain profitable in the face of a player base which is becoming increasingly knowledgeable. Sometimes I get blamed for educating players (and I certainly do), but there are other writers and Internet forums where video poker knowledge is regularly exchanged. Players will continue to learn more about the games and get stronger.

The question becomes: What are YOU going to do about it? If you're only playing the 100% games at Gold Coast on multiple point days, for example, I suspect you'll eventually be cut off there. If you don't want this to happen, you need to play lesser games on lesser point days at least some of the time. You need to trade off expected losses today against the value of receiving mailers in the future. Is it worth it? You'll have to decide for yourself --- but if you don't make that decision and continue to follow the "take all you can get" path, eventually the casino may retaliate. Casinos usually don't retaliate against quarter players, but it wouldn't surprise me that they will soon.

Players who scout sometimes find really good plays. There's a debate whether it's smart to play these games hard and take everything you can, or whether it's smarter to only take a little and let the play last awhile. Depending on the specific situation, sometimes I've been on one side of this debate and sometimes on the other.

But that's changing. For decades casinos have backed off good blackjack players --- but have left advantage video poker players alone. Now casinos are becoming much less shy about restricting video poker players in one way or another. Totally backing them off is one rather extreme approach which isn't used very much, but giving good players lesser benefits is becoming more frequent.

This means the penalty for taking the casinos for everything you can every time you can is becoming greater. Once your name gets on a "black list," rightly or wrongly, it's hard to get it off --- often impossible. And as employees move around from casino to casino, the black lists move around as well.

This means it's smarter to play with caution. If you're a strong player and it's a great promotion --- go ahead and play some, but don't live there. Casinos will let you take little bites out of their bottom line. They get irritated when you regularly take big bites.