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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.

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Jan. 12, 2010

Casino Month at South Point

Single point days at South Point casino reward you with 0.30% in cash back or (downloadable at the machine) free play. 2x point days give you 0.60%. In 2009 there averaged more than one 2x point day per month, including several months where there two or more than such days and at least two months where there was no 2x point multiplier at all. There were a (very) few 3x point days in 2009 as well. In January 2010 there are two 2x days offered. We'll have to wait and see how many occur in later months.

In addition to the cash back, the casino awards monthly mailers based on a fixed schedule. The A+ mailer requires $60,000 per month in coin-in and yields four $50 free play coupons two months later, plus some free show tickets and meals. They have lower mailer levels as well. Check at The Club booth for details (or come to my "What Video Poker Players Should Know About Slot Clubs" on Thursday March 11 at 1 p.m. in the Showroom at South Point) if you wish to know these requirements.

If you just count the free play, ($200 for $60,000 of coin-in), the A+ mailer yields 0.33%. If you count the food coupon at face value it's easy to double that percentage or more, but for today's discussion we'll ignore that.

The casino advertises more than 10,000 games that yield more than 99%. Assuming you play $60,000 on a 2x point days, which yields 0.93% in cash plus free play, basically this means that almost all 10,000 of these machines return at least 100% for the perfect player. If there's another casino anywhere in the world that offers this many games with 100% returns, I haven't heard about it.

If you play $100,000 coin-in during the month, for example, instead of $60,000, the return on the mailer dips to 0.20% rather than the maximum of 0.33%. Playing this much on a 9/7 Double Bonus Poker machine (99.11%), for example, yields you "only" 99.91% even if played on a 2x point day. Not bad, of course, but under the critical threshold.

On many games, such as NSU Deuces Wild (99.73%), the game is positive 24/7, with or without 2x points, with or without the mailer, so playing on these games past the $60,000 level still has positive expected value, even though the percentage return continues to fall. Whether it makes sense to play beyond the $60,000 level depends on what the opportunities are in other casinos and non-casino investment locations.

Maximizing the percentage return is one intelligent way to play --- although certainly not the only one or even the best one. I'm not personally interested, for example, in playing 25¢ FPDW with a 0.25% slot club. Even though that's a 101.01% return, you can't get enough dollars per hour through the machine to yield more than $10 per hour. For a large number of players with a limited bankroll, such an opportunity might be the best in town. But there are many opportunities in Las Vegas for earning $50 or more per hour, although these do require larger bankrolls and playing higher-stakes games with a lower percentage return.

The impetus behind this article was my noticing that January 1 was a 2x point day. For multiplier purposes, double points started at midnight. For mailer purposes, however, January 1 didn't start until 3 a.m. This only matters to you if you played between midnight and 3 a.m. If you did play during those hours and decided to stop at exactly $60,000 coin-in for the month, when your March mailer arrives you'll find that you won't receive the $50 per week in free play that you were expecting.

When this happens, you'll definitely be able to talk them into giving you the higher mailer if you make the effort. At the minimum you're going to have to go to the booth and present your case. If you don't lobby for it, though, for sure you won't get the higher mailer. The player tracking system they are using doesn't provide them with the information automatically, although they can manually go in a check it on a case-by-case basis if requested.

Other casinos handle it differently. At Gold Coast and Sam's Town, a 6x point day (equivalent to a 2x point day at South Point), doesn't begin until 3 a.m. , so there's no discrepancy. At Orleans, though, point multipliers begin at midnight even though the casino day doesn't begin later. Should you play on the first or last day of the month, this could affect your mailer there.

In the future, if a point multiplier occurs on the first of the month at any casino, be really careful about the difference between "calendar day" and "casino day," because when the two aren't the same there can be discrepancies between you believe you have earned and what the casino awards you. If you never play shortly after midnight, you'll never need to worry about this particular problem.