Two Way Hard Three | Las Vegas Casino & Design Blog

However, without the gaming points, the extra spend points are almost worthless though, as the amount needed to make a dent in free play or comps would be extraordinary. After all while it's nice to get something for dropping 1k at a property for non-gaming stuff, does it really matter if you get $10 back for it in free play.

I like the thinking with it, but Harrahs has the same problem in many respects. At least in my opinion. Sounds nice on the surface and while some marketing offers may generate from it, they are still going to be gaming based. Otherwise you are going to look like a seriously casual low rolling gambler even with a large amount of purchases.

This begs the question as to whether they will count a dollar spent on meals, room, spa, merchandise the same as a dollar table bet. The profit margin/win percentage varies greatly. Jinx is correct if it all counts the same the extra points aren't going to amount to much. However, what if you buy a $10k watch in the gift shop and they make a 70% profit margin; that 7k profit could be equivalently tracked to putting at risk over $300k on blackjack. Now that would make a huge difference.

Heard from a few sources that Palms has also started factoring in resort spend. Can anyone confirm this?

Points you get on hotel spending count towards players' club status, but they don't earn freeplay or count towards the end of year gift promotion. It's all explained on the Grazie program website -- here is the current link, which will probably be broken soon since they seem to do fairly frequent site redesigns: http://venetian.com/Pages.aspx?id=408.

The thing that bugs me about the Grazie program is they made a strategic decision early this year to discourage knowledgeable video poker play, and it now takes $17.50 coin in to get one point playing 9/6 Jacks or better (the best VP game the Venetian/Palazzo offers). Other relatively favorable machine games also have much higher coin-in requirements than their crappy tight slots. For comparison a gold member gets 20 points for $1 spent in the hotel.That's a factor of 350 times difference! Even with perfect play jacks or better isn't 350 times less profitable for them than their restaurant/retail/hotel operations.

I think they need to think through their incentive structure a little more. Right now they are over-rewarding hotel spending and discouraging gambling (at least among people who care about hanging on to some portion of their remaining bankroll). I've been staying away from the casino myself and haven't taken any room offers lately because I can't maintain anywhere near my former level of play.

Posted by mike_ch

Mike P is right, they are definitely over-rewarding spending. $1 is five times as strong on a room charge as their frequently tight slots (though I still do find something I like to play.)

To me, I find this kind of annoying because you have to be registered to a room to claim any points at all, which pretty much tells the locals their loyalty isn't appreciated. I was hoping that if I produced my card at every place I planned to StripMunch in the MEGACENTER(tm) that the last one might be comped. Ah well.

Still, I have to give LVS a little bit of props for having all that math laying naked on their web site. Usually you have to pick up the little flyer at the card desk to find out how the card works and then even it's a little opaque.

Posted by mike_ch

Nevermind, quite, it appears they're offering locals their own deals.

Still, unless you're staying in an LVS property, it doesn't make much sense to gamble there. And if you ARE staying there, be sure to put everything on your room even if you can afford to just pay for it on the spot.