I'm inferring that Vegas is starting to feel the pinch, as debt puts
the brakes on the economy, but also as the predatory gouging
practices of the casinos are coming home to roost: you can't triple
the price of everything, make the gambling eight times worse, and
expect people to keep on coming back for their regularly scheduled
beatings.
This makes we wonder about the "locals'" market. In a way, Vegas
locals are a captive audience. Many are locked into shrinking-equity
traps, with rising mortgage payments cutting into their
discretionary (i.e., gambling) income. Many people cashed out and
bought a nice house in Vegas on easy terms during the boom,
expecting to kick back and golf and gamble until they croaked. For
most, it's still possible to maintain that lifestyle, but many are
simply stuck in Vegas whether they like it any longer or not.
So I am speculating whether this dynamic is what's driving the
recent Stations/Coast/
all gutted their slot clubs, replaced them with something far, far
worse (except for all you $25 Hundred-Play VP authors), and then
pumped "incentives" back into the system that make playing there
ALMOST as decent as it was before. Almost. This happened so
simultaneously that it smacks of collusion, but the upshot is that
there are now EXTREME reasons to play at Casino X and KEEP PLAYING
THERE. No more of this "let's go down to Platinum Palace, they have
triple points today"; if you haven't been making sacrifice to the
Platinum Palace all along, you ain't gonna GET no steenkin' triple
points. This prevents locals from cherry-picking promos, or at least
encourages them to pump up their monthly (or 90-day) play to meet
the ever-increasing requirements for mailers and to attain and
maintain Plutonium or Demi-God or whatever status is necessary to
get a decent deal.
I would think that it might be a good idea to maintain a database of
the latest requirements for mailers, point multipliers, etc. for
Stations/Fiestas, Boyd/Coast, AZ Chuckies, Palms, etc.,
independently of the sporadic and not very timely updates to the
existing database. This will help locals plan their play, as it's
evident that the only counterstrategy available against this new
casino tactic is to know EXACTLY what it takes to get what, and
measure that against the EV of the best plays.
This supplementary database could also contain info for the visitor,
specifically the very vital info of whether or not they penalize non-
locals.
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
