[vpFREE] CASH YOUR PAYCHECK HERE

 

"Cash Your Paycheck Here And Receive a 125 Coin Bonus On Your Next Four-Of-A-Kind" was a venerable old Nevada casino promotion that you don't see anymore. Here's why.

Laughlin, May 2002

"How much are you offering them?" I asked.
"Fifty dollars and the card benefits" Tim responded.
"Not much incentive" I quipped.
"Should be plenty of incentive. It only takes a half hour or forty-five minutes, average."
"Are you getting any takers?"
"Nope."
"You have to look at it from their perspectives. You are asking them to put down a $5 video poker play for just $50. What's going through their minds is 'what if I hit a royal?' They have to sign a $20,000 W2-G and all they are getting is $50 and the card benefits."

Tim and I were having a comped lunch at the Golden Nugget/Laughlin. The Pioneer, next door, was putting on the paycheck promotion. I didn't know many people in Laughlin but Tim did. He was in the catbird's seat. A former poker dealer at the Edgewater, he had lots of friends in the Edgewater and Belle that drew paychecks. His objective was to bankroll his friends on the paycheck promotion.

"Offer them half the royal too" I said.
"Half the royal? Are you crazy? That's $10,000" Tim blasted at me.
"No, it's 1% of the payback" I shot back at him. "You gotta give them some incentive to put the play down. With 9/6 Jacks you're gonna have 5.4% the best of it. The $50 is about another half percent. So you're still gonna have a 3.9% edge. Forget the royal....its a longshot. The money is in the quads. Besides, the play'll probably get squashed before you hit a royal....the quad cycle is 423. That's close to $11,000 in action per play. So it's worth about $570 a play. Even giving up that 1.5% its still worth over $400 a play to you. If anyone hits a royal then use the 5754."

Tim sat there mulling it over.

"Thanks for the ideas" he said. "I think I'll give it a try. See if I get any takers."

Over the next few weeks I would see Tim at the Pioneer sitting next to some Edgewater of Belle employee who was playing $5 video poker. They would cash their paycheck at the cage to get the coupon. Then play video poker until they hit a quad. Of course, they were playing on Tim's bankroll. And it was Tim who was making the bulk of the money.

One day I was standing in line at the Pioneer cage and heard a cashier yell to the back "We got another Belle paycheck!"

A few weeks later, one morning in my hotel room, I was shaving. The TV was on the Bullhead City channel. The morning talk show about the Laughlin casinos industry was on. They were interviewing the Pioneer casino manager.

"I see you've disqualified the $5 video pokers from the paycheck promotion" the interviewer said.

"Well....sometimes....when you put on a promotion....you get beat!" said the Pioneer casino manager.


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Posted by: mickeycrimm@yahoo.com
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[vpFREE] Re: Players Getting Booted the Suncoast Way

 

mickey:


I have no doubts as to the accuracy of your story, yet it still begs the question: What can a player today do when s/he feels like something funny is going on? The American Coin scandal required a confidential informant already knowledgeable of the situation. What can a player do that isn't sure of it, but only suspects it?


The deck is seriously stacked against a player complaining about possible cheating because regulators already have a strong financial interest to keep everything running normally.


I also bet the players who were cheated in the American Coin scandal never were able to file a class-action lawsuit to recover their losses, were they? Something like that would be almost impossible to sort out because there is no written proof of playing VP or slot machines. Win/loss statements wouldn't be enough, and surveillance footage would also be a nightmare to procure.


Ouch!


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[vpFREE] LVRJ: Nevada Gaming Commission member under federal investigation

 

LVRJ: Nevada Gaming Commission member under federal investigation

http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/casinos-gaming/court-filing-nevada-gaming-commission-member-under-federal-investigation

or

http://goo.gl/1sh4ye

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Posted by: vpFREE3355 <vpfree3355@gmail.com>
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[vpFREE] Latest Vegas Trip

 

The drought continues. Not all bad news however. Stayed two nights at Palms and mainly played the 100%+ Dueces there. Was ticked off that I could not use the 50% LVA coupon upon checkout. They said I was there on a special rate and you could not combine them. Hit the Ducks for $250 and that brought me about even.
Spent the final Friday night at GN downtown. We went to see Blood, Sweat and Tears there on Friday. I enjoyed it, but was astounded at how old the audience was.
We did a coupon run. Lost most of the $25 match plays. Ended up $15 down. However, I did hit the Ducks at El Cortez for $500 so came home up over $400.
Still no Royal. Really was never close. Never drew one card to it. Did miss it by one on holding three cards. Been over 15 years now since i hit the last one. It was at Binions on some Texas Holdem machines. They disappeared soon after
Hope the Cortez doesn't pull the one machine they have. Slot lady said I was the 4th one that day to hit it and that was a record.
When we arrived we went to the South Point to listen to Bob teach Double Double Bonus. I need practice before attempting it. Didn't realize how bad my play was.
Put down money on the Jags to win the SB. Lost about $150 on that and some prop bets.
Looking forward to going out in May.
Brad
Amarillo

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Posted by: briffel@suddenlink.net
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[vpFREE] Re: Players Getting Booted the Suncoast Way

 

American Coin was a slot route operator in the 1980's. They had about 1000 machines in the neighborhood bars in Las Vegas. These bars were restricted to about 15 machines each. By the late eighties American Coin had been under investigation for a host of crimes for quite awhile. The investigation was started because of a certain unnamed informant. But Larry Volk, a former computer programmer for American Coin, put on the hot seat by the control board, admitted that he gaffed about 500 machines under orders of two of the owners, both named Rudolph LeVecchia, father and son. Volk told the board that a jackpot blocking device would cancel the draw of a certain number of royal flushes when there were five coins bet. Volk also used this technique in video keno machines.

The board had determined that the cheating went on for three years without detection. It was estimated that the gaff had blocked somewhere between 10 million and 20 millions dollars worth of jackpots. Volk was going to be the key witness against the Levecchia's in the criminal proceedings. In 1989 the board revoked American Coin's gaming license and fined them 1 million dollars. They went out of business and filed for bankruptcy.

The Attorney General's office was proceeding with criminal charges. Larry Volk was shot and killed while working on his car in his carport in February 1990. This severely handicapped the state's case. Two years later, David Lemons was charged with the crime. He beat the rap.

In 1997, while doing time for a burglary charge, David Lemons confessed to killing Volk. He also implicated Vito Bruno, and Bruno's aunt, Soni Beckman, a longtime Levecchia family friend, as accomplices. Bruno got a ten year sentence. Beckman was let off with a fine and probation. The Levecchia's went scott free. Lemons couldn't be charged again because of double jeopardy.

Ironically, Ronald Dale Harris was one of the investigators for the control board on the American Coin case. Just a few years later Harris would be convicted of gaffing slot machines and electronic keno to pay out large sums of money.

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Posted by: mickeycrimm@yahoo.com
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[vpFREE] Re: Players Getting Booted the Suncoast Way

 

Regarding American Coin...


I remember some of the details of that scandal, yes, and I may not be 100% accurate here but I believe the tech that ratted out the scandal was shot to death. There was an actual murder involved in the whole thing.


I also believe the odds of hitting the royal were halved since it would have been a lot easier to do it that way due to the binary nature of assembly language code.


Sometimes when I am on a bad streak and I don't hit royals for a long time, I do wonder if the machines are rigged....And how in the world would you have recourse against such an insidiously hidden way of cheating?


If the techs who know something feel threatened with their lives in cases such as American Coin and the states need to keep the casinos running for tax revenue, the players don't seem to stand a chance at all when they feel like something might be wrong that would threaten to shut down any casino operation (and losing state tax revenues and jobs for the economy to boot).


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