I love the Palms and play there the most. But it does need help in the
Promotions Department - like a new marketing person perhaps?
I have attended a couple of tournaments there, most recently the baccaret
tournament, which apparently was put together by hosts.
All the tournaments seemed somewhat poorly organized. For unknown reasons,
instead of setting up registration in the ballroom, you register at the
center bar. This means that the line forms in a weird circular pattern, with
people who arrive early sometimes not being first in line and others cutting
into line. Every other slot tournament I have been at has registration in a
separate ballroom to keep things orderly. Also as usual, the hosts arrived
late and seemed somewhat disorganized. All this increases the time spent in
line and causes players to become annoyed.
The reason to have a promotion is to bring players to your casino, and then
you want them to play at much as possible, not have them waiting around in
lines or for endless drawings.
Case in point at the baccaret tournament, they had drawings every half hour
and 3 sessions (if you were lucky enough to advance), so by the time you were
through going to sessions and drawings it was hard to find time to play in
the casino or eat your dinner. They actually gave away 60 prizes in the
drawing (12 prizes given out 5 times). There were only 72 people in the
tournament, max, so they might as well have just given out prizes to each
person as they registered, and thus everyone would have been happy, and then
they would have gone off to play. As it was, some people left before the
drawings, or didn't realize that there were more than one, so missed out on
their gift (it was a chip valued at $8, $25, or $100).
Obviously keeping people around for drawings isn't a good idea if they occur
so frequently that the customers don't spend time gambling. This is bad for
the casino and annoying to customers.
Then there was the slot tournament held this week. They apparently sent out
invitations to everyone who had a slot card, and this meant that you had to
wait anywhere from 1/2 hour to over an hour in line. Again, people are
standing around in lines, instead of sitting at machines. Further, with a
couple thousand people competing for only 6 places in the final tournament
(plus 1 wild card and 1 $75 drawing), you had a lot of unhappy people who
wasted a bunch of time and didn't have much of a chance of winning.
I don't see how a promotion like this helps the Palms. It isn't good
publicity, and doesn't make you want to come to future promotions like this.
A better idea is when they just offer you a prize for swiping your card
(instead of a tournament). You are forced to come into the casino to get the
prize, and the swipe only takes a couple of minutes, and then you probably
will gamble. The Palms has had promotions like this in the past.
If the Palms wants to do a slot tournament, why don't they do a "real" one -
like other casinos do? You invite only your top players -- say your Hot
Shot/Big Shot, or maybe a few others who
are playing a lot. Then you hold it in a ballroom, and you move your special
slot machines in the ballroom. This means that you aren't taking up valuable
floor space on the main floor with machines that don't bring in money. You
provide a nice spread of snacks during the tournament, and an actual Awards
Banquet where you present prizes (with a band). Harrahs excells at holding
regular slot tournaments of this type - several a month which are aimed at
different play levels with different prize amounts. At Harrahs, for example,
they may invite 320 people and give prizes to 150 of them. With a nice bit
of food and a good chance at a prize, people enjoy coming to these, and keep
coming back. They are well organized and have a lengthy timeslot for
registration (2-3-4 hours) so there is never a long line to register.
Since Palms has the ability to electronically determine contest winners, the
obvious way to hold prize drawings is to require people to be playing, and
then announce the winners over the loudspeaker system and on monitors. This
keeps people playing, yet gives an incentive for a special prize. Similarly
the swipe promotions and the electronic drawings have all worked well for the
Palms.
But the slot tournament with an hour-long wait is a disaster.
Further, the long line and crowd for the drawing blocked the access to slot
machines, preventing some people from playing. Further some people stood in
line 1/2 hour to 1 hour at the end of the day, and then were denied entry
when 7pm was reached and they had not yet reached the front of the line.
This led to arguments and ill fillings (I witnessed several people
complaining bitterly).
I can see that the Palms wants locals to keep coming in - and it is working
since I find myself showing up a couple of times a week for free play or
other promotions, but promotions which are poorly organized or require
standing in long lines, are just plain dumb.
If they want to do table gametournaments, they should organize them better.
I went
to a tournament at Bally's and it was organized to a science, with careful
rules, and with dealers who took care to make sure the rules were enforced.
They also provided a nice bunch of snacks and a Awards Banquet. At the Palms
the dealers were sloppy, allowing people to make bets out of turn and
sometimes not moving the "puck" which showed which person had the next turn
in betting. Also most casinos who have tournaments give major prizes, such
as $30,000 first place, with lots of lower prizes. At Palms's baccaret
tournament the top prize was $3000, with only 6 total prizes. Similarly the
Palms would benefit if it held a really good slot tournament for higher
rollers, instead of the rinky-dink tournaments like the one this week which
had way too many people, too few prizes, and worst of all -- a really long
wait.
But I really think the Palms needs to hire a marketing person full-time or
consultant to get its promotions on track, especially to entice higher
demonination players.
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