Over the past 3 years the Reno Hilton has received the vast majority of my
Reno play (probably about 99%). This has been both a blessing & a curse. The
blessing is the splendid treatment that I get from just about everybody at
RH. The curse is that my play at other places has dropped significantly & I
have subsequently been dropped from a number of mailings by downtown casinos.
Anyway a few updates on RH, double points seem to have come back in a limited
fashion so that it's every Sunday & Monday now.
Some free plays are being sent out. I've received 2 $75 & one $500 in the
last 2 months. First time in a long while that free play has been sent out.
Would hesitate to try to predict what kind of play generated this. However, I
have played at RH through thick (when promotions were good) & thin (when
promotions were almost non-existent) & have been making periodic trips (maybe
half not tied to any event when booked).
A regular promotional event that they use to draw traffic is the drawing
format where they have weekly cash drawings & people picked in the weekly
drawings get to attend the grand prize drawing at the end of the drawing
period. One is going on right now where names are called until they have 5
winners who receive $500 each on Thu & Sun. Tickets are earned based on play &
tickets are awarded at the slot club.
This is an improvement over the old way of awarding tickets when you got a 4
of a kind & this invited a lot of scamming where customers would get more
tickets than they were supposed to one way or another. Now time is not wasted
by customer waiting for tickets & floor people having to run around to give
out tickets. However, there are now more tickets in the drum since other
players are getting tickets now who wouldn't have gotten them before (no 4 of
a kinds or reaching the coin-level payouts for slots) but this is only fair.
There is still room for improvement when compared to drawing systems used by
Harrahs & Venetian.
Harrahs has the best system.based on play, computer tells you how many
entries you have, you swipe card on day of drawing & computer selects names
of winners. Since a requirement is that you swipe card within hrs of drawing,
you have very few no-shows & the drawing is over & done with quickly
returning everyone back to work or play quickly. Best parts of system: no
drawing tickets to fill out, no crimping of tickets to get an edge, no
scamming to get an edge, no interminable calling of names of no-shows, no
waste of time.
Venetian has the 2nd best system which still uses a drawing drum but they
print all the tickets out for you & you deposit them. Since tickets are
printed & deposited on day of drawing the benefits are very similar to the
Harrahs system.
Had to digress to these pros & cons because I make it a point to let casinos
know what I like or don't like about their promotions & many times I'll save
brochures from a casino with a promotion that I like & give it to another
casino as a suggestion. Encourage you to do the same.
Atlantis
This is a casino that I like to stay at but I had forgotten how nice their
rooms are until I dropped in tonight & got a comped room based on past play.
Looking at their emergency exit floor plan, this is a roomy,
larger-than-normal standard room. The most prominent feature is that there is
plenty of light with 3 of 5 lamps having 3-way lights. Safe with enough room
for a laptop & a printer is in a large armoire.
Atlantis has 3 glass elevators which, at night, give you wonderful view of
the city as you go to the top. It's one of the best free rides in Reno.
Accommodations rate along with Peppermill as the best of Reno (unless you
subscribe to Casino Player). Have never stayed at Siena but have heard their
rooms are also very nice.
Best feature is their VP inventory. In my opinion, it's probably the best in
Reno as they seem to have the highest % of FP machines to total inventory.
Unscientific sampling based on a walk-around. One thing I've noticed is that
FP schedules on a multi-denom will go from nickels to $ whereas other places
short the schedules below quarters. Since there is no cashback, I'm guessing
this is not a favorite of the pros who find better plays at places that do
have cashback. Other places have the same FP game (maybe just one or two) but
combined with cashback, it's a stronger play.
I would rate all their buffet & restaurants as good - very good as I don't
remember a bad meal ever though we haven't tried the Italian gourmet
restaurant (Monte Vigna) & probably never will as I don't care for that type
of food.
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