Went to Reno, stayed a couple of days and picked up my welfare
checks. I was supposed to leave Friday afternoon but decided to stay
past 8 pm to check out the bird cage at Harrah's -- a pit of young
female blackjack dealers wearing skimpy blue-white bikini-tops and
royal blue or cerulean tight shorts [in the past, the prior bird cage
had female dealers in corsets] -- it's near some of the $1 9/6 JOB by
the race book. It's a nice way to relax the eyes after watching the
video poker screen for many hours 
As for the promotion scene, while Cal Neva clearly tighten up their
generous promotions -- no more Buds or $10 food vouchers -- there are
still many great video poker promotions in town. I really like the
$10 vouchers because of a little known secret: as a VIP you could get
2 $10 voucher once a day; it helps when you can generate $100 in cash
back or $80K in action in about a 4-hour period.
As for full good vp machines, the sad news is that the inventory
continues to decline with no change in sight. As casinos remove good
opportunities it forces people to go downstream or quit the
business. If people go downstream, then there's not enough to go
around and the delicate ecosystem gets destroy commonly known as
overgrazing. The bottomline is the trend to remove frugal vp from
Reno continues.
I do want to take this time to answer my ongoing unsolicited private
mail:
1) Harrah's requires ID before redeeming the welfare checks
2) Some of the other casinos have the "welfare checks" preloaded in
the computer and you have extract them in a profitable or loss-
minimizing manner
3) Some of the "welfare checks" are monthly, some are twice-a-month,
some are weekly, some are good for that day only -- go figure.
4) Yes, you can abuse the "welfare check", i.e. playing with multiple
player cards of your S.O., father, mother, uncles, aunts, extended
family or other relatives and friends, but I believe the casinos have
ways to ID you. It's almost too easy if you are getting say $50 a
week and you are using 16 different accounts at one sitting to spike
that amount to $800 a week. Yes, some people are that greedy.
5) Lastly (I get this one a lot), the "Harrah's back door" isn't
about spiking one-trip and then milking the system. What I do is to
create a "fly-wheel" effect so the system is self-sustaining. I
wouldn't worry about cashing points for cash since there are so many
opportunities to do so.
Yes, the Reno casinos continue to be generous in offering cash
mailers to attract your gambling business. If you take Harrah's in
Reno for example, the expected loss to be a Diamond member can be as
low as $500 and in as little as 1 day's play, and Harrah's will
easily give you more than $500 in "welfare checks" and other bonuses
throughout the year. Clearly the Harrah's system is broken, and I
will try to enjoy it as long as I can.
Good luck as it's getting tough in Reno.