You may be thinking of the very brief period in which the Casuarina
was allowing players
to buy up to $600 in free play for $300. They'd been doing the $60
for $30 for quite
some time, and then the owner decided that $200 for $100, $400 for
$200, and $600 for
$300 would really bring the people in - and it did! I waited in
line for TWO hours to take
advantage on what ended up being the last night they offered it,
and when I cashed out my
ticket, the cage had no $100s or $50s left and I got a combination
of lower denom bills,
including lots of $5s because they were concerned that they were
going to run out of
$20s, too. Even the employees were calling family members and
having them come in! I
actually won a bit that night, so including drive time, I made $300
an hour that night.
Bettie
I can see it now! The pros, not wanting to take the time to teach
the down-and-outers how to play, probably had a bank of very fast
pros running off the action.
This is all a take-off on the "cash your paycheck here and receive a
coupon for a 125 coin bonus on your next four-of-a-kind" promotion
that got burned up several years ago. It's "The Big Player" video
poker style. Actually, it should probably be called "The Big
Bankroll."
The Pioneer in Laughlin had a deal like this several years ago. I
had a friend, a well bankrolled pro and former Laughlin poker dealer
who knew lots of people in town, trying to put this play down. It
works like this: You have a friend who is a working stiff and gets
paychecks. Working stiffs don't have the money to play $5 denom
video poker. So you bankroll him/her to play higher denom until
he/she hits a four-of-a-kind. Of course, you have to offer him/her
something to get them to put the play down.
I was having a conversation with this buddy of mine one day and he
was lamenting the fact that he wasn't getting many takers on the
Pioneer promotion.
"What are you offering them?" I asked.
"$50, they get the CB(.16%) and the comp(.33%). And the action is
bound to get them some good mail."
"Why don't you offer them half the royal?" I suggested.
"Half the royal?!!! Are you crazy?"
"You won't be giving up that much. About 1%. The money is in the
quads. You're going to hit about a 100 quads for every royal. Look
at it from their perspective. They know you're gonna make money or
you wouldn't be offering. And all they get is $50 or about a half a
percent. Plus their taking the chance on getting paperwork without
reward. Hang that half a royal out there like hanging a carrot out
in front of a donkey and see what happens. It's a 5.5% play on 9/6,
so you still got 4% the best of it."
"Yeah, maybe that's it."
My friend knew everyone in the Belle and Edgewater. All the poker
dealers, cocktail waitress, slot attendants, etc. I saw him in the
Pioneer with lots of takers after that. But I left him alone.
Several weeks later I was walking by the Pioneer cage and saw a
cashier crank her head towards the backroom and shout "Got another
paycheck from the Belle!!"
Sometime after that, one morning in my room having just woken up, I
flipped the TV on. There was a morning talk show out of Bullhead
City that I watched occasionally. The anchor was interviewing the
Casino Manager from the Pioneer. The anchor brought up the "cash
your paycheck" promotion.
"We've disqualified the $5 machines from the promotion." the casino
manager said.
"Disqualified? Why?"
"Well, sometimes when you put on a promotion you get beat!" said the
casino manager.
···
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "bettiepaige21" <bettie@...> wrote:
