1. At 9:00 Monday morning, the first day of the promo, there were
dozens of local crapsack lowlifes sniffing their way around the
place, checking out the machines, and generally looking as furtive
and suspicious as if they were casing the joint prior to robbing it.
None of them put in a dime of action before 10:00, but made sure to
squat in front of the machine of their choice and wait. This caused
the slot tech to slow down those machine(s) in front of the
aforementioned squatters.
2. The more vocal of said lowlifes marched around blathering about
EV, variance, strategy changes, etc. The casino bossage overheard
them and made sure to notice which machines they finally sat at, and
slowed them down too (the 10/6 DDB bank would have survived if not
for these idiots' blather).
3. At the stroke of 10:00, the whole gang started playing as fast as
they could---dollar denoms, two machines if they could manage.
Ntaurally, there were $100 hand pays about every thirty seconds as
the bonus hit, and hit, and hit. Not to mention "regular" hand pays,
machine malfunctions, etc.
4. After a couple of hours it was obvious that the Tuscany was
bleeding money much faster than they had thought. A kind of "last
straw" side effect was five dollar royals hitting between 12:30 and
12:45. You could see the steam rising from the bosses' heads.
NOW, RATHER THAN OBSERVING THIS AND BACKING OFF, i.e., dropping in
denoms, going to single machine play, taking a lunch break, leaving
and coming back later, the assembled slimeballs just kept on
pounding away. This led to the banning of the bonus on multiliners,
the dropping of eligible denoms to .50, and finally, the
obliteration of the promo.
Now, do you suppose if the assembled local "pros" had acted with a
modicum of subtlety and grace, rather than attacking this promo like
a starving lion attacking a gazelle, that this promo MIGHT have
lasted longer than it did? Consider: even at the .25 level this
promo was worth $40/hour!! Was this enough for all the slime who
crawled out from under their respective rocks and oozed into the
Tuscany that morning? NOOOOOOO. They wanted $160, or $320 an hour.
Very similar to a blackjack counter who finds a good game, you know
that if you beat an advantage play to death by playing hour after
hour, you might kill the play. Well, I guess this was every man for
himself, greed dominant, and discretion nonexistent. I don't blame
the Tuscany one bit for discontinuing the promo. Their idea was to
attract new CUSTOMERS, not little puddles of human slime who oozed
in just to jump on the promo and when the promo was over, were to
ooze out, never to return.
There will never be any good promos in Vegas as long as these greedy
subhumans are around to destroy them as soon as they appear.
(And for the record, I played the night BEFORE the promo for three
hours, and from 8:30 on the next morning, and only .25 denoms, to
give the impression that I was an actual CUSTOMER, and not a bottom-
feeding promo-sniffing local greedhound VP "pro".)