Slot tournaments and slot tournament offers - CET

Anybody had any experience with these?

I am not really a slot player so have not tended to get many of these offers, but curious how they work. I have a couple of slot tournament offers now showing for CET (for no good reason lol). And interestingly in some cases and some days it might get me comp rooms I can't just get from the rate calendar.

Just want to know how it works in case on of these ever lines up with my travel dates.

So .... questions:

1) Can you just book the room and flake out on the free slot tournament?

2) How long do the tournaments tend to take out of your day?

3) Any way to start doing the tournament, quickly realize it won't go your way, and abandon ship?

4) Related to 2 and 3, how are these things structured?

 

I have a similar question:

I'm in town during a slot tournament that I have an offer for, but I'm booked under a different offer that I'd like to keep. How much is it to enter slot tournaments on their own, or do they have to be entered as part of an offer.

 

1) Yes, you can book the offer and not do the slot tournament.
2) There are a number of formats for the tournament. The last one I did was 3 sessions, over 2 days. The sessions were only 5 minutes each, but spread out over the 2 days. Day 1, 1 am session, 1 pm session Day 2, 1 session. (I opted not to do the tournament).
3) Yes, you can start it and not finish.

Usually, the offers let you stay at any Vegas property. All sessions will be at a property where you may not be staying at.....which makes it a pain to do the 3 sessions. CET clearly wants the traffic at the host tournament property by spreading out the sessions.

 

Really, the total tournament time is 15 minutes? Why not do it then? Are the prizes that small or are there other costs? Is it a free entry but you are still playing a slot with your own money?

 

There is no money. There will be a special bank of slots. Each will be pre-loaded with credits. The prizes at CET are usually free play. They assign machines at random. You won't have the same machine each session. Sometimes the winner is the highest cumulative score. I have also played where they take the highest scores and then there is an additional final round.

My issue was that I was staying at PH and the tournament was at Rio. Day 1 I as assigned 10 am and 3pm. I had no interest in hanging around Rio all day or making 2 trips. It's a no brainer if the tournie is at your hotel.

 

Like said previously, it's all just points during the tourney. No money is involved. Some CET Vegas properties use these machines in the link below. They are set to rack up the points. Wish real slots paid as well as a tourney session.

http://www.multimediagames.com/tournevent

 

These slot tournaments are like many other offers. They want to get you into the casino and play, donate, play, donate.

The format varies from one session to multiple sessions - never seen more than three. You play from 5-15 minutes on a machine until the TIMER runs out. Highest scores win. Almost always freeplay - sometimes bigger ones have cash for top prizes.

If you miss your time... no big deal. They mark it as ZERO.

Almost all of these are totally free. Occasionally you will see a tournament with a buyin. Mlife does these from time to time. Buyin is usually $500 or more. You will know about those because the prizes are BIG.


Simple stuff.

 

Are the ones requiring a $500 buy in worth it?

 

@PayTriple - It depends on the payouts and number of places paid/number of entrants. These tournaments are usually extremely "Top Heavy" in their payouts, meaning the top 10 places get the majority of the prize pool. Most of these tournaments have a lot more participants than you realize, and while some people have to pay, others are fully or partially comped.

As far as the CET Tournaments go, if you are already going to be in town over those dates, it's worth considering. There is also a series of tournaments at cet where the more you participate in you can earn bonus Great Gift Wrap UP points, so if you go to that you can get more "stuff" or free play.

The way the tournies work is you go to a registration desk the night before. This will be located in the casino in which the tournament is held (Often not the one you are staying in). They rotate the tournies between the various properties and you can stay where you like, or your offers dictate. At the registration they will give you your Free Play Vouchers (If you are entitled to them) and then also assign when you will "Pull" in your tournament. They sometimes give you the option of when you want to pull for your first session, sometimes they do not. You will normally pull 3 times for 15 minutes each. 2 on 1 day, and once the next day. On the final day you can pick up your winnings (If you are eligible) at the Cage of the casino where you want to redeem your free play. All payouts are in free play, either on slots or table games you have a choice.

While it is hard to get in the top 10, you are almost guaranteed to win some free play if you participate in all 3 sessions. You usually need to have 1 above average session to qualify for free play, if you can combine 2 or more above average sessions you can easily get 100-200 or more in free play back. Last one I participated in I got $750 free play (13th or 14th) + $200 freeplay on the offer I was staying on. I had 1 session where I was the top for that round and 2 above average sessions. Of the 5 or so I;ve done I've averaged $100 free play + the offer free play.

The sessions are timed so the goal is to hit the button as fast as you can, which sounds easy enough, but trust me, it can be difficult for some and with upright slots, you are in kind of an awkward position. So, the only real strategy I can give is to make sure you spin as many times as you can as very often I have seen the top payout come at the last second. You are assigned a machine, you do not get to chose it. You must be in the tournament area at least 10 minutes prior to the start of your session.

Hope this information helps you out.

 

I played in a tournament with a $500 buy in this past March at MGM. It was called the Game of Lions Slot Tournament, It was worth it to me because I placed 7th and got $2500 free play. Here was the pay out structure. It also included 3 nights comped.

Participation is limited to the first 250 entrants to pay their Entry Fee in full.

Tournament Prize Structure:
1st Place $ 75,000 Cash
2nd Place $ 25,000 Cash
3rd Place $ 12,500 Cash
4th Place $ 7,500 Cash
5th Place $ 5,000 Cash
6th – 10th Place $ 2,500 FREEPLAY Each
11th – 30th Place $ 1,000 FREEPLAY Each
31st – 100th Place $ 500 FREEPLAY Each
101st – 250th Place $ 250 FREEPLAY Each

 

In the end, somebody is going to get most of the winnings, so the buyin could hurt. Right now MGM is running a $5,000 buy in tournament. If it was a GREAT deal, everyone would sign up.

 

Thanks mrstealth, calmike and nostress for your detailed responses!

 

I have participated in 3 CET ones, however only won a single time with $75 freeplay (76th place???). I believe the last one I did had around 600-700 participants & 100 people received something back.

A few of the recent ones have allowed a spouse or person traveling with you to buy in again for $75 or so - or you could even buy a second session I think for that.