Vaccines administered... headed downtown!

Thank you for the data.

On the Club One portal, you can only see your comp dollars rounded down to the nearest dollar. What appeared to increase by $8 could actually be an increase of anywhere from $7.01 to $8.99. I have been using a highly educated estimate of an earning rate for comp dollars with Club One to be 5% of theo. There's no way that Circa/D/GG is as sophisticated and surgical as Cosmo with tracking close-to-exact hold for VP based on the exact game you are playing. If so, then the hold being counted by the casino for the game you were playing -- 8/5 BP (0.83% actual hold) -- would have been in the range of 2.5-3.3 percent. We may as well call it a machine hold of 3 percent, and speculate that they had been reduced from 4 percent at some point. That wouldn't surprise me for four reasons:

• That's approximately the average hold of the games available at the D.
• D/GG/Circa really don't focus on delivering "decent" VP unless it is strategically positioned in a way to draw you in and keep you at the property enough to eventually spend money out-of-pocket. (Notice how you have to walk through a decent amount of the D to get to those juicy progressives at the Vue Bar, unless you went up the escalator outside. Entering from downstairs, the less astute player more likely would have settled for the dreck VP at the Longbar.)
• They already disallow the use of free play and the earning of tier credits on machines that feature their "best" games with the progressives (including at GG). Those games can't be played at a fast enough rate of coin-in for the typical player to soak the casino for lots of comp dollars. The typical walk-up to the Vue Bar is either going to camp out for hours chasing the progressives or is going to pay cash for drinks and then immediately step away (or might sit down for a bit, but still paid cash for drinks).
• Casinos, for the most part, like to deal in nice round numbers.

If true hold were being counted as the machine hold for the 8/5 BP progressive, then they would have to be giving back 15-20% of theo as comp dollars. Even counting the machine hold as 2% would mean a comp-dollar earning rate of 6-8 percent. Based on meticulous tracking of my own play on other games within the family of properties (as recently as last month, additionally including decent enough amounts of both slots and blackjack), there's just no way it's that high. 5 percent of theo as comp dollars has been a consistent estimate, and the nice round number just makes sense.

I would consider it an excellent play to be getting at least 3.5 times as much in comp dollars than you "should" due to the machine hold being at least 3.5 times as much as the actual hold of your game of choice. When you add in the value of the points earned, your $5500 of coin-in earned you just over $13 and would have been just over $7 if the comp dollars earned were based on actual theo -- which was about $46. The progressive reduces the house edge a bit, but I won't entirely account for that here. Points and comp dollars should have shaved the house edge down from 0.83% (and a bit less with the progressive) to about 0.7 percent, but in reality, you got it down to about 0.58 percent.

I estimate your per-person rate of play (I presume you always play two people on one account/card) to have been about 550 hands per hour. You had previously mentioned typically doing about 5 hours of play per person per day for a cumulative VP coin-on of about $7k per day -- all at $1.25 total bet per hand for single-play. You definitely get the hours in. Your offers are fair.

 

Ok the afternoon session wasn’t as noteworthy as the morning. We put through around $5500 this morning and I didn’t want to play no more than around another 1000. That didn’t take long and I won a little bit more.

On my six $25 match plays, I won three and lost three on roulette for a nice $75 profit. My $75 FP was run through and returned $70. My wife lost around $200 so we are a little ahead right now. I did have two new drinks, a hurricane and a blue Hawaiian

 

Good analysis, Julian. Yes, anyway you look at it, comps earned at D don’t accumulate very fast. My total play for the day was $6,440. My comp dollars increased by $9. So my own rule is I want to have the casino cover all my meals. This is why I only give the D one days worth of action. Nine dollars is barely enough to cover two hot dogs! But now I have to consider the mailer that my $6k generated. I got $75 in FP, and $110 in dining credits. And the fact I got $150 in MP chips. Now that 6k a day gave me $119 in comps. Pretty good comp return......if you only play one day. That plus the fact you get to play a fun version of Bonus Poker which often goes positive. Playing it this way, I figure I have got a pretty good return on my play. So return on play is not always cash back and comps earned, it’s adding in the front end marketing offers that tell the total picture. The way I play it, it is an excellent value.

Now, at the 4Q (where I’m heading tomorrow) the comp rate of return is very generous. I have no problem earning enough comps for my wife and I. For one day or four days. But again the marketing offers add a bunch more EV to the equation. $200 or &300 FP again adds to your bottom dollar when you check out. Tournament entries also add to your total return. Of course this also means always playing full play machines. If you are not, you are leaving more money for the casinos

now, to me, the worst problem for the D is NO COFFEE SHOP! No problem. Go eat at the Golden Gate. Wait a second. There are NO RESTURANTS at the golden gate! So, if you want a coffee shop meal at a Steven’s joint, you have to go to Saginaws at Circa and pay at least $20 for breakfast. Absolutely crazy. Again, another reason not to play more than one day at the D.

Now, one last thing confusing thing about the D’s new tiered system. If you go through a couple of screens on the card reader on your machine, you actually can see you tier points. So, if you are interested in your tier score, you don’t have to go to the Club desk. And for what it is worth, my tier earning points matched my non tier points. So the 8/5 progressives DO EARN TIER POINTS.

 

And almost forgot, met up with VMB member
steveks225. Good conversation then had a really good dinner at Andiamo’s Steak house. Used up my $110 dining credit! Exchanged several gaming stories. Good times.

 

I'm staying at The D for the first time for two nights on a similar offer in May after I get my second vaccination and following along. Couple of questions. Are your $110 dining credits loaded on your players card and use your card to pay or do you charge it to the room when you dine and have to see a host to get the food removed? When playing VP at the Vue bar and actively drinking, do you have to pull your mask down every time you want to drink or is it okay to keep it off when playing?

 

The dining credits are loaded on your card which is great. As noted the issue is the lack of options outside Circa. You either eat hot dogs or dinner at Andiamo if you are at the D. I know there are some off property options but I'm not sure if they use your food credits or just comp dollars.

It's been 6 weeks or so but the rule at the bar was mask up unless you are actually taking a drink. I know restrictions have gone through another round of loosening but I can't imagine this one has changed.

 

Yesterday, most people who had a drink in front of them had their mask down, including me. No comments from the bartenders.

I think you can also eat at Pizza Rock, but as previous poster said, I don’t know which account it comes out of. I would hope the D Club personnel could tell you.

 

Moving day today. Over to the 4Q.

threw away a 7.....


Got a seven.

 

Another close call.

 

im happy I hit it, holding one card, but what could have been!

 

It comes out of your earned comp dollars.

You cannot redeem points for food anywhere -- just for free play (with the option for cash back if you are at the Legend tier or above). The food and beverage credit that comes in your offer can only be used at on-property food and beverage outlets. (They find the need to still specially point out Project BBQ, even though that is now built right into the side of Circa.)

If you want to use your F&B credit from your offer, clearly say "food offer" (and not "comp offer") when presenting your Club One card. If you want to use comp dollars, clearly say "comp dollars" (though "comps" might get it correctly done).

 

I've adopted the habit of saying both "food offer" and "not comps" to make it super clear.

 

Not much to report today. Was a pretty even day. Up a little down a little. Not to many fours but tons of full houses and flushes. One of the hours is pictured.



I know, I know. Just glad there was no kicker there.

Later in the day I took a little walk down Fremont and saw a new carney game.


apparently, if you can hold onto the bar and suspend your weight for either 100 or 120 seconds you win some money. While I watched, there were only two people who tried, and both were a little heavy. Wish I could have got some of that action! Neither one lasted 10 seconds.

Not sure about dinner tonight. Had a huge breakfast at Magnolias around noon. Still not hungry. Tomorrow night we dine at Hugos for the first time.

 

General snapshots around the casino

 

Always have at least one meal here



My choice is the half pound hotdog with chili. Wife gets the Chicken fried rice. Ridicules amount of food. Mine was good, but we should have just shared hers.

Try as I might, I couldn’t eat it all, but I probably ate 80% of it! Yummy!

 

Someone had asked this earlier......

 

That was me, thanks!!

 

The FSE got a big boost in brightness.




And in case anyone wondered................they are still here.......

 

Thanks for the pics. I'm getting amped up for my trip end of next week. Hope things are going well for you!

 

Just caught up with the TR. Congrat's on doing your first TR. Well done and thanks for doing it. Got a question on the Southwest Boarding Pass $25 match play offer at the D. Do they keep the boarding pass? Just wondering because I thought I had read El Cortez was running the same promo and was going to collect there.