Mlife Facebook wall/premium slots causes divorce

This post is not about losing a customer. It's a show of the MGM business mentality, and how far they are going out of their way to short-change their current clientele.

They have a slot program in place where you need to play $10 to get a tier credit (or 2, or 10) for a certain bank of slots. All of the popular ones. There is no meter running to the next credit, and most are not marked. PLEASE dont tell me this isnt important when.....

A) I have read several posts from players barking "Where are my points!!"
B) 90% of all gaming revenue comes from slots. So, this is screwing over a LOT of people.

So, they have a loyalty program, then make it 5 times more difficult to get points. It's only included in the finest of the fine print in their Mlife rules. So, I call them out. This is where you DEFEND YOUR OWN ACTIONS. I am not making a bogus gripe, it's a legit gripe over a rule that they made.

But we dont want people reading this stuff do we? So, take down the comment and block the poster. Because if people were to actually read about this little clause in our program, they might actually decide to take their play elsewhere.....since MGM is the only one pulling this stunt. This is costing their slot players TRUCKLOADS of comps. And they clearly want to keep it a secret.

So, my question is.....why would you want to play at this company? Yeah, they lost ME, but I know these threads get around. I have been in the casino business for ten years, and I know corporate BS when I see it. This is way overboard.

 

For the the last 12 months table games win on the strip has been 3,233,387,000 and for slots 2,907,933,000 so your 90% figure is way off

 

The big strip operators do things every day - especially at the low & mid end - like 6/5 and/or CSM at blackjack, tighter slots than you'd likely get off strip or elsewhere than Vegas, etc. - that would turn off most educated or savvy gamblers, but really the strip gets so many suckers & newbies who don't know any better that they can get away with it - for everyone who knows and cares about your issue with the "premium" branded slots, there's 100 casual players - tourist, conventioneers, etc - who will never know or care about how many mLife points they're getting for playing one of those games - they're designed to attract that kind of player to begin with, it's the licensed "brand" or theme that's the gimmick which makes them so popular and gets people to play them in the first place - and since they usually have to share the revenue from those machines with the makers & licensees, it has to get paid for somewhere - so what would you rather they do - make them earn less comp points, set them tighter, or have them not be offered at all?

Also, comparing mLife to Caesars over slot comps isn't an apples to apples comparison - it's long been a known fact that Caesars is better for slot players & MGM is better for table games players - I primarily play tables, so I tend to avoid CET properties - if I primarily played slots, I would play at CET.

 

Does your gripe have to do with how some slots at MGM resorts are considered specialty slots and reward points at a much lower rate?

I found that out last year and called them on it. They explained it to me, I wasn't happy about it since some machines were considered specialty at one property but not the other. After a lot of complaining in person and on the phone they took care of me and now I make sure to pay more attention and I avoid playing the machines considered specialty.

 

Link?? That does not seem right.

 

I disagree with the people who say to scrub the negative comments on the FB walls. I think it is a great chance to address these issues and state your policies. Cosmo gets complaints on their walls and addresses the issues or provides contact info so you can send the complaints directly to them. It makes people that are angry happier when they see you realize they are upset and are willing to listen. As for the special points for certain slots its lame but part of their program so we just have to abide by it. I got screwed and it sucked with point earning but in the end I have to be more careful. I even asked them to explain it to me at the Players club desk and most had no idea what they are talking about. I truly believe they should provide more information on what machines are speciality and what machines are not. I also think they should educate their employees so when people ask they won't feel cheated. I talked with 3 people at bellagio and they told me all machines earned the same.

 

I agree.
Companies find it easier and cheaper to spend money luring new gamblers than it is to fix issues and resolve complaints of existing customers.

 

It's pretty simple. Unhappy customers are more likely to trash your business than a happy one is to praise it. At some point, you have to man up and deal with the issues head on because if you have to many angry ex-customers, they will keep you from growing with their opinions. Look how this issue went from FB to VMB. You can't just nip it in the bud by blocking someone.

 

Gambling revenue report, I looked at Strip Casinos with more then 1 million dollars in revenue:

http://gaming.nv.gov/documents/pdf/1g_12feb.pdf

 

how does that not seem right? 10000 people can dump 100 into a machine just to keep even with 1 whale that loses 1M at the tables.

 

Yeah if you look at those gaming reports the win from baccarat alone is almost half of what the slot machines make.

 

Fascinating report on the details of statewide gaming revenue in NV!

It confirms/denys a number of beliefs/myths/widely held notions.

Most interesting:

BJ is by far the most popular table game, Baccarat is by far the most profitable table game. In the trailing 12 months, 262 baccarat tables won $1.364 billion while 2789 blackjack tables won $1.05 billion.

So, the average BJ table statewide won $360,000 or so, about $1000 a day. The average baccarat table won about $5.2 million, about $14,000 per day. 99.5% of the statewide baccarat win was on the LV Strip, not surprisingly. The average BJ table on the strip won $571,000, significantly higher than the statewide average.

By comparison, the 45,848 penny slot machines statewide won $2.24 Billion, an average of $48,869 each or $133 per day. It takes 106 penny slot machines to win as much as one baccarat table. From the casino's perspective though--those machines are very low maintenance compared to a typical baccarat player :evillaugh

The idea that lower denomination slot machines are tighter is proven correct. Hold statewide on the penny slots is about 10%, while hold on nickel, quarter, dollar, and $5 machines is about the same, just over 5%. Slots on the strip ARE INDEED tighter than those found elsewhere, showing a hold of 11% for pennies, 8% for nickels and quarters, 6% at the dollar level, 5% on the $5 machines (and only 3% for the $25 and $100 machines.)

Percentage of revenue from slots is higher in the less developed locations--not surprisingly, since there are no baccarat games in places like Winnemucca or Elko and BJ would be played at much lower stakes. So, it looks like 46.7% of gaming revenues on the Strip come from slots while 62.3% of revenues statewide are from slots. This stands to reason since high stakes table players from faraway places are primarily drawn to the Strip.

 

That is very true...

But more my point was that: if you are a business and somebody has made up their mind that they don't like you or one of your policies, for whatever reason, it almost doesn't matter what you do - if you change your policy or offer some new benefit of your business the complaining party will often just find something new to complain about or some new reason not to like you.

 

For everyone who says a business shouldn't delete negative posts off of its fb wall & instead should try to deal with every single one of them, follow these steps:

1) Own a business that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people patronize
2) Put up a facebook page
3) Wait and see how long it takes for the loonies and the cranks to come out and fill your page up with their rants & complaints
4) See how long it takes before you tire of trying to argue with crazy people, realize it's a futile endeavor, and just start deleting their comments instead of responding to them.
5) Repeat as necessary.

:evillaugh

 

Nice post on the gaming revenue, and I stand very corrected. Thanks for the link.

 

I had a similar problem with Taco Bell, I've never forgiven them for getting rid of the spicy chicken burrito.

The only way to truly get at a company without giving them the opportunity to silence you is through Twitter.

I will never forgive you for ruining my life! #tacobell

 

I feel the same way about the chicken flatbread sandwich.

 

+1
Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.