Mlife Specialty Games?

Always knew with MLife the new Slots did not provide the same credit as the older slots.
Old slots were $5 per credit and new slots were $8 per credit.

The pamphlet in the mail shows New MLife as $3 per Slots and $10 for Specialty Games. The footnote says to "see MLife desk for list of earning rates by game type."

Has anyone obtained clarification on this?
Are all slots (old and new) $3 per credit?
What are specialty games?

 

That is a good question. I'm hoping it's just the newest ones like batman and such. I'll check in and get a list at the Mlife desk on Wed.

 

Specialty slots with M-Life are all the progressives and most of the new games that have branding/Royalty fees like Batman, Sex in the City, Monopoly, etc...however the only way to be absolutely positive what points you are receiving from a slot with M-Life is to watch what points you are gaining when you first start playing. Also, I've seen programming errors (shocker considering it's M-Life) where some of the M-Life casinos have programmed in the exact same slot for example Goldfish at different rate formulas.

 

Not all progressives are specialty slots I know with 100% certainty the lions share machine is not considered a specialty slot. Most of the specialty machines have a small plate attached that says 1 point=$10.

 

I am afraid that it does pertain to the newer slots.
It was annoying when the host says we didn't gamble as much during a previous trip when I know for a fact we gambled a lot more.
The difference was on the previous trip we played a lot of the older slots and on the trip in question we gamble mostly the newer machines.

At $5 per point you could have 2000 points for $10,000 coin in.
At $10 per point it equates to only 1000 points. Basically $5000 worth of coin in is disregarded which is significant. It is no wonder they were a lot more stingy in their comps.

 

In terms of comps, hosts don't necessarily care about your points. Its meaningless to them. All that really matters is your coin-in/ADT.

 

I agree with Grapplefu... my host told me they don't look at your points earned on a trip they look directly at your coin-in. If you gambled like you have on previous trips you it could be you weren't getting the "playthrough" to generate the coin in you normally have in the past.

I find the specialty "themed" machines discouraging as the "big wins" aren't big, how can they say 5x your bet is a big win? To me it's insulting seeing a big win that will allot me 5 more spins, but then I'm a rarity as you rarely see those machines empty. In my experience I don't get the play through on the specialty slots so that could have affected your coin in this past trip. But that could just be me too

 

Is this your assumption or were you told this from a host? If from a host at which casino?

Per the main host at NYNY: "The points are what determines comps, not coin in."

 

This could be argued all day. Look at it this way. Coin in will result in points. So points are a result of coin in. With a few adjustments here and there, they are close to being the same thing.

You can not get points without coin in.
You can not have coin in without getting points.

 

Based on experience they are not close to being the same.

If a person only plays the older slots with 3000 points it equates to $9,000 coin in based on their new point system. If another person plays only the specialty slots it would only equated to about 900 points. A person getting 900 points is not going to be comped the same as one getting 3000 points.

This is what happened to us. Trip A was done mostly playing the older slot machines. Trip B was done with the specialty slots and we had a lot more coin in yet the host said we gambled less and the comps given were also much less.

 

I would really hate if this was the case. I don't agree with comping less because of it being a specialty game but I've grown to accept it. I strongly disagree with them saying that your coin-in was less. It is not like these have higher pay-back (many would argue just the opposite). Coin-in is coin-in on a slot - if this is indeed true, I may not play any specialty slots with mlife ever! And I agree with LV_bound, coin-in is not the same as points, a little math can prove that in a second. According to the Oct. 1 changes however, it looks more likely they are judging your play based on points earned and not coin-through (if you look at their comp comparison guide).

 

I just got back from 3 nights at Aria and evoni is dead on. Any slot machine with a progressive, and that's not just the big progressives....it can be the WMS games with a small and large jackpot progressive of up to $500, are considered "specialty slots". I did not see the little plate that said so on any of the machines.

Also, it seemed like Clue was considered a specialty slot at Aria, but not at Bellagio....now, I may not have been tracking that as closely as I should have been, but there were definitely differences between the two casinos.

 

Every host has told me this. Having points determine comps wouldn't make sense to me. You can get points for retail purchases and foursquare checkins, I don't think the casino would comp you back for those.

 

Points would be a quick way to make a to make a snap judgement but a decently designed system should be easy enough for a host to go deeper than that. It sounds like there is a lack of investment in either IT or in personnel training over there.

 

The debate on what is a specialty slot is always different per casino; there doesn't seem to be consistency which is another story altogether. Progressives being specialty are debatable as per each casino as well. When I was at MGM I'm almost 100% certain the Lion's Share wasn't specialty and at Luxor my last trip the Life of Luxury progressive games weren't a specialty slot. Part of the frustration over the specialty vs non specialty is the inconsistency, if it were more consistent and they were clearly marked it wouldn't anger the avid gamblers as much.

To the ADT/Coin-in, hosts are able to see what we play through in actuality and not based on our points earned. We do, however earn less express comps as a result of the specialty machines and it's been long debated that the primary bucket would then see fewer comps as well or does it? I have a really good rapport with my host and it's never affected us on a trip as she has told us she looks at the "coin in" as the points don't mean anything to her.

I would be questioning what your host told you, it doesn't seem like viable reasoning. Something doesn't sit right with me, with what you were told... but again that is my opinion and I do not know the rapport you have with them.

 

What??? That's not the MGM that I know.

[/sarcasm]

 

So, if you play the specialty slots, you KNOW that you will earn less tier credits, express comps, and freeplay. And you have to HOPE that they will base your future offers on coin in, and not tier score.

Or you can just avoid all this by playing a slot machine at any casino in Las Vegas not owned by MGM.

Either way, have fun with all that.

 

Or you can just do what you want, play the games that you like at the property you like, and let the comps fall where they fall.

 

Another case of accounting types trying to run a casino. No understand of marketing programs (mlife), customer satisfaction, repeat customers, loyalty, etc.

If those stupid "specialty" machines result in 1% less revenue to the casino, then change the hold by the appropriate % and move on.

Stupid. Just plain stupid.


Just like the idiots that came up with the rolling expiration of mlife tier points. Nobody took enough time to realize it was too complicated for customers, staff and computers.