The following is a true story, other than the names of the gamblers. It happened at Harrah’s Atlantic City a number of years ago. Since I’ve played little at this particular casino, and always as a tourist rather than a local, I might have some of the details wrong. But the gist of this story is accurate and might provide fodder for thought and discussion.
Amy and Bo lived not too far away from Atlantic City, and drove to visit this casino perhaps three weekends a month — except when they were on cruises (which they enjoyed a lot) or were otherwise busy. They played single-line $1 Double Double Bonus mostly, but sometimes went for the $2 game or perhaps $1 Triple Play.
While they played mostly an accurate strategy, the game there has a 1% house edge. Over the course of a weekend, their average loss was about $800. This was an average, but the swings in this game are fairly large. Occasionally they’d hit one or more royals, or aces with a kicker, and ended up several thousand dollars ahead — but when that didn’t happen, their actual weekend losses were on the order of $2,000 or so. As I said, this averaged out to about $800 in the soup for each weekend, for two or three weekends per month.
Harrah’s, of course, considered Amy and Bo to be excellent customers. Players to be rewarded. Players to be pampered. (If you’re willing and able to sustain repeated losses this size, you’ll get pampered too.) Amy and Bo each received regular bounce back free play. I don’t know the actual amount. I assume it was about $100 apiece per week.
At this casino at this time, though, you didn’t have to play off the free play immediately. You needed to download the free play to your bank during the relevant time period, but it would be fine to leave it sitting in your bank until you were ready to play it off. At most Harrah’s casinos today, once money goes into your bank you have a relatively short period of time to play it off. Perhaps 24 hours. Perhaps 72 hours. It varies by casino and sometimes other things as well. But back then, at that casino anyway, you didn’t need to play it off so quickly.
Amy and Bo were social people and over time got to know several gambling friends whom they trusted and also played at this casino. If our two players went cruising for one or more weeks, they’d have these friends visit a kiosk and move the free play into their bank. But the friends wouldn’t play off the free play. The money would wait for Amy and Bo to return.
Harrah’s discovered this was going on. (This wasn’t too hard. Free play downloaded with no play at all is a fairly simple move to spot.) The host took Amy and Bo aside and told them not to do this anymore. If they stopped now and didn’t continue the practice, it would be considered “no harm no foul” and officially forgotten about by the casino. After all, these were two valuable customers to the casino. But, if Amy and Bo didn’t heed this warning, they were told there would be consequences.
Amy decided this was nonsense. They had earned the free play, after all, and they were the ones playing it off. No fraud whatsoever. So, they continued their practice, and were warned a second time — a little more forcefully.
Before I continue, what do you think should happen? Were Amy and Bo within their rights and the casino unjustifiably enforcing silly rules, or were Amy and Bo out of line? Players disagree on this, so whatever your opinion is on the subject, there will be some players who agree with you and some who don’t. I’ll give you my opinion, but I’m not trying to imply that whatever I think is the only correct way to look at the matter.
Players tend to look at this type of free play as a reward for past play. Casinos tend to look at this free play as an incentive to get the players in for another visit. For a cost of $200 (i.e., $100 each), Amy and Bo will typically lose $800. This is a nice trade off insofar as the casino is concerned.
But if Amy and Bo cruise for four weeks and have the free play saved in their respective banks, when they come back, they’ll be getting $1,000 in free play ($200 for each week they were away, plus another $200 for when they came in to collect it). Their losses will still be $800 for the weekend. Harrah’s isn’t in the business of giving players $1,000 when their expected losses are $800. Once or twice, maybe, but Harrah’s wants to make a profit.
Eventually Harrah’s restricted these players and they no longer received weekly bounce back money. They could still come and play, but now their benefits were reduced. After a year or so of “behaving themselves,” perhaps this issue could be revisited.
Amy was quite put out by this and wasn’t shy about letting people know it. (Which is how I happened to hear about it). She felt she was being treated unfairly. She earned that money with her play. She should be able to decide how and when to redeem that money.
Once Amy and Bo had been warned a few times, they should have known they either had to follow the rules or get restricted. My opinion is that they needed to make a determination. Is this particular casino “special” so that they don’t want to “burn it down?” If that answer is ‘yes,’ they need to follow the rules. If that reason is ‘no,’ they can take what they can for as long as they can.
Amy and Bo tried a third option. Yes, they thought Harrah’s Atlantic City was special. And they kept having friends move free play into their bank when they went cruising. This option didn’t turn out well for them.
What do you think?
