Ask the Slot Expert: New slot club software on video poker machines

Question: In response to your column today here is what I do with my points:

I prefer to cash my points in once a year. So, I do it at the start of each calendar year. The Indian casino here does not care when the player does this. However, only $500 worth can be cashed in at one time. There is no negative impact on your player rating.

Answer: Wow, only once a year. That really gives you something to look forward to after the ball drops in Times Square. I think if I collected free play just once a year, I would get it in mid-December for a nice Christmas gift.

I'm wondering how you concluded that your method of redeeming points does not affect your player rating. I'm not doubting that the casino doesn't really care whether you redeem points for free play at a machine, or redeem points for cash frequently, or redeem points for cash a couple of times a year. It's just that to really test whether there is an effect, we have to have two people play exactly the same, with the only difference between the two being how they redeem their points. That's monumentally impractical, so the best we can do is infer if there is a difference by comparing results among similar players.

Atlantic City's casinos used to complain about players who picked up gifts without playing. I did that a few times. Gaming writers frequently warn against zero-play days and playing for a few minutes between breakfast and checking out because both decrease your daily average.

I have a theory that early slot clubs were modeled after table-games comp policies, so daily average was important. But then somebody realized that we know exactly how much a machine player plays, so we don't need to estimate action based on the number of days players play and their average daily action.

Now I have proof that some slot clubs did use daily average in determining benefits. In this Las Vegas Advisor Question of the Day, Jean Scott addressed the question of why bounce-back cash decreased significantly for one reader.

Jean said that she, her husband, Brad, and a friend of theirs had experienced the same thing. Jean, being well connected, was able to ask a manager what was up. He said that the casino had changed from basing mailers on three months of play, to basing them on just one month. Worse, offers were based on daily average now. Even though their friend plays about the same amount each month, her offers dropped because she plays a lot on some days and not so much on others, bringing down her daily average.

Jean posted this article 12 years ago. I thought by then slot clubs would have realized that they don't have to follow the tables games model because slot clubs have complete information on their members' play.

I hope that slot clubs today use total play and not a daily average in determining benefits. Does it really matter if someone plays $2000 a day for five days or $1000 a day for 10? Maybe the player with the lower average eats more meals at the casino and orders more drinks from -- and gives more tips to -- the cocktail waitresses.

Just to be safe, I avoid zero-play days. I always play at least a little when I pick up a gift or free play. The only zero-play day I've had recently was on a multiple points day. After a couple of laps around the casino, I still couldn't get a spot on a good video poker machine, so I left.

Speaking of offers in mailers. I've had a lot of consulting work the past few weeks and my February offers from Red Rock were not compelling enough for me to make time to go there, so my first visit this month was a few days ago. I immediately noticed something different about the video poker machines. A bright red bar displayed across the bottom of the screen.

The video poker machines at Red Rock (and all Station casinos I've been to) do not have dedicated displays for the slot club. Instead, they steal some screen real estate on the monitor. The bottom half-inch or so is used to display slot club messages. The software does a really good job of scaling the game screen to fit in the screen space remaining without looking distorted. When you need to interact with the system, you touch the "OPEN" button in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen to steal the left third of the screen to display the menu screen.

I was excited to see the software update because I was hoping that they fixed some of the problems with the slot club software. When you first start playing, the bottom of the screen alternates between displaying "You have earned xxx points" and "Good Luck". After playing for a while, the messages would frequently change to "Good Luck" and "**JOHN". No more reporting of the number of points earned.

I wasn't sure whether this was a bug, an indication of some other situation (e.g., communications problems), or by design. I was in Red Rock's high-limit room when a lady playing near me had a problem with her machine. I never found out what the problem was, but it required a slot tech to make a house call. After the slot attendant put out the SOS, the lady left. When the slot tech arrived, he had to wait for the lady to return.

As long as he was there twiddling his thumbs, I asked him why the machines would stop reporting your points earned. I played a few hands to show him that I wasn't getting the "You have earned xxx points" message.

He said, "That's not supposed to happen."

I was optimistic that the slot IT crew would investigate and fix the problem, but nothing ever changed.

Another problem I have with the software is that it would sometimes look like the CBS All Access app buffering when you tried to redeem points. The menu screen would go blank with just a circle going around and around. (Maybe someone knows why I sometimes can't get through 30 seconds of a program on CBS All Access without having start-and-stop buffering but then I can switch to Netflix or Amazon Prime Video and have no problems at all.)

Sometimes the slot club system would eventually display the Redeem Points menu. I got to the point where I would touch the Redeem Points button on the main menu before I needed to redeem points just to increase the chances that the Redeem Points menu would be displayed when I needed it.

Sometimes the system never displayed menu. I would pull my card with the circle still circling.

I don't have a rave review from my first experience with the new software. Not only did the software still stop reporting points during my play, when it did display the number of points I earned, the message scrolled off the screen so fast that it was tough to see. In the old software you had to be fast to catch the points message while it was displayed. The new software made it almost impossible to catch the message.

Strike 1.

I was running low on funds, so I touched the Open button on the screen to bring up the slot club menu. No menu, just the Please Wait circle. I played some more, but I never got the menu. I've never not gotten the main menu before.

Strike 2.

There is no strike 3 because the game was called after I decided that I had given enough play for the Valentine's Day box of chocolates they had just given me.

A few days later, different machine. The points message didn't scroll, but it still alternated with other messages. And the machine stopped reporting points after a while. I was able to make it to the Redeem Points menu. The new menus are more attractive and modern looking.

I don't know why the system doesn't emulate the dedicated displays and show a static message saying how many points you have earned, updating after each hand. I don't need the machine to wish me good luck.

Do you have any comments, good or bad, about how you interact with the slot club on the machines or kiosks in your casino?

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