And the first monthly $50,000 winner is...

[Alan Mendelson]

Nancy M. She is the first player at Harrah's Rincon to win a monthly $50,000 drawing. On Saturday night, Rincon was jammed -- in fact I had never seen it so busy before -- and the casino gave away $50,000 worth of free play in hourly drawings and at 11-PM one lucky player won $50,000 cash. Her photo is below at the desk where her ID was being verified moments after her name was called. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the photo.

Some information about the drawings which might help you consider playing for future drawings:

1. About 2,500 players were registered for the drawings. You had to be at the casino and swipe your card at some point during the day Saturday, starting at 6-AM, to have the entries that you earned during the month of January to be made eligible for the drawings. If you put on a massive number of points during the month but either didn't show up or worse -- you forgot to swipe your card -- your points didn't count in the drawings.

2. I was told by an employee that the combined number of entries was probably in the range of two and a half million. Each entry represents one "Total Rewards Tier Credit" except that those earned on Tuesdays during January were tripled. Again, this emphasizes the importance of playing on Tuesdays for this promotion.

3. I was told by an employee that one of the $1,000 free play awards during the evening wen to a player who only had 1 entry representing one tier point. Every Total Rewards member who swiped his card got one entry point, even if they didn't place a single bet.

4. Bonus tier credits were included as entries and this is very important. As you know under the new Total Rewards system, if you earn 500 tier credits in one day you get a bonus of 125 tier credits; earn 1,000 tier credits and you get a bonus of 1,000 and earn 2,500 tier credits and you get a bonus of 5,000. Well, the bonus tier credits also count as entries.

5. All tier credits earned towards the January drawing on Saturday night will not be included as entries in February. You must earn tier credits in February towards the February giveaways. (February earnings started on Saturday night when the January entries were closed.) However, tier credit entries earned in January will be used in the drawings for the One Million Dollars grand prize on New Year's Eve.

6. I asked some Total Rewards reps about what will happen in December because the one million dollar New Year's Eve drawing is after the last Saturday in December. I was told there may not be any drawings on the last Saturday of December and instead there will be additional prize drawings on New Year's Eve. But -- and this is every important -- they have not finalized any plans, so stay tuned.

7. How are the drawings conducted? Well, it's done by computer, I was told. Someone from the casino pushes a button and a name or names pop up on a computer screen chosen at random based on all of the "entries" or points in the system. If all the players had, let's say, on average 1,000 Total Rewards Points for the January drawing, there were about 2.5-million points "in play" and the average player had 0.004% if the entries. But I was told that there were high limit players with 100,000 or more entry points in the system from their play during January. A player with 100,000 tier points (entries) in the system had a 4% or 1/25 chance of winning the $50,000 prize. I don't know what level of player the $50,000 winner is.



I had never seen the casino so jammed. Some regular video poker players actually had trouble finding machines to play on. Most of the high limit machines were in use -- but not all. But just about every video poker machine on the main casino floor with denominations as low as 25-cents were in use. I had a hard time finding a machine. Some of the popular slot machines actually had players waiting to use them. Three card craps tables were in play and most all positions were filled. Rincon has a winner with this promotion -- at least they had a winner for the first drawing. I wonder if many players will become disenchanted when the February and later month drawings come around. But New Year's Eve will be a sell out -- it always is.

[Alan Mendelson]

Over on the Facebook page for Harrah's Rincon, someone posted that "Yes Nancy m. Won 3 $1000 dollar prizes and the 50,000 dollar prize.we heard she's a 7 star who already made 7 star for the year." This would mean that Nancy M. already had at least 150,000 tier points with each tier point representing one entry in the contest pool. And if Nancy M. played on any Tuesdays, those entries were tripled for the drawings.

I said from the beginning that this was a tremendous "advantage play" for a high roller, advantage player. See the original thread here from December 28th: http://vegascasinotalk.com/forum/showth...ADVANTAGE-play

I asked back then if it was the "ultimate" advantage play for a high roller and if indeed Nancy M. already scored 7Star status with 150,000 points or more, she certainly has been rewarded for her play.

And it wouldn't surprise me if she continues this level of play that in February she will score even more -- and Saturday night might have given us a big clue as to who the "Rincon Millionaire" might be this coming New Year's Eve.

Now as expected there are some players who posted negative reactions to this on the Harrah's Rincon Facebook page. And it wouldn't surprise me if in February a lot of players will not be participating and will not show up for the February drawing. The attitude might become "why bother?"

On the other hand, high rollers with the flexible schedules to play on Tuesdays and to be there on Saturday February 23rd might certainly have a better shot at winning.

Now, I am really curious to see how many "tier points" or entries were in the drawing. If indeed there were 2,500,000 entries, and Nancy M. had 150,000 (minimum) and let's say one-third of the entries were tripled because of play on Tuesdays, Nancy M. might have had a total of 300,000 entries or about 12% of the entries.

[Rob.Singer]

I agree, however, like nearly every "advantage player" if she even considers herself to be one, unless she's had unusual good luck, she's almost certainly behind by 5 or more figures even after the drawings. But hey, what does that mean anyway? She's got lots of time for the math to turn it around for her! Go +EV!!

[Alan Mendelson]

I don't know this player and I don't know what games she plays. She could be a high limit slots player or a Paigow player or a blackjack playere -- I couldn't tell you. She was not one of the regular video poker players that I see.

But for her to have 150,000 tier points already means she put through either $750,000 playing slots, or $1.5-million playing video poker LESS (and this is important) 5,000 bonus points for each day she earned 2,500 tier points.

Let's say she played twenty days during the month, and each of those days earned a minimum of 2,500 tier points. She would have:

10 X 2,500 tier points earned thru play = 25,000 = coin in of $125,000 or $250,000
10 X 5,000 tier points earned thru bonuses = 50,000 = zero coin in
total of ten days "basic high roller play" = 75,000
additional play for 75,000 tier points = $375,000 coin in or $750,000 coin in

So, minimum amount of coin in to attain 150,000 tier points in my example is $500,000 of coin in (or table bets)
And maximum amount of coin in to attain 150,000 tier points in my example is $1,000,000 of coin in (or table bets)

Now, these coin in or table bet figures do not include free play amounts, and I am sure that if she is a regular high roller she had several thousand dollars of free play during the month. I would estimate that her free play offers during the month were in excess of $5,000. Probably close to $8,000.

Harrah's Rincon managers told me that they estimate an overall hold of 2.5% on all bets in the casino on average. Using their figure of a 2.5% hold then if she put through $500,000 of coin in or table play she lost $12,500 and if she were a video poker player or table player, she lost $25,000.

Now these loss figures are only estimates based on the casino's expected hold of 2.5%. She might have won during the month, and we have to subtract from the "losses" the free play she got during the month.

Now, we add in the $50,000 cash plus the additional $3,000 free play she won Saturday night. If you ask me, Rob, I think she did nicely for the month.
I would give her a net win of either $25,000 or $37,500 or perhaps more depending on what luck she had playing and the actual amount of her free play.

Edited to add: the casino's expected hold of 2.5% applies to all games on the casino floor. If she played blackjack, paigow, video poker or craps, her theoretical hold could be much less. The manager who gave me the figure of a 2.5% hold told me that figure includes and is dominated by slot play.

[Alan Mendelson]

Another piece of the puzzle: the winner on Saturday night was described as a high limit baccarat player and another player at her table on Saturday said this on the Rincon Facebook page. I am not familiar with the game at Rincon and I don't know what the table limits are. I also don't know how it is scored for tier points and comps but my thinking is that it is supposed be a low house-edge game that it is a way to score a lot of tier points at "low cost." Could someone supply some more info?

From the Rincon website I copied this info which describes the game as EZ Baccarat:

Make the commission disappear without changing the nature and spirit of the game of Baccarat. EZ Baccarat eliminates the taking of the 5% commission after every bank winning hand without modifying any of the existing drawing rules of the standard Baccarat game. In addition, players may wager on the exciting Dragon 7 wager that pays 40 to 1.

Is this an even better game to play for comps and tier points than the video poker games I mentioned? And a way to build up even more entries at a lower cost for future drawings?

[arcimede$]

I looked up EZ Baccarat at the wizard's site and it shows a house edge of 1.02%. This would make is slightly worse than you bonus A/F game (house edge .75%). In both cases this assumes correct play.

With such a small edge I would guess the number of tickets/dollar bet would be low, but who knows. You'd need to check.

[Alan Mendelson]

With such a small edge I would guess the number of tickets/dollar bet would be low, but who knows. You'd need to check.

I think its still $10 bet = 1 tier point even for baccarat. The Total Rewards rules say $10 bet for one tier point for table games, and I see no exception for baccarat. Also, I was just speaking with someone who is trying to confirm that the high limit room offers a maximum bet of $3,000 at baccarat, and on the regular casino floor the max bet is $100 and sometimes is increased to $500.

I also found out that table game players can get a rebate on their losses of more than $25,000 per month, but I am not sure what the rebate amount is. Table game players get the rebate because they don't get lower free play offers and lower bounce back offers than video poker and slot players.