Free Play Trip Report

I accumulated $740 of free play and went to my favorite casino to play it through... one time. I cashed out $635 on $1 8/5 Aces and Faces and then had a comped breakfast and with my extra comps picked up a whole apple pie to go. Then headed off to the car and drove home. Less $35 for gas (I stopped at an ARCO with a lower price) plus $5 for the waiter's tip at the casino cafe, and I netted $595... which I hope will cover the "oil change" I need to get on my car this coming week.

No big jackpots at the $1 level but I was dealt quad deuces -- which on Aces and Faces pays 125 coins. Only ONE full house.

Ironically on three different hands when I held small pairs instead of an ace, the small pairs did not improve but one ace appeared which would have given me at least a break even hand. And that's very frustrating when playing "correct strategy" loses.

I did another "free play trip" on Friday. This time I had combined free play of $735 which included converting reward credits into $360 of free play. I cashed out an even $700 after playing $1 8/5 Aces and Faces. No quads, two full houses, two dealt flushes and two dealt straights. Held a single ace and finished with four to the royal, which was my heart-stopper of the day. In add I was at the casino probably for less than 45 minutes including the time needed to convert reward credits into free play. While I was tempted to play "just another hundred" through the machine I decided that I had to beat Friday traffic and had to leave right then -- which is what I did.

The bad news is that this might have been one of my last free play trips -- I have my mailers/offers for June and my free play offers have been reduced so dramatically that it will be hard to justify more than perhaps two day trips during June.

I flew over to Memphis, then on to Tunica for their "Grand Closing". I had $1000 in free play. It was a bittersweet trip for us. We actually had pretty good luck at the slots, hitting for $700 on the first machine I played at Horseshoe, Buffalo (with free play coupon), later hit for $1200 on Wizard of Oz (with free play coupon) and some other smaller hits. So, ended up a bit on the plus side and gaining over 10,000 tier points. Not a bad trip, considering I got airfare, a great suite, two fantastic dinners, free drinks and other goodies -- and still came home with more money than I left with. I actually won a single cup coffee maker but I convinced wife Betty that it would be too much of a hassle getting in on the plane so she gave it to a young guy a the Veranda. Now, the other side: of course the casino was empty, many of the machines were gone, services down to a bare minimum, and sort of a gloomy feeling. 1500 lost jobs. The saddest for us was with our buddies in the Diamond Lounge. None of them are staying with Harrah's so we will never see them again. There was a lot of hugging and fighting back the tears, especially with big Chris. The row of whisky bottles kept getting smaller and smaller. We swung by there on our way out Sunday and almost everything was gone. They were actually serving the mixed drinks in plastic cups. I guess that's life, but we are going to miss them terribly. So Harrah’s bites the dust. I fear that with the building of more and more casinos around the country there will be others that will do the same. Just look at Atlantic City, they are so over developed that some will surely go before long.

ps, please pardon the typos.

Well, the Nash's spent the weekend at Rincon again. Over the course of the month we've been driving down to bank our free play and collect the free play coupons as well. Friday night was not so good for either of us so we had a nice dinner at Fiore
and played a little but no big winners. Saturday was quite eventful. It was their monthly year of the millionaire when they give away $1000.00 fp to 5 people every hour from 1 pm until 10 pm and then at 11 pm they draw one name to win $50,000 in cash.
I was up and down all day playing various slot machines and vp machines and Davo wasn't doing well on the video poker so he retired to our suite in the afternoon.

There was an invited guest only event in the new events center that was similar to the game show Let's Make A Deal so we went to that at 6 PM. It was fun and I actually got called on stage but opted to trade the $500.00 Southwest gift card they offered me for what was in one of two other boxes. One box contained a $200.00 gift card to Lowes but the box I picked contained a Harrah's golf towel (which we already had 2 of). I didn't really care. I was just excited my name was called. They chose about 15 names to be called on stage. Some people won $500.00 fp. One man won a popcorn popper. One lady won $100.00 a week for 52 weeks in groceries from Von's. That was the biggest prize. The last contestant chose to keep her $700.00 in fp and missed out on what was behind her choice of 3 doors. Door # 3 had $5000.00 in fp. The entire event only took about an hour and we were out of there so I said to Davo I wanted to go over to the promotions center to check the monitor to see if either one of our names were called for the $1000.00 hourly fp. Sure enough my name was called for the 7 PM drawing. I guess winning the golf towel wasn't so bad after all. I was able to convert my $1000.00 fp to $1900.00 cash which I left with. On our way home Costco took $327.00 of it. LOL!

Just a final note. The first name called for the $50,000 wasn't there to collect it so after 10 minutes they called someone else who was there. This month, June 28th the 11 PM drawing will be for a million dollars.

Nash, any details yet about the million dollar drawing on June 28? I have two questions based on the New Year's Eve drawing for a million.

1. When do you have to validate your entries (swipe your card)? Is there time prior to Saturday or will the validation be on Saturday only?
2. Do you have to be present to win?

Hi Alan

As I understand it the only difference between the drawing on June 28th and the other end of the month drawings is the amount.
On June 28th they are still giving away the $1000 fp every hour between 1 PM and 10 PM and then instead of the $50K drawing
at 11 PM they are giving away a million dollars. The rules are the same. You can only validate your entries on that Saturday.
I had over 10,000 entries last Saturday and yes you do have to be present to win or they will call another name if the winner doesn't
show up within 10 minutes to claim the prize.

On New Year's Eve you didnt have to be present to win because they knew the casino wasn't big enough, nor was there enough parking for everybody. I wonder if they are prepared for the crowd this time?

Also, I wonder if they are prepared for the "problem" that a winner will have when they are called? Remember in the early monthly drawings for $50,000 there were complaints about the winner not claiming the prize "in time"?

We were in the video poker area just before they called the name and they were making announcements and you could barely hear what they were saying so we walked over to the promotions where they made the announcement. Even there it was so crowded and people talking it was hard to hear the name that was called.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nash

Just a final note. The first name called for the $50,000 wasn't there to collect it so after 10 minutes they called someone else who was there.

---

I would hate to find out I was the one that wasn't there for ten minutes and missed out on 50 grand. Ouwwch...

I just noticed in my June calendar for Rincon that the activation for the June 28th Million Dollar drawing actually starts on June 26th.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nash

I just noticed in my June calendar for Rincon that the activation for the June 28th Million Dollar drawing actually starts on June 26th.

---

the other big question: do you have to be present to win?

Yes you do.

Three days to activate your entries! Swipe your card June 26th 6 am through June 28th at 8 pm.

Special early bird multiplier 6 am - 8 pm

At 11 pm someone will win $1 million cash. The millionaire has 10 minutes to claim their prize or an alternate winner will be drawn.