Better 7 Star Strategy?

The last couple of years I've gotten 7 Star at my home casino on the east coast.

This year I haven't earned any points, but will be staying in Las Vegas for several months, so I figure I have 2 options:

1. Earn the points in LV (at $25/TC) on $5 VP
2. Travel to a remote CET location a few times and earn at $10/TC on lower-denomination machines

Obviously you are looking at increased -EV and increased variance for option 1, but you're also in a position to redeem every freeplay/tournament offer that comes your way. Option 2 would cost less off the top, but virtually all the freebies would go to waste.

What would you do? If it matters, I will be keeping my out of state address for mailers, assuming the offers are any better than for locals.

What's your home casino on the east coast?

AC has been offering bounce-back multipliers so far in 2017.

My first question is: is 7 Stars really that important to you that you must play to get it?

If it is, don't forget the costs of traveling to casinos away from Vegas. Those travel costs should be factored into your cost for reaching 7 Stars.

If you are in Vegas for a while, you might as well play in Vegas and save the costs of traveling elsewhere. But if you are already traveling to a city with another Total Rewards casino where the paytables are better, then yes, play there.

Reaching 7 Stars involves costs beyond the expected return of the paytable. That seems to be overlooked in all of the calculations.

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Originally Posted by Guy Incognito

The last couple of years I've gotten 7 Star at my home casino on the east coast.

This year I haven't earned any points, but will be staying in Las Vegas for several months, so I figure I have 2 options:

1. Earn the points in LV (at $25/TC) on $5 VP
2. Travel to a remote CET location a few times and earn at $10/TC on lower-denomination machines

Obviously you are looking at increased -EV and increased variance for option 1, but you're also in a position to redeem every freeplay/tournament offer that comes your way. Option 2 would cost less off the top, but virtually all the freebies would go to waste.

What would you do? If it matters, I will be keeping my out of state address for mailers, assuming the offers are any better than for locals.

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Don't do it in LV. The $25/TC thing is brutal, and also has a lot of variance to it, as you will be forced to run a minimum of $1,250,000 coin-in, and a bad run of luck can easily cost you tens of thousands.

They are pretty wise to VP grinding at the highest paytables, so you aren't going to earn many great offers.

If you can spare the 10 days to travel to remote locations, I'd suggest doing that.

Tahoe is a good choice, though it's getting a bit late in the ski season. If you can't make it out there soon, I'd suggest waiting until the summer and going then.

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Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson

My first question is: is 7 Stars really that important to you that you must play to get it?

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Yeah, I'm actually going to be using the guaranteed rooms, along with rooms from other places, to essentially stay in LV for free. Between that, the freeplay, tournaments, meals, airfare, etc. I get a ton of value out of 7 Stars.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

They are pretty wise to VP grinding at the highest paytables, so you aren't going to earn many great offers.

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This is a concern; I've cashed as much as $10K/year in freeplay at my home casino (and that's letting a good chunk of it go unused), so I guess I was hoping on similar offers from the LV casinos. Can you give more specifics on what kind of offers to expect?

A third option would be a hybrid approach; play just enough in LV to get decent freeplay/tournament offers, and take a trip or 2 to the better games to earn the rest.

Guy,
Do you play roulette at all? If so, I strongly recommend coming to Caesars Windsor to earn your points. They are the only property that still has the old Rapid Roulette system. It's a touchscreen system will a real dealer and rated as a table game. I earn a lot of points on this system by starting with the minimum bet, which is $2 and gradually increasing my bet about every other spin. That allows you to play a very long time with a very small bankroll. Since it's rated as a table game, your average bet is used to compute your credits. Also, if you play on a multiplier day, you'll also earn 15x reward credit as a Seven Star.

Hi Guy:

If you are going to be in Vegas for a few months, maybe you should consider playing at the $1 Bonus Poker machines at the Rio. I heard they are near the sports book and pay one TC credit for $10 action. But it may be a long day.

FAB

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Originally Posted by RRLover

Guy,
Do you play roulette at all? If so, I strongly recommend coming to Caesars Windsor to earn your points. They are the only property that still has the old Rapid Roulette system. It's a touchscreen system will a real dealer and rated as a table game. I earn a lot of points on this system by starting with the minimum bet, which is $2 and gradually increasing my bet about every other spin. That allows you to play a very long time with a very small bankroll. Since it's rated as a table game, your average bet is used to compute your credits. Also, if you play on a multiplier day, you'll also earn 15x reward credit as a Seven Star.

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I've never tried the roulette machines; do they not have the same ~6% house advantage as regular roulette?

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Originally Posted by FABismonte

Hi Guy:

If you are going to be in Vegas for a few months, maybe you should consider playing at the $1 Bonus Poker machines at the Rio. I heard they are near the sports book and pay one TC credit for $10 action. But it may be a long day.

FAB

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I did see those; unfortunately the ~8 hours it would take to reach 2500 points for the 2x daily bonus would probably land me in a mental institution.