It's not a rumor-- and it is true. You do not have to be present to win the Million Dollar "Year of the Millionaire" drawing at Harrah's Rincon on New Year's Eve.
It was confirmed to me today that the winner will be picked and then will be notified by phone. "Make sure we have your phone number," a manager told me.
We suspected that the drawing on New Year's Eve would attract a huge crowd -- over and above the usual huge crowd that would normally be at the Harrah's Rincon Casino for New Year's festivities. And we thought the huge crowd might force the casino to limit occupancy.
And a limitation on the number of people in the casino for the drawing would cause quite a problem if the "winner" were unable to claim their prize within the "ten minute" time period.
Oh, that's another surprise -- for the million dollar drawing there won't be a ten minute time period to claim the prize. You don't have to be there -- and they'll work out arrangements to allow the winner to claim the prize.
What I don't know is if they might pick a "runner-up" in case the first name drawn can't be located. It would make sense to pick a "second name" and even a "third name" in case the first Total Rewards player drawn cannot be found -- or went into a witness protection program -- or died.
Oh, and there's one more surprise. I found out the drawing isn't on New Year's Eve at all. The drawing for a million bucks will be at 1-AM on New Year's morning -- January 1st -- which means it will be included as a taxable item on your 2014 income taxes and not your 2013 taxes should you be lucky enough to win.
Now, please be aware that there will be other drawings on New Year's Eve for free play and possibly cash prizes at Rincon. And for those other drawings you must be present to win.
When I spoke to managers and to Total Rewards representatives about the decision not to require the million dollar winner to be present, the opinion was this would be a much fairer contest because not all players will be able to be there New Year's Eve.
Of course, there will be a lot of players -- the losers -- who will want to see for themselves who actually won the million dollar prize. When the winner doesn't have to be there to claim the prize in person it is likely to raise all sorts of ideas about who got the prize and was the contest fair and is the million dollar winner a real person and a real player? The "regulars" at Rincon will be able to spot other "regulars."
Managers told me there is still a lot of hard feelings and ill will after the February drawing for $50-thousand dollars. One manager conceded that the winner of the $50K was up in her hotel room, and did miss the "countdown" by a few seconds. This manager said, however, that the February winner first stopped at the Total Rewards desk and was told she had to go to the prize drawing desk over at the "bus center" which normally takes a minute or so to walk to -- and probably took longer than that given the crowd there that night. So, the manager said, the player really did deserve the $50K even if she was a few seconds late making the claim.
But if there was so much ill will and complaints about a $50,000 drawing, imagine what the complaints and ill will might be when someone from Total Rewards announces to the throng of players that "the player who won the million dollars is not here tonight. We will contact them by phone." That is likely to trigger an uproar from players in attendance who will demand to see the winner to confirm it's a real player.
And, the Rincon staff had better get the word out that you don't have to be present to win the million dollar grand prize. Otherwise, all those players who think you must be in attendance will cry foul when they hear that the person who is the winner is not at the casino that night.
There is another factor here: once players know that they do not have to be present to win, some high rollers might make an effort to gather more entries in the contest and try to win it, even if they are going on that Caribbean cruise for the holidays.
By not requiring the winner to be "present" this means many more players and many more entries are in the running.
When the winner is required to be there, it does cut down on the competition. Now, everyone who has ever played or swiped their total Rewards card at Harrah's Rincon during 2013 has a shot at becoming a millionaire.
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