I guess we all get them from time to time: slot machine coupons for free play that we just can't use. Too bad... all we need to do is insert our player's card and then insert the coupon that came in the mail, and there is the free play.
Right now I am looking at a $200 slot coupon for Harrah's Harveys Lake Tahoe valid from April 1 through June 30.
Gee, if I can hitch a ride, all I need to do is insert my card and play. No hotel reservation required.
What a shame.
Right. Living in SC I get them all the time but I am not able to use most of them because of the expense of getting to the far off casinos. They just go to waste most of the time, but I have earned over $1K in real money at Cherokee off the offers in the last couple of months.
+1
I had about $3,000 in monthly slot coupons from Harrah's/Harveys that have expired worthless in 2014. Just no time off work to take bi-monthly trips there.
Also didn't want to take a chance with someone else holding my player's card, I guess.
What could happen except that your daily theoretical drops and you lose a spare card?Originally Posted by nerakil
Alan,
PM me about that coupon...
Could we "get away" with setting up a "coupon exchange" here? How can we be sure that "participants" are not employed by the casinos and will ding our memberships in reward programs or cut our offers?
I wonder if the rightful owner of the coupon can be identificatied by the computer. If so, would it not look suspicious to have one being played when the rightful owner is not playing in the same casino? We know for sure that they know exactly who is playing and at what machine or table.
I think as part of any "swap" you'd want to send along a spare player's card along with the coupon.
I don't know Alan, I guess I just don't want anyone in possession of my 7* card. It's all shiny and has my picture on the back, my name is kind of unique so a Google search would reveal all my social media posts. And I don't want to see the card up on eBay.Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson
Good points, nerakil. I have no secrets, however. All my dirty laundry is all over the world. In fact, the Library of Congress is working on indexing it and Random House wants me to autograph copies of the anthology at a bookstore for the first edition printing party.
Be careful, Alan, CET permanently banned a friend of mine for doing this.
Wow, can you tell us the details?Originally Posted by Ship
Check out my poker forum, and weekly internet radio show at http://pokerfraudalert.com
A good friend of mine, we'll call him Aaron, I know he wouldn't want this get out with his name attached. Aaron was being mailed 4 slot coupons per month, several hundred dollars each. He had 2 friends, I don't know personally, that were receiving approximately the same amount. Noone in the group was able to make trips to cash in all of their coupons.
Aaron lived closest to the CET property. They came up with a deal - Aaron would redeem everyone's coupons. He would give the other 2 players 65% of the face value of each coupon they gave him to cash. This type of arrangement took out the "trust factor" of how much Aaron actually won or lost while playing the coupons through. It also gave him an nice bonus on his trips to pick up his personal coupons.
This went well for a couple months, then one evening he was there and when he was playing through the second of three coupons, he got surrounded by security. He was back roomed. They explained they had him on camera doing this on prior dates. They also said that it was a violation for which he would be 86'd from CET nationwide. He raised objections, but was told that was viewed as an attempt to defraud and take advantage of the players reward system.
He later made several attempts to explain, but everything he tried fell on deaf ears.
FYI we have an Aaron here, but I'm sure you're not talking about him.
Anyway, I have always warned that perhaps this sort of thing would result in players being banned, or perhaps even arrested.
Casinos send freeplay to specific players to get those particular players through the door. If the freeplay tickets (along with player cards) are given to friends simply to redeem at the casino's expense, then the casino can get really pissed, as the whole purpose of the freeplay is being circumvented.
I think your friend doing this on a regular basis is probably what ultimately screwed him.
I think it's easy to get caught doing this, as hosts are alerted when players put their card into a machine, and likely one of the hosts noticed repeatedly that the player they were expecting was not the one at the machine.
Check out my poker forum, and weekly internet radio show at http://pokerfraudalert.com
Ship - when did this happen? And did anything happen to the two friends?
Ya know... after some weekends, finding out that you've been banned from casinos might make you feel pretty good!
Yes, it is against the official rules for someone else to use your card. But if I had a friend travelling to Harrah's in Council Bluffs by the end of March I'd still give them my card and the code number they sent me so that they could download $150 of free play.
And I'd have no problem giving my friend traveling to Lake Tahoe my card so they could use the $200 slot ticket that was mailed to me.
And if they banned me I'd probably look back in five years and say "wow, they saved me a fortune." LOL
The reality is the casinos give out these free play offers with the expectation that whoever redeems it is going to play a lot more and likely lose more. And if someone did redeem another's free play coupon and kept playing I don't think a casino would even "notice."
It's different if you have a "criminal enterprise" that takes mailers off of a shipping dock and then sends them to a casino where they are laundered or routinely played by an organized group and no other "real cash" is used.
It happened in the fall of 2013. One of the parties was thoroughly questioned, I'm not sure about the outcome. I can ask "Aaron" (not the reg here, sorry for any confusion). I never heard from or about the last person.
Nersesian mentioned in a radio show that you CAN designate an agent to pick up free play in some jurisdictions. Not sure if it applies to Nevada.
Last edited by nerakil; 03-16-2015 at 08:18 AM.
At Rincon one time, I went to the Promotions Desk and after swiping my own card in a promotion (I won nothing) I asked if I could swipe my son's card. I was told that yes, I could. He "won" $5 in reward credits which immediately went on his card. But had he won a big cash prize, he had until midnight to claim it... in which case I would have called him to drive down.
Now, I don't know if that's the policy at Rincon or if an employee just let me "get away with it"?
Maybe the employee was being nice because I had my ID for my swipe, plus I had a 7 Stars card?
I was at Rincon once where you had to swipe your card at the promotions desk. I think it was for U Choose. Anyway, I saw a woman swiping several cards and get several receipts.
It was early and the main cashier cage wasn't open yet so I followed the woman to the cashier in the high limits room and the cashier actually cashed all of her receipts into free play.
I guess the employee let her get away with it too. I don't know if she was 7 Stars or not. I didn't see her card.
Just to add to this I was at Rincon on Saturday and the "USE OFFER" on the machine was not activated yet.
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