Brace yourselves advantage players and numbers crunchers because this might hurt: when it comes to earning 7 Stars at Caesars in Las Vegas, it is better to play 7/5 Bonus Poker than it is to play 8/5 Bonus Poker.

I just crunched the numbers with a lot of help from forum member John ke6cdh.

The conventional thinking is that playing 8/5 Bonus with a return of 99.17% is a much better game than playing 7/5 Bonus with a return of 98% but when you are working towards 7 Stars or Diamond it's not the case. The 7/5 Bonus game will actually cost you less. And the reason is that Caesars Palace (and other Total Rewards casinos in Vegas) have a rule that the 8/5 Bonus Game requires $25 coin-in for 1 tier point (also for 1 Reward Credit) while the 7/5 Bonus Game requires $10 coin-in for 1 tier point (also for 1 Reward Credit). So, here's the math:

Your goal is to play for 5,000 Tier Points each day for ten days to get the maximum 10,000 Tier Point Bonus each day. Combined the 150,000 tier points will give you 7 Stars. You will also get a total of 50,000 Reward Credits which is the equivalent of $500 in comps.

PLAYING 7/5 BONUS POKER 98% RETURN

You earn 5,000 tier points in a day with $50,000 coin in at an expected cost of $1,000.

Over 10 days that's an expected cost of $10,000.

You will also get $500 in comps ($50 per day X 10) so your net cost will be $9,500.

PLAYING 8/5 BONUS POKER 99.17% RETURN

You earn 5,000 tier points in a day with $125,000 coin in ($25 per tier point) at an expected cost of $1,037.50 per day.

Over 10 days that's an expected cost of $10,375.

You will get the same $500 in comps so your net cost will be $9,875.

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