Harrah's Rincon Destroys Video Poker

[Alan Mendelson]

I just found out that Harrah's Rincon -- the Caesars property in San Diego -- has removed ALL full pay video poker games. I will update as I get new info. The change was made a couple of days ago.

Update at 4:05-AM Thursday: It's true. Just got back from a drive down there, and shot some photos. Everyone is in shock -- and I don't mean the players since most players don't know this yet. The casino employees and lower level managers are in shock.

"Our penny slot players won't know the difference," one manager told me, "but our better players who come in here with a daily budget of several thousand dollars will be gone as soon as they find out."

Everything is affected from 25-cent video poker right through the $100 per coin video poker games. I have a full report on our "California Casinos News" section including photos, notes and observations and comments from some employees and managers who spoke to me in confidence.

I think it's ironic that on the Ides of March -- the day Julius Caesar was murdered -- video poker was murdered at Rincon, a Caesars operation.

[Alan Mendelson]

I had an interesting conversation earlier today with one of the managers at Harrah's Rincon. We'd become friendly over the last couple of years so we were able to have a frank discussion about the "downgrade" of the video poker machines.

He told me flat out "they made a mistake with some of the pay tables and they will be changed back."

Of course I asked him when because I told him I will not be back to play 6/5 bonus poker. He said the Bonus games would be going back to 8/5 and that's what he was told, but he didn't know when. "It was a mistake," he said. And I said, "it sure was because I won't be playing there until they are changed back."

I was told that while the casino was crowded today -- Sunday -- the high limit video poker area where pay tables were lowered over the past week was deserted -- not a player in sight.

I was also tipped off that you can still find some 8/5 Bonus games on some of the Super Times Pay machines and a few $1 and $2 machines in the casino. But for the most part expect to find only 6/5 Bonus, 8/5 Jacks, and 9/5 Double Double Bonus, and 8/5 Double Double Bonus on nearly all other machines.

[arcimede$]

The return for 8/5 STP BP is 99.44%. Might want to find those machines ...

[Alan Mendelson]

Arc, Rincon also has at least two or perhaps four DOUBLE STP machines (up to 20X) that is supposed to be darn close to 100% payback. They are over in the "video poker" area near the sports bar, and I will have to check them out.

I'm not a big fan and I am sure that over a lifetime I've lost money playing them. Although about two years ago I did get one royal with a 3X multiplier on a ten play, 25-cent machine.

[bigfoot66]

I was there on Wed. I too was very dissapointed to see the changes to the VP. The machines that used to be 9/6 JoB are now 6/5 JoB. I complained to every employee I met including some dealers. The responses I heard ranged from. "It was an error that will be corrected." to "Good VP is gone for good here." I am thinking about emailing the head of the casino. Why drive past PALA, where they have a 9/6 JoB progressive, to get to Harrahs to play 6/5?

[Alan Mendelson]

Thanks for posting, bigfoot66. I didnt know Pala has a 9/6 progressive. What denomination? Since I'm coming from LA, Pala is an extra 15 minutes from Pechanga, and Rincon is another 15 minutes from Pala on winding, country roads with potential rock slides. You'd think Rincon would give people more of an incentive rather than less?

[bigfoot66]

Hi Alan, Great forum. Did you stop posting at WoV? When I was at Pala on Thursday night, they had a 9/6 JOB with a progressive. Nominally, it was a 25 cent machine but to get the royal bonus you had to bet 10 coins so I guess that makes it a 50 cent machine? The royal had just been hit and reset to $2000 when I saw them and started playing. I tried to gauge how quickly the meter moved and it appeared to go up a penny every time I played a hand, which is, .1%. Hard to tell though as there were at least 6 machines linked. Theese machines were located in front of the bar nearest to the hotel and the poker room. There is a lot of VP in this area, and I went to play the game again on Friday morning they were using those same machines
I had another beef with Harrahs on this trip. I spent Wed night there and arrived around 8:30 and played for about 12 hours. I played some BJ and some craps but I spent probably 4-5 hours at the $50 Baccarat table. I had put a $36 tab from the steakhouse on my room bill and the host refused to comp it off when I checked out and made me use my points. In fact they said that they would have comped it off if I didnt already have the points. This irked me, I worked hard for those points and if my play warrants these comps, I should get them!

[Alan Mendelson]

Caesars/Harrahs doesnt have "comps" anymore. Everything is "paid" with your reward credits. When you exhaust your reward credits, then a host can give "comps." Its been that way for the last several years.

True story: for Christmas 2010 I was loaded with "reward credits" and I decided to go to the gift shop to buy iPods as holiday gifts. If I recall, these were priced at about $120 each and I bought ten of them and charged them to my room and I knew I had enough reward credits to cover it.

When I called the front desk to check out at the end of the weekend, I had my normal restaurant meals plus the gift shop charge. The first thing the desk person said when they saw my room charge was "I will contact a host to see if I can get some comps for your meals." And I said, "I have enough reward credits." I did, and left the place paying only tips.

But they do make mistakes. As 7 Stars I get free movies. Well, we watched four movies while we were there this weekend (fell asleep during two of them). And they appeared on my room charge and some host used my comps to pay for them. When I checked out Sunday night I had to call the host office to remind them that Im 7 Stars and the reward credits should be returned to my account since the movies are free. By the way, each movie at Caesars is now about $15.

[bigfoot66]

I have had them comp me there before even though I have a few hundred bucks worth of TR credits. It seems like they are more willing to do this when I lose...

[Alan Mendelson]

I was tipped off that some of the machines got improved pay-tables on Monday night, so I drove down and checked them out. Well, only a few machines got better pay-tables and they didn't improve by much. The best jacks or better game you will find is now 8/5 and that goes for the $100 games as well. They're playing around with the Bonus games as well. See details in my article here: http://alanbestbuys.com/id104.html My favorite Aces and Faces is back to normal on the $5 machines but there are only two of them and I wonder if that was done just to appease me? Unfortunately for management, they haven't done enough yet to repair the damage and restore good will.

[bigfoot66]

hopefully the 9/6 machines will come back. I do not have a host, who do you think would be the right person to contact and complain? director of slots?

[calwatch]

I stopped by Harrah's on my way back from Barona today, and they have restored more pay tables. I noticed that they do have full pay Bonus Poker (not the odd-ball 30 pay VP shown on Alan's web site) on the machines on the back of the video poker area (even at 25 cents), although there are still distressingly many 6/5 multiplay and 7/5 single play machines in the center of the gaming floor. There is also full pay bonus poker and Aces and Faces at the $5 level and up in the high limit room, which gets you above 99% payback. However, at the other denominations, there are still distressingly too many 9/5 double double bonus, 8/5/4 double bonus, and beyond ugly deuces, even in high limit. At the low and medium end it is no worse than a Caesars/Harrahs Las Vegas Strip payback. If I wanted good deals in VP for Total Rewards I'd head to Reno though, as they still have full pay.

And on a Wednesday evening around dinner time I saw the similar amount of people playing VP at the current payback rates than I did in the past, although of course the buffet line was starting to edge onto the floor. So if you had 30 minutes to kill before going for the free buffet, play a couple of hundred hands of 25 cent bonus poker at the back and claim your voucher.

[Alan Mendelson]

thank you for posting and for joining Calwatch. I appreciate the report and I am sure others do too.

On my last visit a few nights ago I noticed that there are now THREE Bonus Poker machines in the video poker area. These say "Bonus Poker" on the glass tops and the only game on the machine with denominations at 25,50/$1/$2. A couple of weeks ago only TWO of these games existed.

At the $1/$2 level they are the 8/5 games. At the 25/50 level they are 7/5.

On the same "trip" I stopped by Pechanga and every one of their bonus games, including those on game king machines were 8/5 at the $1 level. I did not check the lower denomination games. In their high limit room, bonus has always been at 8/5.

[vpguy]

These "new" paytables on BP where all Quads are paid the same bother me a great deal and I hope is not the wave of the future. At Aria in LV in November I noticed a bank of 8 machines by their cafe that nobody and I mean nobody was playing. We were on our way to eat and I happened to stop by and look at paytables and saw BP was 8/5 even at the quarter level, told wife that after dinner we would play these machines for sure. Afterwards I started to play and it was then I noticed the payout for the Quads.. all were the same. Why these casinos try to milk even more money out of games where they already have the advantage on every single game is something I don't understand or even think about.

[Alan Mendelson]

At Rincon its even worse. The quads all paid the same 125 coins for five coins in BUT they are 6/5 and not 8/5. Talk about greed.
More recently, some of the 6/5 machines were changed back to 8/5 still with 125 coins for all quads... including quad aces, 2, 3 and 4.

There are still a few full pay games, like the ones I noted at the $1/$2 level in the video poker section, and the aces and faces game in the high limit. I hope Calwatch will post some more info.

In the meantime, Pechanga is about 20 minutes closer and just minutes off the 15 freeway. And a much "safer" drive than going through the winding canyon roads to Rincon.

[calwatch]

I was taking notes and the ones on the back wall, which used to have full pay JoB and Bonus in the past, still have full pay BP with the regular pay table. I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures of them but I would have noticed the missing lines in short pay BP. I also believe that BP in high limit is full pay, which would make sense since Aces and Faces is just a higher paying version of BP. I saw some 8/5 dreamcard machines and I wonged the 7/5 Ultimate X machine in the corner (played the remaining multipliers that were unused) for a $4 loss. That was the extent of my action there.

The latest ads for Rincon on the radio mention that you can earn points in Rincon and spend them in Vegas. And to be fair, I noticed that playing at Rincon did trigger better deals for rooms in Vegas. I will never see myself at 7 stars (that's an idea for another thread... why do you gamble? as I could never see myself putting a million dollars a year in action anywhere, even if I do occasionally enjoy a trip to the casino... the daily ATM limit is plenty of action for me). They no longer advertise free buffet, and I think that promo cheapens the buffet to something like a local buffet. The Harrah's buffet should be about quality, not something similar to what you could get within a few miles of anywhere in the LA area.

One reason for the downgrade, though, could be the expert 7 star VP players taking advantage of the multiplier days. They used to offer 9X on every machine, including full pay JoB, for 7 stars. Since the Harrah's comp rate is essentially 0.1% (one credit, or one penny earned for every $10 coin-in) that means a cashback rate of 0.9%, (Unlike some other casinos full pay JoB paid out the normal rate of base reward credits. I don't believe I ever saw a machine at Rincon, even the low paying video slots, paying out ANY bonus reward credits, whereas the 8/5 machines in Vegas did pay BRC, the last time I was there adding another 0.03-0.05% in comps.) So you play JoB with a 99.54% payback, add the 0.9% reward credits, and you have positive EV... not counting Great Gift Wrapup and other 7 star perks. And being 7 stars on VP one would expect that they would know the strategy cold. Currently the VP reward credit multiplier is 5X for 7 stars which still yields a barely positive EV game. With the best game being 99.2% Aces/Faces they can make sure they get their cut from the high roller, since even with the multiplier max payback is 99.7%. And, as evidenced by the number of people on a Wednesday night (which appeared to be about the same number of people that I've noticed there on any other non-bonus weekend night) people still play.

Alan, being 7 stars and having been a frequent VP player at Rincon when they were positive EV for that level, I can see why you'd avoid that place in the future, other than maybe for table games or to use comps. With multiplier days, full pay JoB, and the progressives, the sharps were taking too much advantage of the place. The casual gamer still goes but they wouldn't know the difference between 9/6, 8/5, or 7/5 other than they lose their money faster.

[Alan Mendelson]

Thanks for the update. The last time I looked the machines against the back wall in the Video Poker room had 6/5 Bonus with the crazy pay table with all quads being paid the same.

Rincon never had "bonus rewards credits" because of their free play and cash back, which they don't have in Vegas.

On multiplier days, video poker players get about half the multipliers that slot players get as you noted.

A manager told me that many of the "mistakes" made when they downgraded the paytables will be fixed, "but not like they used to be." I dont think we will ever see 9/6 jacks there again, and on the $5 and higher Bonus machines you will never see the traditional 8/5 pay table again.

I really think they restored 8/5 Aces and Faces because they know thats what I play -- and every manager who has come up to me told me that it was my article and other web postings that made them "change."

The multiplier days always fall on a low traffic weekday. I honestly don't think it cost them that much. And the multipliers applied to comps and not to cash back, and they probably took it out of the free play offers anyway.

Even if pay tables are restored, there is no sign that the free play offers will be. They are definitely a thing of the past. And without "bonus rewards" it means that Rincon players are taking another hit

edited to add: By the way, for April I get $200 of free play from Pechanga and Pechanga hasn't gotten a dime from me in many, many months. Ive only played their "free play." In April I get $220 of free play from Rincon. Take that for what it's worth.

[calwatch]

I thought regular 8/5 Bonus was also back in high limit, on the left side as you walk in the area (Aces/Faces is on the right). I carefully compared the pay tables with the ones on my phone with WinPoker and they were the standard pay table, not the "special" all bonus on 4 of a kind version that you posted there.

As for Pechanga, it depends on what level you ended up at. If you were at the highest tier you can probably get these free plays for a while. Sometimes I wonder about the mailers. Despite being well outside the typical Laughlin demographic and only earning about 320 base rewards credits at Laughlin six months ago on a Race for Rewards road trip I seem to get a flyer from them every week, and sometimes two, offering to comp me a trip there, and $50 every month I choose to stop by. I don't think that's significant play considering some folks on this board can do that in less than 20 minutes. I haven't taken advantage of it yet because the river just doesn't interest me that much when we have the beach in SoCal.

[Alan Mendelson]

Unfortunately Bonus in the high limit room has not been restored to the traditional 8/5 pay table... unless they did since I was last there about a week ago.

They did return 8/5 but the quads all paid the same 125 credits. On some of the Bonus games its 7/5 with quads paying the same.

My "Aces and Faces" games on TWO of the machines is back to normal, but interestingly the screen position (where the directory of games is shown) for the game on one of the machines was moved.

but it wouldnt surprise me if they are making changes now on a daily basis. Everyone is complaining-- or they should be. Im just surprised that they ADDED a full pay bonus game in the video poker room at the $1/$2 level.

[Alan Mendelson]

Here's an update: Harrah's Rincon has restored many of the full pay games in the video poker room with new Game King multi game, multi denomination machines. See http://alanbestbuys.com/id104.html I will have to go there to do a complete check of the new machines, but if any of you happen to stop by please give us a complete report of the games, pay tables and denominations. I think the 25-cent 8/5 pay tables with conventional quads payoffs have been restored as well.