Cook E Jarr has died

[accountinquestion]

I suppose one could argue those nostalgic for such a thing don't go there but it is amazing how these corporate types have no appreciation for nostalgia.

They killed the iconic Buck, Winnie, and Chip statue in Harrah's a few years ago, and replaced it with.... an empty space.

It's not just nostalgia, it's that these items give the casinos personality. Was the Buck/Winnie statue tacky? Yes. Was it also the most memorable thing in Harrah's? Also yes.

I'm not one of those "mob did everything better" guys. It's nice to know I'm not going to get beaten up in the back room or buried in the desert for advantage playing or card counting. It's nice being able to play poker and not be hassled by mobsters "asking" to buy a piece of me (where the answer can never be no), which was commonplace in the '70s and '80s.

But the corporate guys really have no soul.

Yea it sorta makes sense. The lack of a soul leads them to where they are. Then being soulless they really don't understand.

Having little memorable things is a positive. You've been away a couple of years and you come back to see positive memories. That little statue is a prime example of this. Sure one could argue it was tacky but I suspect they kinda forget what casinos really are. They want to elevate the casino to some high society thing as that's what the soulless MBA type wants to see in themselves. In the end it just shows how little they understand.

It becomes a symbol of why you don't care to go back. There was no show to maintain. No machinery. Just a statue that would put a smile on anyone.

Like really who do they think saw a downside to the statue? Christian missionaries?

Like .. I'd love to see the thought process of whomever canned that statue.

[redietz]

I think killing that statue went deeper than this. CET is selling some pre-packaged cool that ostensibly is tied to donating money to a casino and being graded in some serious, detail-oriented, rule-bound fashion regarding your "play."

There's a whole dissertation on this regarding the slow, then snowballing loss of kitsch at Caesars' when CET took it over.

[jdaewoo]

I'm going to take a wild fucking guess that El Dorado's purchase of Caesars in 2020 is more relevant than Harrah's purchase of Caesars in 2005.

[mickeycrimm]

I first became familiar with the Sunspots at the Plaza in the early 2000's.

[smurgerburger]

I'm going to take a wild fucking guess that El Dorado's purchase of Caesars in 2020 is more relevant than Harrah's purchase of Caesars in 2005.

A+ comment, easy to miss.

[Dan Druff]

I'm going to take a wild fucking guess that El Dorado's purchase of Caesars in 2020 is more relevant than Harrah's purchase of Caesars in 2005.

It really is.

Caesars already had a problem with the accountants having more of a say than the hotel/casino guys, but El Dorado is taking that whole concept to insane new levels.

El Dorado is slowly turning Caesars properties into highly automated, generic, nuts-and-bolts profit centers with few employees and very little customer service.

One example of this is the hotel manager. In prior decades, the hotel manager at a Caesars property was an executive position, and one where the pay was good, the hiring standards stringent, and the power given was substantial. Today the hotel manager at a Caesars property typically has little power, has to operate under very strict preset rules, and is not paid well. The better paid (and more competent) hotel managers of the 2010s have mostly moved on elsewhere, or were laid off. Today's Caesars hotel manager has essentially the same power as the assistant manager at night used to have. And today's assistant night manager? Virtually zero power, only slightly above that of regular front desk emlpoyees.

It's also not uncommon to see very few (sometimes zero) front desk employees working late at night, which is crazy. For example, when the one employee working needs his mandatory 10-minute break, there's simply no service for 10 minutes! I had never seen this before at a Caesars property until 2024, but I've seen it several times since.

The "front desk" cannot be reached from your room. In fact, you can't even reach someone in the US from your room. The vast majority of "front desk" or "guest services" calls will be routed to the Philippines.

I could go on and on.

Then there's other cutbacks regarding onetime separate departments. For example, most Caesars casinos in Vegas no longer have a separate Caesars Rewards desk. It's combined with the cashier, causing longer lines both for cashing your chips and to get your Rewards matters handled. The only small advantage is that you now have 24 hour access to Rewards employees, but in addition to the increased lines, these employees are not specialists in Rewards, and tend to be clueless.

And the Diamond checkin rooms? They once were open very late, but that's a thing of the past. Often they operate only during prime hours of 10am-6pm, and sometimes not even then. If closed, you're forced into a "Diamond Line" in the main checkin area, which often moves slower than the regular line (for example, if there's only one Diamond front desk person, but 3 working for those under Diamond).

The whole thing is a shitshow.

The only improvement I've seen? The dispatch of employees bringing you things is a lot faster nowadays. So if you call and ask for towels, you'll often get them within 15 minutes, whereas before you could be waiting 2 hours and nothing shows up.

[accountinquestion]

I did some MCing at a caears property and came to know some of the goings on. This property lost most of their long time hosts due to having little ability to do things for their clients. When a hosts gotta con people to go to the worst casino in the area you should really give them tools for their toolbox. Later the GM was canned. I'm not even a counter but wanted to play blackchip bj for a short period. Every hand had to have the dealt cards lined up in a nice order after the hand. So if you take a beat - there it is for 10 seconds in front of you. So awful. The whole place seemed dead to me. Then they fucked up the promotion so that you could choose the prize on the kiosk instead of it being random. Now that was sweeeet.

[DGenBen]

I'm going to take a wild fucking guess that El Dorado's purchase of Caesars in 2020 is more relevant than Harrah's purchase of Caesars in 2005.

It really is.

Caesars already had a problem with the accountants having more of a say than the hotel/casino guys, but El Dorado is taking that whole concept to insane new levels.

El Dorado is slowly turning Caesars properties into highly automated, generic, nuts-and-bolts profit centers with few employees and very little customer service.

One example of this is the hotel manager. In prior decades, the hotel manager at a Caesars property was an executive position, and one where the pay was good, the hiring standards stringent, and the power given was substantial. Today the hotel manager at a Caesars property typically has little power, has to operate under very strict preset rules, and is not paid well. The better paid (and more competent) hotel managers of the 2010s have mostly moved on elsewhere, or were laid off. Today's Caesars hotel manager has essentially the same power as the assistant manager at night used to have. And today's assistant night manager? Virtually zero power, only slightly above that of regular front desk emlpoyees.

It's also not uncommon to see very few (sometimes zero) front desk employees working late at night, which is crazy. For example, when the one employee working needs his mandatory 10-minute break, there's simply no service for 10 minutes! I had never seen this before at a Caesars property until 2024, but I've seen it several times since.

The "front desk" cannot be reached from your room. In fact, you can't even reach someone in the US from your room. The vast majority of "front desk" or "guest services" calls will be routed to the Philippines.

I could go on and on.

Then there's other cutbacks regarding onetime separate departments. For example, most Caesars casinos in Vegas no longer have a separate Caesars Rewards desk. It's combined with the cashier, causing longer lines both for cashing your chips and to get your Rewards matters handled. The only small advantage is that you now have 24 hour access to Rewards employees, but in addition to the increased lines, these employees are not specialists in Rewards, and tend to be clueless.

And the Diamond checkin rooms? They once were open very late, but that's a thing of the past. Often they operate only during prime hours of 10am-6pm, and sometimes not even then. If closed, you're forced into a "Diamond Line" in the main checkin area, which often moves slower than the regular line (for example, if there's only one Diamond front desk person, but 3 working for those under Diamond).

The whole thing is a shitshow.

The only improvement I've seen? The dispatch of employees bringing you things is a lot faster nowadays. So if you call and ask for towels, you'll often get them within 15 minutes, whereas before you could be waiting 2 hours and nothing shows up.

My personal favorite Caesars fail is the bell service at some of their properties.

You check your bags into the bell desk & if they are short staffed when you call down from your room to get them sent up you just get the Philippines & there is nothing they can do about it.

Only solution is to keep trying or walk back down to the bell desk. Because of this depending on the property I’ll just always tell them to bring the bags right up when I check in.

So many of their properties are falling apart & look like they are being held together with duct tape & chewing gum.

In fact, this year I’ve just written these fuckers off. I’m just collecting my offers until they run out. What’s the point? Worst machines on the planet, worst properties & service on the planet, & I don’t play poker anymore.

[DGenBen]

Duplicate

[MisterV]

Pardon my ignorance but what do you mean by "ou call down from your room to get them sent up you just get the Philippines...?'

[DGenBen]

Pardon my ignorance but what do you mean by "ou call down from your room to get them sent up you just get the Philippines...?'

Your ignorance is pardoned sir.

Caesars has a call center in the Philippines. At some properties and/or at some times of day When you’re in your room and you dial the extension for the bell desk or front desk etc. the phone routes you to the foreign call center and there is no way around this.

The sent up to your room was if your bags are at the bell desk because when you checked in you wanted to gamble first, or dine first, or the room was not ready etc. so you didn’t take your bags with you.

And then the call center has no way to reach the hotel staff in the hotel your are in. In Spanish I think they call this situation being “El Fucked”

Comprende negro?

[accountinquestion]

Pardon my ignorance but what do you mean by "ou call down from your room to get them sent up you just get the Philippines...?'

Your ignorance is pardoned sir.

Caesars has a call center in the Philippines. At some properties and/or at some times of day When you’re in your room and you dial the extension for the bell desk or front desk etc. the phone routes you to the foreign call center and there is no way around this.

The sent up to your room was if your bags are at the bell desk because when you checked in you wanted to gamble first, or dine first, or the room was not ready etc. so you didn’t take your bags with you.

And then the call center has no way to reach the hotel staff in the hotel your are in. In Spanish I think they call this situation being “El Fucked”

Comprende negro?

I'm trying to play it out in my head if this is really a positive long term strategy. I guess most people don't call during the night and it works for 80% of the issues people have. It really is kinda dystopian. If I was a real gambler and went to shoot off 5k every gambling trip I'd be so fucking annoyed with that shit I'd lose any sense of loyalty.

It is a funny thing to think but I'm far more spoiled and have higher expectations than 95% of people who visit those casinos. For the others I guess it works well enough.

[Dan Druff]

Pardon my ignorance but what do you mean by "ou call down from your room to get them sent up you just get the Philippines...?'

Your ignorance is pardoned sir.

Caesars has a call center in the Philippines. At some properties and/or at some times of day When you’re in your room and you dial the extension for the bell desk or front desk etc. the phone routes you to the foreign call center and there is no way around this.

The sent up to your room was if your bags are at the bell desk because when you checked in you wanted to gamble first, or dine first, or the room was not ready etc. so you didn’t take your bags with you.

And then the call center has no way to reach the hotel staff in the hotel your are in. In Spanish I think they call this situation being “El Fucked”

Comprende negro?

I'm trying to play it out in my head if this is really a positive long term strategy. I guess most people don't call during the night and it works for 80% of the issues people have. It really is kinda dystopian. If I was a real gambler and went to shoot off 5k every gambling trip I'd be so fucking annoyed with that shit I'd lose any sense of loyalty.

It is a funny thing to think but I'm far more spoiled and have higher expectations than 95% of people who visit those casinos. For the others I guess it works well enough.

It doesn't work well enough, unless you are dumb enough to believe you're reaching an actual front desk at the hotel which happens to be staffed by Filipinos.

Knowing that you can't call staff members LOCATED IN THE SAME HOTEL is very tilting for most people. Maybe a bit more tilting for me than the average person, but everyone I know hates it.

But they stopped giving a shit. You're going to accept the long lines, the lack of staff, the Philippines phony "front desk", the bad paytables, the marked up food, and the rest of it... and like it.

And if you don't like it, too bad. There's plenty of people who will replace you, and they deemed it not worth it to spend the money satisfying those who will be pissed enough to otherwise walk away.

[accountinquestion]

Your ignorance is pardoned sir.

Caesars has a call center in the Philippines. At some properties and/or at some times of day When you’re in your room and you dial the extension for the bell desk or front desk etc. the phone routes you to the foreign call center and there is no way around this.

The sent up to your room was if your bags are at the bell desk because when you checked in you wanted to gamble first, or dine first, or the room was not ready etc. so you didn’t take your bags with you.

And then the call center has no way to reach the hotel staff in the hotel your are in. In Spanish I think they call this situation being “El Fucked”

Comprende negro?

I'm trying to play it out in my head if this is really a positive long term strategy. I guess most people don't call during the night and it works for 80% of the issues people have. It really is kinda dystopian. If I was a real gambler and went to shoot off 5k every gambling trip I'd be so fucking annoyed with that shit I'd lose any sense of loyalty.

It is a funny thing to think but I'm far more spoiled and have higher expectations than 95% of people who visit those casinos. For the others I guess it works well enough.

It doesn't work well enough, unless you are dumb enough to believe you're reaching an actual front desk at the hotel which happens to be staffed by Filipinos.

Knowing that you can't call staff members LOCATED IN THE SAME HOTEL is very tilting for most people. Maybe a bit more tilting for me than the average person, but everyone I know hates it.

But they stopped giving a shit. You're going to accept the long lines, the lack of staff, the Philippines phony "front desk", the bad paytables, the marked up food, and the rest of it... and like it.

And if you don't like it, too bad. There's plenty of people who will replace you, and they deemed it not worth it to spend the money satisfying those who will be pissed enough to otherwise walk away.

Part of the problem is brand value isn't something calculated into performance bonsues of CEOs. And maybe their demographic just doesn't care as much as we'd think.

I don't think anything is going be improved anytime soon with labor costs going up after immigrants are booted.