I remember a laughable giveaway situation from 2004.

My girlfriend at the time wanted to visit a friend who lived in Coarsegold, CA -- which is right near the southern entrance of Yosemite.

We made a summer trip of it. Her friend suggested we stay at the nicest place in town -- the Chukchansi Gold Casino.

I booked Chukchansi, and it was decent. Definitely was the best place to stay in the area, at least at the time.

I tried to take a look at their games, and they pretty much sucked. However, I went to go see if it was worth signing up for a players card, as perhaps they would have some decent signup promo.

I was told that there was no signup promo, but that they were running a promo open to everyone, regarding earning points and getting prizes.

The promo that weekend was for a beach towel, but it required thousands of dollars of coin-in to earn.

Clearly I was not going to run such coin-in for a freaking beach towel, especially on bad games.

The next day, we were about ready to leave, but wanted to eat at the restaurant there. We saw a MASSIVE line near the restaurant, and feared that was the line to get in.

I asked someone in line, "Is this for the restaurant?", and I was told, "No, it's to pick up our beach towel."

The line looked about 2 hours long, given how slowly it was moving.

I marveled at the fact that people not only ran thousands of dollars of coin-in to earn this crappy beach towel, but now were willing to spend 2 hours in line to pick it up.

Mind you, this was before smartphones existed, so there wasn't much to do to pass the time when standing in line.

Ten years later, Chukchansi Gold had a scary gun battle between warring tribes, both of which were attempting to take over the casino.

The hotel has also apparently gone downhill, according to reviews. I considered staying there for my 2016 Yosemite trip, but I chose nearby Clovis instead.