Let me repost a story I wrote years ago about a Loss Rebate effort my wife and I undertook at the Riviera (when there was a Riviera) so the Board knows why I was interested in the M Resort loss rebate (the M Resort offer is available in July 2017 for new members):

My Riviera Rebate Story

I want to relate my own results (actually my wife’s results) on the Riviera “Up to $1000 Loss Rebate.”

Last weekend, I was in Vegas with my wife. Unlike me, Wife generally hates to do coupon runs and will never cross the street to use a $10 match play. She tells me that she is uncomfortable doing a “hit and run” in exploiting the usual advantage plays by playing match play on a table -- then walking out “win or lose.” That means that if I want to do a promo I usually leave her at the casino we are staying in and go off on my own promo safari.

As many people may know from reading the Las Vegas Advisor magazine and Casino Player, the Riviera is offering an “Up to $1000 Loss Rebate.” The rebate has a few rules and restrictions. For example, no progressives, no video BJ, no video Craps or video Roulette. Significantly, no video poker greater than $1 in denomination. There is also a bunch of machine with white stickers stating not eligible for the promo with no particular rhyme or reason. You also cannot be a local, and must be a new slot club member. When it started you could be a slot member as long as you haven’t played at the Riviera for the last 24 months- but that was changed. Frankly it is a bit of a moving target and I was not sure where the rules stood up to last weekend.

I had already joined the Riviera slot club some five to six years ago. I played and stayed a couple of times, but hadn’t done any play there in four years. I had hoped that I fell off the database radar but was not sure. However, I was sure that my wife had never been to the Riviera. Frankly, although it has been slightly refurbished recently and has good craps and BJ rules, there isn’t a whole lot that would attract us over a typical Las Vegas casino. However, this $1000 rebate certainly got my attention. I figured it was a good chance I was not qualified due to my players club records, so I cajoled my wife into coming along and trying out the promo.

I had previously read about this Riviera offer and the consensus was to try to use high denomination play to win big. But if you lose all, then you get half your money that day in free play then the other half the next month up to a year. This “rebate” money should be used at $1 Video poker to get the money back with little volatility. I agreed with this strategy.

When I arrived at the Riviera with Wife, we looked around and saw that almost all the greater than $1 slots had the stickers saying it was not eligible for the promo. On the Wizard of Odds, a poster said that there was a “African Diamonds” video slots in somewhere on the floor that had an unusual denomination spectrum of up to $1 per unit. That poster said he played 150 coins at the $1 and hit a W-2 G the first spin. Rumor had it that there was a “Kitty Glitter” with that same high denomination availability. As we scouted around, we found a Kitty Glitter but it only went from one cent to a nickel. This was the same denomination band as a whole bunch of video slots we saw of many varieties.

Eventually, we spied the holy grail in the middle of the floor – the mythical “African Diamonds.” It was between two other upright video slot machines. Unfortunately, it was being played by a heavy-set woman in her 60’s. As I casually walked by this temporarily inaccessible forbidden fruit I saw that she had $75 in credits and was using one cent for each line or 15 cents a press. My wife and I figured that she could be there for all of 2012. But we could not kick her off the machine or even casually ask if she wouldn’t mind if stepping aside so I can see if this machine will allow me to bet at the one dollar unit level. So we kept undertaking our reconnaissance mission to see if we could find another high denomination machine.

After identifying three possible machines at the high limit $25 max coin (all others had the ineligible sticker), we walked up to the same African Diamond machine again. Lo and behold -- it was unmanned. We scrambled up the machine like a five year old runs to the gifts piled under the X-Mas tree on Christmas morning. I pressed the denominations button and to my glee saw that went from: 1 cent - 2 cent – 5 cent – 25 cent – 50 cent -- $1 per unit. With 15 lines and up to 10 coins per line, we found the long sought up to $150 per play machine! Looking over my shoulder in fear of an angry old lady demanding I step away from “her machine”, I quickly slipped into the seat and told my wife to sign up for a players card to join the promo while I played a twenty dollar bill to keep it occupied. Lucky for us (as well as any old lady claiming my prize) no one approached. I felt somewhat like Gollum of the Lord of the Rings hoping that no one takes “my precious” ring.

The Las Vegas Advisor had suggested that people note the machine number then ask the slot club (located at the casino cage) it that particular machine was eligible. My wife briefly agonized about this as we feared that if we asked the Riviera about this particular machine they might ask too many questions about our unexpected curiosity about this African Diamonds machine. (Did I previously mention that I was feeling the paranoia of Gollum?) We eventually decided that my wife would ask generally whether any video slots without the “ineligible sticker” would be OK for the promo. When she asked, the answer was “yes.” Then the boothing and wife had the following exchange:

Boothling (while looking at Wife’s ID): “Do you know (fill in husband’s name here)”?

Wife: “Why yes, he is my husband.”

Boothling: “Well he is already on the player’s club system so he cannot do the Rebate offer although you can.”

Wife (fully aware that I have never been in the Riviera in the last four years): “I would expect that he was in the system because he loves playing here all the time.”

Boothing (with no evident sarcasm): “Well, thank him for his patronage.”

Meanwhile I was at the machine playing 30 cents a spin and hit a bonus round – winning a whole $4.00. It made me feel somewhat like getting a royal flush on one coin at the nickel level. Eventually Wife rejoins me and she sticks a $100 bill and I put one in too. Although I up to now I had expected to push the $1 unit at $150 a spin, I had a sudden lack of heart and put it at 50 cents or $75 a spin. After three spins we had little left and decided to put in another three Benjamins. We decided that if we lost a total of $500 here, we would try out luck at the high limit slots. But before we pressed again, my wife said $75 is too much per spin as we only have a handful of spins in this machine. So we reset it for 25 cents a unit for 150 coins or $37.50 per spin.

The very next spin, along with jungle drums playing, three images of the continent of Africa come up –black with gold trim – we hit the bonus! In that bonus round you get 10 free spins after you press the “free spin” button. My wife hits the button and the first free spin yields – “nada” as does the second free spin. But surely the third free spin must mean some significant money, right? Actually the answer is “wrong.” Just as I was losing faith in this illusory “bonus round” a bunch of gorillas appear. After the series of spins we end up winning something over $500. When the machine quiets down, we have $875.50 in credits.

We now have won net $355.50 (I trust you haven’t forgotten my original twenty). Wife is all for going to the high limit and trying out luck with “the other $500”. I have to explain that we actually are in a “loss rebate” promo and not a “free play” promo and so need to lose all $355.50 before we break even. She quickly grasps this concept (at least by now). We decide to cash out and take the profits.

Epilogue: At the strip casino we stayed at, Wife subsequently put $100 into another African Diamonds game and gets zilch.

Thanks for reading.

FAB