Remember when the Sac & Fox casinos had their match play taken out and shot, back in early October?

At the time they promised that match play coupons would be mailed out. Pixie and I haven’t seen any as of December 1. Have you? Please comment if so.

Thursday night (November 29) we were passing by the Sac & Fox Shawnee casino around midnight so we decided to drop in for giggles and see what they are currently advertising for promotions. The place was like a post-apocalyptic wasteland; the parking lot was so empty we literally thought the place was closed. Inside, it was nothing but bank on bank of lonely slot machines.

Recent changes: some machines were torn out in the middle of the casino, and there was carpentry equipment stacked there. A sign says that table games are being installed. Another construction sign shows an artist conception drawing of the casino facade with new signage and lights, indicating that there’s to be exterior renovation as well.

The only December promotion being advertised was an extremely stingy card swipe scheme. No free swipes for anybody; you have to show up during a fairly narrow time slot on Saturday afternoons in December, earn 50 points (which means “wager fifty dollars” at this casino although they won’t say so if you ask them) and then swipe your card at the player’s club for a 1-in-20 chance to win a prize. The prizes are not itemized but include a few tech gadgets (like televisions) and unspecified amounts of play (I’m not sure if it was free play or match play, I forgot to take notes) in amounts “up to” $500. For each additional fifty points you earn, you also get another swipe.

I call this promotion “extremely stingy” because of math. First of all, I think we can safely assume that “up to” means that most prizes will be “less than” $500. But even if we assumed that all prizes were worth $500 (and some of the tech prizes clearly are not) that would still work out to a $50 investment to earn a prize chance worth $25 ($500 divided by 20). That’s like the “half-assed match play” bet-$20-get-$10 promotions at the Seminole casinos and the Fire Lake Grand. It would be worth playing this promotion if all the prizes really were valued at $500; but the actual prize distribution is not published, and I think we can safely assume that a lot more people will be winning $5 or $25 or $100 than will be winning $500 in play or expensive tech gadgets. If you are putting $50 at risk to earn a prize chance worth $.25 ($5 divided by 20) that’s hardly worth getting out of bed for.

It’s been funny to observe how empty some of the casinos have gotten recently after abandoning popular promotions. I wonder how long they will be content to sit empty on Thursday nights before they come to understand that promotions are what get people to get in their cars and make the long drives to come and gamble?