At the beginning of December 2012 I commented that Pixie and I had never received any promo mailers from the Sac & Fox despite the signs they posted when they got rid of all their match play.

Since that time, neither Pixie nor I so much as crossed the threshold of that casino. There are other casinos in Shawnee that offer (not very generous) match play and half-assed matchplay (play $20, get $10 and so forth). So why play at the place that offers nothing?

And then, interestingly, Pixie got a March 2013 mailer from them. Her mailer consists of a whole array of $5.00 free play coupons, all with different dates in the month of March.

I didn’t get a mailer. Which is interesting, because we always played there at the same times and wagered similar amounts. (She has maybe 15% more accumulated points than me based on our play there during the first part of 2012.)

So, yesterday we stopped in (on our way to buffet dinner at the Fire Lake Grand) so Pixie could get her free play. Me? I wandered over to the Player’s Club and asked them to verify my mailing address. There’s always a chance I’ve got the wrong address in the database, right? (Oklahoma casinos are terrible about scanning the mag stripe on your ID and updating the mailing address in their database without asking you; when your ID has a physical address where you cannot receive mail, this is a problem.)

I didn’t say a word about why I was asking. Unsolicited, the woman at the player’s club said to me in a preachy, dismissive tone of voice:

“Are you asking because you didn’t get a promo mailer? Because I’m sure your address is fine. You just don’t get a mailer if you haven’t been in here and playing enough!”

I allowed as how I hadn’t been in since November, and she interrupted me:

“That’s why you didn’t get a mailer! It’s all based on your play from last month, so if you didn’t come in, no mailer.”

Patiently I explained that I had thought so, too, but that someone I knew had just gotten a mailer and we had neither one of us been into the casino since November, I just wanted to be sure about the address.

“That could only happen if she has played just a whole lot more than you.”

By this time I was getting pretty tired of the snotty service. But I just asked her, again, patiently, if she’d please just verify my mailing address. Finally she did, checking her screen and reading back to me my correct mailing address.

So, that’s the scoop, people. The player’s club at the Sac & Fox is claiming, rather rudely, that they only send mailers to people who have been playing recently. It’s not true. But we don’t know what other criteria they may be using. And apparently the player’s club reps don’t know either, or have been instructed not to give good info if they do know.

On the bright side, I noticed a new bank of brand-new AGS “Pay It Again” video poker machines, which would be the newest video poker machines in Shawnee and the only ones that aren’t ancient and horrible Game Kings. According to this page, the worst payout option available from the manufacturer of that machine is 96.92%, which means it would be a fairly inexpensive seat from which to rack up a lot of play. (That’s a poor return for a serious video poker player, but I strongly suspect it’s better than the default slot machine percentages in that casino.) So, now that Pixie has coupons, we may go back and give them a little bit of business while I see how much poker I have to play to start getting coupons of my own.