There's some buzz around Internet message boards suggesting that Harrah's will or already has raised it's requirements for "Diamond" status from 10,000 "Tier Credits" to 11,000 to attain this status during 2008. For those of you new to the world of Tier Credits, that equates to $110,000 "coin-in" for video poker or $55,000 run through the machines playing slots (and some mysterious amout of table game play). This would be up from $100,000 and $50,000 during the 2007 calendar year (and every other year in recent memory).
A small cost of living increase makes some sense, but this seems oddly non-drastic. Perhaps living in a state where we don't just increase tolls by a small margin, but introduce a plan for their exponential growth taking affect immediately after the next gubernatorial election has jaded me, but why isn't Harrah's using this as an excuse to legitimately thin the Diamond herd? There are already long lines at their lounges and I know that no casino company really likes giving out free food and booze in a location where folks can't gamble at all. Heck, the lounges don't even have obnoxious keno boards like I see in the Las Vegas coffee shops.
So, why the tiny increase? Everyone I know who just barely exceeding that 10,000 point threshhold last year could easily give Harrah's another $10,000 in play, but these folks would probably do so on games averaging around 99% return, so is Harrahs' just charging them an extra $100 for their Diamond privileges in 2008? That might cover increased costs they are incurring in recent years as more people earn this status, but won't that mean they will need to increase the requirements again in a short time? Maybe that's the plan, to introduce annual tier credit requirement increases to qualify for Diamond until they find the choke point where they start driving people away instead of "developing" them into slightly bigger players each year.
It's always hard to figure what Harrah's is up to, but they are very good at what they do, and it's up to the rest of us to guess what their words and actions really mean.
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3 comments:
As far as I've read on LVA, it's a typo, and still 10,000 credits....
Ken, That would make much more sense. I'm expecting the Diamond requirements to increase at some point (or the benefits to drop), but I would expect more drastic changes.
When I was looking at their website yesterday it still said 10,000 TC.
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