ZorkCast - Vegas Podcast + Yo-11 Minutes - Casino/Travel Loyalty, Casino Experience, Gambling and Luxury Travel
ZorkCast Podcast has a renewed focus and emphasis on casino loyalty and the intersection between casino loyalty schemes with traditional travel loyalty programs.
Plus: Yo-Eleven Minutes
Mostly Vegas. No BS. Casino Experience +more
ZorkCast, a chat about Vegas, Casino Loyalty, Travel Loyalty, gambling and luxury travel focusing on experiences: #PaxEx (Passenger Experience) and #CasinoEx (Casino Experience) are significant areas of conversation and exploration.
Join us, and please DM or email questions, comments, and thoughts to tips@travelzork.com
ZorkCast - Vegas Podcast + Yo-11 Minutes - Casino/Travel Loyalty, Casino Experience, Gambling and Luxury Travel
Yo-11 Minutes: Episode 9 "Crappy Odds Conundrum"
Yo-Eleven Minutes
Mostly Vegas. No BS. Casino Experience +more
⬇️
Yo-11 Minutes: Episode 9 "Crappy Odds Conundrum"
On this episode:
-A look inside the Fremont Casino remodel
-When The Price of Gambling Increased Under The Steve
Watch, Like and Sub on YouTube
The Yo-11 Minutes Playlist on YouTube
⁉️ Want to contact us or share something?
Chat to TravelZork, ZorkCast and TravelZork Travel!
📧 Email us: tips@travelzork.com
or DM @TravelZork on Twitter and Insta
🏨 Luxury Hotel Program for Las Vegas and Worldwide
🏨 Inquire & Book - VIP SERVICE 🚢
Book your next trip with TravelZork Travel!
🏨 Inquire and Book THE VEGAS EXPERTS 🎰
Join The TravelZork Facebook Group - lots of great travel and casino loyalty conversations!
Subscribe to our newsletter! - Tips + some commentary! (never more than 2x per month)
Support the show! VISIT ZorkOffer
www.zorkoffer.com
Direct Access To TravelZork Travel Booking Request Form
Welcome to Yo 11 Minutes. Yo 11 Minutes mostly Vegas, no BS, casino Experience and more. Michael Trager is a casino and travel loyalty expert who also helps people turn their travel dreams into reality. And now Michael Trager, how's it going? Michael?
Speaker 2:It's really going well. You know, I'm just trying to catch up on things after Zort Fest, but things are going well. If you hear any little noises in the background, it's actually not me, but it's my dog, mr Leo, who could be found on X at Mr Leo Dog, sort of trying to stay right next to me because he's been away from me for a week, so he's pitter pattering around my desk. It's not me making noise, it's the dog making noise.
Speaker 1:Hashtag dogs of Twitter. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly, you know he missed me, so he just sort of likes to plant himself next to me and stare.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's how they get it. They get that way after a while, all right. Well, I don't know if you've seen the remodel at Fremont, but that's the top story for today, and now it's time for the news and views. Fremont Hotel Casino in downtown Las Vegas recently completed the last of its $50 million property remodel. The Boyd Gaming operated property on the Fremont Street Experience unveiled an updated casino floor with a more open floor plan and higher ceilings, along with a renovated hotel lobby and casino bar. Company representatives said this week the work was a continuation of a previously announced property remodel that debuted in late 2022.
Speaker 1:Boyd opened a six stall food hall, the FanDuel Sportsbook and 10,000 square feet of additional gaming space. The new casino space, consisting of about 120 games, took over the former buffet section of the property, and the food hall was built on a former parking lot on Third Street. Boyd also built an entrance and patio, along with the recently built Third Street pedestrian mall. That's it for the news, and now for the views. Michael, what are your thoughts on Fremont's remodel? I love it.
Speaker 2:And I love the idea that downtown becomes more and more compelling for people to stay at Actually, like what you would consider what used to be considered strip people people who would only stay on the Vegas strip or were tourists are now having more and more options to stay downtown. So I think that's really great and I would say it's probably, you know, especially relatively compelling when there's such bad traffic on the strip, for lots of numerous reasons. So maybe staying downtown is actually more convenient when the strip is such a mess. I don't think we've heard, have you heard, many people ever say that staying downtown is more convenient, but actually right now that could really actually be the case. What do you think still keeps people away from staying downtown?
Speaker 1:I think that for a lot of people, downtown sort of has this bad seedy, underworld reputation. People don't think it's as glitzy and glamorous on the strip. But I'll tell you one thing you won't be paying $8 for a bottle of water downtown. Your money goes further downtown. I've had gambling sessions that lasted longer downtown than they do on the strip and I really like how close all the properties are. I've also had some people that I know say that they prefer downtown simply because it's not walking the entire strip, not paying outrageous prices for the simplest of things. There's all that. I think people need to give downtown more of a chance and just go and see it for themselves.
Speaker 2:You know, what's also interesting about that is perceptions. It takes so long for perceptions to change. New York went through that with the whole Times Square thing. People don't even remember that Times Square was super seedy forever. I think you go through a little bit of that with downtown. You also go through a little bit of that with the Vegas strip because certain people still think that Caesars is the iconic five-star property where when you talk to most people in the know they're usually not that sweet on sending you to Caesars if you want an elevated five-star experience. Not that there are not bad rooms and Nobu is pretty nice and they just completed a renovation. But perceptions go both ways bad perceptions and good perceptions. That's interesting to me. It's great to see it. It's good stuff that's happening. The more good stuff that happens downtown, the better off we are.
Speaker 1:Now it's time for the tease.
Speaker 3:But he had said when he raised for those of you who don't know craps on most Vegas strip casinos the odds on a crapsline bed not to get too into it were three, four, five times odd Odds. Steve Wynn made the decision to take that down to two times odds, which is, if you think of triple zero or left. Steve said it's time we haven't in a long time raised the price of gambling. So that was his idea of going to two times odds was to increase the house edge on a craps, on a craps, and he said he referred to it as raised the price of gambling.
Speaker 2:And I think that's unfortunate.
Speaker 3:Even though that didn't succeed, it went, which is great.
Speaker 2:They're back to three, four, five times, which is right.
Speaker 3:Isn't that weird. It didn't work with craps, it would work with Blackjack and Relette.
Speaker 2:Relette rust drink. Well, it all changed just once you showed up. They didn't have to worry about it anymore we're.
Speaker 3:You know I'm fortunate enough to be able to gamble at a little bit of a level that puts me in a bubble, so I'm a little bit insulated to some of the changes that have happened in Vegas. As far as value for the lower level gambler lower living candle but I used to be I would go stay at circus circus for $25 a night, before resort fees and things like that Not all of us and play two or three dollar crafts at Casino Royale. And as someone I mean not everybody can you know you as your income increases over time and you disposable income increases. That's how you get to play at those levels that allow you to play and stay and win and things like that. But there has to be a place, there has to be a way to nurture the lower level gamblers and I really hope it's called Vegas world. Yeah, that doesn't, that doesn't disappear from Vegas and I think there still are opportunities for that and Ellis Island downtown and things like that. But I worry that you're seeing much less of that on the strip.
Speaker 2:Raising the price of gambling. That was something that Josh Vegas Duffy said and it really struck me because the whole entire concept of raising the price of gambling was brought up by Steve Wynn, as you just heard in that, in the video from Zorkfest. And we think about everything, Everything, prices rise on everything. Prices rise on milk prices, rise on coffee, prices rise on hotels and all of a sudden you have to think that, yeah, how about the you know, raising the price of gambling? And that's happened, you know, through, basically through bad odds. You know that's been a, that's been a really, that's been a really big deal. So when you, when you think about, you know how you can raise the price of gambling, should they raise the price of gambling? I think you have two major things you're looking at. You're looking at games that are worse, like six, five blackjack in comparison to three, two blackjack, triple zero roulette in comparison to single and double zero roulette, lousy video poker tables. So there you have, you know they've raised the price of gambling because the house has a higher edge. And then I guess you have the other way that you could think about raising the price of gambling is just the table limits, right, Like just the table limits are going up, whereas you used to be able to get a $10 Blackjack game and now you can only get a $25 Blackjack game. So I just wanted to differentiate there a little bit in what's obviously worse and what's better.
Speaker 2:Now, when they change their odds and you only can play 6-5 Blackjack, well, there's no going back from there. The odds are the odds. The math of the game is the math of the game. Just like a triple zero roulette game is much worse than a double zero roulette game. So there's nothing you could do about that. But when you still have good games like say, you have good video poker and that goes from a $0.25 denomination to a dollar denomination, or you still keep 3-2 Blackjack and that goes from a $10 denomination to a $25 denomination, that's just still keeping. The cost of gambling has gone up in the fact that you need more bankroll to be able to play those games. But at least the house edge, if the rules stay the same, is there.
Speaker 2:So I'm thinking Steve Wynn was talking about the odds, because when that was brought up, that was mostly brought up when Wynn dropped their odds at craps two times and one of the other interesting things that they mentioned in the video was that's gone back. Wynn is back to 3, 4, 5 times odds, just like everywhere else on the strip. But those other games that have snuck in, like 6-5 Blackjack is ubiquitous. It's everywhere, except for high limit, pretty much so, and triple zero roulette in the last two years. That's really all over the place. So it's sort of interesting Like what do you think about? Does that turn you off the raising the price of gambling? Does it impact you? Or, in the perspective of a low roller, do you just go? Well, it doesn't matter, it's just the cost of my entertainment.
Speaker 1:I don't really do table games as much, so I'm not as affected by it. I tend to stick to video poker and I tend to look for places that have a decent payback or decent odds on the pay tables. Decent pay tables is what I'm trying to say, so I don't feel like I'm affected that much. Then again, I don't really gamble as much as I used to.
Speaker 2:Pretty interesting conversation and I had forgotten that statement when Steve Wynn said we need to raise the price of gambling. So that sort of hit me and that was my whole, like that's the whole motivation behind this little conversation.
Speaker 1:The thing is Steve Wynn. I remember when he was doing whatever, always had no problem like putting on a little ad with his smooth voice and piano music and back of him. Hi, I'm Steve Wynn. I don't remember him announcing so much. Hi, I'm Steve Wynn. We feel you deserve to have very crappy odds, so I would have not a court. You can guarantee you're going to have crappy odds. I also added a zero to roulette and well, add it. You know it's just this and totally messed up your ADT. It would have been nice if he just gave the public a heads up as opposed to what was leaked out at a meeting, but well, you know it's also really tough.
Speaker 2:Casinos love slot players. Love, love, love slot players and slots is the one thing that is rather opaque as far as what the odds are Like. You cannot look across a casino floor and say that machine has a 12% hold, that machine has a 10% hold, that machine has a 6% hold. You don't know, I mean unless you tested it and a host told you you're Theo Whereas with video poker you have a pay table. With Blackjack you have rules With. You know a triple zero rule Wheel has the odds based on you know the extra zero. You know Blackjack 65 Blackjack has it based on. Blackjack's paying six to five instead of three to two. So that's so.
Speaker 2:I guess the funniest thing about all of this is the most important game to the casinos, which they really prefer everyone would just play, which is slots. They actually give you no information on it. You know this, or they don't tell you the return, the return to player. I mean, in certain markets like the UK, they tell you on machines what the return to player is, but you really have no idea. It's just a best guess. You know it's just a best guess. So that's something interesting. That's something interesting to keep in mind. So basically, I guess what I'm trying to say is that half the people are in the dark and they're screwed anyway because they don't have any idea. I mean, that's so. We're really just talking about a small percentage of people who have any idea. So that's just something to think about. It's an interesting conversation point. I'm sure we'll come back to it again.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Well, that's gonna do it for this episode. Luxury travel booking. Travel Zork Travel. Visit us at TravelZorkTravelcom to plan your next amazing vacation and please join the conversation on social media. You can find us easily. All social platforms are at Travel Zork. We'll see you next time, MUSIC.