As a low limit player (3-6lh or 1-2nlh) I can't figure out why people play at any of the Caesars (formerly Harrahs) owned properties.

They take an extra dollar out of the pot and in general their poker rooms sheem shabby and run down with the exception of Caesars.

Now I don't live in Vegas so I won't play enough in a year to get a better card base on the 25 tier credits you get per hour at CET properties. Is it worth it to get the next card up?

I'm not trying to be glib or rhetorical, I'm just generally curious if there is any merrit to play at CET poker rooms that maybe I'm missing.

When i play at caesars property poker rooms these days, it is because of the quality of players at the tables are pretty weak. I play mostly at PH so the tables are nice, chairs are decent, players are loose and mostly tourists since the parking garage is pretty far from the poker room. Also the dealers are good, the service is decent, and they do have the progressive royal and high hand payouts. I am not real worried about this since I will probably never hit one, but at least if i am playing at 8pm to 2 am I have a possibility to hit a jackpot that i am contributing to. Saying all of this, I would still probably prefer playing at mgm or aria where you pay 2 less in rake per hand with decent pots, and all the above pros can be said for them also.

But I have no problem playing at ballys, IP or osheas even. I know they are not maintained as well, have dirty chips, and higher rake, the players at these places seem to be very sub par, and after 9 pm you will get a lot of drunk people at your table. The variance is higher but the payout on pots won seem to be higher. So when i play at these places I just play a little tighter until i get deepstacked, and when my hands hold up for big pots, i figure I made more than 1-2.00 more on each pot won than i would of playing at a place like venetian, aria, etc that have on average better players at the table. (not by much i will say since all places at 1/2 NL are going to have the sub par players)

This is just my reasoning for playing at some caesars properties. Might not be correct, but oh well. ALso, especially when i am staying cheap or free at a place like IP, bally, flamingo or harrah. I will choose the short walk and looser play than going to the venetian or aria or mgm.

Mostly, they don't.

I've been tracking the volume of business now that it has become so easy to do so online with a combination of the Bravo system and Twitter and other web tracking tools. Caesars Entertainment has made itself into the fifth (that's #5, as in numero cinco) poker company in Las Vegas, behind: MGM Resorts, Station Casinos, Las Vegas Sands (their sole NV property at Venetian), and Boyd Gaming. It is not unusual at some times for all of the CZR properties' poker games added together to be less than several other single individual casinos alone, from more than just one competitor, including some that have no properties on the Strip at all. If you add all their Las Vegas properties altogether they do manage to clearly beat the single room comprising the NV poker operations of Wynn, which is in sixth among companies for total volume of play with its one Las Vegas venue.

At peak periods on the busiest nights and weekends they tend to have a little better comparative showing, but averaged over time they are clearly doing no better than getting close to a tie for fourth, while having one of the world's largest inventories of hotel rooms (with only one significant competitor for the total number of Las Vegas hotel guests) and a customer base that is naturally inclined to be a lot more likely to enjoy seeing a flop on a poker table than a marker in a baccarat lounge. At this moment when adding all the games at all their properties together they are just about tied with the third busiest MGM room, and that is because Flamingo is doing exceptionally well, making up damn near 40% of the CZR poker business at the moment during their time-shifting promo. Right now I see Caesars Palace has five games. SouthPoint has one more than that. Boulder Station has that many. Venetian has nineteen. Red Rock has eleven. This morning Aria was up to eight about five hours ago, and probably is at more than twice that by now. Orleans will be around 16 to 20-ish. At this time Santa Fe Station has more than twice as much poker as Rio, and it is likely Club Fortune does as well. I have no data for them, but I suspect Cannery probably has as much going as three of the CZR rooms.

Overall throughout the week around the clock, given the enormous market provided by their huge hotel inventory, I really don't think it would be possible for them to have any less poker being played in their properties short of closing them.

That said, I meant to play a little at Bally's on my way out from doing other things there the other day, and probably will get around to it sometime soon when I have other reasons to be on the property. But personally these days I don't see any reason at all to seek it out to play poker there in preference to others if I'm not already in the place, and they've given me even less incentive to play at some others in their chain.

EDIT to add: By the way, you aren't getting 25 tier credits (or the 28 that was in effect in the Las Vegas market). During the last week of October, without public announcement, your games were cut to 17 TCs/hr. Some were cut to 8. If you book rooms through the Total Rewards system, expect to be seeing higher rates on your calendar now that they are computing your level of play as being about 40% less than it was.

_________________
Life is six to five against.
-Damon Runyon

I play about two-thirds of my Las Vegas hours at CET properties. Here is my general thoughts on CET:

1. If I ranked the ten most profitable rooms in Las Vegas, I would say at least half of them are CET properties. As Voltron notes, these games are filled with drunken tourists looking to gamble and have fun. CET does not have a monopoly on weak games, however. MGM-Mirage has several properties that clearly belong on this list as well, and we could argue about whether a few other rooms belong on the list from other casino chains as well.

2. At one time, it seems like Las Vegas Michael would be constantly referring to Harrah's Total Rewards at the premier player comp system. I am not sure it is quite worth that title at this point, but it is still a better than average system. Earning $1/hour is standard, but the ease and transferability of comps is a great perk. I don't like that the comps expire after 6 months of inactivity come from a state with no CET properties). Also, to be honest, there are very few good quality, reasonably priced restaurants in the CET family. My comps are generally used either to offset hotel costs OR at the gift shops.

3. The best benefit of playing CET properties... they actually treat me to very solid room rates. As an example, I am going to Vegas in February with a friend and, between the two of us, they will comp us rooms at the Rio including two weekend nights. Both my friend and I are 8-12 hours a day poker players who have no history of any other type of gaming (machines or tables). For those who don't make the casino a ton of money, I feel more than fairly treated. I have noticed that the rates are a lot better when two people, with two active CET Total Rewards cards, are both in on the reservation. With just one of us, the rates are still good, but not nearly as good as with two cards. If this perk were taken away or minimized, I would definitely play less at CET properties. My first consideration for a poker room is quality of competition. Since I can find very weak competition at both CET and non-CET properties, I suppose it is fair to say that I generally play CET poker rooms to get the good room rates.

4. With the above stated, I am very discouraged by the state of disrepair for many of the CET properties. Most front desk are severely under-staffed P is laughably inadequate, except it isn't funny when you spend the first few hours of your trip trying to check in). IP itself is badly in need of capital maintenance. The quality of the restaurant options is sorely lacking in a town with many, many great food choices (there may be a few exceptions here, but these are generally very expensive restaurants). I am certainly not aware of any great deals, such at the Ellis Island steak special, at any CET properties. CET buffets are well below par. I know some like the Spice Market buffet at P-Ho, but my one experience there was very average. I haven't tried the Paris buffet, a favorite of some of my friends. I consider the Flamingo and Harrah's buffets to be below average, and I am too ashamed to admit that I once ate the IP buffet so I won't rate it.

I agree, along with some lesser but pleasant perks, that was a major incentive which encouraged me to play a lot in their rooms the last few years; and now a major reason for not having played a hand at a Caesars room in close to three months since they changed the system for poker, since I would significantly lower my ADT and therefore jack up my room rates if I played a session of poker there now. With their recent changes, I suggest you'd best be planning for what you want to do as you see those solid room rates going away for you.

_________________
Life is six to five against.
-Damon Runyon

As I mentioned, I will be playing less and CET properties if the room rates go down. I have experienced this yet. I think I reserved my room for my February trip in November don't recall exactly) and got a great rate at the Rio. If these rates fall through in the future, I will be staying downtown and at some offstrip locations. I will likely also play more at MGM properties, although I will still include a solid mix of IP, Bally's, P-Ho, Flamingo, etc. for their soft games. I suspect I would go from playing 2/3 of the time at CET properties to playing 40-50% of my time at CET properties. I will be sad, but life will move on.

And PH has the best eye candy and music anywhere in town late at night. If there is a heaven, I hope it's like the PH poker room or Party Pit at midnight Saturday night.

CET lets me spend my comp $$$ anywhere in the kingdom, just like Station does, but not like Boyd or MGM. And no one in town has the Diamond Lounge but CET. These things matter to me, but not to everyone I realize. And as to CET offering perks, the Rio buffet is half-price for locals. It's one of the best in town.

When you say the dealers are good does this include the girl who doesn't know how to shuffle? Tell me how does a poker room hire and keep employed a poker dealer who does not know how to shuffle (and when I pointed it out to a floor he told we they were aware of it).

_________________
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. -- George Orwell

Hey there good to see you Zip. Very recently FYI now Boyd has become yet another gaming company which has gone to a system integrating poker comps onto a single company-wide player rewards account, so you can spend your comps ($1.35/hr in their case) from Orleans at Suncoast or from Sam's Town at the Cal or for that matter in New Jersey at Borgata, or in Illinois, or Indiana, or Louisiana... or any of 17 locations on their "B-Connected" system.

Multi-property comp systems which include poker are no longer a unique feature; they are rapidly becoming the norm, in part because of the data-mining and player targeting utility of the technology and the potential to leverage multiple destinations to increase business within a player loyalty system that includes a lot of regional casinos serving local markets with some degree of destination resort presence. It is fast getting to the point that there won't be many left who don't have some version of a multi-property system. So, you really don't have to pay $2-$3+ per hour more at the table in $5 rake instead of $4 or $3 just in order to get $1 in comps in a form that can be used at other sites in a casino chain, unless you want to for some other reasons, and that portability is not now anything at all unique for Haesars/Charrah's.

But I do have souvenir Orleans and Suncoast poker room only cards I'm willing to sell ya. Better bid on it fast, cause they're truly not making 'em any more. If you had any points on any of your individual Boyd owned poker room's cards they've already been put on your "B-Connected" account.

_________________
Life is six to five against.
-Damon Runyon

Boyd switched Dec. 21th and MGM properties like Excalibur and Luxor (these two for sure) switch January 18th.