(Second in a series)
Las Vegas Advisor will expand its “Member Rewards Book” of gambling-related coupons in 2019 and add casino offers beyond Nevada, plus a variety of transportation discounts.
“It’s time to branch out,” said Anthony Curtis, publisher of the player-centric website and newsletter.
Curtis, who is also developing a “Pocket LVA” app, called the program’s expansion “twofold,” adding “to go outside just Las Vegas casinos and greatly enhance the mobility of what we do.”
The current Member Rewards Book has 128 coupons from 65 casinos, restaurants, and other Las Vegas attractions. Each coupon is redeemable for one use during a calendar year. Offers include table-game match plays and slot free play; two-for-one buffets, restaurant entrees, and show tickets; and discounts on attractions including the Downtown Las Vegas Mob Museum and High Roller observation wheel at the Linq on the Strip. Additional “printable rewards” are online at www.lasvegasadvisor.com.
The coupons are available only to Las Vegas Advisor subscribers, who pay $37 a year for online access to the monthly newsletter, or $50 a year for hard copies of the 16-page publication, which covers everything from a Top 10 list of Las Vegas values, gambling advice, and details about shows, weather and conventions.
Curtis said he has no plans to increase membership fees, which have been at their current level since 1991.
Las Vegas coupons remain the core of the Member Rewards Book, but the expansion will target states with multiple commercial casinos. Travel offers could include discounts on airfare, car rentals, and ride-sharing programs.
“We’re interested in anything that can enhance a casino-vacation experience,” Curtis said. “Movie theaters, tours, gun ranges, shopping, etc. Everything’s in play.”
He noted that only 6 percent of the Advisors’ 15,000 subscribers are from Nevada. Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles have the biggest concentrations of users, he said.
“The strategy would be to make as many good deals as we can, with Las Vegas always being the focus,” Curtis said. “The additions would simply make the product better for customers who have an opportunity to use them.
Curtis described the Member Rewards Book as a win-win-win proposition because:
- Casinos and other businesses honoring the coupons pay nothing for the printing or distribution and get traffic from visitors who are serious enough about gambling and Las Vegas to pay for a subscription. Curtis said Advisor members visit Las Vegas about three times as often as the typical Las Vegas tourist profiled by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. In addition, Las Vegas Advisor subscribers stay three times as long and have triple the gambling budget.
- Coupon users get discounts that exceed the subscription cost. The most valuable offer is a Palms offer for a multi-purpose comp worth as much as $50 – half-off a bill of up to $100 for rooms, food, drinks, or club admission.
- Las Vegas Advisor makes money from the subscriptions.
The Advisor has offered coupons since the 1990s – the first ones were good for $1 off the Feast Buffet at Palace Station and $3 off tickets to “Lido de Paris” at the Stardust – and has learned ways to protect casinos from misuse and duplication.
Curtis limits newsletter subscriptions to two per household; customers must tear the coupon from the book in the presence of a casino employee; and many coupons must be redeemed at the players club, which can track when each member takes advantage of the once-per-year offer. He also watches out for deals that are too generous.
“I come from advantage player gambling world, so I recognize an offer when it’s too strong,” he said. For example, Curtis said he refused one casino’s offer of a $100 table-game match play because sharp players would descend on the casino “in every way.”
The book’s most valuable match-play offers are for $25, which yields an expected value to the player of about $12 each.
Still, coupon offers must be good enough to entice people who know their way around Las Vegas and casinos. The Advisor stipulates that offers must be available to everyone, including locals and current players club members.
“Our people are absolutely casino people; high-demographic gamblers,” Curtis said. “They go to Vegas or to other casino areas all the time.”
The coupons offer a way to counter the resort fees, parking fees, and tightening of blackjack rules and video poker pay schedules that give gamblers second thoughts about a Las Vegas vacation.
“This is the whole idea,” Curtis said. “There are groups out there, most of them in Vegas, who are willing to give something back to get their patronage.”
Coming Sunday in Weekend Report: Commentary on player ‘entitlement’
