Player Card (Volume 1)

If you know anything about gambling in Las Vegas there's a very good chance you've already heard of the term 'Players Card.' Every casino has one, and most will offer you something for signing up as a new member.
Some of you just don't like to give your personal information out to 3rd parties unless absolutely required. I understand. Information  gets lost, sold, stolen. I know where you are coming from. However, if you aren't going to sign up, then this chapter isn't for you, but read it anyway, just to see what you are missing out on.

There are also some of you who feel that by inserting the players card the house are somehow tracking you, and for whatever reasons you can think of, believe that you will win less, or maybe not at all, if you use one of those cards. Again, I appreciate your emotional resistance to getting a card, and I am not here to convince you to do otherwise, but please read this anyway so I might at the very least make you aware of what the world of owning a Players Card opens you up to. You may also find THIS article and THIS article of some interest (click NO to the annoying pop-up ads)

I have no idea how many casinos there are in Las Vegas (Apparently there are (as on 1/1/16) 171 in Clark County of which 42 are in The Strip area!), nor do I have any idea how they are divided up among all the giant mega-owners. But the 2 big groups that own the majority of the most famous casino's you have heard of are under the wings of the MGM group and Caesars Group. The Rewards system for the MGM is call MLife Rewards and for Caesars is called Total Rewards. Each offers some benefit for joining, and then increases the perks as you go up the tier levels.

MLife Tier Benefits - This shows you Mlife's various levels and benefits.

Total Rewards - This shows you Total Reward's various levels and benefits.

This is not the exclusive list for Las Vegas by any means, just the "big two" groups, which offer the widest benefits in and outside of Las Vegas. But if you love one of the Station Casinos, they have a MyBoardingPass program that comes close, and also the Red Card from The Wynn/Encore has good benefits, as well as the Grazie card from the Venetian/Palazzo. But there are many others for you to consider and enjoy making use of in similar fashion to the big two. In fact I'll have to come back to some of those other one's later on, because they need to given a much bigger shout out really.

But for now, let's focus on the big two.

MGM group owns the following Las Vegas establishments where one player's card will work in all venues:

(Full international list courtesy of Wikipedia)

1. Bellagio
2. Circus Circus
3. Aria
4. Vdara
5. Excalibur
6. Luxor
7. Mandalay Bay/Delano
8. MGM Grand/Skylofts/The Mansion/The Signature
9. The Mirage
10. Monte Carlo (soon to be rebranded as two new casinos - The Park MGM and The NoMad)
11. New York

Caesars group owns the following Las Vegas establishments where one player's card will work in all venues:

(Full international list courtesy of Wikipedia)

1. Bally's
2. Caesars Palace
3. Harrah's
4. The Cromwell
5. Flamingo
6. The Linq
7. Paris
8. Planet Hollywood
9. Rio

So on the face of it the two are about equal in terms of casino counts. But in reality that is almost irrelevant because no one plays at 10 venues! You may just play at one or two or even three, but no one plays at more. What actually matters is where you like to play, or stay, or eat. Going back twenty odd years I remember playing poker at the Off-strip Hilton Casino (no longer present) which housed the Start Trek Experience (which was awesome) and on a break chatted with a little old lady playing the $5 slots. She told me she would fly in whenever that particular bank of slots reached 4 million dollars. She didn't say she had ever won the jackpot herself, although I got the impression she had, but the point is she basically didn't play anything else, anywhere else, because that was where she felt lucky. So between all the venues above, is there somewhere you prefer? Do you like the rooms at one hotel in particular, or the restaurants somewhere, or the pool? Well if you do, keep that in mind when deciding which players card to focus on. I once stayed at the Orleans Casino with my kids, and vowed never to stay there again because the lines for the restaurants were so long we could never eat. Likewise I adore beyond belief the temperature of the swimming pool at the Wynn, which I consider a big pull for summer trips. I also can't always get the rooms at Caesars in the wing nearest the pool (Augustus), and I can't be bothered to walk to the pool from any other wing, so if I'm not offered it for free, I am not staying there. These are just some of the reasons I have in mind when staying, but for you the choice may be something completely different. But ultimately keep in mind which players card scheme you'll be affiliated with, and keep focused on the requirements to reach your target tier for your best rewards.

OK, I don't want this page to go on forever, so I'll close out here, and on the next entry start getting in to the actual benefits offered. That's where it all starts to get VERY interesting!