Inside The Evil Empire

ok I've been holding off on this long enough...ill be putting stories in here about my time at the evil empire...I was on the business side of things on the east coast (but I'm sure you can figure out where on the east coast and ill probably mention it in some of these stories)...these stories will be to the best of my recollection, but given that I'm trying to forget I ever worked at this place the exact details might not be 100% accurate, but the stories themselves will be true...these stories will be mostly stream of consciousness shit, so apologies if it doesn't flow very well...I aint no English major...if people don't want to hear this stuff, just let me know and ill stop posting it...any questions feel free to ask and hopefully ill know the answers...

Story 1: Suffering From Legionnaires Disease

so there was that story this summer about the rio being infected with legionnaires disease...that was an extremely LOL moment for me given what I know about the workings of the evil empire, especially during budgeting season...here's how it would go on the east coast...look at last year's revenue numbers, show no growth in those numbers but somehow show growth in EBITDA...so how do you show growth on the bottom line if you are projecting no top line growth? you hack away at expenses...the evil empire is great at hacking away at expenses to "drive growth" in the bottom line...that's why if you've been a customer there your experience probably sucks shit...

so where I worked one of the preferred methods to do that was hacking out maintenance, which is just fucking so laughable...where I worked the properties are fucking old...like built in the 70s/80s kinda old...im too lazy and don't give two shits enough to see if some properties were older, but it's entirely possible...those of you who own houses or cars (or really anything mechanical) and shit know that the older mechanical stuff gets the more it needs investment to keep it working right or the problem just gets bigger and more expensive when shit finally does go wrong...luckily for the evil empire as we hacked away at maintenance, a huge issue never popped up in our region...but we were hacking away mid 6 figures - low 7 figures away from that area which given the amount it would cost to remedy any problem is fucking laughable...if something falls apart in a 30-40-50 year old building it's gonna cost an absolute assload to fix, many many times the $500K-$1M you are saving by hacking away at the maintenance department...

so when I heard of the legionnaires thing at the rio it didn't surprise me in the least...im sure they were hacking away at their maintenance budget too, causing a massive headline grabbing problem that probably cost them way more in fixes and lost business than they saved in maintenance salaries...smart management FTW...

To compound matters, maintenance personnel generally have an "us against them" mentality. It's just natural and acceptable.

Management doesn't spend the money and makes me work on crap? Look, if you don't give a shit then neither do we.

Beyond that - recurring problems on fail equipment gives me a free pass on being held accountable as a maintenance guy. Certain systems like pool filtration just becomes a place to hide as no one knows how the fuck it works.

If you swim in a Caesars pool you're an idiot.

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Originally Posted by Sanlmar

To compound matters, maintenance personnel generally have an "us against them" mentality. It's just natural and acceptable.

Management doesn't spend the money and makes me work on crap? Look, if you don't give a shit then neither do we.

Beyond that - recurring problems on fail equipment gives me a free pass on being held accountable as a maintenance guy. Certain systems like pool filtration just becomes a place to hide as no one knows how the fuck it works.

If you swim in a Caesars pool you're an idiot.

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plus they were obviously union guys which makes them have an angst against management anyway...im sure those that were left were like, 'what the fuck is this shit we have to work on'...

yeah I cant imagine what kinda shit is floating around in evil empire pools...probably can get the clap from just going within 50 feet of them...

Story 2: The Employees

this story will be about the front line employees, not about the fucking dipshit management...so in my role I had access to payroll data so I knew what every position in my region made...not surprisingly the evil empire doesn't pay their employees shit...a typical housekeeper made between $27-32ishK per year...unsurprisingly where I worked the poverty rate was damn near 40%...so when you add on all the taxes, benes, union dues, etc. I would guess an average housekeeper probably cost the company $40-50K all in...so as I mentioned in story 1, the evil empire was always looking to "grow the bottom line" by cutting expenses and housekeeping, like maintenance, was one of those areas to cut...again I reveled at the abject stupidity of this...ok guys so you're saying you're gonna cut 20 housekeepers this year to save $1M in expenses...are we gonna do that in year 2 to save another mill ball and again in year 3 to save another mill ball, and so on? are we planning on having one housekeeper per floor by time this cutting is over? we're supposed to make 10s of millions on the bottom line guys, cutting a $40K housekeeper isn't the way to profitability...how about instead we try to grow the top line and shit? just typing that last question makes me laugh...no thought was given to how this would affect the guest experience...cut at all costs...

I tell that story to tell this one...there was an employee cafeteria, where the employees could eat for free...I stopped eating there in my last year there because the food had become such shit by that point (surprise, surprise another area where expenses were cut) that i'd rather strap on the Kevlar vest and go pay for food...I was fortunate enough to have the means to do that, the regular employees did not...you would go into the cafeteria and see your housekeepers and porters and other very low paid people with their plates piled high with food...then you realize, yeah this is the only meal these people are eating all day...they are struggling to survive...you see that shit enough, coupled with the absolute depressing nature of working where I worked it wears on you...you feel really, really sorry for those workers especially when you know that they are viewed by management as a dispensable cog in their dogshit operation...there's just no joy at all...not saying you should be having a dance party at work, but there should be some sense of satisfaction you get for going to work...where I worked there was none of that, at least for me...I am the most capitalistic person out there, but even seeing this shit got to me...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GambleBotsChafedPenis

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sanlmar

To compound matters, maintenance personnel generally have an "us against them" mentality. It's just natural and acceptable.

Management doesn't spend the money and makes me work on crap? Look, if you don't give a shit then neither do we.

Beyond that - recurring problems on fail equipment gives me a free pass on being held accountable as a maintenance guy. Certain systems like pool filtration just becomes a place to hide as no one knows how the fuck it works.

If you swim in a Caesars pool you're an idiot.

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plus they were obviously union guys which makes them have an angst against management anyway...im sure those that were left were like, 'what the fuck is this shit we have to work on'...

yeah I cant imagine what kinda shit is floating around in evil empire pools...probably can get the clap from just going within 50 feet of them...

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Pool chemicals are delivered by digital systems with readback that are finicky as hell. Obv they are prolly 20 years old. High number of bodies and the heat is a battle for the best of them. PH & chlorine being within norms? I will bet the house it's a fail.

I would challenge Druff to a wager some day. I have the test kits at work for PH & chlorine. Just grab a sample and the results would just be so much fun.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GambleBotsChafedPenis

ok I've been holding off on this long enough...ill be putting stories in here about my time at the evil empire...I was on the business side of things on the east coast (but I'm sure you can figure out where on the east coast and ill probably mention it in some of these stories)...these stories will be to the best of my recollection, but given that I'm trying to forget I ever worked at this place the exact details might not be 100% accurate, but the stories themselves will be true...these stories will be mostly stream of consciousness shit, so apologies if it doesn't flow very well...I aint no English major...if people don't want to hear this stuff, just let me know and ill stop posting it...any questions feel free to ask and hopefully ill know the answers...

Story 1: Suffering From Legionnaires Disease

so there was that story this summer about the rio being infected with legionnaires disease...that was an extremely LOL moment for me given what I know about the workings of the evil empire, especially during budgeting season...here's how it would go on the east coast...look at last year's revenue numbers, show no growth in those numbers but somehow show growth in EBITDA...so how do you show growth on the bottom line if you are projecting no top line growth? you hack away at expenses...the evil empire is great at hacking away at expenses to "drive growth" in the bottom line...that's why if you've been a customer there your experience probably sucks shit...

so where I worked one of the preferred methods to do that was hacking out maintenance, which is just fucking so laughable...where I worked the properties are fucking old...like built in the 70s/80s kinda old...im too lazy and don't give two shits enough to see if some properties were older, but it's entirely possible...those of you who own houses or cars (or really anything mechanical) and shit know that the older mechanical stuff gets the more it needs investment to keep it working right or the problem just gets bigger and more expensive when shit finally does go wrong...luckily for the evil empire as we hacked away at maintenance, a huge issue never popped up in our region...but we were hacking away mid 6 figures - low 7 figures away from that area which given the amount it would cost to remedy any problem is fucking laughable...if something falls apart in a 30-40-50 year old building it's gonna cost an absolute assload to fix, many many times the $500K-$1M you are saving by hacking away at the maintenance department...

so when I heard of the legionnaires thing at the rio it didn't surprise me in the least...im sure they were hacking away at their maintenance budget too, causing a massive headline grabbing problem that probably cost them way more in fixes and lost business than they saved in maintenance salaries...smart management FTW...

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I've had several Rio maintenance men openly complain to me that they cut the budget there way down, and they are severely understaffed.

All I have to do is make a quick quip like, "It always seem like a long wait for maintenance here, but I know it's not your fault. I don't think they staff this place right", and they give me an earful. It's hilarious.

Keep going with the stories, though. This is great.

Story 3: A Place Where 1-x > x

ill preface this story by saying I have a degree where I have 'letters after my last name'...I say this not to impress anybody here, but to say that when some MBA comes up and starts blowing financial smoke up my ass ill usually be able to figure out whats up...might not be immediately, but if I have a little while to chew on shit ill usually be able to dig out the bullshit...if worse comes to worse I'm connected to enough sharp guys where I can shoot an email or fire off a call and be like, 'hey jimbob I'm seeing this, am I outta line in my conclusions?'...im fully confident the answer that I get from jimbob will be balls on...

so one day all the management (including your floor managers, housekeeping managers, restaurant managers...you get the idea) was called into a ballroom for a presentation by the GMs of the area...the presentation was about how the evil empire from that point forward was going to be about 25-30 different entities (actual numbers may be a little off)...

quick tangent

I believe that the operations of most companies should be able to be figured out by most people...like Walmart...they sell a wide variety of goods while keeping costs down...mcdonalds sells food and beverage items...the evil empire sells casino gaming, F&B, entertainment, lodging, and some retail items to make money...that's it, you guys reading this should be able to understand how the evil empire makes money...with this new corporate structure shit was so convoluted that you would have to actually sit down map out what the fuck was going on to figure out what was feeding into where, etc..

back to the presentation...so the GMs were like the company is going to be split in this way (forgive me if the details aren't 100% accurate, like I said in my first post I've been trying to forget about my time there):

Bad Parent: this would house the $15B (or whatever it was) in debt along with a few properties
Entity #1: would have 'x' number of properties
Entity #2: would have 'y' number of properties
Entity #3: would have 'z' number of properties

the three entities would pay a management fee to the bad parent to manage the operations (again forgive me if the details aren't completely accurate, but the general idea I believe will be correct)...the GMs are telling everybody this will help the company outta it's financial troubles and make it so bankruptcy can be pushed off...the crowd was nodding and smiling in approval thinking that the company they worked for is figuring their shit out...im sitting there and I was like, 'what the fuck'...im asking myself how can the bad parent survive this indebtedness if they couldn't make it work when they had 100% of the cash flow from operations flowing into it? now the bad parent is going to have 100-x% (don't remember what 'x' was) of the cash flow? so the debt is going to all of a sudden be under control with LESS fucking cash flow? are you out of your fucking minds? again I felt sorry for the people I was in the room with...these people don't have finance degrees, they know their world of table games, slot ops, housekeeping, etc. and now they have some MBAs telling them that things are on the way to being fixed...I felt sick for them being lied to...got on the horn to a jimbob I know and said, 'dude here's the deal, I think it's fucking dogshit but just wanted to make sure i'm not missing anything'...jimbob laughed and said, 'yeah you're fucked'...and this dude is probably one of the smartest guys ive ever come across so with this conformation I knew my time at the evil empire was not long...

the sick thing about this whole financial engineering bullshit they tried to pull is that it's a fucking scam...the creditors lent billions to make this LBO possible and they were expecting to get their coupon (interest payments) and principle (amount they lent) back at the end of the term of the loan they put up...this reorganization was basically trying to fuck the creditors bigtime...I believe that the thinking was, we're gonna bankrupt the parent but we'll have the 3 (or 4 or how many ever it was) entities that have the great properties in them that will be solvent...the creditors can't touch the 3 entities that have the good properties in them because they lent to the bad parent not the entities, they'll only be able to lay claim to the assets in the bad parent...this is such fucking scummy ass business it made me want to puke...the cocksucker PE guys were literally trying to steal from the creditors...it was laughable to me that they thought that they were gonna get away with this shit...creditors are rich guys too and you know what rich guys hate above all else? somebody fucking with their money...this is fucking with their money...

I didn't follow how the reorg went, but I think the evil empire is out of bankruptcy and I think that as part of that the PE guys still have some of their equity stake in tact...that's a fucking joke...these morons levered up the company at the height of gaming revenues in AC only to see revenues decline for a decade straight...they deserve to get punished for making a shitty investment, but alas they got saved...its a shame...

Caesars Entertainment emerges from bankruptcy with $2 billion in cash
https://vegasinc.lasvegassun.com/new...nkruptcy-with/

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Caesars Entertainment has completed the bankruptcy process, the company announced Friday, ending two-plus years of legal and financial uncertainty.

As part of the post-bankruptcy restructuring, Caesars Entertainment has finished its merger with Caesars Acquisition Company and has announced a new board of directors.

In addition, as part of the reorganizaton, the new company has sold almost all of its physical casinos and the land on which they in the U.S. to a real estate investment trust, VICI Properties, Inc.

VICI is owned by some of Caesars’ former creditors who will in turn rent the properties back to Caesars, which will still own and operate the gaming operations.

The cloud of bankruptcy has limited what the company could do over the last few years. As a result, it has focused on renovating many of the rooms at its various properties as well as some convention and meeting space.

In the end of bankruptcy announcement, however, the company said it’s emerging with $2 billion in cash and plans to expand.

That growth could take place on land Caesar’s owns in Las Vegas along Koval Lane or even in front of Caesars Palace itself.

Caesars executives spoke about those plans during the company’s first-quarter earnings call earlier this year:

“We have sizable land holdings on the east side of approximately 80 to 90 acres,” Caesars CFO Eric Hession said at the time. “And then we own about 7 acres of undeveloped land in front of Caesars Palace, all of which would be prime for potential developments from additional convention space to retail to other offerings that our customers would desire.”

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What kind of a scam is this shit?

How about someone else buys Caesars properties and kicks Caesars out for good?

Caesars Entertainment is a terrible company.
Bad for Gamblers. Bad for Employees. Bad for Nevada.

Remember when Caesars banned people for winning too much money?

Don Johnson shows how to beat the house (and get banned) in a few million easy steps
https://lasvegassun.com/blogs/kats-r...get-banned-fe/

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Johnson, 51, has been visiting Las Vegas for 30 years and makes it to town every six months or so. But he has been stripped of some of his Strip flexibility, bemoaning the unwillingness of Caesars Entertainment resorts to allow him to play blackjack at any of their casinos.

“I can’t play anywhere at any of their resorts. Not anywhere,” he says. “This is since I beat them out of $4.23 million in Atlantic City. It’s been three or four years, maybe, since I played Caesars here.” (Caesars Entertainment spokesman Gary Thompson confirmed today that Johnson has indeed been banned from playing that company’s casinos.)

On one of those pre-banning nights at Caesars, Johnson took a table and played $5,000 to $10,000 per hand, running up what was (for him) a modest win of $140,000. Afterward, in a characteristically generous move, he handed out $5,000 chips to a couple of bartenders and a trio of folks in his entourage.

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Fuck Caesars.


https://www.caesars.com/content/scaf...2796167469.png

druff listened to the radio, thanks for the shoutout on the thread...

ill defer to handicapme on his explanation of things regarding the bankruptcy and debt structure...not an area I'm well versed in...I will say that when you buy debt either from the company or on the secondary market the price you pay for that debt will compensate you for the risk that the company goes to shit...so if you buy it from the company you will get a greater interest rate and on the secondary market you will pay much less than par value (par value being 100) for the debt...so while the second lien holders and the like knew what they were getting themselves into by either lending or buying evil empire debt it's no fucking excuse for these assholes to try to hide assets...shit is no better than a poker player scamming a stake...

@XFactor...very disappointing...but you are 100% right...they needed to lose their equity stake in that company, but creditors just don't want to own anything or go through the hassle of selling off assets...they just want to sit back and passively collect their coupon payments...that's basically the arrangement they have here with this rent setup...

you want to see the evil empire fail, just hope for competition in markets that they are in...if they are the only ones in markets they will do well because people don't have any other options...if people have other options they will recognize the fail that is the evil empire and take their business elsewhere...

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Originally Posted by TheXFactor

Caesars Entertainment emerges from bankruptcy with $2 billion in cash
https://vegasinc.lasvegassun.com/new...nkruptcy-with/



What kind of a scam is this shit?

How about someone else buys Caesars properties and kicks Caesars out for good?

Caesars Entertainment is a terrible company.
Bad for Gamblers. Bad for Employees. Bad for Nevada.

Remember when Caesars banned people for winning too much money?

Don Johnson shows how to beat the house (and get banned) in a few million easy steps
https://lasvegassun.com/blogs/kats-r...get-banned-fe/

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Johnson, 51, has been visiting Las Vegas for 30 years and makes it to town every six months or so. But he has been stripped of some of his Strip flexibility, bemoaning the unwillingness of Caesars Entertainment resorts to allow him to play blackjack at any of their casinos.

“I can’t play anywhere at any of their resorts. Not anywhere,” he says. “This is since I beat them out of $4.23 million in Atlantic City. It’s been three or four years, maybe, since I played Caesars here.” (Caesars Entertainment spokesman Gary Thompson confirmed today that Johnson has indeed been banned from playing that company’s casinos.)

On one of those pre-banning nights at Caesars, Johnson took a table and played $5,000 to $10,000 per hand, running up what was (for him) a modest win of $140,000. Afterward, in a characteristically generous move, he handed out $5,000 chips to a couple of bartenders and a trio of folks in his entourage.

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Fuck Caesars.


https://www.caesars.com/content/scaf...2796167469.png

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Johnson gamed them by creating a record of being a losing whale, learned on the sly (with coaching) how to play near perfectly, then negotiated ridiculously generous terms to come play at various properties such that he was positive EV with the terms. Before the casinos figured out that he had dramatically improved his play to make him an EV+ player with those special terms, he walked away with huge wins. There's a doc video on YouTube from a few years ago in which he explains his trick near the end of the vid. So, except for banning him from playing blackjack, the Vegas properties could still welcome him if they don't give him generous terms to play other games. Except in AC, where they can't strictly ban card counters, they have to completely ban him from the AC properties to keep him from playing blackjack there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJpn...ature=youtu.be

Story 4: Turning A $25 Player Into A $100 Player

so time for the next story...for those of you who don't know your "value" as a player is calculated based on your theoretical loss, not your actual loss...so if you burn through $100 on a slot machine you aren't a $100 value player, you are a "$100 * % slot hold" player...given the way that casinos are evolving nowadays this is an LOL joke of a way to value customers...if I have a 25 year old who is gonna consistently come in and blast $2,000 on a night at my high margin nightclub, i'm gonna pretty much give that player a reach around and a nice comp package that's gonna rival what I give a 7 star...yet the evil empire doesn't value customers like that because well, LOL good management...

so given that the evil empire doesn't want to spend any money on literally anything, they have to find creative ways to make their gold level and retail level customers, bigger customers since they aren't gonna get there merely by theo because they aren't going to offer enticements to those level of customers...so how do i as a business that doesn't want to spend anything do that? by bullshit fees and charges...think druff mentioned in another thread about ATM fees at one of the evil empire properties being $10...yup that's one place...another way is to charge exorbitant parking rates...where i worked we charged $10-15 on weekdays, $25-40 on weekends and special event days with $40 being the cap that the local government where we operated imposed...ill never forget when the management finally was able to get the cap raised from $25 to $40...you woulda think that these people won the fucking lottery with all the celebrating that was going on...every month i had to highlight our ATM/cash advance revenues as well as parking revenues...nobody gave a shit about gaming revenues or hotel revenues being fucking dogshit, but holy fuck were there smiles when the monthly parking/ATM fee revenue numbers would come in...and we're talking about revenue numbers that were in the mid 5 figure to low 6 figure range...hardly anything to get excited about...this is the evil empire...let's try to brush under the rug areas where we are failing (but extremely important areas that were gonna make or break the year), but highlight the areas where we were doing good at, even if those areas didn't do shit as far as the annual bottom line goes...and also these parking/fee areas weren't growth areas...yeah year 1 you're gonna see a huge amount of incremental growth over year 0...but again what happens in year 2? you're not gonna see any incremental increase in those numbers unless you drive more people to the properties, which given the lack of spending wasn't gonna happen...

the final fee was the LOL resort fee...where i worked that was a fucking joke...yes lets charge $15 a night for shit internet and shit gyms that our properties had...

so with $10-40 parking fees, $15 resort fees, $10+ ATM/cash advance fees I've just managed to take my $25 customer and make him/her into a $100 customer...easy peazy...and this obviously isn't affecting the 7 star/diamond players because they would just have all those fees comped...so you're not pissing off your high end customers while you are taking a vacuum cleaner to the wallets of your lower end customers...

and make no mistake i think business should be profit maximizing and all that, but when you are highlighting areas such as parking/fee revenue instead of looking at, you know, gaming revenues that's a huge problem in my eyes...your fee revenue should be a cherry on top of the sundae, not a scoop of ice cream in the sundae...

EDIT: probably should clarify that I wouldn't give a club goer that kinda comp package...a 7 star is worth a boatload to the company, but I would still give the club goer a nice hotel room, etc...

Story 5: But Think About The Customers, THE CUSTOMERS!!

Preface: for those of you follow college basketball or football know of the famous saying about freshmen...the best thing about freshmen is when they become sophomores...well in the business world the best thing about analysts is when they become senior analysts...

so where I worked we didn't have dedicated analysts...it's just fucking amazing that where I worked we didn't have dedicated analysts...we drew from an analyst pool in vegas, which is LOL...we were fucking coddling fucking analysts because pretty much nobody wanted to be based where we were...but the thing about analysts is that they are analysts...they're recent college grads...you don't fucking coddle them...you tell them where they are gonna work and that's it...they take the job or don't...so being in management I didn't have any direct interaction with the analysts who supported my region...when you are in management it's your job to bring the analysts up to speed on the company, industry, and basically mold them into your little minion...in an associate role it's your job to make your analyst into the best they can be...

sorry about the long intro, but I told that to get to this...the analyst pool in vegas engages in mental masturbation because it impresses the higher ups in the organization...I don't give a rats ass about your expertise in excel or in any other office suite product...gimmie the information in a concise manner so that I can make a decision to make the place money...you don't need to fire off 50 different reports (probably an accurate number) to my ass if 48 of those are gonna be your mental masturbation...I don't have time to sift through that shit...however, one of the reports I got was actually useful...was an report that broke down outlet performance on a hourly basis...I finally came upon this towards the end of my tenure at the evil empire...this episode solidified my stance to either get canned or quit the evil empire...

I noticed that one of our outlets was hemorrhaging cash during a couple of meal periods while killing it during the other...so I laid out a presentation that stated that this outlet needed to be shutdown during those two losing meal periods...I had casually brought the matter up around 4-5 months prior to this presentation and the outlet continued to perform like shit during the time periods I highlighted, even after the turn of the new year when I was promised by one of the F&B higher ups that 'the matter would be taken care of'...where I worked we had an off-season and peak season...you survive the off-season and make the bulk of your money during the peak season...so any amount of money you could save during the off-season was a plus...the totality of the savings that I was presenting was a nice healthy 6 figure sum...again not a HUGE amount of money given the total profit that the place was supposed to generate during the year, but it would pay for a nice chunk of housekeepers (or property maintenance or marketing or any number of things that the evil empire lacks)...so long story short I presented this to the AGM and his response was, 'what about the customers?'...now I didn't handle this how I should...I should have said the following: "THE CUSTOMERS, THE FUCKING CUSTOMERS...YOU DONT GIVE A RATS ASS ABOUT THE CUSTOMERS!! IM DELIVERING YOU A 6 FIGURE SAVINGS YOU ASSHOLE, YOU SHOULD TAKE IT"...but I didn't, I just was like, 'whatevs' and went about my business and peaced out mentally for good...

now why should have I said what I wanted to? if you read Story 4 you will realize that the evil empire doesn't give a shit about their gold/retail level customer...this outlet was at the price point to serve the gold/retail customer...I would never in a million years think about closing a steakhouse if it was unprofitable because it would piss off my high end customers...id find somebody who could run it profitably and if somebody couldn't run it profitably id find F&B leadership who could handle the task...and if I couldn't find anybody to do it, fuck it ida figured out how to do it on my own (not that i was in the position to run anything, but if i was that'd be my attitude)...I was told by the AGM that he was worried about losing business from this outlet, etc...that was a bunch of bullshit because I can bet that I could convert the diners at this outlet into diners at other outlets on property or a sister property...typical evil empire they were more worried about protecting the results of the property than protecting the results of the region/company...I don't care if people eat at property A or property B, it goes in the same fucking pot...

would I lose diners? absolutely...but again I'm sure I can convert these diners to dine at other outlets and I have a nice 6 figure head start in the process...so if let's say I lose $100,000 in business by closing the place (LOL at it being that extreme), but i'm losing more than that having this place open then it behooves me as a profit maximizing entity to close the place and accept the $100,000 loss since that loss is less than I'm making by keeping the place open...hope that explanation makes sense...

are we going to lose other business (read: gaming volume) over this? um, yeah not so much...this is a low end outlet...people aren't coming to the property to specifically dine at this outlet...if we close the outlet people aren't gonna be like, 'oh no, I'm not going to the evil empire because they closed my favorite café! fuck them!'...

so yeah that was pretty much it for me at the evil empire after that...just couldn't deal with that level of hypocrisy amongst other things...

LOL at your story about RCs druff...

unfucking real the level of incompetence...they ALL should fucking know that from the hostess to the waitress to especially the manager...there's not much to know in running a fucking outlet...this is one of the most important things because FUCKING HELLO MOST OUTLETS ARE COMP BASED AND DO LIKE 70-80% OF THEIR REVENUE OFF OF FUCKING COMPS!!!!

and LOL at yelling and confronting a 7 star in a rude manner...jesus Christ, what a dumb bitch...and the outlet manager not returning your call...

I don't have to embellish any of my stories here, your story just confirms the level of mass incompetence that i'm detailing in that place and that runs rampant there...

swear to Christ that that place could fuck up a shit sammich...

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Originally Posted by GambleBotsChafedPenis

Story 4: Turning A $25 Player Into A $100 Player

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For all the money that I spent in Vegas (as a tourist), probably $2500 in 3 days, nothing rankled more than paying those ridiculous parking and ATM fees.

Surely it's better to let a player take out $500 with no fees and them likely lose the whole lot in the pits, than risk them look at the $10+ fee and then decide to not bother go do something else instead.

Well played Caesars.

It just creates the wrong atmosphere and an antipathy toward the venue.

You wanna fuck me or entertain me? I think certain places (Caesars is king) have completely lost sight of this. The ideal customer perceives gambling as entertainment. Even the Mob understood this.

I had an epiphany my last trip. Most of the places on the Strip, if the truth be told, are frayed at the edges or dumps. Steve Wynn has a fine hotel. Few exceptions.

Gimme an off strip place. Treat me nice. I dont care a huge amount about the room. It's a place to crash.

I hate to be a shill for South Point but I had a great time. They aren't nickel and diming me like Caesars. Make a bet. Drink coupon. Fuck they give you a coupon book for free drinks when you check in.

This is the thing that sticks with me most. Across from the sports book (which I love) was a hot dog cart. $1.25 for a hot dog. It's clearly a loss leader. Nobody even knows it's there. It sends a signal about fun.

After staying on the Strip, it felt great not getting hustled.

I have never used Uber anywhere else but Vegas. If you must go to a club or show it's an easy bounce.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Belly Buster

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GambleBotsChafedPenis

Story 4: Turning A $25 Player Into A $100 Player

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For all the money that I spent in Vegas (as a tourist), probably $2500 in 3 days, nothing rankled more than paying those ridiculous parking and ATM fees.

Surely it's better to let a player take out $500 with no fees and them likely lose the whole lot in the pits, than risk them look at the $10+ fee and then decide to not bother go do something else instead.

Well played Caesars.

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couldn't agree more...why DISINCENTIVIZE a fucking person to take more money out...when you hit that ATM and see there's a $10 fee maybe that's a moment of clarity where you realize, 'fuck this shit, I'm not giving these cocksuckers $10 more'...

but it's typical evil empire...nickel and dime, death by a thousand cuts and all that shit...

again this "business" (and I use that term VERY loosely) would rather get off on making a relatively small amount of fee revenue than worry about what's important in the grand scheme of things...ya know that pesky gaming revenue shit...but hey what do I know...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sanlmar

It just creates the wrong atmosphere and an antipathy toward the venue.

You wanna fuck me or entertain me? I think certain places (Caesars is king) have completely lost sight of this. The ideal customer perceives gambling as entertainment. Even the Mob understood this.

I had an epiphany my last trip. Most of the places on the Strip, if the truth be told, are frayed at the edges or dumps. Steve Wynn has a fine hotel. Few exceptions.

Gimme an off strip place. Treat me nice. I dont care a huge amount about the room. It's a place to crash.

I hate to be a shill for South Point but I had a great time. They aren't nickel and diming me like Caesars. Make a bet. Drink coupon. Fuck they give you a coupon book for free drinks when you check in.

This is the thing that sticks with me most. Across from the sports book (which I love) was a hot dog cart. $1.25 for a hot dog. It's clearly a loss leader. Nobody even knows it's there. It sends a signal about fun.

After staying on the Strip, it felt great not getting hustled.

I have never used Uber anywhere else but Vegas. If you must go to a club or show it's an easy bounce.

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great post san...very interesting about what vegas has become...haven't really looked at vegas too much, more was worried about laughing about losing market share on the east coast...

but yeah the 6:5 blackjack, penny slots all over the place it's definitely not the vegas of 20 years ago to be sure...to be honest I don't know if it's really affecting their business all that much...if joe public is willing to get fleeced by all the bullshit game and bullshit charges then I guess it's dumb for them not to charge it...feels really scummy though...working at the evil empire I know they viewed whatever money you had in your wallet as theirs and they'd do damn near anything "cheap" to get it...I was amazed that we still had 3:2 BJ at our properties except for some 6:5 at the $5 limit...guess they figured that they couldn't get away with that much rapage...

I do wonder why more touristy business doesn't end up at the south points, red rocks, GVRs of the world...guess it's the billions poured into marketing that it's the strip or it's nothing...maybe that'll change going forward with the 'uber generation' who knows that they can stay at those off strip places and have a chauffeur at their beck and call in a moment via uber...

last time I went to vegas was for a BP last year, stayed at vdara because we could comfortably sleep 3 to a room for a decent price...wanted to gamble at aria, but couldn't bring myself to play 6:5 BJ...but hell walked through the place and all the tables were full...guess the consumer has gotten dumber...

Story 6: Lies, Damn Lies, and Made Up Statistics

sorry for the lack of stories lately, have been racking my brain trying to think of stories of fail (and there were many), but fortunately for myself I must be doing a good job of blocking out my time there...

this story involves the evil empire and their use of bullshit stats to make themselves feel better about the absolute fail that was going on...no need to concentrate on EBITDA when you can make up financial metrics that make you look good...my favorite made up stat was something they called "marketing efficiency"...if memory serves this stat was basically just marketing cost divided by gaming revenue (that's the basic jist of the stat...it might have had a few other things in it, but that was the main computation)...

so you may ask, why is this bullshit...good question...

let's say my casino is running a $10K marketing budget and getting $100K of gaming revenue from it...so our marketing efficiency would be 10%...now let's say I'm a cheap ass company like the evil empire and want to slash expenses and now have a $5K marketing budget and make $60K in gaming revenue for it...now my marketing efficiency has improved to 8.3%...NOW THAT'S SOME GOOD STUFF THERE! oh wait you mean I lost $40K in gaming revenue (not to mention ancillary revenue like hotel/F&B/and fee revenue, don't forget the evil empire is a fee revenue company not a casino) by becoming more marketing efficient? oh well, our bullshit made up stat shows that we are cutting costs which while in bankruptcy is all we need to show...cut costs with no regard for what it's doing to the top line...

the region I worked in was dogshit (pretty sure you can figure out where I worked from all these stories), but that's how it was treated...cut, cut, cut expenses by all means necessary just so you could show the 'C' level and PE shitheads that you were cutting expenses...and if cutting those expenses didn't make business sense and were actually a net negative to the top line, just make up some bullshit stat to make it sound good...

I actually had to tell the marketing people and finance people in the company this stat every month...drove me batshit fucking crazy that they were so fixated on this number that they had just made up to make themselves feel better about the sinking ship that was our region...

:facepalm