Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rollers)
 

I have just finished logging my 150 hours of play to qualify for the freeroll tournement. On my last day I was talking to another player at the table that told me some disturbing rummors and statements that he had heard. The first was a conversation that he personally over heard between a floorperson and a $40-80 player. Apparently the player was telling the floorman that he did not think he was going to make the total hours needed to qualify for the freeroll tournement. The floorperson then responded that if he was close they would let him in anyway. How fare is that to the people that put in all of the hours required for this promotion?

The next thing he told me that he had heard was even more disturbing. He said he had heard rummors that the casino might invite high rollers from the casino and let them into the tournement with out playing any hours to qualify at all.

I thought this promotion was created to help the room build a solid base of players. What are they saying to these players if they allow the casinos high rollers to come in and have a shot at this money without playing the hours they required the rest of us to play?

If anyone else has heard anything like this please share it with the rest of us.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rollers)
 

You qualified. Now would you rather play against other skilled poker players or high rollers that play black jack, roullete, craps, slots and other games?

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

you should be jumping for joy playing against players from blackjack, craps, and other games. this is what poker tables need. quit your complaining and destroy the tourney.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

No, I think you guys are missing the point. Let my try to put this another way... The TOC this year had 27 players, but let's say they made a concession to allow a few more people that are huge whales for the Bellagio. Even though they are terrible poker players, you are still losing some equity.

As to the part about higher limit players getting a free seat, this can be related to allow Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, and Doyle Brunson into the 2005 TOC which clearly lowered the equity of the field who met the actual qualifying requirements.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

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you should be jumping for joy playing against players from blackjack, craps, and other games. this is what poker tables need. quit your complaining and destroy the tourney.

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Ehh, no. With a choice between a freeroll for, say, 50 poker players or a freeroll for 50 poker players + 50 house game players, no-one in their right mind would choose tha later.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

When you decide to put up $500,000 for a freeroll then you can make the rules.
If you are a real man and willing to fight for principles then dont play.
Yea, just what I thought.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

FREEROLL, it's "free"

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

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You qualified. Now would you rather play against other skilled poker players or high rollers that play black jack, roullete, craps, slots and other games?

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He would rather play against fewer opponenents.nd since these "High rollers" would be in addition to the poker players, he doesn't want them in his free roll.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

[ QUOTE ]
When you decide to put up $500,000 for a freeroll then you can make the rules.
If you are a real man and willing to fight for principles then dont play.
Yea, just what I thought.

[/ QUOTE ]

But when you announce those rules and induce people to come into your cardroom and play 150 hours there based on your stated rules, you don't get to just change the rules.

Many of the people who have played to qualify sat down before hand and figured out how many people they expected to qualify and the value of the freeroll based on that assumption. Now if they just miscalculated that is there problem, but if the reason they were mistaken about the number of players is because the Venetian is opening the event to other people (and did not state so upfront) then that is deception on the part of the Venetian.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rollers)
 

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I thought this promotion was created to help the room build a solid base of players. What are they saying to these players if they allow the casinos high rollers to come in and have a shot at this money without playing the hours they required the rest of us to play?

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That they want to build a base of players, probably. What a ridiculous post. It's a promotion dude. They're trying to get people interested in the room. Is keeping out a regular in your biggest game because he didn't meet an arbitrary rule a good way to build a player base?

God, I hope this post was a joke.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
When you decide to put up $500,000 for a freeroll then you can make the rules.
If you are a real man and willing to fight for principles then dont play.
Yea, just what I thought.

[/ QUOTE ]

But when you announce those rules and induce people to come into your cardroom and play 150 hours there based on your stated rules, you don't get to just change the rules.

Many of the people who have played to qualify sat down before hand and figured out how many people they expected to qualify and the value of the freeroll based on that assumption. Now if they just miscalculated that is there problem, but if the reason they were mistaken about the number of players is because the Venetian is opening the event to other people (and did not state so upfront) then that is deception on the part of the Venetian.

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What makes you think the rules were changed? Every single promotion in history of mankind has a disclaimer akin to the following:

*Terms of promotion subject to change. We reserve the right to change the terms of the promotion as necessary.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rollers)
 

it is not a freeroll if one had to log 150 hours.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rollers)
 

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it is not a freeroll if one had to log 150 hours.

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If this is your counter to my post I'll just assume you're joking too.

Guys, it's a PROMOTION! They can do whatever they want. You have no right to tell them how to give away $500k. Jeez, this is absurd.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

Jesus Christ... they are offering you a FREEROLL for half a million dollars and you are still finding something to complain about?

Nit alert.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

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[ QUOTE ]

I thought this promotion was created to help the room build a solid base of players. What are they saying to these players if they allow the casinos high rollers to come in and have a shot at this money without playing the hours they required the rest of us to play?

[/ QUOTE ]
That they want to build a base of players, probably. What a ridiculous post. It's a promotion dude. They're trying to get people interested in the room. Is keeping out a regular in your biggest game because he didn't meet an arbitrary rule a good way to build a player base?

God, I hope this post was a joke.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is something to what you say, but on the other hand it opens a can of worms. A guy who has played 149 hours in the room being given credit for the extra hour make a lot of sense. But there still needs to be a line drawn somewhere, and the problem is that the kind of players who if they find out that they can skirt by with less than 150 hours, stop putting in the hours, are the kind of players who aren't going to come back to the room once the freeroll is done anyway. So maybe you want the staff to excercise some judgment about who gets the benefit of being close is enough and who doesn't.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I thought this promotion was created to help the room build a solid base of players. What are they saying to these players if they allow the casinos high rollers to come in and have a shot at this money without playing the hours they required the rest of us to play?

[/ QUOTE ]
That they want to build a base of players, probably. What a ridiculous post. It's a promotion dude. They're trying to get people interested in the room. Is keeping out a regular in your biggest game because he didn't meet an arbitrary rule a good way to build a player base?

God, I hope this post was a joke.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is something to what you say, but on the other hand it opens a can of worms. A guy who has played 149 hours in the room being given credit for the extra hour make a lot of sense. But there still needs to be a line drawn somewhere, and the problem is that the kind of players who if they find out that they can skirt by with less than 150 hours, stop putting in the hours, are the kind of players who aren't going to come back to the room once the freeroll is done anyway. So maybe you want the staff to excercise some judgment about who gets the benefit of being close is enough and who doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's what they're doing.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I thought this promotion was created to help the room build a solid base of players. What are they saying to these players if they allow the casinos high rollers to come in and have a shot at this money without playing the hours they required the rest of us to play?

[/ QUOTE ]
That they want to build a base of players, probably. What a ridiculous post. It's a promotion dude. They're trying to get people interested in the room. Is keeping out a regular in your biggest game because he didn't meet an arbitrary rule a good way to build a player base?

God, I hope this post was a joke.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is something to what you say, but on the other hand it opens a can of worms. A guy who has played 149 hours in the room being given credit for the extra hour make a lot of sense. But there still needs to be a line drawn somewhere, and the problem is that the kind of players who if they find out that they can skirt by with less than 150 hours, stop putting in the hours, are the kind of players who aren't going to come back to the room once the freeroll is done anyway. So maybe you want the staff to excercise some judgment about who gets the benefit of being close is enough and who doesn't.

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That's what they're doing.

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My point is that it isn't just as simple as letting everyone slide and the Original Poster's concerns are legitmate, perhaps in this case its appropriate to let the guy slide, but perhaps it isn't.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

OP, how much time did you spend away from the table and still got credit for the hour?

(I know you did. Everyone does.)

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

[ QUOTE ]
My point is that it isn't just as simple as letting everyone slide and the Original Poster's concerns are legitmate, perhaps in this case its appropriate to let the guy slide, but perhaps it isn't.


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But that's the Venetian's job to figure out, not yours. If they want him in then he should be in. End of story.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

[ QUOTE ]
OP, how much time did you spend away from the table and still got credit for the hour?

(I know you did. Everyone does.)

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That sounds like a losing players comment. I spent very little time away from the table when I played there. I am a winning player that does not benefit by being away from the table.

The issue here is that based on the number of people that had made the 50 hours in the first month, I set a value on what that seat would be worth. At that time I expected the field to be somewhere around 300. If you divide the $500k by 300 you have a value of $1666.66. I then divide that number by the 150 hours to figure out how much they are basicly paying me to play there. That figure comes out to $11.11 per hour. So now if at the end they allow there table game players and slot players to come in and take up seats it lowers the value of each seat there by lowering the amount they are paying the qualified players to play.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

[ QUOTE ]
The issue here is that based on the number of people that had made the 50 hours in the first month, I set a value on what that seat would be worth. At that time I expected the field to be somewhere around 300. If you divide the $500k by 300 you have a value of $1666.66. I then divide that number by the 150 hours to figure out how much they are basicly paying me to play there. That figure comes out to $11.11 per hour. So now if at the end they allow there table game players and slot players to come in and take up seats it lowers the value of each seat there by lowering the amount they are paying the qualified players to play.

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Oh my God now the Venetian is only paying you $10.68/hour instead of $11.11/hour to sit on your ass and play poker. Somebody do something about this.

You are a nit, and you need to learn a lesson in gratitude.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

I'm pretty sure the "freeroll" has to have a minimum number of players for it to be the full 500k payout. If less than 300 (or whatever number) people qualified, you should be happy if they're letting in high rollers who don't know how to play. If they're letting in people above the minumum, you're getting screwed.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

Why don't you put up $500,000 and you can make the rules.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

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But that's the Venetian's job to figure out, not yours. If they want him in then he should be in. End of story.

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I disagree. Technically and legally I'm sure the Venetian can do what they please with this, since they're paying for it. But it's NOT a nice thing to do to the poker players that you're trying to lure in. They created a promotion and publicized the requirements for entry. Given that, folks made their decisions to put in the required hours or not. If Venetian suddenly decides to invite 500 of their best slot and table games players and a couple hundred celebs, and to lower the qualifications for the 40/80 players, and give away seats on radio promotions, the value of the seat the players earned with their 150 hours of play has plummeted. Not nice.

But this topic came up on another thread a while back when the radio promotions happened. At that time, I thought Lee stated flatly there would be no other such giveaways. That every seat other than those 3 they gave away on the radio would have to be earned by putting in the 150 hours. Particularly after that, Venetian should not give away poker table seats to non poker players.

I have no problems at all with Venetian giving away freeroll poker tourney seats to anyone they please, long as they tell the players up front what they are doing. They haven't done that.

(And for the record, this doesn't impact me... I haven't put in but about 12 hours at V since this promo started, so I don't think I'll get to 200 this month.)

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

Correct. The Venetian manager himself acknowledged that it is important to the players who are logging all these hours to get to know in advance that they will be the ONLY ones participating in the tournament.

The player has a choice of whether to attempt accrual of the 150 hours to qualify.
In order to make that decision they deserve to know whether 'outsiders' will be permitted in at the Venetian's discretion or whether it truly will just be a tournament involving those who put in the required hours.


The management at the Venetian came on these forums and specifically stated that nobody else would be allowed into the $500k tournament EXCEPT for the 3 add-on's from the radio promotion.


If they let in the other high-rollers then they have lied to their poker players and deceived them into putting in those 150 hours that they may have decided not to do had they been told the truth.


I was impressed with Lee's appearance on these forums the past few weeks and stated that it will actually make a difference in me playing at the Venetian on my next trip to Vegas. This doesn't really mean a lot since I don't get to Vegas often anyway. But he's trying to attract customers and it was working on me...and I'm sure on several others reading those threads.


If it proves true that the Venetian LIED to their players about this and they invite a ton of casino high-rollers into the tournament as well then I will naturally consider their LIES to their own poker-players in my decision of where to play in Vegas.


I stated previously that if I was based in Vegas I would very seriously have considered doing this promotion.
If I had put in the hours for this promotion and THEN found out that they are just letting in whoever they please then I would be really really ticked right now.


But, for now, it appears to be just a rumor so hopefully it's inaccurate.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

Even if the local nits had been told ahead of time that non-poker whales would be let into the tournmanet, I'm sure they all would have gone ahead and put in their hours anyway. Free is free. Sounds like people are just jumping on any excuse to bitch and moan.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

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I disagree. Technically and legally I'm sure the Venetian can do what they please with this, since they're paying for it. But it's NOT a nice thing to do to the poker players

[/ QUOTE ]
Anyone get past this part?

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

[ QUOTE ]
Even if the local nits had been told ahead of time that non-poker whales would be let into the tournmanet, I'm sure they all would have gone ahead and put in their hours anyway. Free is free. Sounds like people are just jumping on any excuse to bitch and moan.

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Not necesarily true. The Venetian, especially a couple months ago had much weaker game selection than some other rooms in town. It's quite likely that many of the local qualifiers chose to pass on playing in better games at times, in order to log these hours. I think they have a right to be upset if they found out that they have been lied to.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

Yes.

I know that if I was in Vegas and was thinking of actually doing this I would have likely been swayed not to if I knew that the Venetian was also going to invite however many 'outsiders' they felt like.


But if it's something where they are going to fail to make it to their minimum number of players for the full $500k payout (I think they stipulated 300 players) and they are bringing in EXACTLY enough outsiders to bring it up to 300 players for that pay-out then I'm okay with the decision.

(especially if it means a really dramatic decrease in the prize-pool if they have less than 300)

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

[ QUOTE ]
But if it's something where they are going to fail to make it to their minimum number of players for the full $500k payout (I think they stipulated 300 players) and they are bringing in EXACTLY enough outsiders to bring it up to 300 players for that pay-out then I'm okay with the decision.

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Absolutely. That would be a GREAT thing, and a boon to the poker players who put in their time. If V was gonna put in $1000 per player up to 500 players, and they've only got 350 likely to qualify, inviting 150 slot players and setting the prize pool to $500K is wonderful.

And I wouldn't be unhappy with them tweaking the 50*3 rule for common sense things. If someone put in 52, 49, and 50 hours, of course it's ok to let them in. If someone gets 199 hours, let them in. But if some $100/hand BJ player has put in 30 hours total in the poker room, no, it's not ok to invite him.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

I can see letting in the regular who's very close...but I think letting the high rollers in is really unfair to the players who did put the hours in at the expense of other better games.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

Complaining about this does not make you a nit. It means you actually have some backbone. Are people confused because this is being called a freeroll? It's anything but free. 150 hours in the poker room equals a lot of money paid in rake or time charges. The Venetian is not a charity. They are running this promotional event to get people to pay more money to play poker. Obviously they expect to generate more than 500k in extra rake by running this promotion.

They certainly should not mislead the players contributing that money about the value of the promotion. If they turned the 500k into 5k, would people have a right to be upset then? Obviously, letting in high limit players with 125+ hours doesn't change things much. Neither would letting in 5 or 6 high rollers. But if they let in 50 people who aren't regulars, there is a significant change in the value of the promotion.

Of course the Venetian can do pretty much whatever they want. No one is arguing they do not have the right to do that. People are arguing that it is a bad idea for them to do this, because lying to customers doesn't usually work well long term. If they piss off the players working towards this freeroll, they won't get the extra money the promotion was designed to bring in in the first place. It's customer service 101.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

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Complaining about this does not make you a nit. It means you actually have some backbone. Are people confused because this is being called a freeroll? It's anything but free. 150 hours in the poker room equals a lot of money paid in rake or time charges.

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You're wrong. It is completely free. The money you pay in rake during those 150 hours provides you with a clean, safe, comfortable place to play poker and professional dealers to run the games for you. They are throwing a $500,000 freeroll on top of that completely free of any additional charge. I'm going to laugh if one of you guys who is bitching ends up winning this thing.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

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I can see letting in the regular who's very close...but I think letting the high rollers in is really unfair to the players who did put the hours in at the expense of other better games.

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IMO, if they are a regular and are close, that player is going to make sure they have the req'd number of hours anyways. They aren't going to take the chance of being short a few hours and wasting that chance at some good $ besides what they might have made by playing the live games.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

This is all a fairly academic debate until someone finds out fersure whether Venetian is doing this. What the debate tells us, though, is that there is a large collection of players who would feel cheated if this happened. Which wouldn't be good for the Venetian. They can weigh the pros and cons of pissing off some subset of the poker players they were trying to attract vs the benefit they get from schmoozing the highrollers.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

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They can weigh the pros and cons of pissing off some subset of the poker players they were trying to attract vs the benefit they get from schmoozing the highrollers.

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Wouldn't be the first time for the Venetian...

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venetian casino to pay $1m over rigged contest

The Venetian is paying $1m in fines after the gaming board found that executives rigged a 2002 contest to compensate a high roller who had lost a lot of money.

The complaint and settlement show a casino executive hid the winning ticket for the SUV in his shirt sleeve and pretended to draw it randomly. Casino officials reported the incident to gambling regulators shortly after receiving information about the phony drawing.

Link

2 other prizes in the contest were rigged too. Moral of the story: don't buy a new SUV, just high roll at the Venetian?

[/ QUOTE ]

Found the quote above while doing a search and landing here. The original story (which was on sfgate.com) is long vanished.

I'm sure the board would like answers, but I heard through the grapevine just yesterday that Lee Vinocur was removed from the position as poker room manager at the Venetian a couple days ago.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rollers)
 

Ugh. Didn't we do this like two weeks ago in the other thread? It's a HALF A MILLION DOLLAR [censored] FREEROLL. Who cares if they lower our equity from $1000 to $900. It's free money. It's a lot of free money. Go away.

For the record, I'm logging 200 hours in eight weeks to qualify for this thing, and I coulden't care less if they invite a hundred highrollers. It's a HALF A MILLION DOLLAR [censored] FREEROLL. Plus it's encouraging other casinos (Wynn) to set up simiar promotions.

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

"I was impressed with Lee's appearance on these forums the past few weeks and stated that it will actually make a difference in me playing at the Venetian on my next trip to Vegas. This doesn't really mean a lot since I don't get to Vegas often anyway. But he's trying to attract customers and it was working on me...and I'm sure on several others reading those threads."

Lee is no longer with the Venetian poker room. Not sure what that means (in terms of the promo), but I've already got my hours in.




Happy pokering,

Howard

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

"I'm sure the board would like answers, but I heard through the grapevine just yesterday that Lee Vinocur was removed from the position as poker room manager at the Venetian a couple days ago."

True. Two days ago.


Howard

Re: Venetian $500,000 Freeroll (For poker players or casino high rolle
 

[ QUOTE ]
"I'm sure the board would like answers, but I heard through the grapevine just yesterday that Lee Vinocur was removed from the position as poker room manager at the Venetian a couple days ago."

True. Two days ago.


[/ QUOTE ]

These guys are running through directors, shift managers, floor people, and dealers since before opening like crazy. At this rate, there won't be any qualified people to run this place.