What Stays in Vegas by Adam Tanner

machine and plops down. She reaches into her wallet and pulls out her Caesars Total Rewards loyalty card. She reaches toward a card reader surrounded by dotted orange lights. It turns green after she inserts the plastic card. From that moment, the casino records everything, starting with how much cash and paper ticket value she puts into the machine (coins were phased out more than a decade ago).
    Caesars know exactly how many times she pushes the button triggering the electronic wheels to spin in random combination. Theyknow how much she is losing (or, less often, winning) from the moment she starts. The law of averages means that everyone will lose over time. Yet the casinos want her to keep returning, so they will do everything they can short of rigging the machines to mitigate a particularly bad day. If she loses far more than she traditionally wagers and far worse than the game’s mathematical odds predict, a host, tipped off by a message to a smart phone, might arrive with a coupon for a free buffet to cheer her up. The logic? A bad day could inspire a gambler to defect to another casino to change her luck.
    From time to time a host will greet elite-status slot machine players. At Caesars Palace, that might be Holly Danforth, a striking six-foot-tall blonde in her late twenties who aspires to become an actress or model. She introduces herself and addresses the player by name, which she knows from the data on her cell phone. “Most of the time they are very shocked,” she says. “They ask, ‘How do you know that?’ I tell them it’s by their participation in Total Rewards.” She then gives out a business card and invites the player to contact her for any future assistance. If the player is a man who makes a pass at her, something she says happens all the time, she tries to gracefully extract herself and continue toward the next VIP.
    Taking a break in the action, the gambler heads to one of the casino’s many restaurants. The maître d’ asks if she is a Total Rewards member. The waiter hands her a menu with two rows of prices, with a few bucks off each item for loyalty members. Or she could sign up for six all-you-can-eat buffets within a twenty-four-hour period at the discounted price of $47.99. 1 Caesars record exactly what she orders and over time chart her favorite foods. Capping off the evening at a show, she hands in the card to buy tickets, giving the management insights into what kind of entertainment she prefers.
    In a fast-moving table game like craps, a supervisor notes down bets by visual observation, less precise monitoring than with slot machines. A player can later check credited points on a casino computer. If the gambler feels shortchanged, management can review a videotape of betting. 2 The supervisor also keeps a close eye out for players tryingto game the system. Some bet especially heavily when the supervisor comes into view, hoping they will be credited with more loyalty points. Others quietly pocket some of their own chips to exaggerate their losses (casinos are especially keen to lure back losers with generous future offers). The company is considering spending tens of millions of dollars to buy chips embedded with radio-frequency ID transmitters, which would allow the casino to track bets to the exact dollar.
    In all, Loveman says, Caesars casinos know: “Did you respond to an offer when you came to the facility? Are you a resident with us at the hotel or not? When do you come? How long do you stay? What game do you play? How intently do you play it? What’s the average wager? What sort of success did you have in the game? Were you a big winner, a big loser, an average winner, an average loser? Did you eat when you were with us? Did you go to the show? What kind of dining habits do you have? Do you shop?”
    Rod Serling’s old Twilight Zone episode, titled “The Fever,” portrays a slot machine that knows the elderly husband’s