I'm at 800k tier credits and have decided to hit 1 million this year just to see if there is some extra goodies, which I suspect there won't be. Perhaps next year it will be MGM, or another company I concentrate play with. I left some freebies on the table last year, this year I'm going to try not to. I have a couple good hosts that I can usually get something extra from, although I recall it being easier in the decades before.

wow. what do you play to earn so many?

I think most of my tier credits have come from craps. I also play pai-gow, BJ, and some video poker. Once in a while I'll sit in a 2-5 Hold Em game.
Every year I wind up losing, and this year is no exception, although this year it hasn't been much of a loss at the Ceasars properties, so given the suites, and extras I always get, the deal hasn't been too bad. I will take this opportunity to rag on the Ceasars locations in Tahoe which in my opinion suck at customer service, and attitude. The best employees up there are the young international employees on what I assume are work visas. When I return there it will be strictly for a comp steal, and I'll play elsewhere.

At end of August there are three days where a 10x multiplier and quest for rewards overlap. Can easily “buy” a Diamond for around $1200. Not cheap and cheaper ways to buy but you would get several nights of expensive dinners and maybe hit some of shops for Christmas gifts.

Or you can gamble obviously

At a 10x multiplier you can buy it for way less than 1200. There are places with 9/6 job which even at 20 dollars per tc is 30k in play that has an expected loss of 150 dollars.

I meant the no variance dinners and retail route

What kind of stakes at craps got you all those tc? How long were your sessions?

CET still has 9/6?

"Expected" loss includes hitting a royal occasionally, so without a royal, that's a bogus number.

I got a lot of comps this summer, plus parking/resort fees of over $55 per day, plus other benefits. I got my money's worth, but you can't count on $1200. It can vary substantially depending on how you run. I've had periods where it cost me $100 for 50 tc. If I ran that bad for the whole DIAD push, it would cost me a fortune, even with 10x multiplier.

I'm not saying don't do it, just being realistic about what some runbad might cost you.

No I’m not talking about gambling. Diamond card for buying $1200 in dinners/retail/hotel, whatever. No variance, thought my post was clear but two people said same thing so guess not

Stakes and session lengths vary tremendously. Sometimes sessions can be 20 minutes, other times they can be literally 20 hours. I have a lot of staying power when I'm stuck. Minimally there is 700-800 riding per roll, although it is usually more, and up to several thousand per roll. Most days when I play I'll get the 10k tier credit bonus for earning 5k tier credits in a day. The largest single session I can recall this year was a day where 39k tier credits were earned., add in the 10k bonus and it was a 50k day, and I actually won that day to boot.

So, very high action. Ok.

I don't understand the claim that it's a "bogus" number. Like, if you're asked to estimate what your EV is in a poker tournament, that estimate will include times when you win the tournament. You won't win the tournament very often, but that doesn't mean it's "bogus" to include it in your EV.

If you are a rational poker player, you shouldn't be afraid of a little negative variance in non-poker gambling if that gambling is +EV.

If you think a Diamond card is worth at least a few hundred dollars, it is definitely +EV play 9/6 JoB to get it. If you end up losing $1000 while you do this, just treat it the same as a bad beat in a poker hand.

Your mean losses could be like 150 and median losses like 500. And some amount of variance.

I don't know the exact numbers, obviously.

While it's all EV, it is helpful to think about EV as including longshots if you don't project you're likely to hit it in the amount of play you plan to do. Like a trillion to 1 shot that pays out 1.1 trillion dollars is technically plus EV (ignoring taxes and such) but it's such a long shot that it's true but misleading to say "hey, if I play that a million times, I'm going to win $100 on average!" when the vast majority of time you'll end up losing your bets. I'm not sure how exactly to work that into the math, but you'd certainly prefer to play a game that paid 99.5% without having to hit extreme longshots that only come around, on average, more than you're willing to play. So definitely not "bogus", but it's not the whole picture just to quote the EV.

One logical reason the variance of the royal wound matter ev wise is taxes. You can't write off gambling losses except against winnings from the same year. If someone is a winning gambler, especially if they're a pro it doesn't matter. But for the rec losing gambler it does.

So say hypothetically getting diamond every ten years someone hits a royal for 20k and the other 9 years they lose 3k each year chasing diamond it's not the same as losing 1000 each year when you factor in taxes.

This is a fair point; changes in the tax laws under Trump made it much less feasible for even winning rec players to deduct gambling losses, meaning they are likely to pay the full tax rate on any W2G issuing jackpot.

Paying a 25% tax rate on a royal would reduce a 99.6% game to about 99.1%. I suppose you should also account for anything you intent to tip on a jackpot.

What changes in the 2917 law affected deducting rambling losses? I’m not aware of any.

I don’t think it changed gambling loss deductions directly. But gambling losses are itemized deductions, and thus require you to forego the standard deduction if you want to take them at all. And the law did several things to induce people to take the standard deductions rather than itemize.

Most importantly it eliminated the personal exemption (which everyone used to get whether they itemized or not) and increased the standard deduction in its place. It also reduced several other opportunities for itemization. Basically it screwed over anyone who wants to itemize in an effort to encourage people to simplify their returns.

So basically black chip? I suppose I could be a black chip player, but it might be a little embarrassing to buy in for 10 chips.

Yes, I am confused. Maybe you're talking about FC? If you just buy $1200 worth of crap, you get 1200 rewards credits, but I'm not sure if you get any tier credits.

Yes you get tier credits

It's bogus because your sample size is way too small. You're only going to go for Diamond once a year. If you decide to do it 15 or 20 years in your lifetime, that's still too small a sample to ensure the effect of not hitting a royal is negated. One might easily go that entire 20 years without hitting a royal.

Obviously I think it's worth it because I've been doing it for a few years. I mentioned it because people are throwing around "expected loss of $150" and stuff like that. I'm just trying to bring some reality into the discussion for the benefit of newbies, so they know what they're really getting into.

The elimination of the exemption was across the board, not just for gamblers. So you can’t cite that as something which hurts poker players.

And I’m still not sure understand how itemization is a good thing in and of itself. A taxpayer only itemizes when their tax burden is lowered by itemization. If their tax burden is not lowered by itemization (ie the standard deduction is higher than their itemized defections), then they don’t itemize. But maybe I’m missing something about the benefits of itemization which you could explain.

Anyhow, I think the one change in the tax law which could greatly benefit some poker players is the introduction of the QBID deduction. This only impacts professional players who are incorporated as “S” corps, and I am not sure if gamblers are excluded (though I have never seen anything which indicates they are). But it constitutes a pretty significant tax break for many companies.

Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure this benefit expires after 2025, and unless something changes in the political climate, I doubt it will be extended.

The obvious common sense tax change, especially in light of the above restrictions on itemization (which obv can be cited as something that hurts gamblers, since it does, it wasn't the direct intention but that's irrelevant) is to allow gambling income to be reported on an annual net basis. If you are up for the year, the amount you're up is reported as income. If down for the year, non-event. Professional gamblers can already do this and 95+% of people do it this way anyway AND it's the only fair way to do it, so come on already.

The exemption was eliminated for everyone. But for most people, this was made up for by the increase in the standard deduction. But a recreational player who wishes to deduct gambling losses can't take the standard deduction. So the removal of the personal exemption is just a loss for them.

Of course, a rec player could just choose to take the standard deduction. But then they have to pay tax in full on all their gambling winnings and can't deduct any losses. It's what I did last year and what I'll probably end up doing this year too. Which sucks, because I used to itemize my losses but now it's no longer worth it.

This doesn't apply to pro players who can just report their net gambling wins as income whether they itemized or not.