$1 is just the credit denomination. Most video poker games have you betting 5 credits per hand for max value on the "jackpot" type hands. Some special feature machines have you betting 6 credits per hand ("Quick Quads", "Super Times Pay") or even 10 credits per hand ("Ultimate X"). Many machines are also multi-hand (3play/5play all the way up to 100play) or multi-line ("Spin Poker"), so your max bet is x credits per line * n lines.

The Rio DDB machine mentioned is a $1 3/5/10 Play machine, meaning you can bet $15, $25, or $50 per spin at the best possible EV.

You now get 1 Tier credit for every dollar spent shopping. I'm wondering if I can buy a 5k gift card and be Diamond in a minute. The gift card never expires. They do start charging a $3 a month service fee after 12 months, but at $36 a year it seems like a lot less variance than doing DIAD on VP or slots. Anyone tried this?

Interesting idea, but I definitely don't think Diamond would be worth putting $5k on a gift card every year.

Would you really want to commit to burning that much money anywhere at a TR resort just for access to lounges, priority lines, an extra 5% off at the gift shop, and the $100 dinner?

It's not like your room offers would improve, those are based on play. I guess I would consider it if I could sell the $5k gift card for >95% of what I paid, but that's such a long shot and it sounds like you're thinking about doing this and then just sitting on it which would be ridiculous

No resort fees are a built-in offer.

Yeah, I need to figure out how long I think it would take for me to spend that much. I'm out there somewhere between 3-5 times a year though and I rarely get free rooms anymore, so I would be using the card to pay for rooms, food, shows, etc. I definitely won't be doing this yearly, just thinking about giving it a shot this year, then next year maybe I'll try to do it the old fashioned VP way, haha.

The main reason I want diamond is not for the stuff boom mentioned, but to get the resort fees waived. They just really, really drive me nuts!

I also found this site through the flyers club forum. The membership fee is $395 and it includes automatic upgrade to diamond as well as a lot of other perks if you travel a lot, which I do. I guess I'll probably end up just joining these guys. I'll save the membership fee in waived resort fees alone. The only thing that bothers me is it takes weeks to get the diamond membership in effect and I'm going to be out there this coming weekend, lol. Guess I'll just have eat the $75 resort fees this time.

https://founderscard.com/preview

Edit: if anyone thinks they might want to do this, I have a referral code that gets it down to $395 from the standard $795. I think that's standard though, and you don't really need a referral code.

I thought no resort fees for Diamond was axed in this latest round of changes they made? I can't find it mentioned on their site anymore, but maybe someone else knows where it's spelled out?

I believe it was no resort fees for Platinum that got axed. Could be wrong though, but I know that was a perk for Platinum as of the middle of last year when I was in Vegas.

This is correct. 7 Stars and Diamond still don't pay resort fees. Platinum lost that privilege.

and everything is likely to change, in case you guys haven't heard yet Loveman is resigning as CEO, but will remain as chairman

There is a CET promo now where any earned tier credits from the first of the year till end of march you will receive a 50% bonus on.

I.e. you earn 1000 tcs by end of march you will receive a bonus of 500 tcs applied to you account.

So what's the catch with this founders card..the annual 800 dollar membership? If it's only 400 it might be worth it considering the other perks outlined. I mean 400 dollars isn't a lot

I applied for the founders card with a promo code I found on flyertalk forum that made the price $395. Not long after submitting the app I received an email from a customer service rep offering me 2 years at $295 per, with that rate locked in forever. I did it. Hope it's not a scam, lol!

Edit: there's also a onetime initiation fee of $95

I did it today and she said I should have my approval email first thing in the morning. Going to immediately apply for the Diamond card and hope I can manage to get my resort fees waived this weekend!

Let me know if it works going to vegas in a month lol

Rumors are they are getting rid of tier credits for poker soon.

That would be a real kick in the nuts.

With the 50% bonus for all points earned through March 31st, they have me sold on getting Diamond status this year. Instead of needing 15,000 tc's, I only need 10,000 by 3/31. With the daily bonus deals, I need to earn 1000 in one day, and get the 1000 bonus, earn 2500 in one day to get the 5000 bonus, and then just another 500 and there's 10,000. And I believe that will make me diamond through March 2017. I lost diamond status a couple years ago (got married, had a kid, so less degenning). When I lost it, I told myself I wasn't losing much and it wasn't worth the money to try to get it back. But the current bonus offers make me think it is worth it right now.

Unless they also decide to move the goalposts to require more tier points for Diamond.

Rio in Vegas has a machine you can get diamond for $100 in EV and with reward credits it's actually +$50 in EV. Grind 2500 tier credits in a day twice and you've got it. 99.96% return DDB. It's a $1 machine and doing it at the speed you need to do it probably requires you doing $50 a pull so the variance is pretty high but it's basically straight flipping.

If you're playing $50 a pull (making it a $10 machine) wouldn't you also get 1099'd every time you hit at least quads? Curious about procedure there.

Maybe this is off topic in the LV forum, but Horseshoe Baltimore pays 50 TCs/hour for poker, so it is possible to get the 1000 TC bonus just from poker play.

It's a 3/5/10 play $1 machine so you need to hit a very good hand to get hand paid. One pull is a TC so you need to play 2500 hands in a day.

In addition to the enormous variance, I assume you're only getting this return if you play absolutely perfect strategy.

Normally something approaching perfect strategy but slightly simplified (e.g. not knowing all the penalty card variations) will only cost you a few hundreths of a percent in expectation. No big deal if you're gambling a few hundred dollars. But when you are talking about $250,000 coin-in, this seems like it might make a big difference.

DDB I think is one of those games that has very few if any of those penalty card variations. I might be wrong but the strategy sheet on Wizard of Odds for that game doesn't even mention penalty cards.