Let's say YOU are in charge . . .

I%26#39;m sure many of you are excited to line up on Sunday for your ';Lucky Bamboo Plant'; being given away at Showboat!

Having watched my sister give up on waiting for her Emeril giveaway when she advanced about 15 feet from the Canal Street eaterie in an hour%26#39;s time, I wondered once again how such giveaways could be handled better.

One thing that worked (for us) recently was being given a certain time to stop by.

So. . . . short of banning such giveaways -- and we all know folks who will drive 100 miles for a set of free steak knives -- how would you better handle the distribution of turkeys, toasters and bamboo plants?

Let's say YOU are in charge . . .

Pre-HET, Caesars ';gift'; was ';for the month';, no crowds, etc. Had to earn so much comp then go collect your ';junk';. I personally have not had them offer any gifts that I would go down for if I wasn%26#39;t already going. Really think they should just stop it altogether.

Let's say YOU are in charge . . .

Do it EXACTLY the way Borgata does it. With the exception of slot tourneys the lines are almost always reasonable. Even if the line does stretch out it is always reduced quickly.

No HET BS

No ';You need your postcard';

No ';You need to print a voucher at the kiosk';

No driving three hours and waiting on a 2 hour line to be told ';I can%26#39;t find you in the system';

Just:

- wait on line (usually less than 10 min)

- give the woman your ID and players card

- take your receipt from her to the rep handling out the giveaway

-YOUR DONE (That was painless wasn%26#39;t it.)

ALL GIVEAWAYS AT ALL CLUBS SHOULD BE THIS EASY

You would think that HET would have ';shoppers'; at borgata looking for ways to improve. But then again, maybe they just don%26#39;t care.

the last giveaway i went to at harrahs was a watch giveaway which was their usual disaster. seven stars could go to the front but they had everyone else wait on the same line. they ran out of watches for the gold and platinum players and were offering them $20 but diamond players still had to wait with them for their watches. they should seperate everyone, gold goes to one room at a certain time, platinum to another, diamond to another, seven stars to another.

I saw that awful line for the cookware giveaway. Lucky for me I was able to go right in being 7 stars. They were out of cookware anyway - which makes me wonder why bother to ';reserve'; it if you don%26#39;t have enough anyway. They gave me cash instead which was fine - who wants to cook anyway?:)

If they really WANTED to GIVE things to people - and not just use this as a ploy to get them into the casino - they could send you a coupon for the item and you could pick it up at your convenience within say a two week period - like Caesars used to do. But we all know this isn%26#39;t their goal.

As much as I find it hard to believe that people will show up and wait in line for a bamboo plant, experience shows otherwise. Some of the junk that is given away is pathetic. But obviously it%26#39;s a winning strategy for the casinos.

Not for nothing but 5 years ago an incredibly bad giveaway experience at Trump Plaza made that my very last visit. I guess Trump thought his $7 %26#39;breakfast machine%26#39; was worth more than my gambling action for the next 20 years.

Meanwhile, you can get a nifty bamboo plant for about $5 at Home Depot....

ACM

I agree the Borgata was fast and painless. I was in and out in less the 5 min for the TomTom GPS Giveaway.

If I was in charge I wouldn%26#39;t give ya%26#39;ll anything. ;-)

I%26#39;d just have a bunch of good VP games so after you got out of your HET giveaway lines you could come to my casino and play.

That is SO funny, ACMama! That%26#39;s one of the reasons I left Trump for Caesar%26#39;s at about the same time - the mishandling of giveaways. So many times I would reserve a ';free gift';, arrive at the starting time and find a line back to the steakhouse only to have people up and down the line saying they%26#39;d run out of the item and were offering $25 or $50 cash instead.

This last giveaway at Trump Taj Mahal was well run, lasting from 2 until 7 pm. I played the required 30 minutes (HATE that!) printed out a coupon at the kiosk, brought that to the giveaway room and had my martini set in less than 5 minutes. Not running out of things is a BIG plus for me.

If it were me in charge, I%26#39;d offer the promotion on 2 days, being sure to have enough stock on hand for say 50% of those who qualified and 80% of those who reserved the item. Best I can tell, HET props usually stock the item for 10 to 20% of those who qualified, and if a reserve was required, they may stock 50% of the number reserved. Then they offer a $10 slot voucher for a $40 item (that%26#39;s been my experience) so I don%26#39;t bother with them anymore.

The strategy they%26#39;re using is an excellent way to tick off more players. I think someone in Apollo forgot they NEED players for the casinos to stay afloat.

i would like to see more cash giveaways. listen for your name, they draw 20 names an hour from 2-10p and then go up and pick a balloon or something to win from 50-1000 dollars or something. at least then more people have to hang around all day to see if they have their names drawn. (i know they do this, but i want more of them, less crap giveaways)

melissa

actually, the last two giveaways at trop, a wii and and omaha steak gift certificate they ran out and gave cash instead, the beauty was they gave the retail price of the gift and the wii i was able to get for $100 less, and the omaha steak i just bought one steak at the supermarket and kept the rest (actually gambled the rest) and was happy

The Taj is always fast-They give a large timeframe in which to get your gift. I also like that when they get low on gifts they will offer you money instead!