A few months back I wrote about how tier multipliers are taking on increasing importance as the tier programs are evolving to be harder to progress in various ways and slowly losing their value:
- Some tier score requirements have gone up, meaning you need to earn more points to see a higher tier
- Many of the big casino programs, like Caesars Rewards and MGM Rewards, have been lowering the pace of earnings on machines, meaning you have to gamble more to earn a point on machines
- Non-casino spend has been devalued in a number of programs, lowering how many tier credits you earn on various spending outside the casino floor
In other cases you’re able to take your high tier card and bring it to another casino to match it, earning the basic perks of that particular tier, such as discounts, line cuts and waived resort fees.
But some players have been grumbling about how players who use tier multipliers to get a higher tier, or matching their tier to another casino, is somehow diluting the value of the higher tiers, especially for those players who earned it “the hard way,” playing at a normal rate throughout the year regardless of promotion.
Are they right? Well, if anything, I’d argue they’re not using the tools at their disposal to get their tier more easily. It’s not like the casinos are not publicizing these tier promotions and tier matches. These are marketing tools and they publish them widely.
Why do they do this? Because it makes them money. If you can’t make a high tier at multiple casinos in a given year, a tier match can give a casino a chance at the money they might have already spent elsewhere. The thinking is if a player comes over and sees how good it is at their casino, they may be willing to shift their money to that casino – that makes the casino money.
And then there’s the multiplier days. I happened to visit Laughlin in October during a 3x multiplier at Caesars’ Laughlin properties, and I was able to in one day earn enough tier credits to renew my Caesars Rewards Diamond tier. They got me to gamble more at one of their properties to do so than I had in years. This is purposeful marketing to drive additional coin-in, and many times in my experience they slot multipliers in places where they want to drive more business.
So is this watering down the program? In the casino’s minds, it’s not – they do it on purpose, and it’s built in to the expectation of how many people will tier up accordingly. For players who feel it’s breaking the system, they simply don’t realize how much it’s actually built into the system, and they shouldn’t get mad at other players for taking full advantage of the options laid out for them by the casinos.
