Colorado Belle in Laughlin came up with a new edition of promotion that they will probably do several times a year. In February there were only two ways to earn drawing tickets. Cash in your points playing VP/Slots-one ticket for 100 points ($1k coin-in) or a $5 Blackjack. This was it. They used to dilute drawings with tickets for breathing, eating, sleeping and certain hits on the table carnival games. Usually you can eyeball the number of entries and just divide into the value of the promo...to get a value for a drawing ticket. That's the rub. I can't get a handle on the value. Here is the Party Zone promo- It is a board game set-up where you advance around the squares. You get the prize marked on the square...money, food or room comp, or trinket. There are twentyseven squares. You roll a giant two-foot square six sided die down the main staircase and advance based upon the number. But they throw in some advance "x" spaces and more importantly one bankrupt square. Another feature is the last five squares are red. Once you hit a red spot you are done. The pot on square 27 is $2000. Bankrupt-game over keep comps. Jackpot- just $2k. Here are the square values- 1 Gator Booblehead Doll 2 $5 3 One Buffet 4 $5 5 Move one space 6 $5 7 $10 coffee shop 8 $10 9 2 comped nights 10 $10 11 Move three spaces 12 $100 (goes up $25 if not hit) 13 Boiler Room $10 14 $10 15 gift shop $10 16 $25 17 Mark Twains $30 18 $25 19 Move four spaces 20 **Bankrupt** (keep comps, lose cash) 21 $50 22 $75 23 stuffed gator (starts the red zone) 24 2 nights in a suite 25 $100 26 "x2" (doubles your cash) 27 Jackpot $2000.00 (ends red zone) **** First observations are: No strategy involved. Want low numbers. Want to dodge squares 19 and 20. Need to be in squares 21 or 22 for a Jackpot shot. Not sure what happens rolling a six from square 22, assume a Jackpot win. I drew a board and got out my official red "El Rancho" casino craps dice and did 15 trials to get a feel. Not good- 12 times either bankrupt or stuffed gator ended the game. One $100 and two 2 night suites also ended the game. I guess a computer similation with a high number of trials would work, but I thought pencil and paper should be enough. I started looking at it from both ends...the opening roll and the end game. The more I examine it, the more complicated it gets with all the conditional probabilities. Throw in the bankrupt and advance "x" squares to add complexity. From "Start" roll a die. One through six have an equal chance, so square one will be hit 1/6 of the time. But square two can be hit 1/6 + 1/36 (roll 1-1). Square three with rolls of 3, 2-1, 1-2, 1-1-1. From square 22 you have 2/6 of a chance at the Jackpot. Frome square 21 you have 1/6 of a chance at the Jackpot, plus 1/6 of a chance to get to square 22. So am I making this more complicated than it is? Any clues to evaluate the cash part of this promo? I will probably post this on vpFREE and maybe some other sites, but this is such a friendly site with lots of brilliant minds. -jacks
