I played at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas between 1999 and 2001, when I was severely restricted due to my success at video poker. (It was Shirley’s fault, really. She’s the one who hit the $400,000 royal flush.) During this time, MGM became “MGM Mirage” due to its merger with several Mirage corporation properties. More recently, the company was rebranded again and is now “MGM Resorts International.”
The new name reflects that the company owns a large casino in Macau, China, and very soon will own other hotels (some without casinos) in China, Egypt, India, and other places. While it is still a gaming company, approximately 60% of its revenue comes from non-gaming sources.
I’ve known who Bill Hornbuckle is for a long time. He was President and CEO of MGM Grand Las Vegas when I played there, and earlier had a similar position with Treasure Island. More recently he’s been in various high level executive positions at a number of different casinos. When I received an email request to have him speak to me about “M life,” my first reaction was wondering how come he left the casino business and was now selling insurance.
Turns out he’s still in the casino business and his title is Chief Marketing Officer of MGM Resorts. M life is the new players’ club there— although the name strikes me as strange and not capitalizing the first letter in “life” makes it look like a typo. It is up and running in the Beau Rivage (Biloxi, Mississippi) and MGM Grand Detroit. Today, Tuesday, January 11, 2011, it will go live in Las Vegas. Soon it will be incorporated into most of the MGM Resorts International properties around the country and around the world.
M life is a players club — which includes being a slot club. At initial rollout, M life only relates to slots and table games (excluding poker), but later phases will also include poker, sports and racebook, hotel stays, dining, entertainment, shopping, and whatever else you can find in the MGM Resorts properties. Including table games in the slot club system has been tried at several places — without much success. MGM Resorts’ goal is to appropriately reward table game players much better than they have in the past.
The purpose of every slot club is to bribe the player into providing information to the casino so that the casino can figure out how to make more money off of the player. M life intends to do a better job at that. Every player will be identified by a PURL (Personal Uniform Resource Locator — briefly a URL has to do with an address on the Internet). The system will attempt to correctly categorize each player so the casino can personalize offers, and the PURL shows each member online the balances and offers relative to their account.
The way Hornbuckle phrases this is: “Customers want to be treated in a very individual and personal way. M life now gives us the tools to uniquely recognize loyal behavior and deliver special one-of-a-kind experiences that are tailored to customers’ wants and desires.”
The same player, for example, typically does not play golf, go to Country Western concerts, attend Chinese New Year’s events, yell and scream during boxing matches, and drool over topless reviews — although there will be some overlap. But if you go to one of these events, you are likely to want to go to a similar event in the future. Therefore the casino uses this information (it’s all done by computer) to generate offers specifically for you.
The M life system evaluates the games you play. If you play 9/6 Jacks or Better (a 99.54% game when played well), you are not going to get the same offers as if you played 9/5 Double Double Bonus (97.87%). Players of slot machines (typically returning 90% – 95%, with exceptions in both directions) will get even better offers — simply because they are more profitable customers to the casino.
This will be a tiered club, where the tier level ranges are: Sapphire, Pearl, Gold, Platinum, and (very occasionally) Noir. As you play more, your tier level increases. Each tier level provides more benefits than the lower ones. While you receive guaranteed (but relatively small) benefits from each tier level, you will receive offers based on your profile and your perceived profitability to the company.
The program includes “point play,” which is like cash back but must be downloaded and played through the machines at least once. M life includes your offers. It also includes “Express Comps,” where your comp balance will be displayed at kiosks and many of the slot and video poker machines (eventually all of them). These are your dollars to spend and may be spent on almost anything you wish within MGM Resorts.
The system is designed so that you spend your Express Comps before the hosts give you stuff “for free.” How this is actually implemented will probably vary by property. There can be some negotiating here. If the two bedroom suite you want normally costs $400 a night more than the standard room that came with your offer, perhaps the host will let you have the suite if you agree to ding your Express Comp account for, say, $150 a night.
There will be room for individuality at each casino. In Las Vegas, the annual Holiday Gift Shoppe program will continue. In Detroit, 2x and 3x point days will sometimes be offered. Any particular casino can run a promotion where they take 50 players on a cruise. Some casinos (Detroit) have a mostly local player base. Some casinos (Beau Rivage) have a regional pull. And the Las Vegas casinos pull from all over the world, while retaining a local high limit player base as well. (Las Vegas locals who play for dollars and lower can generally find better gambling deals at local casinos rather than MGM or other Strip properties.)The system has the flexibility to handle all of this — at least in theory. All of my information comes from 45 minutes spent with Hornbuckle and a glossy magazine raving about the new club. It’s going to take some time to figure out how it actually works in practice.
The system will be fueled by “Average Daily Theoretical.” This means that if you play $100,000 in one day you’ll receive more in the future than if you play $10,000 ten days in a row. You will receive the same tier benefits from both scenarios, but the marketing offers you receive will be better in the first instance than the second.
According to Hornbuckle, whether a player wins or loses has no bearing on anything — only his theoretical loss matters. Color me skeptical. Most casinos will give a big loser something extra — over and above what the system says he’s entitled to. And many casinos punish big winners. We’ll have to wait and see.
The bottom line for any player is: Is this new system good for me? If you are a typical MGM casino customer, the answer is probably yes. You come to casinos for recreational purposes, realizing that the house has the edge, and now you will receive offers more in line with what you like to do.
Knowledgeable video poker players, however, will likely find the new system “too tight.” If you are a good player, you want to be rewarded based on the average given to all video poker players. Since you’re a good player, most of the existing slot clubs will give you enough so that playing in a casino can be a financially profitable experience. But if M life correctly categorizes your profitability (or lack thereof) to the casino, there will be fewer opportunities for profit.
Presumably there is no longer any reason for the MGM casinos to restrict my play. M life will evaluate my play and reward me accordingly. And if those rewards are such that I don’t perceive I can obtain an edge, I’ll simply stay away voluntarily. But at least I’ll be in the system. There are many times where my actions aren’t guided solely by financial considerations. I may well want to play enough to qualify for “half off” certain concert tickets. While the casino will still be making a profit on me, I’ll be able to get more of what I want at a cheaper price.