I recently finished reading Getting More by Stuart Diamond. It is a book that teaches negotiation skills. I have read many other books in this general genre, but I believe Diamond’s book is the best.
There are a LOT of opportunities for negotiation in advantage video poker play. Consider:
a. You’ve recently been no-mailed from a casino. You want to receive mailers. What’s the best way to proceed?
b. There are two “good” machines for a particular promotion. Both are currently being played. What can you do to increase your chances for getting on the machine before the promotion is over?
c. Hosts and/or booth employees give some players more than others for what appears to be the identical amount of play. What techniques are useful to see that you’re on the “more” side rather than the “less” side? (If you expect everything to be fair and democratic, you’re living in a dream world rather than the real world.)
d. A machine “drops” a card, and you get paid for three aces rather than four. You call the manager over and he says, “Too bad. This was your error and not a machine malfunction. Play slower next time and you won’t make this mistake.” How do you respond to this?
e. You win a Land Rover in a casino drawing — and the casino only offers you $20,000 as an option. The car retails for $52,000. Land Rover of Las Vegas offers you $40,000. What can you do that will eventually lead to you receiving $47,000?
f. When you and your spouse/friend have a big argument, how can this be resolved so that both sides are comfortable? (If you don’t think it affects your video poker play when you are fighting with somebody who is important to you, you are mistaken. Very few people can put their emotions in our back pocket and go on as though everything is copacetic.)
g. The rules for a promotion are ambiguous. How do approach this so that the rules get interpreted in a way that’s most favorable to you?
h. Someone angrily accuses you of something in a casino that you absolutely didn’t do. How do you proceed?
i. There is only one machine for you to play during a juicy promotion — but someone nearby is chain smoking — which is offensive to you. Are you stuck with this, or is there something you can do?
j. A host normally needs to deduct points for a certain type of complimentary you are receiving. But you convince her not to do that.
k. You leave town for several months — and convince several casinos to “hold your mailer status” for you — even though they don’t normally have a policy to do this.
l. A casino wants to remove you because they think you’re “too strong,” but you talk them into staying around for a little while longer — until you hit another big jackpot. You still end up gone, but with more money in your pocket than if you’d let things take their normal course. (It’s possible, of course, to be allowed to stick around and then LOSE, but usually if you’re losing they let you stay indefinitely. Plus, if you’re a winning player, being allowed to stay and play is a good thing — however it turns out this particular time.)
Every one of these things has happened to me — sometimes more than once. I assume variations of them have happened to you as well. Some I wish happened after I read Diamond’s book rather than before because I believe my chances for ending up with a favorable result are better today than before I knew about this book.
I guarantee you that you will not win every negotiation. But winning one more time out of five than you do now will make a huge difference to your bottom line. This book will show you how to do that. Even opening your eyes to the possibility of a successful negotiation will be a big help. (For me, my best guess is that negotiations have been responsible for about one-third of my total wealth today. It’s not possible to place an exact value on it, but clearly it’s not a trivial thing.)
A friend of mine was recently no-mailed from the Orleans. He was told he needed to speak with Michael Musicaro, the Director of Marketing. According to my friend, Musicaro told him he was an advantage player and the casino wouldn’t market to him. My friend hung up.
“That was it?” I asked. “You didn’t make an attempt to stay in?”
My friend didn’t know any useful techniques that he thought would help him, so he didn’t even try. That’s a shame. There aren’t all that many places to play in Vegas. I believe that if my friend had read this book he would now be receiving mail from this casino.
Maybe not. It’s possible that he couldn’t have found a solution that Musicaro would agree to. But without even trying, it was a lead pipe cinch that he wouldn’t get back in. At least having the tools would give him a chance. (Musicaro isn’t dedicated to kicking out players. His job is to protect the bottom line of the casino. There are solutions that will allow Musicaro to do his job and also allow my friend to continue to play. But my friend didn’t steer the conversation in that direction. He just conceded defeat at the first sign of resistance.)
And my friend WILL be having this conversation again sometime in the future with an executive from another casino. He should prepare for this now. Knowing my friend, he will likely tell me he doesn’t have time to read a thick book. My opinion is that he can’t afford NOT to take the time to do it. He should probably take the time to read the book twice.
Some people believe that if everything was handled fairly, there would be no reason to negotiate. Perhaps, but life’s not that way. There are frequently not enough of the things I want to go around for everybody. Somehow they have to be allocated. (Perhaps by higher prices — or first come first served — or alphabetical order — or by being friends with somebody — or by some other method. Part of being a successful negotiator is to find out how you get things done — and then go ahead and do those things.) I personally do not wish to be treated the same as everybody else. As one example, I much prefer going through the much-shorter comp line at a buffet to waiting for an hour or more in the regular line. As another example, I prefer being married to Shirley than to 90+% of all other possible partners. I wouldn’t want to have my wife determined by lot — or by first-come-first-served.
There are people who hate to negotiate. The most common reason for this is they aren’t particularly good at it. Fine. That’s an individual choice. But it also means you are giving up hundreds of thousands of dollars that are there for the taking when you learn how to negotiate. It’s a learnable skill and the results are worth a lot. For a successful gambler, whose very existence is offensive to casinos, taking the time to master these skills has a higher expected value than most other uses of your time.