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Casino Royale Prime Status


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It is possible. You have to keep track of your points yourself though, and as soon as you reach 2500, go see the casino host. They will validate you reached prime and put a sticker on your seapass indicating that. You can then get all the prime perks immediately like free drinks in the casino. They will not seek you out once you get enough points for prime, so be sure to keep track and see the host as soon as you qualify 

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7 hours ago, RCIFanatic said:

Thank you for confirming! I plan to play mostly table games and I understand that it takes a little longer for these to update on the account. How long is this delay usually though?

Also, generally what time are the table games open to and close on sea days?

Not sure how best to keep track of points with table games as they use "fuzzy logic" for them, maybe someone else can chime in there.  If it were me, I would make friends with the pit boss and ask him where you stand as your session goes on.  Slots are easy as they are tracked real time and visible to you after each spin.

Tables usually don't open until about 10-11am on sea days.  Slots open at 8am usually.

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1 hour ago, Matt said:

Yes, this happened to me on Wonder in December. Near the end of the cruise I hit Prime and they gave me the sticker on the spot.

Thank you as well Matt for confirming this! Hoping to hit prime on the second day.

48 minutes ago, DoomSlayer said:

Not sure how best to keep track of points with table games as they use "fuzzy logic" for them, maybe someone else can chime in there.  If it were me, I would make friends with the pit boss and ask him where you stand as your session goes on.  Slots are easy as they are tracked real time and visible to you after each spin.

Tables usually don't open until about 10-11am on sea days.  Slots open at 8am usually.

I think I read or watched a video that said average bet is how many points I would earn per hour. E.g. if I bet $10 on average, I would earn 10 points per hour.

Do you know when they usually shut down the tables daily?

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3 hours ago, RCIFanatic said:

Thank you as well Matt for confirming this! Hoping to hit prime on the second day.

I think I read or watched a video that said average bet is how many points I would earn per hour. E.g. if I bet $10 on average, I would earn 10 points per hour.

Do you know when they usually shut down the tables daily?

1 point = $5.00. 

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3 hours ago, tonyfsu21 said:

1 point = $5.00. 

Points work differently depending on what you are playing and the expected house edge.  Slot machines (except video poker) are the 1 point per $5 that you mentioned.  Video poker is 1 point per $10.  And Table games are rated based on the game you are playing, your average bet, and the amount of time played.  You will theoretically earn more points in Roulette betting black/red or even/odd than in Black Jack, for example, because Roulette has a higher house edge.   Table games are the hardest to earn points on in a short amount of time and they use what I call "fuzzy logic" to determine your points earned in a session.  Table games are also rated by the pit boss based on how that individual decides to rate it -- and ratings can vary depending on who the pit boss is.

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6 hours ago, DoomSlayer said:

Usually about 2am, but it depends on sailing and location of the ship in relation to legalities.

Thank you!

55 minutes ago, DoomSlayer said:

Points work differently depending on what you are playing and the expected house edge.  Slot machines (except video poker) are the 1 point per $5 that you mentioned.  Video poker is 1 point per $10.  And Table games are rated based on the game you are playing, your average bet, and the amount of time played.  You will theoretically earn more points in Roulette betting black/red or even/odd than in Black Jack, for example, because Roulette has a higher house edge.   Table games are the hardest to earn points on in a short amount of time and they use what I call "fuzzy logic" to determine your points earned in a session.  Table games are also rated by the pit boss based on how that individual decides to rate it -- and ratings can vary depending on who the pit boss is.

I found this video:

 

But it looks like we are at the mercy of the pit boss so what you’re saying is make nice with the pit boss like you said in an earlier post. Do pit bosses receive a portion of the tips?
 

It makes sense how many points will be awarded based on the house edge for the game but I also wonder how they can even track how much you are betting inside in roulette when some people splash the chips across the entire board lol

 

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16 minutes ago, RCIFanatic said:

Thank you!

I found this video:

 

But it looks like we are at the mercy of the pit boss so what you’re saying is make nice with the pit boss like you said in an earlier post. Do pit bosses receive a portion of the tips?
 

It makes sense how many points will be awarded based on the house edge for the game but I also wonder how they can even track how much you are betting inside in roulette when some people splash the chips across the entire board lol

 

Just a rule of thumb for any casino excursion -- always make friends with the pit boss.  I have had several pit bosses put their thumbs on the scale by being nice with them on both cruise and land base casinos.

They usually note how much you are betting at the start and assume you will be flat betting, only checking periodically during busy times to see if your bet has changed up or down.  Some people say to have bigger bets when the pit boss in nearby.  Personally, I don't worry about it though as I usually get enough points to maintain my status with slots over the course of they year.  When I play with my wife, it is usually side-by-side slots as she doesn't like table games.  But when she is not with me in the casino, I usually can be found at the BJ and Craps tables.

Good luck and I hope you get the points and status you want, just be careful not to chase the points too much.

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7 hours ago, DoomSlayer said:

Just a rule of thumb for any casino excursion -- always make friends with the pit boss.  I have had several pit bosses put their thumbs on the scale by being nice with them on both cruise and land base casinos.

They usually note how much you are betting at the start and assume you will be flat betting, only checking periodically during busy times to see if your bet has changed up or down.  Some people say to have bigger bets when the pit boss in nearby.  Personally, I don't worry about it though as I usually get enough points to maintain my status with slots over the course of they year.  When I play with my wife, it is usually side-by-side slots as she doesn't like table games.  But when she is not with me in the casino, I usually can be found at the BJ and Craps tables.

Good luck and I hope you get the points and status you want, just be careful not to chase the points too much.

Good rule of thumb to note.

I’ll make sure to put out a bigger bet initially then just to be safe. I’ll likely be found at BJ and Bacarrat. Craps looks fun and interesting. May consider learning while I’m on my next cruise. Would like to see if I can make enough trips for this upcoming year to hit masters status haha.

This will be my first Royal Caribbean cruise in many years, but I’m hoping I can get free junior suites going forward. Will be quite difficult though with it being set at 9,000 points instead of 8,000 as I’ve read elsewhere. I have a set budget in mind and won’t go over it for the purposes of chasing points though. Best of luck to you in your future cruises and thank you for all of your help!

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I want to point out that you should keep in mind that different rooms can be had at different points. I saw JS for 6500 points on various ships and sailings. I just learned on my last sailing to ask for a printout of the cruises at the points threshold.  That's exactly what I plan to do on my next cruise, ask the casino host for the list starting at 2000 pts and working my way up. I saw the 6500pt list in Jan on Oasis and there was Alaskan balconies, GS on Liberty, as well as JS on ships like Anthem and Odyssey. Some included up to $1k in freeplay as well. While 9k points might guarantee a JS, it might also be had with fewer points.

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2 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

I want to point out that you should keep in mind that different rooms can be had at different points. I saw JS for 6500 points on various ships and sailings. I just learned on my last sailing to ask for a printout of the cruises at the points threshold.  That's exactly what I plan to do on my next cruise, ask the casino host for the list starting at 2000 pts and working my way up. I saw the 6500pt list in Jan on Oasis and there was Alaskan balconies, GS on Liberty, as well as JS on ships like Anthem and Odyssey. Some included up to $1k in freeplay as well. While 9k points might guarantee a JS, it might also be had with fewer points.

@Ampurp85 Good to know! I will definitely do that and reach out to a casino host at the beginning of the cruise so I know what thresholds I need to reach. Very valuable info, thank you! Comped cruise life, here we come!

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22 hours ago, RCIFanatic said:

Thank you as well Matt for confirming this! Hoping to hit prime on the second day.

I think I read or watched a video that said average bet is how many points I would earn per hour. E.g. if I bet $10 on average, I would earn 10 points per hour.

Do you know when they usually shut down the tables daily?

You are going to go from presumably zero to prime in a day? That’s a whole lot of cash and/or cash mixed with beyond good luck. Note: It’s going to cost you ~$12,500 of play for some free drinks in the casino and a crappy discount on a balcony cabin. Take a moment and review this payout ratio from a single machine on Wonder (photo taken by me on Sunday 3/19) and hopefully this provides some good data for your Prime journey if you choose to play slots. Good luck.

E5AC6BC6-354A-425D-A499-DB747DAEE6B7.jpeg

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49 minutes ago, tonyfsu21 said:

You are going to go from presumably zero to prime in a day? That’s a whole lot of cash and/or cash mixed with beyond good luck. Note: It’s going to cost you ~$12,500 of play for some free drinks in the casino and a crappy discount on a balcony cabin. Take a moment and review this payout ratio from a single machine on Wonder (photo taken by me on Sunday 3/19) and hopefully this provides some good data for your Prime journey if you choose to play slots. Good luck.

@tonyfsu21 I disagree with your statement as I consistently am able to get 2000 points per cruise easily with a smaller bankroll than you mention -- usually about $1000 which I budget for the casino per cruise.  I have had several times I have come out ahead.  Yes, the casino has an edge, but it is not as bad as you portray it to be.  $1000 is a cheap price to pay and I usually get at least 2-3 comped cruises per trip.  1 on board, and then 1-2 via Casino Royale emails after the cruise -- and a lot include balcony rooms.  So for a bankroll of $1000 that I may lose, keep, or come out ahead on - I get 3 cruises for two in return and do not at any time feel cheated.  My only problem is I don't have enough vacation time from work to take full advantage of all the comped cruises.  I have averaged five cruises per year for the past two years and have only paid for one out of my pocket.

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I read elsewhere (can't remember where, exactly) that you can use your Prime Voom discount (30% off) on the remaining days of a cruise, after using your 2 free D+ days.  Anybody successful in doing this ?  I would be afraid that they would tell you that the Prime discount only applies to a full sailing purchase.  Just wondering if anyone had done it, successfully.

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3 hours ago, DoomSlayer said:

@tonyfsu21 I disagree with your statement as I consistently am able to get 2000 points per cruise easily with a smaller bankroll than you mention -- usually about $1000 which I budget for the casino per cruise.  I have had several times I have come out ahead.  Yes, the casino has an edge, but it is not as bad as you portray it to be.  $1000 is a cheap price to pay and I usually get at least 2-3 comped cruises per trip.  1 on board, and then 1-2 via Casino Royale emails after the cruise -- and a lot include balcony rooms.  So for a bankroll of $1000 that I may lose, keep, or come out ahead on - I get 3 cruises for two in return and do not at any time feel cheated.  My only problem is I don't have enough vacation time from work to take full advantage of all the comped cruises.  I have averaged five cruises per year for the past two years and have only paid for one out of my pocket.

How do you get 2000 points with a $1000 bankroll? Certainly not on slots, right? I am not portraying the casino to be necessarily good or bad as I have won large sums of money and let go of a few bucks as well. I just want to know how you can get to 2000 points with that bankroll without getting extraordinarily lucky and cycling through 10x that amount of money? And as far as the comped cruises go, I don’t care for the inside or balcony free offers and only look for comped JS and higher sailings which are few and far between these days. 

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43 minutes ago, tonyfsu21 said:

How do you get 2000 points with a $1000 bankroll? Certainly not on slots, right? I am not portraying the casino to be necessarily good or bad as I have won large sums of money and let go of a few bucks as well. I just want to know how you can get to 2000 points with that bankroll without getting extraordinarily lucky and cycling through 10x that amount of money? And as far as the comped cruises go, I don’t care for the inside or balcony free offers and only look for comped JS and higher sailings which are few and far between these days. 

I just did it on my last trip in March, did it last December, did it last September... (I could keep going).  All on slots.  Broke even last September, won a hand pay that more than paid for the trip in December, and lost about $400 in March.  My wife and I are happy with free balconies, so to each their own I guess on that topic.  Our next comped trip is on Allure in May to Honduras.  I have another one in October on Voyager.  I should get my voucher in a couple of weeks and will use it in December, and I expect to get a comp for a summer trip on my May cruise.  Yes you cycle through money and get a multiplier -- the key there is to look for less volatile slots to play, stay away from pennies (PAR table changes with higher denominations), and play all features.

There was a couple sitting next to me on Adventure last month in the casino.  They must have had a huge bankroll because they were playing max bets and went from nothing to signature status in one sitting.  I am sure the floor staff was a little annoyed because with bets so big, they were constantly getting hand pays.  They were not US citizens, so they did not have the tax consequences with the hand pays.  I am not sure how much they won or lost, but it was funny watching them squirm when they were losing and dancing when they were winning.

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30 minutes ago, DoomSlayer said:

I just did it on my last trip in March, did it last December, did it last September... (I could keep going).  All on slots.  Broke even last September, won a hand pay that more than paid for the trip in December, and lost about $400 in March.  My wife and I are happy with free balconies, so to each their own I guess on that topic.  Our next comped trip is on Allure in May to Honduras.  I have another one in October on Voyager.  I should get my voucher in a couple of weeks and will use it in December, and I expect to get a comp for a summer trip on my May cruise.  Yes you cycle through money and get a multiplier -- the key there is to look for less volatile slots to play, stay away from pennies (PAR table changes with higher denominations), and play all features.

There was a couple sitting next to me on Adventure last month in the casino.  They must have had a huge bankroll because they were playing max bets and went from nothing to signature status in one sitting.  I am sure the floor staff was a little annoyed because with bets so big, they were constantly getting hand pays.  They were not US citizens, so they did not have the tax consequences with the hand pays.  I am not sure how much they won or lost, but it was funny watching them squirm when they were losing and dancing when they were winning.

Wow, hand pays on Adventure! A miracle! 😂

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3 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I read elsewhere (can't remember where, exactly) that you can use your Prime Voom discount (30% off) on the remaining days of a cruise, after using your 2 free D+ days.  Anybody successful in doing this ?  I would be afraid that they would tell you that the Prime discount only applies to a full sailing purchase.  Just wondering if anyone had done it, successfully.

I have done it. I used it on the second half of my Nav B2B in Sept and my 5N Harmony sailing in Nov but I was Diamond. I used my free day first and then just brought the remaining days, on the last night before disembarking I received the credit for 30%. I am doing it again when I sail in April. 

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2 hours ago, DoomSlayer said:

I just did it on my last trip in March, did it last December, did it last September... (I could keep going).  All on slots.  Broke even last September, won a hand pay that more than paid for the trip in December, and lost about $400 in March.  My wife and I are happy with free balconies, so to each their own I guess on that topic.  Our next comped trip is on Allure in May to Honduras.  I have another one in October on Voyager.  I should get my voucher in a couple of weeks and will use it in December, and I expect to get a comp for a summer trip on my May cruise.  Yes you cycle through money and get a multiplier -- the key there is to look for less volatile slots to play, stay away from pennies (PAR table changes with higher denominations), and play all features.

There was a couple sitting next to me on Adventure last month in the casino.  They must have had a huge bankroll because they were playing max bets and went from nothing to signature status in one sitting.  I am sure the floor staff was a little annoyed because with bets so big, they were constantly getting hand pays.  They were not US citizens, so they did not have the tax consequences with the hand pays.  I am not sure how much they won or lost, but it was funny watching them squirm when they were losing and dancing when they were winning.

Ok, I am completely confused about a less volatile slot machine, can you please steer me to the type? I play almost every machine in the casino with a bankroll between 8x-10x of the one you are stating you win with and don’t hit the 2000 point threshold until many $1000’s are either won or lost. I suppose you “could” hit a hand pay after a couple hundred are cycled through and quadruple that bankroll and then dump it all back in to get that 2000+ points but there’s such low probability of that happening making this difficult to understand. Last week on Wonder I left the casino on Saturday night with 7500 points after a week cruise and i can verify that did not come cheap. A free balcony cruise would not be sufficient. I am clearly spending too much time playing the wrong machines. Please help. 

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That $12,500 number is just math and not based on actual play. I also want to say I have achieved 1500pt on less than $1000 and my luck wasn't that great. I play the max bet on a slot that the max is under $2 and can cycle through. My Prime status costed me less than $1700 this year and I got 2 comped cruises and my annual one coming. I just got a comped cruise for April, where interiors are $1100+ so I am more than in the black. I only spend what I would be spending based on cruises, as I often sail solo, interiors are fine with me, or I will pay to upgrade. I think a big thing, at least for me, is to find a machine and stick to it. I often hear of people losing more by playing all the machines and that is when I often lose more as well. I sat at pretty much only three machines in Jan on Oasis and lost $950 but I left with 1500pt. 

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First time I hit prime it took me 3 days, but cost me 7k. Combine table & slot.  Then the rest of each cruise cost me about 3k to 4k to get 1500 to 2000 points.  I would really like to know which volatile slots you play?  For slot, I play dancing drums, and lately I am playing the quick hit platinum and I heard ppl said buffalo & diamond are also low volatile also.

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2 hours ago, tonyfsu21 said:

Ok, I am completely confused about a less volatile slot machine, can you please steer me to the type? I play almost every machine in the casino with a bankroll between 8x-10x of the one you are stating you win with and don’t hit the 2000 point threshold until many $1000’s are either won or lost. I suppose you “could” hit a hand pay after a couple hundred are cycled through and quadruple that bankroll and then dump it all back in to get that 2000+ points but there’s such low probability of that happening making this difficult to understand. Last week on Wonder I left the casino on Saturday night with 7500 points after a week cruise and i can verify that did not come cheap. A free balcony cruise would not be sufficient. I am clearly spending too much time playing the wrong machines. Please help. 

Slot machines are all set via PAR tables / PAR sheets which determines the payout outcome of each spin when the random number generator is stopped by the player hitting the button.  The PAR table has a list of every possible payout outcome the game can have based on the random number selected.  It is common for a 5 real machine to only use the last 5 to 10 digits of the random number to determine this, so the math of the number of payout outcomes is 10^5 which is 100,000 payout outcomes, up to 10^10 which is 10,000,000,000 payout outcomes.  The payouts are adjusted by how much the casino presets the expected return to player, usually somewhere between 95-99%.  On machines that offer multi-denominations (1cent, 2cent, 5cent, 10cent, etc.), the PAR tables and return to player are set differently for each denomination.  General rule of thumb is that the higher the denomination, the better the return to player is. (Fun tip, instead of betting more per spin, change the denomination to get a better PAR table).  Once the payout outcome is determined, the slot machine then determines a spin for the wheels that matches the selected PAR table payout. (It is funny, because most people think the outcome of the wheels determines the payout, but the reality is that the payout outcome determines what will be displayed on the wheels).

Let's assume you are playing in a casino that has set the return to player at 97%.  This means that after 300 million spins, the slot machine is expected to return 97% of what is bet on the machine.   On machines that offer larger jackpots, the payout outcomes in the PAR table will have a LOWER win/loss ratio -- meaning a large probability of a loss for any given spin, but if/when you do win, it will more than likely be a bigger win.  You will typically see big swings in your bankroll playing these types of machines and will require a huge bankroll to support a losing streak.  This type of slot machine is extremely volatile!

On machines that don't offer big jackpots or where the top normal payout is not too big, the payout outcomes in the PAR table will have a HIGHER win/loss ratio -- meaning there will be more smaller wins or break evens in the PAR table (which lowers the probability of a loss on any given spin) as compared to the machine described above.  This decreases volatility and you should experience lower swings in your bankroll over time.  These types of machines are what allow you to recycle money and get more points.

Another type of machine to avoid are branded machines.  These typically have licensed themes like Wheel of Fortune or Big Bang Theory and royalties are paid to the trademark / creative property holder to use these themes.  These royalties are paid as a percentage of the money the casino makes off the machine, so the return to player on these machines is set lower around 93-95%.  To make things worse, the Wheel of Fortune machine is a progressive jackpot machine, meaning the PAR table has a high percentage of losses in it.

I tend to play Aristocrat games like Buffalo and Miss Kitty as they tend to have a lot more small payouts hit and I can sit there for hours playing without seeing huge swings in my bankroll.  I really like Buffalo Gold Collection and spend a lot of time on it playing 2cent or 5cent denominations.  I will play it on the Wonder 4 tower if I can't find a standalone game available, although it does have a fixed PAR table at 1cent and can't be adjusted.

At the end of the day, don't take this as a way to beat the slots as that is statistically almost impossible. It is more of a "how do I last longer and get more casino player points" response.  You can obviously run into a lot of losing spins that will cut your day and point tally short, but that is part of your choice when you decide to gamble.

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1 hour ago, KevinK said:

First time I hit prime it took me 3 days, but cost me 7k. Combine table & slot.  Then the rest of each cruise cost me about 3k to 4k to get 1500 to 2000 points.  I would really like to know which volatile slots you play?  For slot, I play dancing drums, and lately I am playing the quick hit platinum and I heard ppl said buffalo & diamond are also low volatile also.

I like Buffalo Gold.  That was what I had my hand pay in December on.  I got all 15 heads and kept spinning buffalos in the bonus!

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1 hour ago, DoomSlayer said:

Slot machines are all set via PAR tables / PAR sheets which determines the payout outcome of each spin when the random number generator is stopped by the player hitting the button.  The PAR table has a list of every possible payout outcome the game can have based on the random number selected.  It is common for a 5 real machine to only use the last 5 to 10 digits of the random number to determine this, so the math of the number of payout outcomes is 10^5 which is 100,000 payout outcomes, up to 10^10 which is 10,000,000,000 payout outcomes.  The payouts are adjusted by how much the casino presets the expected return to player, usually somewhere between 95-99%.  On machines that offer multi-denominations (1cent, 2cent, 5cent, 10cent, etc.), the PAR tables and return to player are set differently for each denomination.  General rule of thumb is that the higher the denomination, the better the return to player is. (Fun tip, instead of betting more per spin, change the denomination to get a better PAR table).  Once the payout outcome is determined, the slot machine then determines a spin for the wheels that matches the selected PAR table payout. (It is funny, because most people think the outcome of the wheels determines the payout, but the reality is that the payout outcome determines what will be displayed on the wheels).

Let's assume you are playing in a casino that has set the return to player at 97%.  This means that after 300 million spins, the slot machine is expected to return 97% of what is bet on the machine.   On machines that offer larger jackpots, the payout outcomes in the PAR table will have a LOWER win/loss ratio -- meaning a large probability of a loss for any given spin, but if/when you do win, it will more than likely be a bigger win.  You will typically see big swings in your bankroll playing these types of machines and will require a huge bankroll to support a losing streak.  This type of slot machine is extremely volatile!

On machines that don't offer big jackpots or where the top normal payout is not too big, the payout outcomes in the PAR table will have a HIGHER win/loss ratio -- meaning there will be more smaller wins or break evens in the PAR table (which lowers the probability of a loss on any given spin) as compared to the machine described above.  This decreases volatility and you should experience lower swings in your bankroll over time.  These types of machines are what allow you to recycle money and get more points.

Another type of machine to avoid are branded machines.  These typically have licensed themes like Wheel of Fortune or Big Bang Theory and royalties are paid to the trademark / creative property holder to use these themes.  These royalties are paid as a percentage of the money the casino makes off the machine, so the return to player on these machines is set lower around 93-95%.  To make things worse, the Wheel of Fortune machine is a progressive jackpot machine, meaning the PAR table has a high percentage of losses in it.

I tend to play Aristocrat games like Buffalo and Miss Kitty as they tend to have a lot more small payouts hit and I can sit there for hours playing without seeing huge swings in my bankroll.  I really like Buffalo Gold Collection and spend a lot of time on it playing 2cent or 5cent denominations.  I will play it on the Wonder 4 tower if I can't find a standalone game available, although it does have a fixed PAR table at 1cent and can't be adjusted.

At the end of the day, don't take this as a way to beat the slots as that is statistically almost impossible. It is more of a "how do I last longer and get more casino player points" response.  You can obviously run into a lot of losing spins that will cut your day and point tally short, but that is part of your choice when you decide to gamble.

This is really good information. Thank you. I never put this amount of thought and analysis into the machines I’m dumping money into. 

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@DoomSlayer really breaks things down. I never thought of it that way.

I just know I generally play platinum hits and dancing drums; I noticed that by staying on one of those I can play for hours and rack up points. I also like a slot where on a smaller bet you can win because of the mini, major, etc. jackpots. I played hot stuff on Oasis and won mini and major jackpots on .80 cent bets. That meant I could play more for my 7 days, while not going through the bankroll too fast. I actually like to gamble, so I will keep a steady bet so I can do it for longer. 

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If you play table games, don't forget to visit the host on the last night and have them convert your table points into free play! You can access the free play automatically from your slots points, but they manually have to do it for the table play. They can add it to your account to use for freeplay on the slot machines or get you freeplay table chips.  

Using the points for freeplay has no impact on your points earned for the cruise or your annual points tally, so might as well take advantage of it!

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1 hour ago, AshleyDillo said:

If you play table games, don't forget to visit the host on the last night and have them convert your table points into free play! You can access the free play automatically from your slots points, but they manually have to do it for the table play. They can add it to your account to use for freeplay on the slot machines or get you freeplay table chips.  

Using the points for freeplay has no impact on your points earned for the cruise or your annual points tally, so might as well take advantage of it!

On my Oasis sailing a slot buddy didn't know about the earned freeplay. She earned 6500+ points and had close to $300 she would have left if I hadn't said anything.

I think the earned freeplay can't be cashed out but your winning on it can be.

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Lots of good info here!
 

13 hours ago, tonyfsu21 said:

You are going to go from presumably zero to prime in a day? That’s a whole lot of cash and/or cash mixed with beyond good luck. Note: It’s going to cost you ~$12,500 of play for some free drinks in the casino and a crappy discount on a balcony cabin. Take a moment and review this payout ratio from a single machine on Wonder (photo taken by me on Sunday 3/19) and hopefully this provides some good data for your Prime journey if you choose to play slots. Good luck.

E5AC6BC6-354A-425D-A499-DB747DAEE6B7.jpeg
 

Looks like the RTP/PAR on this machine is around 80-85%. Good to know. Actually, I plan to get it in 2 days and I will be playing mostly table games and not slots.

 

9 hours ago, tonyfsu21 said:

How do you get 2000 points with a $1000 bankroll? Certainly not on slots, right? I am not portraying the casino to be necessarily good or bad as I have won large sums of money and let go of a few bucks as well. I just want to know how you can get to 2000 points with that bankroll without getting extraordinarily lucky and cycling through 10x that amount of money? And as far as the comped cruises go, I don’t care for the inside or balcony free offers and only look for comped JS and higher sailings which are few and far between these days. 

I am also looking for comped JS and higher as well from my play.

 

4 hours ago, DoomSlayer said:

Slot machines are all set via PAR tables / PAR sheets which determines the payout outcome of each spin when the random number generator is stopped by the player hitting the button.  The PAR table has a list of every possible payout outcome the game can have based on the random number selected.  It is common for a 5 real machine to only use the last 5 to 10 digits of the random number to determine this, so the math of the number of payout outcomes is 10^5 which is 100,000 payout outcomes, up to 10^10 which is 10,000,000,000 payout outcomes.  The payouts are adjusted by how much the casino presets the expected return to player, usually somewhere between 95-99%.  On machines that offer multi-denominations (1cent, 2cent, 5cent, 10cent, etc.), the PAR tables and return to player are set differently for each denomination.  General rule of thumb is that the higher the denomination, the better the return to player is. (Fun tip, instead of betting more per spin, change the denomination to get a better PAR table).  Once the payout outcome is determined, the slot machine then determines a spin for the wheels that matches the selected PAR table payout. (It is funny, because most people think the outcome of the wheels determines the payout, but the reality is that the payout outcome determines what will be displayed on the wheels).

Let's assume you are playing in a casino that has set the return to player at 97%.  This means that after 300 million spins, the slot machine is expected to return 97% of what is bet on the machine.   On machines that offer larger jackpots, the payout outcomes in the PAR table will have a LOWER win/loss ratio -- meaning a large probability of a loss for any given spin, but if/when you do win, it will more than likely be a bigger win.  You will typically see big swings in your bankroll playing these types of machines and will require a huge bankroll to support a losing streak.  This type of slot machine is extremely volatile!

On machines that don't offer big jackpots or where the top normal payout is not too big, the payout outcomes in the PAR table will have a HIGHER win/loss ratio -- meaning there will be more smaller wins or break evens in the PAR table (which lowers the probability of a loss on any given spin) as compared to the machine described above.  This decreases volatility and you should experience lower swings in your bankroll over time.  These types of machines are what allow you to recycle money and get more points.

Another type of machine to avoid are branded machines.  These typically have licensed themes like Wheel of Fortune or Big Bang Theory and royalties are paid to the trademark / creative property holder to use these themes.  These royalties are paid as a percentage of the money the casino makes off the machine, so the return to player on these machines is set lower around 93-95%.  To make things worse, the Wheel of Fortune machine is a progressive jackpot machine, meaning the PAR table has a high percentage of losses in it.

I tend to play Aristocrat games like Buffalo and Miss Kitty as they tend to have a lot more small payouts hit and I can sit there for hours playing without seeing huge swings in my bankroll.  I really like Buffalo Gold Collection and spend a lot of time on it playing 2cent or 5cent denominations.  I will play it on the Wonder 4 tower if I can't find a standalone game available, although it does have a fixed PAR table at 1cent and can't be adjusted.

At the end of the day, don't take this as a way to beat the slots as that is statistically almost impossible. It is more of a "how do I last longer and get more casino player points" response.  You can obviously run into a lot of losing spins that will cut your day and point tally short, but that is part of your choice when you decide to gamble.

Wow, from what I’ve read, I was under the impression that the PAR/RTP was around 80%. If it is around 95%, then that’s amazing value. If you work out the numbers, that’s less than 1k on average in losses to reach prime status. That can’t be right, can it? I’d definitely consider throwing in some slot play in that case to boost my points on the cruise.

 

1 hour ago, AshleyDillo said:

If you play table games, don't forget to visit the host on the last night and have them convert your table points into free play! You can access the free play automatically from your slots points, but they manually have to do it for the table play. They can add it to your account to use for freeplay on the slot machines or get you freeplay table chips.  

Using the points for freeplay has no impact on your points earned for the cruise or your annual points tally, so might as well take advantage of it!

Thank you! Good to know. To squeeze some extra value, can I ask the host to convert at the beginning of the last night and then once again close to the end of the night to redeem the points accumulated from the last night of the cruise?

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4 hours ago, DoomSlayer said:I will play it on the Wonder 4 tower if I can't find a standalone game available, although it does have a fixed PAR table at 1cent and can't be adjusted.

 

Thank you, I’ll need to reread this a few times to ensure I grasp it all.

can you explain this portion I quoted a little more in layman terms (aka for  “stupid people”)

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43 minutes ago, Ampurp85 said:

On my Oasis sailing a slot buddy didn't know about the earned freeplay. She earned 6500+ points and had close to $300 she would have left if I hadn't said anything.

I think the earned freeplay can't be cashed out but your winning on it can be.

I thought 1 point = 2cents of free play? Which would equal about $130 of free play for 6500 points? Unless they have tiered redemption where you get better value for higher point redemption. Can anyone confirm this?

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1 hour ago, RCIFanatic said:

I thought 1 point = 2cents of free play? Which would equal about $130 of free play for 6500 points? Unless they have tiered redemption where you get better value for higher point redemption. Can anyone confirm this?

No you are correct that its 1 point is 2cent but she was playing for two people which is why she would have lost out on $300.

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3 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

On my Oasis sailing a slot buddy didn't know about the earned freeplay. She earned 6500+ points and had close to $300 she would have left if I hadn't said anything.

I think the earned freeplay can't be cashed out but your winning on it can be.

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/dam/royal/resources/pdf/casino/casino-royale-rewards-table.pdf

 

Not sure if it can be cashed out immediately without play but it looks like you can use it towards your onboard expense account. So maybe a work-around to having to play it out is to have some expenses racked up on the account and paid for with points or vice versa?

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7 hours ago, RCIFanatic said:

Not sure if it can be cashed out immediately without play but it looks like you can use it towards your onboard expense account. So maybe a work-around to having to play it out is to have some expenses racked up on the account and paid for with points or vice versa?

Not sure if the rules have changed but I seem to recall that only points above a certain threshold (and I cannot remember what that threshold is) can be used for OBC.  If you have just a little bit in points, it can only be redeemed for "play"...or at least, that's the way it used to be.

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12 hours ago, RCIFanatic said:

Looks like the RTP/PAR on this machine is around 80-85%. Good to know. Actually, I plan to get it in 2 days and I will be playing mostly table games and not slots.

That screen does not show any payouts from bonuses or external jackpots and looks like it is a linked machine.  Assuming that, and the progressive jackpot is decent, actual RTP will probably be 94-96%.  Also, there is a statistical flaw in the machine as RTP is calculated using 300 million spins, and based on the coin in, it is nowhere close to that number.  RTP is based on the law of large numbers, meaning an extremely huge sample size.  This is an example of a slot I would not play because the progressive can cause high volatility and does not provide a good number of little wins.

12 hours ago, RCIFanatic said:

Wow, from what I’ve read, I was under the impression that the PAR/RTP was around 80%. If it is around 95%, then that’s amazing value. If you work out the numbers, that’s less than 1k on average in losses to reach prime status. That can’t be right, can it? I’d definitely consider throwing in some slot play in that case to boost my points on the cruise.

Gambling laws of the Bahamas regulate the games on the ship.  The Bahamas require an RTP of at least 75%, which is lower than Vegas, which requires at least 85%.  However, if the RTP is too low, people will not enjoy playing and the casino knows this.  Vegas casino slots are usually set around 96 - 97% RTP for penny slots because they want the players to have a good experience and because there is competition from neighboring casinos.  Cruise lines have a captive audience as it is a long swim to go to another casino with better odds.  But at the same time, they know that if they set the RTP too low, players will simply not play because they won't see many wins.  Most cruise ship casinos set their RTP for penny slots around 94-96%.  This keeps the players happy and entertained while giving them a decent profit.  However, slots are not for everyone.  I would not throw money at them for points unless you enjoy playing them.  I enjoy sitting next to my wife and just talking while playing.  The slots give us something to do, similar to kids visiting the arcade, while we spend time together.  And it gives us some time to be silly and do funny dancing when we win a little and the music plays.

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