El Cortez couldn’t have chosen a better machine to host a marketing campaign and take care of its best slot customers ahead of the Christmas and New Year’s holiday when play is heavy.
In November, El Cortez in downtown Las Vegas installed Konami Gaming’s popular Treasure Ball slot game — a linked progressive game inspired by what the company calls “the fun of retro coin-operated toy capsule machines.”
Customers had already won big on the machines by the time El Cortez teamed with Konami for a giveaway of $2,500 in slot vouchers for the casino’s top customers to play the game, many for the first time. It’s a joint venture for both companies to promote the casino and the game — marketing opportunities that aren’t typical in Las Vegas these days.
“This game has big jackpots that hit pretty frequently,” said El Cortez General Manager Adam Wiesberg. “The players like it. We’ve had it in for a month, and it’s already hit three jackpots over $10,000 in the first 30 days.”
Rick Ronca, slot director at El Cortez said that’s a high number of times winning that much on one game that only has four slots in the casino.
El Cortez General Manager Adam Wiesberg discusses Konami’s Treasure Ball slot machine with a customer
“We have $10,000 jackpots quite often with one about every five days — about six to seven a month — but that’s from the entire floor of 1,000 slot machines,” Ronca said. “This is three within a month on a bank of four games.”
El Cortez sent mailers to its top 1,000 slot customers and limited participation to the first 200 people. On Dec. 21, customers waited in line inside the casino for a chance to pull out colored balls from a bin that determined the value of their spins. Players received four spins with a gold ball and six spins with a silver ball. They also earned a Konami T-shirt promoting the game. The value was either $10 or $15 for the spins.
The five largest winners of the night also received $100 in free slot play on any game anytime they wanted. There was also a drawing later in the evening for players to win large vouchers to play Treasure Ball, a game that can be recognized by its large globe of round mystery prize balls that players can redeem and reveal during the bonus.
“The object is to get into the bonus round and then spin it,” Ronca said. “The machine is going to choose your ball for you but what they’re trying to do unlike the Olympics where gold and silver are tops, it’s the crystal ball to get the supreme jackpot of $12,000.”
The game’s feature attraction is a long-tailed dragon character that periodically flies across all connected screens simultaneously. The linked progressive game combines with most Konami base games, including Lion Carnival, 5 Elemental Legends, Mammoth Power and others.
Treasure Ball, which was released in November 2018, is one of the most popular core slot games in the nation by consistently ranking among the top 25 games, according to Konami Gaming Director of Marketing John Eary.
“From its multi-award jackpot feature to its six-figure supreme, Treasure Ball is an incredibly exciting slot experience for players,” said Eary who also highlighted the jackpots hit at El Cortez.
El Cortez has used gift giveaways with the introduction of new slot machines over the years, but this is the second time in 2019 a game developer has given marketing money for free play. El Cortez gives out about $10,000 a day in free play to customers.
“We like to create excitement for our players anyway we can and if a slot manufacturer is willing to chip in for that like Konami, it is great for all of us” Wiesberg said. “It exposes their game to our best players and gives our best players something new and exciting, which we’re always trying to do.”
Ronca said they want to do more of these types of promotions. Manufacturers are recognizing the value the publicity generates.
“When they see the excitement it creates for their game, it makes them in the future say when they launch an interesting game, they want to let the public know about it with these promotions,” Ronca said.
Wiesberg said the slot promotions give new games “a great start on the floor” because players are getting free play and introduced to the bonuses.
“It is great for us because we have a core player that’s here all the time five days a week,” Wiesberg said. “If we can introduce them to the game right when it gets on the floor, it will help their numbers early and prolong the game on the floor. And it shows our players a game they otherwise might not have played.”
