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#41
Identification Help / Re: "5 Free Nickels" chip - Fr...
Last post by Barry Sherwood R-9037 (admin) - Nov 01, 2024, 10:04 AMI like the analysis. Now we just need one side or the other to confirm and change.
Thanks!
Thanks!
#42
Identification Help / Re: "5 Free Nickels" chip - Fr...
Last post by Bob Pardue CLM-0003-40 - Oct 31, 2024, 11:29 PMI'm late to the party (replying 7 1/2 months after your post! 
) but I'll take a shot --
My vote is for Las Vegas, not Henderson. Here's my logic, though only conjecture:
Both Royal Casinos had slots (per Fuller's Index), but Royal Casino-Henderson was only open 1960-1964, and the "5 Free Nickels" plastic chip seems newer.
Royal Casino-Las Vegas was open 1971-1988, a more likely timeframe, IMO. Furthermore, Royal Casino LV was a small off-strip place at 99 Convention Center Drive. A small place that took up about half of the 1st floor public space as I recall (I was in it personally a few times.) Low roller place with slots and a few live games. Definitely nickel machines in there at that time period. I could see a cheap promotion, valued at 25c, to induce walk-ins to pump a few coins in one of their machines.
What clinches the LV location for me is there's a similar chip (H&C Hot stamped - purple) reading "Royal Casino - 5 Free Nickels" too. See pic below, from MOGH/ChipGuide. I can see them ordering these H&C's originally, for the 5-Nickels promotion, then when they ran out of them / lost them / etc., they figured that a reorder would cost more to make than the 25c inducement value. So they got a box of cheap plastic chips, had stickers made, and had someone paste them on in their spare time.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
(And... the plastic chip should "graduate" from Henderson to LV too.)
) but I'll take a shot --My vote is for Las Vegas, not Henderson. Here's my logic, though only conjecture:
Both Royal Casinos had slots (per Fuller's Index), but Royal Casino-Henderson was only open 1960-1964, and the "5 Free Nickels" plastic chip seems newer.
Royal Casino-Las Vegas was open 1971-1988, a more likely timeframe, IMO. Furthermore, Royal Casino LV was a small off-strip place at 99 Convention Center Drive. A small place that took up about half of the 1st floor public space as I recall (I was in it personally a few times.) Low roller place with slots and a few live games. Definitely nickel machines in there at that time period. I could see a cheap promotion, valued at 25c, to induce walk-ins to pump a few coins in one of their machines.
What clinches the LV location for me is there's a similar chip (H&C Hot stamped - purple) reading "Royal Casino - 5 Free Nickels" too. See pic below, from MOGH/ChipGuide. I can see them ordering these H&C's originally, for the 5-Nickels promotion, then when they ran out of them / lost them / etc., they figured that a reorder would cost more to make than the 25c inducement value. So they got a box of cheap plastic chips, had stickers made, and had someone paste them on in their spare time.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
(And... the plastic chip should "graduate" from Henderson to LV too.)
#43
General Discussion / Re: Greetings fellow CCA membe...
Last post by Barry Sherwood R-9037 (admin) - Oct 31, 2024, 01:48 PMPoof! You're now a Bob.
#44
General Discussion / Re: Greetings fellow CCA membe...
Last post by Jim Follis LM-3872-53 - Oct 30, 2024, 06:26 PMHey Bob! Welcome to the CCA's New Forum. Glad you are here. Very glad to have your expertise and awareness here.
#45
General Discussion / Seeking Ideas for a Convention...
Last post by Mike Nawrocki R-8733 - Oct 29, 2024, 01:34 PMThe 32nd Annual CCA Casino Collectibles Show is scheduled at The South Point Resort Casino for June 12-14, 2025.
There is much work that needs to be done between now and then and one of the first dominos to fall is selecting the Convention Theme.
Working with our new Convention Chairs (David and Leslie Sowell) as well as the Publicity Director (Brad Smith) and the Social Media Director (Paul Schaffer), we need to get the theme selected in the coming weeks.
So we are asking for your ideas about some themes to consider for our 32nd convention.
Please simply reply to this post in the next 2 weeks with your ideas and on or around November 18th, the Convention Chairs, with input from Brad and Paul, will select a theme and submit it to the Board of Directors for approval.
Some Early Suggestions already being considered include:
I've attached some of the previous Convention Themes for inspiration.
You cannot view this attachment.
For future years, we are considering a process where we will solicit input from the general membership each Spring and will select 3-5 Themes as finalists and then set up a Voting box at the club table during the next convention. We will then announce the winner in the next edition of the magazine.
If you have any questions, please contact me at mike.nawrocki@tfcgi.com.
There is much work that needs to be done between now and then and one of the first dominos to fall is selecting the Convention Theme.
Working with our new Convention Chairs (David and Leslie Sowell) as well as the Publicity Director (Brad Smith) and the Social Media Director (Paul Schaffer), we need to get the theme selected in the coming weeks.
So we are asking for your ideas about some themes to consider for our 32nd convention.
Please simply reply to this post in the next 2 weeks with your ideas and on or around November 18th, the Convention Chairs, with input from Brad and Paul, will select a theme and submit it to the Board of Directors for approval.
Some Early Suggestions already being considered include:
- Keep Calm and Double Down. The 2025 Casino Collectibles Show.
- Where Casino History Lives! The 2025 Casino Collectibles Show.
- Glitz, Glamor and Gaming. The 2025 Casino Collectibles Show. (the three Gs)
I've attached some of the previous Convention Themes for inspiration.
You cannot view this attachment.
For future years, we are considering a process where we will solicit input from the general membership each Spring and will select 3-5 Themes as finalists and then set up a Voting box at the club table during the next convention. We will then announce the winner in the next edition of the magazine.
If you have any questions, please contact me at mike.nawrocki@tfcgi.com.
#46
General Discussion / Re: A Note About the ChipGuide
Last post by Barry Sherwood R-9037 (admin) - Oct 28, 2024, 07:48 AMHi, Charles. Thanks for adding those monitors and tools (good stuff), but I don't think you sped up the system at all which makes me wonder whether the bots are actually a/the problem. My test for the speed of the chipguide lies in running the trademaker feature. I have 65 chips in my want list and trademaker looks to see if anyone else has any of my 65 chips in their trade list. It has, and still does, take well over 30 seconds to run.
You and I have already discussed this, but I'm throwing this out to the board in case other techie/nerdy people like myself (and you, if you don't mind the compliment) can offer some solutions.
Server response is primarily based on a) CPU speed, b) available memory, c) fetch time (disk speed, latency, RPMs if traditional HD), and d) programming efficiency.
You mentioned that your current hosting provider offered to upgrade you to a faster, newer platform for the same (or reduced?) monthly cost. I believe you said they'd handle the migration so you wouldn't have to do anything (except backup the current site, just in case). What's the progress on that? My last email to you on the subject was 9/28 in case you need to look for it.
I offered to make a copy of the site to my server, which I wouldn't suggest is the absolute best, fastest on the planet, but it's darn good, response time is phenomenal and there are thousands of websites hosted on it. If the chipguide performs similarly on my system, then the problem is likely not in the server specs and we should look more closely at the programming and database implementation (see next paragraph). All I need to help facilitate this is root access. I will not do anything on your server to cause problems. I'm a seasoned linux system administrator and know my way around quite well.
If/when we start looking at programming performance, this is where Ross Poppel (and others?) could have a huge positive impact as databases are his jam. It could be a simple indexing issue. Or some code that loops unnecessarily. Or makes calls to routines where the result doesn't get used. I've got a programming background, and I'll help where I can, but I would certainly defer to Ross' more recent and relevant skills.
I believe that some combination of the above can take the 30-40 second trademaker benchmark and get it down to under 2 seconds. Let's make it happen. I'm ready.
You and I have already discussed this, but I'm throwing this out to the board in case other techie/nerdy people like myself (and you, if you don't mind the compliment) can offer some solutions.
Server response is primarily based on a) CPU speed, b) available memory, c) fetch time (disk speed, latency, RPMs if traditional HD), and d) programming efficiency.
You mentioned that your current hosting provider offered to upgrade you to a faster, newer platform for the same (or reduced?) monthly cost. I believe you said they'd handle the migration so you wouldn't have to do anything (except backup the current site, just in case). What's the progress on that? My last email to you on the subject was 9/28 in case you need to look for it.
I offered to make a copy of the site to my server, which I wouldn't suggest is the absolute best, fastest on the planet, but it's darn good, response time is phenomenal and there are thousands of websites hosted on it. If the chipguide performs similarly on my system, then the problem is likely not in the server specs and we should look more closely at the programming and database implementation (see next paragraph). All I need to help facilitate this is root access. I will not do anything on your server to cause problems. I'm a seasoned linux system administrator and know my way around quite well.
If/when we start looking at programming performance, this is where Ross Poppel (and others?) could have a huge positive impact as databases are his jam. It could be a simple indexing issue. Or some code that loops unnecessarily. Or makes calls to routines where the result doesn't get used. I've got a programming background, and I'll help where I can, but I would certainly defer to Ross' more recent and relevant skills.
I believe that some combination of the above can take the 30-40 second trademaker benchmark and get it down to under 2 seconds. Let's make it happen. I'm ready.
#47
General Discussion / A Note About the ChipGuide
Last post by Charles Kaplan LM-0115-048 - Oct 27, 2024, 07:39 AMSeveral months ago the ChipGuide was performing very poorly and users could not access the website. That initiated a study to determine the cause of the performance problems. Initially, we found that a certain feature being used to display images with the correct aspect ratio was the culprit as it had to load each image to determine its dimensions. That was taken care of quickly, with a temporary solution, at least until the image library is upgraded. Until then, some images may not display correctly.
It was further determined that a lot, perhaps 50%, of the website traffic was from "bots". Bots are programs that visit websites to extract information. Some bots are good, like the GOOGLE bot - a search engine, that catalog website content so that users can easily find it. But there are also bad bots. Some marketing companies run bots to extract website data and then sell it to interested parties. Some bots are out to steal website content. The worst bots are looking for website weaknesses that can be exploited, to be malicious or for extortion.
A website tool is now being used daily to monitor ChipGuide website traffic. Literally 100's of bots visit the ChipGuide daily. Most are benign and do a couple of requests and leave. The bad bots are identified and banned from the website. The list of bad bots grows daily. Some of the worst bots cannot be banned because they don't identify themselves correctly. However, based on analysis of their website requests, for example some are looking for weaknesses in WordPress websites, they can be identified and banned by their IP address.
When you ban a IP address, it bans everyone in that vicinity, and may include some legitimate users. If you get a message "403 - Forbidden", when trying to access the ChipGuide, your IP address was caught up with a bad bot. If that happens, just email me and it can be fixed.
It was further determined that a lot, perhaps 50%, of the website traffic was from "bots". Bots are programs that visit websites to extract information. Some bots are good, like the GOOGLE bot - a search engine, that catalog website content so that users can easily find it. But there are also bad bots. Some marketing companies run bots to extract website data and then sell it to interested parties. Some bots are out to steal website content. The worst bots are looking for website weaknesses that can be exploited, to be malicious or for extortion.
A website tool is now being used daily to monitor ChipGuide website traffic. Literally 100's of bots visit the ChipGuide daily. Most are benign and do a couple of requests and leave. The bad bots are identified and banned from the website. The list of bad bots grows daily. Some of the worst bots cannot be banned because they don't identify themselves correctly. However, based on analysis of their website requests, for example some are looking for weaknesses in WordPress websites, they can be identified and banned by their IP address.
When you ban a IP address, it bans everyone in that vicinity, and may include some legitimate users. If you get a message "403 - Forbidden", when trying to access the ChipGuide, your IP address was caught up with a bad bot. If that happens, just email me and it can be fixed.
Today's Bot Report
You cannot view this attachment.
You cannot view this attachment.
#48
General Discussion / Re: Four Queens Halloween Silv...
Last post by Barry Sherwood R-9037 (admin) - Oct 26, 2024, 12:56 AMApologies in advance for any typos. I'm using voice to text on this:
1. I didn't track my play closely enough, and I was helping others hit their goals by trading clears for colors, selling clears to those who were short, etc. but I've heard it's about $15 for each strike spit out.
2. Four Queens has 12 machines on the floor. 11 are near the check-in desk and one is near the cashier's cage.
2 spit out $10 clads and the $40 (1.5oz).
9 spit out $10 clear clads (no silver), $10 blue (clad colorized), and $10 red (.5oz silver).
1 also spits clears and colors but is situated by the cashier's cage.
The etiquette is that once you get your $40, you cash out and let the next person get theirs. People who are not in the Silver striker club, will often not know about this, but a gentle reminder is usually met with agreement and no arguments. on the other machines, you can keep feeding money in there as long as you want, and someone who wants one of those machines just has to wait until somebody gets up. From what I saw, it wasn't too bad to wait except for the very beginning when they first open the machines with the new Halloween release strikes. When that happened, the Silver striker's pretty much jumped on them and camped on those machines and didn't give anybody else a chance for several hours.
Your guess is as good as mine about the actual hours played, but I slept 1.5hrs before I left (nearly an all nighter), zero hours Wednesday night, and 5hrs Thursday night. I should be able to sleep in tonight/tomorrow but the Grand Sierra Resort asked me to cover a banquet shift starting at 1 PM. That probably won't finish till 11 PM, depending on the size of the banquet party I'll be working at. So, less than seven hours in three nights, four days.
On to the silver striker's timeline:
They released the new strikes on Wednesday morning but I was not there at the start. I departed Reno on Wednesday at 9:20am, landed at 10:45 AM and immediately Ubered to meet Steve Cutler for a nice visit and lunch. I checked into my room at the Hotel Apache downtown at 3 p.m. and got over to the Silver strike machines at the four Queens by 4 PM Wednesday. Played until about 10pm then went to the Golden Nugget and played 12 no limit for a few hours, doubling my $300 stake to $650. Went back to the Four Queens at ??am, and stayed up all night and the next day playing the machines, and managed to turn a profit in addition to getting most of the strikes I needed to redeem for two $300 strikes. I went to bed Thursday at 7:30 PM, needing only one $40 strike and one blue cap $10 clad with the teddy bear on it. Set my alarm for 3 AM, but woke up at 12:30 AM. Watched "all the money in the world ", hopped in the shower at 2am, started whacking the Max button by 2:45 AM, and got in line to collect my $300 silver strikes at 4 AM. And I wasn't the first one in line, but I was number two. At that point, I sat with my fellow degenerates for 6 freakin' hours until 10 AM this morning when they handed out the $300 strikes. I had found a minion/mule about 30 people back in line who was with his wife but only getting one $300 strike. After I got my first one, I walked back to him and handed him my second set and we proceeded to the cashier's cage. I mailed around the rest of the afternoon and was approached by a strike collector who is not a member of the club. He offered me several hundred dollars more than I believe the average is for a full set of strikes, including my second $300 one. The net result is, I have one full set with the $300 strike, another full set without the $300 strike, and two extra red caps. And, I have more money in my wallet than I left home with. So, what I still have was technically free.
I used my two-for-one coupon at the four Queens to have an early dinner (ate both sammiches myself!), then grabbed a $3.00 two hour bus pass (cheap!) and got to the airport in ~45 minutes, hopped onto my on-time 8:45 PM flight back to Reno. Landed at 10 PM, and I'm still sorting out my stuff.
Thoughts:
The $40 strike machines are TIGHT, but you WILL get your $40. You might put in $200, $300, or even $500, but in the meantime you're getting some $10 clads and having a great time, right? RIGHT!!?!?
There are still a lot of Halloween strikes in the machines, but of course no more $300s unless you buy one of the 200 that were claimed.. Scot Pariott landed about the time I left, so he can give an update in the next day or so.
if you're going to play like we were playing, which was fast and nonstop, make sure your players card is in the machine so you can rack up points and comps.
The overall mood of the Silver striker as a group is nothing short of fantastically friendly. Everyone is there to help the others hit their goals. The written and unwritten rules of etiquette surrounding trades and time spent at the $40 machine make their club very welcoming. I may self may have caused a handful of people to join the Silver striker club while I was there, and maybe even at least one person will join the casino collectibles association. I talked about it a lot because the topic of primary collectible types came up pretty often.
That's about it, I guess. See you in the funny papers!
1. I didn't track my play closely enough, and I was helping others hit their goals by trading clears for colors, selling clears to those who were short, etc. but I've heard it's about $15 for each strike spit out.
2. Four Queens has 12 machines on the floor. 11 are near the check-in desk and one is near the cashier's cage.
2 spit out $10 clads and the $40 (1.5oz).
9 spit out $10 clear clads (no silver), $10 blue (clad colorized), and $10 red (.5oz silver).
1 also spits clears and colors but is situated by the cashier's cage.
The etiquette is that once you get your $40, you cash out and let the next person get theirs. People who are not in the Silver striker club, will often not know about this, but a gentle reminder is usually met with agreement and no arguments. on the other machines, you can keep feeding money in there as long as you want, and someone who wants one of those machines just has to wait until somebody gets up. From what I saw, it wasn't too bad to wait except for the very beginning when they first open the machines with the new Halloween release strikes. When that happened, the Silver striker's pretty much jumped on them and camped on those machines and didn't give anybody else a chance for several hours.
Your guess is as good as mine about the actual hours played, but I slept 1.5hrs before I left (nearly an all nighter), zero hours Wednesday night, and 5hrs Thursday night. I should be able to sleep in tonight/tomorrow but the Grand Sierra Resort asked me to cover a banquet shift starting at 1 PM. That probably won't finish till 11 PM, depending on the size of the banquet party I'll be working at. So, less than seven hours in three nights, four days.
On to the silver striker's timeline:
They released the new strikes on Wednesday morning but I was not there at the start. I departed Reno on Wednesday at 9:20am, landed at 10:45 AM and immediately Ubered to meet Steve Cutler for a nice visit and lunch. I checked into my room at the Hotel Apache downtown at 3 p.m. and got over to the Silver strike machines at the four Queens by 4 PM Wednesday. Played until about 10pm then went to the Golden Nugget and played 12 no limit for a few hours, doubling my $300 stake to $650. Went back to the Four Queens at ??am, and stayed up all night and the next day playing the machines, and managed to turn a profit in addition to getting most of the strikes I needed to redeem for two $300 strikes. I went to bed Thursday at 7:30 PM, needing only one $40 strike and one blue cap $10 clad with the teddy bear on it. Set my alarm for 3 AM, but woke up at 12:30 AM. Watched "all the money in the world ", hopped in the shower at 2am, started whacking the Max button by 2:45 AM, and got in line to collect my $300 silver strikes at 4 AM. And I wasn't the first one in line, but I was number two. At that point, I sat with my fellow degenerates for 6 freakin' hours until 10 AM this morning when they handed out the $300 strikes. I had found a minion/mule about 30 people back in line who was with his wife but only getting one $300 strike. After I got my first one, I walked back to him and handed him my second set and we proceeded to the cashier's cage. I mailed around the rest of the afternoon and was approached by a strike collector who is not a member of the club. He offered me several hundred dollars more than I believe the average is for a full set of strikes, including my second $300 one. The net result is, I have one full set with the $300 strike, another full set without the $300 strike, and two extra red caps. And, I have more money in my wallet than I left home with. So, what I still have was technically free.
I used my two-for-one coupon at the four Queens to have an early dinner (ate both sammiches myself!), then grabbed a $3.00 two hour bus pass (cheap!) and got to the airport in ~45 minutes, hopped onto my on-time 8:45 PM flight back to Reno. Landed at 10 PM, and I'm still sorting out my stuff.
Thoughts:
The $40 strike machines are TIGHT, but you WILL get your $40. You might put in $200, $300, or even $500, but in the meantime you're getting some $10 clads and having a great time, right? RIGHT!!?!?
There are still a lot of Halloween strikes in the machines, but of course no more $300s unless you buy one of the 200 that were claimed.. Scot Pariott landed about the time I left, so he can give an update in the next day or so.
if you're going to play like we were playing, which was fast and nonstop, make sure your players card is in the machine so you can rack up points and comps.
The overall mood of the Silver striker as a group is nothing short of fantastically friendly. Everyone is there to help the others hit their goals. The written and unwritten rules of etiquette surrounding trades and time spent at the $40 machine make their club very welcoming. I may self may have caused a handful of people to join the Silver striker club while I was there, and maybe even at least one person will join the casino collectibles association. I talked about it a lot because the topic of primary collectible types came up pretty often.
That's about it, I guess. See you in the funny papers!
#49
General Discussion / Re: Four Queens Halloween Silv...
Last post by Bob Pardue CLM-0003-40 - Oct 25, 2024, 11:23 PMCongrats on getting all those Silver Strikes -- $10's, colored caps, and the big $300. With silver at about $34/troy oz., that's worth over $200 in melt value / $300 in redemption value and (I'm guessing here?) $450 +/- in collector market value.
Two "just curious" questions, as it's been years since I played a Silver Strike machine:
1. How much coin-in does it typically take for one $10 SS out? Something like $15 in for a $10 SS out? More? Less?
2. How many SS machines does 4Queens have for this promo? Adequate for the # players interested, or do you have to wait for an open machine? And how many hours did it take to accumulate all those in the pics -- that's quite a haul!
Again, congrats on your winnings. Sounds like you enjoyed it.
Two "just curious" questions, as it's been years since I played a Silver Strike machine:
1. How much coin-in does it typically take for one $10 SS out? Something like $15 in for a $10 SS out? More? Less?
2. How many SS machines does 4Queens have for this promo? Adequate for the # players interested, or do you have to wait for an open machine? And how many hours did it take to accumulate all those in the pics -- that's quite a haul!
Again, congrats on your winnings. Sounds like you enjoyed it.
#50
General Discussion / Four Queens Halloween Silver S...
Last post by Barry Sherwood R-9037 (admin) - Oct 25, 2024, 08:20 PMIf you weren't in Downtown Las Vegas this week, look what you missed out on. REAL SILVER! The big, pretty one is 6oz of silver.