JPMorganChase subsidiary takes ownership of Reno’s Grand Sierra

There are many vp machines scattered around the floor that you can use free play on. Many are full pay JB. You just have to look for them. Even non-full pay vp is better than most slots. After many hrs of play, I was surprised that my comp balance hadn't changed. Well better late than never to the party. Just learned of the conversion of system to only one type of balance -- cash which can be taken as free play or comps. If you have a comp balance, it's from the old days & WILL EXPIRE IN THE NEXT MONTH OR TWO so use it up.

The data base listing for "Cashback (Freeplay): 100 Points = $1 (0.50%)" is technically accurate; however, the machines on which free play can be redeemed are not the machines most would want to play. You have to use the free play on machines that have this big green $ sticker on them. I found no video poker machines that would accept the free play. Only slots. I opted to take my cash in comps for dinner.

Same day cashback must now be taken as Freeplay.

It's CB or comps -- not both. Also, there's a bank of 10 .25 JoB progressives (royal only) labelled as Joker Poker just outside the buffet.

*** MIA - *** (1) 25c 9/6 JoB PROG RF in hallway leading from poker room to washrooms. (6) $5 9/6 JoB PROG RF (SF: 239)in high-limit room. (2) 25c/50c/$1 (50 Play) 9/6 JoB coin-dropper slant-tops in high-limit room.

*** MIA - *** 25c/$1 PKM. 25c/$1 PROG 8/5 BP near the corner of the garage bar $1/$2/$5 (3/5 Play) NSUD

There are only (3) $1 PKM machines now, near the high-limit room (large blocks of machines were removed for the WPT event) and they're still coin droppers. The reported $ 9/6JB at the Garage Bar is long gone - only short pay quarters now. There is a quarter 9/6 progressive in the hallway leading to the restrooms near the poker room. Inside HL, I noted the $5 9/6 JB progressive and the fifty play quarter 9/6 (which are also coin droppers). Comps accrued at a rate of 0.21% and CB is 0.25%.

I just completed my annual visit to the ex-Hilton. Huge area of machines (near Java Coast) was completely empty, but the rest of the casino did appear to be mostly intact. On New Year's Eve, there were plenty of seats at tables and minimums were not particularly high. The 25c PKM (near Keno) that are the only machine I play were there, but in poor physical condition, with broken buttons. They are coin-droppers, and it's often a long wait for a floorperson for a fill. New slot club with four tiers; in spite of my several years of play, I was brought in at entry level. I don't know anyone who got to start above level two. Comps seemed exceptionally tight, but perhaps I did not play as much as I thought.  My comp balance at end of trip was considerably lower than my cashback, in spite of some table-play which might have caused the opposite effect. $1 PKM near Garage Bar appear to be MIA.

I just returned from a week-end in the Reno Hilton. The room we got (15th floor north wing) was spacious and clean, but felt sad and aging. The air in the room was pretty dry. The hotel struck me as noisy (which is not something I usually notice), as if the doors were totally ineffective to stop sounds. The elevators for floors 8-17 were sometimes surprising long to respond to a call when the hotel was busy, and the green/red patterns painted on the elevator doors were painful to watch for any period of time. I very much prefer the tower rooms at the Atlantis, especially those in the newest tower. The hotel is far from everything, i.e. if you don't have a car you're pretty much stuck (it's much more isolated than Atlantis as Atlantis has many stores within walking distance and Hilton has nothing). About the non-gambling parts: this is the best hotel I've seen in Reno as far as non-gambling is concerned. There's a wide choice in terms of food, and what we sampled (Andiamo, Asiana, buffet, Java Coast) was very good. Specifically, the sushi at Asiana was very decent, but eating all-you-can-eat at the sushi bar isn't the cheapest sushi option unless you have a huge appetite, especially for dinner ($19 for all-you-can-eat, vs $3 for 2-piece nigiri and $5 for a roll when ordered at a table). Pizza at Andiamo was good, large and soft such that eating half a pizza for dinner would fill a stomach and leave enough for a breakfast for 2 the next morning. Live rock music in the Garage was very pleasant. The Fun Quest downstairs had half a dozen pinball machines, all in a decent shape, varying from well-maintained machines from the 90s to brand-new current machines, all set to be easy to play and with a low replay value (a $2 5-credit package lasted me 17 games and more than 90 minutes on the Simpsons machine). About the players club: the data is tracked in whole cashback dollars and whole comp dollars. It is transparently available through the comp kiosks in the casino, if you have a pin (where it is listed in whole dollars) or by inserting the card in any machine (where comps are listed in dollars and cashback is listed at the rate of 10 points per dollar). When listed in points, cashback is still only listed in whole dollars, i.e. multiples of 10 points. It doesn't seem to be possible to redeem comps or cashback by less than $10 at a time. In my case comps seemed to accumulate about 3 times faster than cashback, and the kiosks listed a comp rate of $1:$1, though I didn't track my coin-in so I don't know the exact rate. The system felt reasonably transparent to me, definitely much more than at the Atlantis. General gambling notes: table minimums were pretty high. Craps was $5, sometimes $10, with 3-4-5 odds. Pai-Gow poker was never lower than $10. The inventory of slot machines (reels and VP) felt old, with few TITO machines, some VP without touchscreen, and some machines that looked so old that the slots to feed bills and the player card were on appendages rather than being part of the machines themselves. The high-limit slot area isn't very differentiated from the rest of the casino, it is very open, with no premium drinks or food, and slow-to-respond slot attendants. VP in the high-limit room is mostly at the front (or right outside), and reel slots at the back, along with a $500 blackjack table in the far corner. Nobody asked me any questions as I walked in and played single-hand JoB on a 50-play - location and game details are unknown. General VP notes: the high-limit room is a paradise for the high-limit 9/6 JoB player, with 26 machines. However for the player on a limited budget the choices are far more limited and the Reno Hilton can't be recommended. It's worth mentioning that the bar-tops at the bar outside restaurant row have a lot of progressive games where (during my stay, especially at the end) the jackpots were unusually high, some actually hitting the 10000-coin ceiling. There's some JoB, DW, BP, JW and DDB in 25c, and a different mix in $1. Those might be worth playing after a holiday week-end. VP inventory (notice that I didn't take full notes on all types of machines - specifically I didn't look for NSUD and I didn't take notes on every prog machine. I only have full notes on PKM and JoB). PKM: The (4) 25c PKM Game Makers "near Sportsbook" are MIA. The (4) $1 PKM Game Makers "in an island to themselves toward the Sportsbook area" are at the corner of the change station closest to the Sportsbook. The (4) 25c PKM Game Makers "near Keno area" are labelled "Keno Plus" (I think the full wording is "Game Maker Keno Plus" but I'm not entirely sure). All PKM machines are coin-op MG uprights. 9/6 JoB: The $1 bartops "@ Garage Bar" are still there. All the rest of 9/6 is in the high-limit room (I think that most of it is coin-op but I only list explicitly the ones I'm sure about). Here's the full 9/6 JoB inventory of the high-limit room: -(4) 3-play/5-play $1/2/5/10/25 MG/MD coin-op slant-tops in the front-left of the high-limit room. -(2) 50-play 25c/50c/$1 MG/MD coin-op slant-tops in the front-left of the high-limit room. -(4) 3-play $1/2/5/10/25 MG/MD uprights in the front-right of the high-limit room. -(4) 3-play/5-play $2 MG uprights in the front-center of the high-limit room. -(2) $5 MG slant-tops in the front-center of the high-limit room. -(1) $10 MG slant-top in the front-center of the high-limit room. -(1) $25 MG slant-top in the front-center of the high-limit room. -(2) 3-play $25 MG uprights in the rear-right of the high-limit room. -(6) $5 Prog (SF:239) just outside of the high-limit room. Also maybe worth mentioning: -(12) MG/MD TITO slant-tops near the pylon bar with prog 5c 8/5 JoB. -(8) MG/MD TITO slant-tops near the pylon bar with prog 25c 8/5 JoB. -25c prog 8/5 JoB TITO bar-tops at the bar outside restaurant row. -$1 prog 8/5 JoB TITO bar-tops at the bar outside restaurant row. 8/5 BP: here are extra details about the existing listings -(12) 25c Prog (prog on 4oak and higher) coin-in slant-tops near the corner of the garage bar toward the players club, with a prog meter on top of the bank. -(12) $1 Prog (prog on 4oak and higher) coin-in slant-tops near the corner of the garage bar toward the players club. DW: a bad paytable (96.76% @4000RF) that I only mention because at the end of my stay the prog meter was pegged at $2500 (10000RF), making it 99.78% (with a very high variance): -25c prog 1-2-2-3-4-13-16-25-200-prog (i.e. prog "downtown deuces"/"colorado deuces") TITO bar-tops at the bar outside restaurant row.

Grand Sierra Resort now owns the Reno Hilton but they're still using the Connection card, although it's is no longer good at other Caesars casinos.

Caesars selling Reno Hilton for $150 million

There are $1 9/6 JoB @ Garage Bar.

The four $1 Bally's Gamemakers that had Pickem were there in June and still in the same place last weekend. They're an island to themselves toward the Sportsbook area. The Pylon bar still has $1 progressives with 9/6 JOB, 9/7 DB, etc. The 9/7 DB was over $5800 before we left.

The $1 9/6 JoB PROG bartops @ Pylon Bar are MIA, again.