Steve Wynn cuts room rates; What kind of slot would *you* play?

Wynn Palace is still a few weeks away from opening but it’s already sending mixed signals, in terms of its room rates. Midweek, rooms are listing for $243, down from $256 a night. However, Saturday-night rates have been boosted from $411 to $501. And a Friday night at Wynn Palace is a better deal than one at Wynn Macau, $334 versus $398. “While we don’t know specifically if the change in rate is related, we would point out that Parisian has recently begun accepting reservations on its website for its September 13th opening,” writes Deutsche Bank analyst Carlo Santarelli. Management intends to allocate 75% of Wynn Palace rooms to gamblers, so the new, wallet-friendly weekday rates seem to indicate a sales pitch to the mass-market customer. By the way, is it just me or is the new megaresort kind of fugly on the outside? Steve Wynn, I hope you’re not losing your touch.

* If you’re curious about what the casino version of mega-popular social game Catapult Kings will play like, here’s a video preview. Wicked Witch Managing Director Daniel Visser, who’s overseeing the evolution of Catapult Kings and games of its ilk into skill-based slots contends that the casino gaming experience hasn’t evolved in 50 years. “We just thought we’ve got all this cutting-edge stuff,” he says, referring to contemporary video games. “What we’ve got now [in Catapult Kings] we think is a good balance of rewarding the people who are good but not neglecting the people who are not so good.”

Tech journalist Rae Johnston is skeptical and raises the idea that young people today simply aren’t potential slot players. (A scary thought for casino execs.) “I’ve been to Las Vegas and it didn’t interest me at all. I was waiting to get out of there,” she says, adding of skill-based games that “It’s got to be a reasonable kind of challenge where you can get better and you can beat the house and it doesn’t seem rigged because if it seems rigged you are not going to attract gamers who rely on skill.” Even so, Visser says the house has to have an edge: “You can’t have a game where if you have practiced at home you have 100% chance of winning, you can’t have that. A casino would go out of business pretty quick if that was the case.” Judging by the slow progress made by hybrid pinball slots, skill-based games could face a difficult, uphill path. That being said, there needs to be something done to juice up the slot experience, which can quickly prove boring, even to a Baby Boomer like me.

* Congratulations to Resorts Atlantic City on receiving a “Best Renovation” Pinnacle Award from Successful Meetings magazine. The award acknowledges a four-year, $100 million capex campaign that included a high-tech conference center. “We couldn’t be more proud,” said CEO Mark Giannantonio. We second that emotion. See what happens when you reinvest in your property?

* You’ll be able to engage in free play when the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma‘s PokerTribe.com goes live — which won’t be for a while. International punters, however, will be able to play for money on the site, which is currently still recruiting jurisdictions and payment processors before going online. Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey players will be exempted from the not-in-U.S. parameters of the site. The Iowa Tribe also operates two Oklahoma terrestrial casinos.