Actually in terms of slots and video poker, it’s not about how much you lose, but how much you gamble into the machines.
You have to get 11,000 Tier credits in one calendar year to be a diamond member.
To earn 1 Tier credit you must either:
Wager $5 in a slot machine
Wager $10 in a video poker machine
Video poker makes you put in more because if you play the game correctly, you should lose less than slots.
So to become a diamond member, you either need to wager in one year:
$55,000 in slot machines
or
$110,000 in video poker machines
In terms of how much play this requires, lets say your a video poker player that plays quarter machines. You play at 600 hands an hour…so you wager $750 an hour.
So you would need to play those machines roughly 150 hours during the year, or about 3 hours a week.
My mom has been a diamond for a really long time too… :-\
and I think my mom went to the “boat” more often than I was aware of… :-\
Also in St. Louis I remember overhearing that they were thinking about offering diamond status for players that logged in 800 hours in the poker room a year. Considering the expected loss due to rake is upwards of $15/hour for the average player…I think they deserve it!
Doug’s answer is accurate, it is 11,000 points for Diamond. And you need 100,000 points to get to the SevenStars level. It is a big jump to go from Diamond to SevenStars.
But the $$ amounts are based on each spin, it does not have to be “new money” so to speak.
So let’s say you sit down at a $5 slot machine and put in $300. You are playing 2 credits per spin so you bet $10 each time you hit the button. That’s 2 tier credit points each spin. And if you think about it - $300 would generate you 60 points, since each point represents $5 played.
But- if you have some small wins then your balance in the machine will go up, say to around $500. You keep playing and it’s up/down with some small wins but no jackpots. Maybe later you cash out when you are back down to $300. Well depending on how that session went then you could have racked up tons of points. You could have pressed that button several hundred times and got close to 1000 points for a break-even session.
That’s how you get there without losing a ton of $$. Yes in the long run the machines’ pre-programmed hold rate will make you a loser…..assuming you don’t get lucky and hit some really big jackpots.
So it is not an amount you have to “lose” to get these VIP levels. Some Diamond/SevenStars players are actually up for the year, but only if they got lucky and hit some really big jackpot(s).
I have been SevenStars with Harrah’s the last 3 years. There are some really nice benefits but in some ways it is not that much better than Diamond. Almost all the VIP lounges are open to Diamond/SevenStars players, very few are just for SevenStars. Same thing with the VIP lines at the cashier, most say reserved for Diamond/SevenStars. The Harrah’s Atlantic City does have a great SevenStars only lounge that is amazing. Caesars Palace in Las Vegas used to have a separate SevenStars lounge but now they combined it with the Diamond lounge.
Personally I wish there were more “SevenStars only” things because it is so hard to get to that level. They do give you a free trip with airfare to any property once per year, but really any player who is doing enough to get to SevenStars would be offered that from any casino on an individual basis. You absolutely do go to the front of the line at any restaurant and they guarantee you a free hotel room anywhere with a couple days notice. And generally it will be a very nice suite.
The service is really good, when they see that SevenStars card employees generally jump at the chance to help you with whatever you need. You get some really good offers in the mail, including lots of free play vouchers.
Also - there actually is a level above SevenStars, and it is called Chairman’s Club. But as of the last time I heard, there was only 1 Chairman’s Club member in the entire Harrah’s system. Probably what happened is someone who lost hundreds of millions with them did not want to settle for “just” being a SevenStars player, so they demanded some kind of recognition and the casino happily printed them a new card that said Chairman’s Club. You can google it and somewhere there was actually a picture of the card.
By the way, last year I did not get enough points to earn SevenStars level, but they sent me a letter and extended it to me anyways since I had qualified the prior 2 years. They even referenced the tough economy in the letter. Apparently lots of their top players spent less in 2008 on casino trips, but if you got close to the 100,000 points and had a history with them they gave you the level for another year. Nobody who has had SevenStars in the past wants to get dropped down to Diamond, especially if you did 5-6 times the points that Diamond requires but did not get to 100,000.
I heard it is 6 figures .idk for sure