Do we need a slot tournament to get together mid-year? Schedule something like a trade session around a show, like the Palms November or San Remo January Superbowl. Why pay $300 for a slot tournament that casinos are giving away or providing at a much lower price. Or simply go to Las Vegas in December when rooms are at giveaway prices. I'm sure we could get a great group rate. Maybe a casino or two would like to schedule a new chase strike. Camaraderie is not dependent on pushing buttons at a slot machine. You can do that 365/24/7 anyway.
Problems with Gaming were a part of the reasons for cancelation of the "Summer of Discontent" event at Flamingo. Gaming refused to give approval because the strikes were not "won" from a machine and were not available to the walk-in public. Last year, a casino wanted a tournament with NCV strikes as prizes to get around Gaming but it was nixed by the then chapter officers because the strikes did not comply with the Chapter definition.
And, a word of caution is in order. The CC>CC is not a favorite of the Gaming Commission. To read more, go to the club website and see the posts by Nate Pincus. Did you notice there were no Club chips at the casinos for this year's convention? Gaming says chips and tokens are not collectables, they are to be used for gaming purposes only, so they turned them all down. The only reason we had blue cap strikes this year is that the artwork had been approved before the attitude changed at Gaming. Notice the El Cortez request for a Club convention strike got turned down. So, do we really want to push for a tournament which is on shaky ground at Gaming? Do we want to make the situation worse by playing games with possibly illegal strikes (which don't comply with our definition of a strike)as prizes?
At the 2002 convention, the Hard Rock put out a NCV chip for the Pink Taco. It was a giveaway and didn't have to go through Gaming for approval. But, Hard Rock had previously submitted a cash value Pink Taco chip which had been turned down. When Gaming found out about the NCV chip, they seized all that remained in the casino. Is there a lesson here?