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Barona’s Players Have Spoken: More Chipless Games Please!

Posted in Blackjack, General Barona Info, Poker, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 9, 2010 by thebaronacasino

by Mike Patterson, Vice President of Table Games

When Barona Casino’s players speak…we listen. And overwhelmingly our players have told us they love our new chipless table games. So just a short time after introducing our first bank of chipless Rapid Baccarat, Barona Blackjack and Barona Roulette tables, I am excited to share that we’ve have responded to the request and have already added more of these games on the casino floor.

What do our players like about these games? First, they are easy to play. Second, they can place lower minimum bets compared to other games. Finally, these games offer multiple feature bets and even more ways to win. Easy. Low bets. More ways to win. And, more fun. What’s not to like?

For those of you unfamiliar with the chipless concept, it’s really pretty simple. You still play with live dealers and playing cards but there are no chips. Instead, players place bets on individual touch screen computer terminals. It’s as easy as making an ATM or credit card transaction but a lot more fun!

To show you how these games are played, we’ve even created a short video.

Barona is always on the cutting edge of innovation and was one of the first casinos in the country to offer these chipless games to our players. It’s another Barona technology “first” and we are incredibly proud of it.

Smartphones and iPads have forever changed the way we communicate and we believe chipless games will have a lasting impact on casinos — much the same way that the coinless slot machines Barona developed and introduced in 2000 revolutionized casino floors across the country.

Barona’s players are a very savvy bunch when it comes to new technology. And as long as they continue to be excited about it and embrace traditional games with electronic wagering, we will continue to create them.

I’d love to know what you think about our chipless games and new technologies of any kind. Please share your feedback. You never know…your idea might be the inspiration for a new game or service here at Barona.

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Manufacturer’s Best Slots Payouts

Posted in General Barona Info, Slots, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 13, 2010 by thebaronacasino

by Chuck Hickey, VP of Slots

Many companies offer quality assurance or price matching or price guarantees so that when you visit their store you can have some assurance that the price you pay for whatever it is you are shopping for is at least competitive and maybe the best in town.  Just like shopping for a new washing machine  – you know that Brand X machine might be offered a bunch of different prices – so are casino  slot machines.

Every slot player has a favorite slot machine.  Yours might be Rome & Egypt and your friend’s might be Red Rooster, while your brother’s may be Kitty Glitter and his wife’s is Silver Sword.  How in the heck do you figure out where to go to play them?  Each manufacturer sends to the casino a computer program for each style game when it is ordered from the factory.  In that program there are usually a variety of possible pay back percentages that the casino can choose from and that range of percentages can sometimes be quite wide ranging for example from 98% return to 85% return.  It is up to the casino to choose one of those percentages when they install the game.  Of course no machine pays back exactly what it is set at over a short period of time.  If they did; no one would ever play them.  You would have to be crazy to play a 98% machine if every time you put in a buck you got 98¢ back.  There are always going to be swings when the game pays back way more than your bet – and sometimes less.  Over a long period of time the game will end up paying back 98% of the money bet into it (assuming that was where it was set) and there will have been many happy players on the upside and many folks who “fed the kitty” so to speak.

Barona’s price guarantee – or Manufacturer’s Best Payback represents the BEST that this particular game can be.  Manufacturer's Best Casino Slots at BaronaIt will be the highest payback percentage available and you cannot find this game set in a looser configuration anywhere else.  You might find the same setting in some other casino – but you will never really know.  What you can absolutely count on is that Barona has set these games to be the best.  Who says so?  Well – we have worked with the major manufacturers that represent about 90% of all the games on our floor to work with us on this project.  WMS, IGT, Bally and Aristocrat have all agreed to monitor the settings of our games so that they can be assured that we are in fact putting their best feet forward – it’s certified!  They know that their games are being played at the best configuration that they designed.  And while they cannot pledge the settings at our competition – they can promise that no one can find a better setting anywhere.

Simply put – Manufacturer’s Best Payback is Barona Casino’s price guarantee that you can’t find this slot game set looser anywhere else – and not only do we say so…. But so do the people who built the machine in the first place.

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Cinco de Mayo Tortilla Soup Recipe

Posted in Community, Events, General Barona Info, Restaurants, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2010 by thebaronacasino

By Executive Chef Jim Phillips

Barona Casino’s Tortilla Soup has always been a winner with our guests.  The recipe has been on our menu since the beginning and we always get requests for it.  So, we thought Cinco de Mayo would be a great time to share it with everyone.  It’s easy to make and is a great recipe to have on hand.  It can be easily customized for your guests and made ahead of time so you can enjoy the fiesta while serving a great dish!

At Barona we love to celebrate Cinco de Mayo too.  This year, we’re serving a variety of Mexican food specials in our restaurants. You can get a family-style Puerto Nuevo Lobster Special with rice and beans for $19.50 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at El Rancho Grande and The Plaza.  And, don’t forget we’ll be pouring refreshing margaritas and cervezas plus more than a dozen tequilas beginning at 5 p.m. at the El Rancho Grande.  Tortilla Soup

In honor of the holiday, we’re also offering a special price of $5.55 at the Seasons Fresh Buffet. The buffet will be available from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for guests 18 and over and Club Barona discounts will apply.

All this on top of the great slots, blackjack, poker and more to cap off your celebration with a Barona moment of your own!

I hope you enjoy the Tortilla Soup recipe and also have a great Cinco de Mayo! And, if there’s a special dish at Barona that you’d like to make at home, please let us know and we’ll do our best to share the recipe on another blog post.

Salud!

Tortilla Soup recipe: 10 servings

Ingredients:

¼ Cup Olive Oil
½ Cup Chopped Onion
1  Jalapeño Pepper
2 Lbs  Chopped fresh Roma Tomatoes
3 Cloves  Chopped Garlic
1 Tsp  Ground Cumin
½ Gallon  Chicken Stock
½ Bunch  Cilantro
1 Tbsp  Chicken Base
Salt  To Taste
Pepper To Taste

Preparation:

In a medium sized soup pot, over medium heat add the olive oil, sauté onions, jalapeño pepper, cumin and garlic until slightly caramelized. Add tomatoes, chicken stock, chicken base and seasoning. Let it simmer for 35 minutes and then add the chopped cilantro and blend the soup until smooth.

Garnish the soup with fried tortilla strips, diced fresh avocado and shredded Monterey Jack cheese.

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The Legend of Barona’s Loose Troop

Posted in Casino Management, General Barona Info, Slots with tags , , , , , on April 5, 2010 by thebaronacasino

by Chuck Hickey, Vice President of Slots

If you watch TV at all or read a newspaper or print of any kind, then you know about Barona’s Loose Troop. If you don’t know about them – then let me fill you in on why, what and who they are.

Why the Loose Troop? Every casino talks about their loose slots so all the talk gets lost in the clutter. What is loose? Is one casino’s loose another casino’s tight? Who says the slots are loose and what does it all mean, anyway? Barona has always been pretty proud of our reputation for being a loose casino. After all we offer the loosest table games rules anywhere, so why wouldn’t our slots be the same? Our goal at Barona was to expose some of the mystery of how slot machines are set. So we created the Barona Loose Troop to clear up some of the mystery. We also wanted to do something totally different than our competitors during these difficult economic times. Something totally OUTRAGEOUS. So, while some casino companies are asking manufacturers to create even tighter slot machines – Barona decided to zig while those guys were zagging and loosen up our already loose games. “Prove it!”, you might say. So the Barona Loose Troop was born.

Who are the members of the Barona Loose Troop? Well – they are the people you see in the ads and on TV, really! They are a group of our expert slot technicians and auditing staff that don’t sneak around the casino – they actually advertise themselves on the casino floor by wearing the snazzy Barona Loose Troop vests, push the Barona Loose Troop cart around and even ring a bell when they head out to the casino floor to loosen the hold percentage of our slot machines. You can even watch if you have an interest. Afterward, they put up a sign on the loosened slot, date it and sign their initials indicating who did the task. The TV commercial with the cute little old lady stealing a sticker off the slot machines actually comes from a real life incident when we first started this program. We actually witnessed a guest who literally ripped off a sticker so no one would know that her favorite machine had been loosened so she would be the only one to know about it (we put one back on the game so you can still find it). But even if her game is taken it isn’t hard to find the loosened games on the casino floor because they are clearly marked and frankly, they are EVERYWHERE.


What started out as a fun way to give something back to our guests has taken on a life of its own and while we started just adjusting nickel slot machines, we have continued to include a variety of denominations and games. We already had the certified loosest poker machines around, so we didn’t need to look there for candidates, but we did move through every denomination, including our already famously loose Dollar machines. You can read all about it in Casino Enterprise Management Magazine.

Have you seen the Loose Troop on the casino floor? Tell us about it!

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Barona’s Billboard Contest

Posted in Casino Management, Community, General Barona Info with tags , , , , on March 17, 2010 by thebaronacasino

By Linda Devine, Senior V.P. Marketing

Barona Billboard When we launched our Vanity Plate Contest a few weeks ago, we never anticipated the amazing response we would have from our guests, staff and fellow San Diegans who had seen our Barona Casino billboards on Interstate 8. It seems there are thousands of aspiring copywriters driving the freeways of San Diego. Who knew?

Literally within 24 hours of launching the contest we had more than 2,500 creative entries. As of this blog post, we have more than 15,000! And, there are still two weeks until the contest deadline.

The contest was actually born out of a cool concept developed by Barona’s marketing team.  We knew that thousands of our guests drive the I-8 every day to and from work and on their way to Barona to play slots, poker or blackjack… So, we wanted a fun way to capture their attention with billboards that stand out from the pack.

We began with a series of billboards my team brainstormed internally with a number of other staff members here at Barona Casino. We found that the more we talked about the billboards the more input we received. Everyone was really getting into it:  BARONA. MORWNNRS. CHA CHING.  Barona Billboard Contest

It turns out you can say a lot about a business and convey a strong message with words on a license plate…and in only 8 letters!  These simple letters, abbreviations and plays on words were more powerful and engaging for our guest than we could have imagined.

This first series of billboards generated such an enthusiastic response from guests and passersby we thought we’d put it out there and see what was on the minds of other locals.

Last year about this time, we launched another creative contest – The Barona Video Contest. That contest also generated hundreds of submissions and shed a lot of light on how our customers feel about Barona. Who needs focus groups when you can go straight to the people? The insight, creativity and enthusiasm have been invaluable and inspiring. I think it’s safe to say that guests have become an important part of Barona’s creative process.  Barona Billboard Contest

We love that you are telling us what you want to see and expect from Barona. And, we are really listening. Soon you’ll see what your friends and neighbors want to see on our future billboards.

If you have ideas for our billboard, go to www.barona.com/billboard and submit your idea. Winners receive up to $1000 and their own billboard! You have until March 31st.

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