Caesars Rewards Millionaire Maker 2021

Caesars Rewards Millionaire Maker 2021

Each year Caesars Rewards holds a Millionaire Maker slot tournament.  The event is capped at 750 people and the first place winner goes home with $1 million.  Most of those that are invited to the event have either won a qualifying slot tournament at another Caesars property or invited as a high roller.

The Caesars Rewards app offers contests each month; offering tier credits and entrance in to their annual Millionaire Maker slot tournament finale.  I was drawn as the winner in March 2020.

I received a phone call and email congratulating me on my win.  I was told the prize included the following:

  • One (1) entry into the Millionaire Maker Finale Slot Tournament at Harrah’s Resort in Atlantic City, NJ, May 13-15, 2021
  • Three (3) nights hotel accommodations at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City during dates mentioned above
  • $1,100 airfare credit for two (2)

I was given instructions on how to make the travel arrangements and did so in September, 2020.  Unfortunately the event got delayed until November 2021 due to the pandemic. Since the original date was canceled, I received another $1,100 towards the airfare.  Caesars also decided that this would be the last year for the event altogether.

The top prize after two rounds of the slot tournament is $1,000,000 — paid out at $50,000 per year over 20 years or a reduced lump sum payout.  The top 30 finalists win a cash prize.  I was told that there were 750 spots in the tournament.

I placed 6th place in a Blackjack tournament in Vegas and the prize was paid out in slot or table credit.  For the Millionaire Maker, the prizes are paid out as cash.

About two weeks before the event I received an email with a schedule of the three days.

As I was able to book with Alaska Airlines, I was able to cancel my first flight and add the $1100 to my Alaska Airlines wallet for a future flight.  I then booked another $1100 of flights for me and my guest.  I then rebooked the flight using an Alaska Companion Fare and put the difference in price in to my wallet.  The final price for the two flights was $532 which meant I was able to pocket $1,668 for a future flight.

We arrived in PHL around 4:00pm on Thursday and were able to immediately hop on the bus provided by Caesars to Atlantic City.  With traffic it took us around an hour to get to the hotel.

At check in we were assigned a double room on the 14th floor in the Bayview Tower.

Tournament

The first round was on Friday and I checked in at a Caesars Rewards kiosk around 11:30.  I headed to the Event Center and got in a line.  The staff working the event seemed to be mostly from other Caesars properties in Atlantic City and didn’t seem too prepared for the tournament.  Overall the first day seemed quite disorganized.

Each session during both the first and second round had 36 contestants.  There was a bank of machines set aside for the tournament.  Each round was two minutes.

I found my machine with my name on it and sat down.

The machines counted down from ten and then it was just a matter of hitting the Spin button as fast as you can.

I ended up in 32nd place out of 36 during my round and pretty much was out of the tournament.  I still would play the next day but since it was a combination of round 1 & 2, I knew it would be hard to place in the top 30.

After my first day tournament play, my friend and I took the Caesars shuttle over to the Boardwalk to check out Atlantic City and do some status matches.

The next day (Saturday) I again checked in and got in line for the tournament.

This time I was able to get third place out of the 36 in my group.

It helped, but it appeared that I was still too far from placing in the top 30.

Banquet

On Saturday night starting at 5:30pm, Harrah’s hosted a celebration dinner where the winners would be announced.  The dinner was in the convention center at Harrah’s.

We were greeted by a woman with a champagne dress (yes, you could take a glass).

Food was self serve buffet style.  One unique option was a mashed potato bar where you got to add toppings of your choice.

There were also open bars that had top shelf alcohol, including my favorite tequila Casamigos.  There were various dessert options as well.

During dinner a band was playing cover tunes on the stage and a dance floor was set up in front.  One of the singers was a Pitbull impersonator.

At 7:30pm the winners were announced and collected their prize. The 30th place winner had a total of 152,000 points.  The total of my two days was about 133,000 so I was nowhere close to a prize.

The million dollar winner was Judy Stokes.  I had watched her round and heard her say that she got 1st place in her group on both days so she knew she had a good chance at the top prize.  Various Caesars management was present for the giant check presentation.

The next day we hopped the shuttle back to PHL and returned home to Seattle.

Overall it was a fun weekend.  Besides the dinner, there was really only the four minutes of tournament play per person which left plenty of time to explore and gamble (which is what I assume Caesars planned in order to take in more money from the contestants).  Atlantic City is a bit of a dump but it is hard to complain about a free trip and a chance to win $1 million!

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