Every Vegas casino wants you to carry its card. Only some of them tell you what it earns. Here are the five programs that cover most of the Strip and the locals market, with their published earn rates turned into the one number that matters: cents back per $100 you put through the machine.
On this page: the comparison table · how the rebate is computed · your trip, by card · tiers and what they cost · program by program · the smaller clubs that pay more · which card to carry · sources
Base rates, before tier multipliers, point-multiplier days, and mailers. Verified against each program's own pages on 2026-09-04; footnotes mark anything the program does not publish itself.
| Program | Slots earn | Video poker earn | Point value | Slots rebate | VP rebate | Live tables | Tier period |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caesars Rewards | 1 RC per $5 | 1 RC per $10 | 100 RC = $1 (dining, hotel)1 | 0.20% | 0.10% | Rated: game, avg bet, time | Calendar year |
| MGM Rewards | Not published2 | Not published2 | 1 point = $0.01 | n/a | n/a | Rated: game, avg bet, time | Calendar year |
| Boyd Rewards | 1 pt per $13 | 1 pt per $23 | 1,000 pts = $1 | 0.10% | 0.05% | Rated | Calendar year |
| Station Casinos (Boarding Pass) | 1 pt per $1 | 1 pt per $2 | 1,000 pts = $1 (cash back or slot play) | 0.10% | 0.05% | No points since Apr 2020 | 6 months |
| Wynn Rewards | 1 pt per $5 | 1 pt per $10 or $20 | 500 pts = $5 free credit | 0.20% | 0.10% or 0.05% | Rated: game, avg bet, time | Calendar year |
1 Caesars publishes the earn side but not a redemption rate on its rules pages; the 100-to-$1 figure is the long-standing rate for dining and hotel folio redemptions and is the rate quoted in Caesars Sportsbook's own Reward Credit exchange. Third-party reports put slot free play at roughly 200 RC per $1, half the value. 2 MGM states that gaming points and Tier Credits "vary based on your wager, game type, and game denomination"; no per-dollar rate is published anywhere on mgmresorts.com. 3 Boyd only pays Boyd Points at Sapphire and above (750 Tier Credits); a brand-new Ruby card earns Tier Credits but zero spendable points.
Two things fall out of that arithmetic. First, the whole spread across these five programs is 0.05% to 0.2%. Fifteen basis points is the entire difference between the "best" and "worst" base card. Second, that number is dwarfed by the house edge you are paying to earn it: a 0.46% video poker game costs you nine times what the card gives back, an 8% penny slot costs forty times. The comps guide walks through why: the card is a rebate on your expected loss, and no rebate turns that loss positive.
The published rate is also the floor, not the ceiling. Tier multipliers (MGM's Slot Dollars bonus runs 10% at Pearl to 40% at NOIR; Wynn Black adds 30%), point-multiplier days, and above all the offers in the mail add up to more than the base rate. The base rate is still the right way to compare, because it is the only part that is published, guaranteed, and the same for everybody.
Enter the coin-in for a trip (average bet × decisions × hours) and see what each published program pays back at its base rate. MGM is left blank because it publishes no rate.
Tier Credits are a separate currency from points. They buy status, not comps, and they reset. Here is the play needed for the first meaningful tier on a slot machine, at the published Tier Credit rate.
| Program | Tiers (Tier Credits) | TC earn, slots | Slot coin-in for first paid tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caesars | Gold 0 · Platinum 5,000 · Diamond 15,000 · Diamond Plus 25,000 · Diamond Elite 75,000 · Seven Stars 150,000 (invite) | 1 per $5 | Platinum: $25,000 · Diamond: $75,000 |
| MGM | Sapphire 0 · Pearl 20,000 · Gold 75,000 · Platinum 200,000 · NOIR (invite) | Not published (4 per $1 on hotel, dining, shows) | Pearl via non-gaming spend: $5,000 |
| Boyd | Ruby 0 · Sapphire 750 · Emerald 15,000 · Onyx 50,000 · Titanium 200,000 | 1 per $1 (1 per $2 VP) | Sapphire: $750 · Emerald: $15,000 |
| Station | Preferred 0 · Gold 1,000 · Platinum 40,000 · President 100,000 · Chairman 300,000, per 6 months4 | Reported 3 per $1 (1 per $1 VP)4 | Gold: about $333 · Platinum: about $13,300 |
| Wynn | Red 0 · Platinum 7,000 · Black 70,000 | 1 per $5 | Platinum: $35,000 · Black: $350,000 |
4 Station publishes the five tier names and the six-month cycle but not the status-credit thresholds or the credit-per-dollar rates on its rules page; the thresholds and the 3-credits-per-slot-dollar figure are as reported by players and Las Vegas local press. Treat them as approximate.
Caesars Diamond is the tier most people chase because it waives resort fees and comes with a yearly celebration dinner; the table shows why it is also the tier most people over-pay for. At the 2% rated blackjack edge from the comps guide, $75,000 of slot coin-in at an 8% hold is $6,000 of expected loss for a status that returns a few hundred dollars of fees. Earn it with play you were going to make anyway or not at all.
Caesars Palace, Flamingo, Harrah's, Horseshoe, Paris, Planet Hollywood, The LINQ, The Cromwell, plus 50-odd properties nationally. Publishes the most: 1 Reward Credit and 1 Tier Credit per $5 on reel slots, per $10 on video poker, per $1 on hotel, dining, and retail. Live tables are rated. Reward Credits expire if the account earns nothing for six months. The national footprint is the real asset: a Diamond earned in Vegas works in Atlantic City and Reno.
Bellagio, ARIA, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Park MGM, New York-New York, Luxor, Excalibur, and the regional MGM properties. Points are worth one cent and Tier Credits are 4 per $1 on non-gaming spend, but MGM does not publish a gaming earn rate at all: "varies based on your wager, game type, and game denomination." That is a deliberate choice, and it means you cannot compare MGM on the base rate. Judge it on the mail after a trip, not the point balance.
Orleans, Gold Coast, Suncoast, Sam's Town, Fremont, California, Main Street Station, Aliante, Cannery, and Boyd's regional casinos. One point per $1 on slots, per $2 on video poker, 1,000 points to the dollar. The catch nobody puts on the sign-up flyer: the entry Ruby tier earns no points. You need 750 Tier Credits, roughly $750 of slot play, before the card pays anything spendable.
Red Rock, Green Valley Ranch, Durango, Palace, Boulder, Sunset, Santa Fe, Texas, and the Wildfire locations. Same 1-per-$1 slots, 1-per-$2 video poker, 1,000-to-the-dollar structure as Boyd, with one difference that matters to locals: points can be taken as cash back, not only free play. Live table games have earned no points since April 2020. Tier status is judged every six months, so it is easier to hold than a calendar-year program if you play year-round and harder if you visit once.
Wynn and Encore Las Vegas only. 1 point per $5 on slots; video poker is 1 per $10 or 1 per $20 depending on the machine, so the same $100 earns half as much on a full-pay game. 500 points buys $5 of free credit, which is one cent a point, the same base slot rebate as Caesars. Three tiers, and Black at 70,000 Tier Credits is the steepest top tier on the Strip relative to what is published.
The five big programs cluster at 0.05% to 0.2%. Downtown and locals independents publish rates several times higher, because they are competing for exactly the player who reads this page. Vegas Advantage's 2025 survey lists South Point at 0.3% on slots and video poker, Rio Rewards at 0.8% on slots, and Binion's and Four Queens (All Access) at 0.5% cash plus 1% in comps on slots. If your trip is about squeezing the card rather than the property, that is where the arithmetic points. If your trip is about the pool at Bellagio, no rebate changes that math.
Programs change rates and thresholds without notice and vary them by machine. Everything above is the published base; check the rewards desk before you plan a trip around it. Nothing here makes a casino game profitable.