Entertainment is rebranding the loyalty club at its casinos, including M Resort in Las Vegas.

The current MyChoice (technically, “mychoice,” but all lower case is nearly as annoying as all upper case) players club will be Penn Play starting April 24, 2023.

Penn National Gaming was rebranded to Penn Entertainment in mid-2022.

M Resort should get a child care center so they can call it the Penn Play Playpen.

Penn Entertainment has a ton of casinos (about 35) across the country, but M Resort is the company’s only location in Las Vegas, so is the only one we really care about.

Penn used to own Tropicana, but wisely bailed. Tropicana is now owned by Bally’s Corp., unrelated to the former Bally’s resort, which is now Horseshoe Las Vegas.

A rebrand of a loyalty club isn’t exactly headline news, so now we’re stuck fleshing out this story with only marginally related filler, sorry about that. We already started padding our story with the last paragraph. Please keep up.

A number of casino loyalty clubs have rebranded in the last year or two.

Boyd Gaming rebranded its B Connected to Boyd Rewards.

Total Rewards, from Caesars Entertainment, rebranded to Caesars Rewards. Modesty precludes us from remind you we were the first to share that news.

The MGM Resorts loyalty club, MGM Rewards, was previously M Life.

Casino companies rely heavily on their loyalty clubs to drive revenue, so they’re constantly evaluating branding and positioning in the marketplace.

On its Web site, Penn answers this question as vaguely as possible, “Why are we making this change?” The answer: “With over 35 destinations throughout North America and exciting online gaming and sports betting options, mychoice is quickly growing into one of the most exciting loyalty programs around. With PENN Play, we’re leveling up the fun and making it easier to get rewarded for all the ways you play. We know you have a lot of options when it comes to gaming. And we want to thank you for choosing PENN. The bottom line? More flexibility plus more ways to earn equals more fun.”

Told you all caps is annoying.

When asked what’s changing with the rebrand, the answer is “Not much.” There are a few tweaks, sorry about the all caps: “The mychoice program will now be called PENN Play. And with that, comes a few other name changes. mycash will become PENN Cash, mywallet will become PENN Wallet and myheroes will become PENN Heroes.”

If this Penn casino location map were upside down and in prison, you would want to mind your own business and avoid eye contact.

We trust Penn took several years and spent many zillions of dollars on market research to determine Penn Play would drive incremental revenue. Casinos spare no expense when it comes to loyalty clubs.

Fun fact: We used to personally write the e-newsletter for Total Rewards (now Caesars Rewards, because you skim). The newsletter had five million subscribers, so we’re pretty sure we get to take credit for the success of Caesars Entertainment.

Fun facts make great filler, don’t you think?

Here’s another fun fact: When we worked at Caesars, we somehow ended up making a scrapbook. Featuring the daughter of the company’s then-CEO Gary Loveman. His daughter played soccer. So we put the scrapbook together and Loveman asked us to mail it to the families of players on her team. Loveman was on the board of FedEx, so he asked us to make color copies of the scrapbooks and have them bound at FedEx and to ship them using the service as well. The cost estimate was $10,000 or something. At which point we had a cardiac arrest. We told Loveman we could just make copies at Office Depot or something, and save $9,500. But he said he wanted to use FedEx because he was on the Board. He had sort of a different relationship to money, given the fact he made about $94 million in one day when the company was bought out by Texas Pacific Group and Apollo Management Group in 2007.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2015. We liked interacting with Gary Loveman, as we suspect we might have been the only goofball he interacted with as CEO of a major casino company. We’re pretty sure we got paid for making the scrapbooks (Loveman is very generous). But Loveman had a stack of spa comps on his desk. So we vaguely remember getting a massage out of the deal as well. In 2010, we received a Chairman’s Award—the highest honor given to employees of Caesars Entertainment—for community service and Gary Loveman presented the award. We don’t know if the CEO’s office is the same as when Loveman was in charge, but his office was like the Bat Cave, with a door that looked like a wall that whisked open when visitors approached.

Anyway, M Resort is rebranding its loyalty club.

M Resort is one of our favorite Las Vegas casinos. Mostly due to how it smells, as well as the spot-on cocktail server hiring process.

The casino is about 10 minutes south of The Strip.

M Resort is very generous with players club perks. Our only complaint is you have to use your entire dining credit all at once. So, if you get a $75 dining credit, and hit the Vig Deli for a sandwich, you’ll have a lot of wasted credit. Even if you get 10 Red Bulls and a dozen cookies with your French Dip sandwich. It’s even tough to spend all of the credit at the Raiders Tavern & Grill.

Otherwise, M Resort is great, and the high-limit room is our favorite spot to hang out, other than playing video poker at the various casino bars.

If you visit M Resort, make sure to check out their new security robot. Please don’t ask why. It’s just something to do to alleviate your carpal tunnel from pulling those arms on the slot machines.

M Resort has a beautiful pool complex, especially an area where no kids are allowed.

Yes, slow news days can be a bummer, but try finding stories about Gary Loveman’s soccer scrapbooks in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Not happening.