OTY nominations include a specific casino. In this instance, the Rio and Paris would have had to stand alone. Even though the artwork was the same, the molds were different, hence different chips. However, from time to time, an identical chip is used at two different properties and then the individual nominations are culled together. I can't recall seeing this with a COTY nominee, but we just had one with the 2006 CKOTY nominees. Both the Las Vegas Club and Plaza used an identical card. Had they won, the award would have been presented to Barrick Gaming, owner of both properties. Also, the Station Casinos Christmas gift theme slot card was nominated. While it was available in several different levels of play, the red version garnered enough nominations to be amoung the Finalists. This is unusual in that different levels of cards (using the same artwork, but different color or level names) tend to dilute the number of individual nominations for each one. (This also happens a lot with same artwork chips, in different denominations.)

But if two or more make it through to being Finalists, the voting is usually spread out between the similar items.

Wheew.... Probably more than you asked for!

Jim Follis
OTY Awards Chairman