This may also be for Turble too. But does anyone get comped because of being attractive, young, fun, loud, or any other characteristic in order to make the casino, casino floor, etc. more well rounded or younger? I’m curious if there is an active push to control and manipulate the environment for gambling.
Shit.
And your statistics allow NOBODY to win in the long run? Isn’t there ONE white marble at the very end of the Bell curve?
Since he wasn’t drug running or pimping out the blue haired little old ladies, my conclusion is that the extra money he was so generous with came from his gambling. He was on a fixed income and lived very simply, spent far too much on computer crap, and was very good to his children and grandchildren.
~VOW
(edited to add: he left no outstanding bills when he died, just the cost of his funeral)
MODERATOR STEPS IN.
Let’s keep to the OP and cut out the back and forth about whether someone did or did not win at gambling. OK?
samclem, moderator
NM
Nope. Not in this case. It’s simply mathematically impossible.
The only real possibility is someone winning a big jackpot early in their career and never playing again. Your situation, as described, did not happen.
@Disheavel The only situation like that I can think of is letting attractive young women into the dance clubs for free – but that’s not really related to casino comps. The casino floor is for gamblers; betting action is what gets rewarded.
RE: Vow’s Daddy. In a lot games it takes a very long time to get into the long-run; most people never do. For example, a poker player needs to play about 200,000 hands to be certain his results are from skill rather just a lucky or unlucky run.
Since most casual players who make occasional trips to Vegas never actually get in the long-run over their lifetime , their results are determined by short-term luck (Standard Deviation). Some lucky players actually do have a lifetime winning record even though they play games that are not beatable in the long-run, because they have not played long enough to reach the point where statistics says they must be losers.
Daddy was obviously a lucky man. He played within his means and only on an occasional basis, and saw that his family was cared for. There is no reason to doubt that he was one of the lucky few who actually had a lifetime win.
If the casino has a player’s card of some kind, get one and use it. Every time you drop a nickel in a slot or sit down at a blackjack table, use the card. Make sure you hit that casino repeatedly every time you go to Vegas (or wherever it is).
After a year or two, you’ll start getting small comps. And after three or four years, they’ll get bigger because you’re showing a history of being a repeat customer. The casino wants you to come back in repeatedly, even if you’re a cheapskate like me who never plays more than 100 clams at a time on the blackjack table.
Unfortunately, there’s a gimmick to those player cards. You have to play a fixed amount of money to qualify for a point. If you pull the card out of the machine before you reach that qualifying amount, you lose all credit for the play in that machine.
Walking down a bank of slots and dropping a quarter in each one, while inserting the player’s card, won’t get you any bennies.
~VOW
Turble, I would be very interested in an “Ask the Former Pit Boss” thread.
Whatta ya say?
mmm
Gamblers can fool themselves quite handily, usually by forgetting to count losing bets. It is not possible to play Keno as much as you’re describing and win money, unless you cheat, which I assume your Dad wouldn’t do.
You can win on one trip. Maybe two. With a great deal of luck, three. The question really is how many times your Dad played Keno; if he played 40 times in his life he could have lucked out, hit a few big wins, and come out on top. But regular wins over and over, just defies statistical likelihood to the point of impossibility.
Agreed!
Back on topic, I from time to time go to the casinos in Niagara Falls, sometimes to gamble and sometimes to play poker. Both share a player’s club card system, the Sucker Club or whatever it’s called. I have one and get stuff in the mail all the time.
I can’t really tell you for sure but I’m pretty sure the card systems are killing the old ways. With a card system, everything is counted; what I’m entitled to is carefully measured and then doled out in accordance to a predetermined policy. (Watching the points quickly illustrates just how paltry it is; if you go to the casinos thinking the comps are worth it, you’re a sucker.) Casino suits aren’t handing much out now because the cards tell the casino what to hand out.
I am surprised at how much you get back for playing poker, though. While, as it has been polinted out, you do not lose money to the house playing poker, you also don’t win money. The house takes a consistent rake, which if it’s a per-hand rake, and it almost always is around here, is a pretty good stream of income. So they make very good money from running a poker table, and credit the players accordingly. IT’s still not much, but it’s as good as a table game of comparable stakes.
That isn’t to say that if you like gambling you shouldn’t get a player’s card, you should. You might as well reduce your losses from $100 to $98 and get a free room if you ever get lucky and nail a roulette wheel for a big pile of money.
I read most any casino related thread and jump in whenever I have something to add. I’d prefer to just stick with that.
You’re right about that – the bean counters have taken over.
In the good old days nearly everybody who wore a suit to work a casino had “the power of the pen” and could write comps at will. In those days, though, the casinos and hotels were much smaller and the people who came to play actually came to play, not to gawk and shop. The clientele was business owners, not the workers – people went to Vegas with a budget of $500/day for gambling, these days the average gambling budget is less than $50/day, with many visitors not intending to gamble at all.
Things started to change with Howard Hughes and then the corporations taking over, but the biggest changes took place when New Jersey opened gambling. They taught players to ask to be rated and the comp-world was taken over by the accountants, who insisted that each department show a profit. The power of the pen was taken away from the lower level supervisors and granted only to the top echelon managers … and now to write-your-own-comp computerized systems.
My friend S used to gamble a LOT a few years ago – he still goes but more like twice a year now – and he also used to be a high roller. He still gets rooms and meals comped, free tickets for musical acts (he got me and a friend tickets to see Tool at Mohegan Sun), free cruises (he took me with him to the Bahamas a couple years ago), and one casino in upstate NY offered to send a helicopter to pick him up. I pouted when he turned them down, because I wanted to ride on a helicopter.
The thing is, I’m sure he’s spent more money at those casinos than he’s gotten back in comps, but because younger him had money to burn, it didn’t matter. So if you’ve got the cash to gamble regularly and you gamble because its fun, go for it.