My SIL married this guy whom she says loves gambling and they often go to Vegas. She says they get free room and meals AND she says that in gambling (mostly blackjack) he mostly breaks even.
But I have to ask, dont they only give free room and meals to the biggest losers? Meaning people who blow lots of money? Why would they want to give free stuff to someone who consistently plays well?
Casinos will offer inducements to gamblers who bet very large amounts (on the basis that, on the whole, such gamblers they will lose large amounts; it doesn’t matter whether on any particular occasion any particular gambler wins or loses) or to gamblers who are perceived to bring lots of friends in, or othewise build up custom for the casino.
If he “mostly breaks even”, then he is one of those big losers you mention. Never believe anyone who says that they’ve won or broke even on net, unless they tell you the figure in dollars.
Myself, my Vegas lifetime net is down 25 cents.
Casinos give out “comps” (complimentary gifts) to gamblers based on how much they wager, not how much they win or lose. If you sit at machines or tables and gamble for extended periods (and you have joined the casino’s rewards club), you will earn comps no matter whether you win or lose. The more you bet, the more you can “earn” in comps, and it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose. The casinos know they hold the advantage in the long run. They actually want people to win on occasion, because winning is a powerful psychological motivator to come back again. And if you keep coming back, you will eventually lose.
Comps can range from as little as a $5 voucher to play on the slots, to free dinners and shows, to free rooms. It all depends on how much you wager.
To free airfare, to private plane travel, to Rolexes, . . .
As you say, it all depends on how much you wager.
If he plays Blackjack regularly, he’s either good at counting cards, or he’s losing money.
And the casinos are quite good at spotting and discouraging card-counting.
I read somewhere (sorry, no cite) that nowadays casinos (at least in Vegas) make more from restaurants, shows & rooms (stuff that they used to give you for free to get you to gamble) than they do from gambling.
Nevertheless, spend enough time in a casino and eventually you’ll start getting comps, win or lose. I read a book about a card-counting team from MIT; one guy was a member of a rewards club at at least two dozen casinos (all under different names). The book said he stopped paying for rooms after about five trips, and stopped paying for flights after about eight.
ASIDE: If you ask me, signing up for a rewards program is just about the worst thing you can do if you’re going to be on a card-counting team. Why draw attention to yourself? SMH
My parents go to Foxwoods semi-regularly, they get comp rooms alot. They only play slots AFAIK.
Casinos give the most generous comps to slot players since they have the highest edge there by a good margin. In fact they’ll give low-rolling slot players the same level of comps as mid-high rollers who play table games.
I exclusively play slots (with a tiny bit of VP thrown in) and am constantly getting offers for free rooms, modest food and beverage comps, and freeplay to gamble with. I go to Vegas about once a year and never spend more than a few thousand.
Used to be the casinos would offer you things like a meal or a room upgrade if you gambled at a certain level. Now, you have to ask, like a common beggar and it’s very unseemly. I’ve been gambling at least $25 per hand at the Golden Nugget for years and never got shit. Now, when they ask me for my “players card” I simply tell them it might have value for them to track me, but it doesn’t do me any good. They look confused.
I imagine these “players club” cards are a means of tracking players without relying on the pit boss recognizing you by sight. Or am I missing something?
As for playing Blackjack at $25 per hand (I’m assuming that’s what you’re talking about), how does a 3-to-2 payout work? Do they have a chip worth $12.50?
Hi all, I saw a pretty interesting documentary on this a few weeks ago (sorry don’t remember the title.). What I found interesting is that one of the reasons casinos like whales is that they actually comp them LESS than smaller players. The theory is that the casino will comp a certain percentage of total play, say 8%. Someone who bets $1000 can easily use $80 of comps on say a free room or a show ticket. A $1,000,000 whale will have a very hard time using $80,000 in comps over a weekend. Even with private jets, steakhouses, club VIP rooms, etc. it is very hard to reach the comp threshold. On a percentage basis they are cheaper for the casino to keep happy.
no $12.50 chip but they do have two 5s, two 2s and a fifty cent piece.
Not only that, but most of those big-ticket comps are probably much higher margins than the smaller ones. Just because a fancy room costs 10 or 100 times more than a cheap room to rent, does not mean that it costs the hotel that much more to offer it.
Maybe it’s the Golden Nugget- because my husband and I get free rooms, buffets etc at Caesar’s properties. We get the least in AC ( where we go the most frequently), but when we’ve been to Harrah’s in New Orleans, Reno, or Vegas we usually get a free room (sometimes a suite) for the week and multiple comped meals ( they even find us on the casino floor to give us the coupons) and the one in Reno offers to fly us to San Francisco for a special Lunar New Year event every year. And apparently by East Coast standards, we don’t gamble all that much. The only thing we have to ask for is additional rooms for friends ( which we also get)
If I might ask, how much do you gamble and for what amount?
A few thousand? See I could never see putting out that kind of money.
That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Player’s Club cards are the key to getting comps anymore. The wife and I aren’t high rollers by any stretch of the imagination (except in Zimbabwean dollars!) but because we use our player’s club cards religiously, we haven’t paid for a room in Vegas in years. We view gaming as part of our entertainment budget, just like theater tickets and dinners out. Because we use our cards, the casinos know us and give us all sorts of deals. If you are going to play, you need a player’s card. Period. Otherwise you aren’t going to get jack, because casinos have taken comp power away from the pit bosses and given it to the bean counters.
I have a players card, and used it for years. Never got squat.
Then you did it wrong. Maybe you got listed in “the Book” as a suspected counter. When I was doing casino runs regularly, I got comped rooms/meals/free slot play every month from every casino I visited. Haven’t been in about 4 years now, and I still get offers a few times a year, and that was playing the $5 tables.