Comp Definition

Earning Comps

How Casinos Decide Your Comp Level

Theoretical Loss

Maximize Comps with Skill Games

Example: Maximizing Comps with Video Poker

Trips and Daily Average

Casino Marketing; Hosts; Slot Club Booth

Help Build The Casino Database

Comp Definition

A comp stands for complementary, and it consists of all the items and services a casino gives a player to encourage and reward their patronage. Comps can range from the free drinks that Las Vegas casinos give their patrons while they are gambling to lavish suites and luxury automobiles, and almost anything in between.

Some comps are really special courtesies that are extended to the casino’s better players, such as the ability to check-in to your hotel room when you arrive at the hotel, and not having to wait to the designated check-in time. Late room check-outs are rarely given to someone that is not a rated player, but are commonly given to good players. A rated player is someone that is recognized by the casino as a customer that has their played tracked by the casino, and is discussed more fully below.

Cocktails, wine, beer, soft drinks are all routinely comped at Las Vegas casinos to anyone while they are gambling. Parking whether you self park or use valet service are free at Strip casinos, and really can be thought of as comps that are available to everyone. Once you start moving up the comp latter higher value comps are offered to customers. The meal comps usually start with a buffet comp, the next level would be a coffee-shop restaurant, then a mid range restaurant and finally the casinos top gourmet restaurants. Even when you reach the gourmet level, there are ranges of how much the casino will grant in a comp, a top level player will have the entire wine list comped, others will need to show more restraint in their wine selection.

A similar comp latter is often in play for show tickets. Many casinos will have several different shows playing in the same casino, some are more expensive, and hence more difficult to get comped. It also matters whether the show is produced by the casino themselves or the theater is rented out to a third party, in which case it is usually more difficult to get the tickets comped. Some shows are completely free to everyone, and are used to draw customers to a casino.

Earning Comps

Casinos use various methods to distribute comps to their patrons, most require the player to sign-up for a casino players card. The players card looks like a credit card, and often functions in the casino like a credit card. Often if you are a first time guest at a casino’s hotel, they will have a player’s card waiting for you when you check-in the hotel. If you are not a guest at the casino’s hotel or if the hotel did not make you a player’s card go to the player’s club desk and have them make you a card. It’s as simple as handing your driver’s license to the person at the club desk and having them type your name and home address into the casino’s computers. Some casinos have machines that simply scan the information on your driver’s license into the casinos database. .Casinos often give new enrollees special coupons or other offers when they initially sign-up for their players cards. These can be valuable, considering you haven't even given the casino any play, yet..

Once you have your casino player’s card it is important to use the card while you gambling. This entails inserting the card into the card reader if you are playing a slot machine, or presenting it to the dealer or pit boss if you are playing a table game. The dealer is the person actually dealing the cards or running the game if you are playing roulette, while the pit boss is the dealer’s supervisor and oversees several table games in a given part of the casino. Once you have inserted your card into the slot machine or presented your card to the dealer, your play is now being “tracked”, which means you are now earning comps.

How Casinos Decide Your Comp Level ?

The first thing to understand about comps is how they are awarded. Casinos award comps to customer’s based on how valuable the customer is to the casino, that only seems fair. Keep in mind that actually being valuable to the casino is not a good thing for you. The ideal situation for any casino patron is to appear much more valuable to the casino than they really are to the casino. The bottom line is valuable to the casino means losing money to the casino, and that is certainly not your goal. Fortunately there is away to appear much more valuable to the casino than you really are, and this involves playing games of skill.

Casinos award comps based on the patron’s theoretical loss value to the casino.

Theoretical Loss

Theoretical loss is a way for the casino to combine their knowledge of their advantage on their games with their knowledge of how much you are wagering. Notice the repeated use of the word “their” that’s because the Casinos really do have the upper hand when you walk in to play.

Theoretical loss is calculated as follows:

Take the Casinos Advantage and multiply it by your total wager
(Casino Advantage) X (Total Wager)
Total Wager = (Average Bet) X (Number Of Bets)

Let’s clarify the concept of Theoretical Loss with an example. If you play roulette, the typical North American version with both zero and double zero, when you bet a single number the house advantage is 5.26% If you bet $10 per spin, and play for 100 spins of the wheel, you will have bet a tot of $1,000=100x$10. The casino would expect to win 5.26% x $1,000 or $52.60 from you. This is your theoretical loss.

Let’s review the example above, without the numbers. The casino used their knowledge about the probabilities of roulette and combined it with your betting history to come up with a value called theoretical loss. The casino will now issue comps to you based on this theoretical loss calculation. Whether you actually win or lose in your session is largely immaterial to how the casino will comp you. The saying is “the casino is rewarding you for your action” Your action is how much you are betting times the house advantage at the game you are playing. This explains why someone that bets the same amount at a game with a higher house advantage, will be comped more than a player that plays a game with a lower house advantage. For example roulette has a higher house advantage than baccarat, hence roulette players will earn comps faster, assuming they are betting the same dollar amounts.

Maximize Comps with Skill Games

The key to maximizing your comps, is to get the casino to believe that your theoretical loss is greater than it actually is. The most important way to do this is to play skill games, and to play them well. Skill games are games where decisions you make effect the outcome of the game. Most table card games are skill games, baccarat is not a skill game, since the player has no impact on the outcome of the game. Blackjack is the most widely known table game where the player’s skill level has a large impact on the house advantage. If the player is skilled enough to be able to successfully count cards, they can even turn reverse the house advantage, so that they have an advantage at the game. The other table card games, such as Caribbean Stud, also have elements of skill, however their house advantages are rather large, even with optimal play. Playing blackjack using basic strategy allows the player to lower the house advantage to less than 1%. Slot machines are not skill games, but video poker is.

So, how do you get the casino to believe your theoretical loss is greater than it actually is and why are skill games the key? Let me answer the second question first. Skill games are of key importance because the only way the casino can assign a theoretical loss value to your play at skill games, is to assign the average player’s skill level to your play. In non-skill games, such as roulette, everyone plays at the same skill level, and hence is assigned the same theoretical loss level, for a given amount of action. In skill games, if play at an above average skill level, the casino will credit your play at a higher theoretical loss level than is true.

Example: Maximizing Comps with Video Poker

Video poker is a skill game because decisions the player makes effect the house advantage of the game, and hence the player’s theoretical loss. The basic video poker game is draw poker, where the goal is to achieve the highest poker hand possible. The player is dealt five cards, and then chooses to then discard and draw zero to five cards. Most of the discard and draw choices seem obvious, and many are, but don’t let that fool you into believing that the game does not require skill. In most versions of video poker the average player, plays at 2 percent or more disadvantage from optimal play. That may not sound like much, but over time, 2% below optimal play will hit your gambling budget hard.

This is probably a good time to discuss how to convert the casino’s house advantage into actual expected loss in dollars, or on a more optimistic note, how to convert a player’s advantage to actual expected dollars won. Let’s say you are playing $1 video poker, where you can bet one to five credits per hand. As I explained in more detail in the section on video poker, you always want to bet five credits per hand, or in our example $5 per hand. Slots or machine games are played at a much faster rate than table games. While you would be lucky to play 50-60 hands in an hour at a table game, at video poker 500 hands per hour is considered a leisurely pace. So if we’re playing video poker at $5 per a hand, 500 hands an hour, that’s $2,500($5 x 500) an hour. If we play 4 hours in a gambling day, not a particularly large amount of hours in Las Vegas where sleep deprivation is the rule. That leads us to $10,000 bet per day. We then multiply this amount by the house advantage. I will use the relatively common game of Jacks or Better, the full pay version known as 9/6 Jacks or Better, often abbreviated 9/6 JOB. All these video poker concepts and definitions are explained in more detail in the video poker section. 9/6 JOB has a house advantage of 0.5%, when rounded to the third decimal place. Hence, our expected loss on $10,000 bet is $50($10,000 x .005). Not too bad when you consider all the comps this level of play will likely garner for you.

In the example just cited, I calculated that you would expect to lose $50 and yet the casino would probably give you some very nice comps for that level of play. How can that be? First, the casino will calculate your theoretical loss based on their experience of all players that play the type of games you are playing. As I mentioned before, playing at a 2% disadvantage to optimal play is a conservative assumption. Using figures like 7% or even 10% would not be unheard of. In the example above, playing at a 2% disadvantage would generate an expected loss of $250 (.5% house advantage with optimal play plus 2% times $10,000 = .025x10,000 = $250) Using the 10% figure we get an expected loss of $1,050. Realize that casinos will generally comp players up to 40% of their theoretical loss, hence, a $1000 theoretical loss equates to $400 in comps. In our example, a savvy video poker player can play at an expected loss of $50, and conceivably get $400 in comps, that seems like more than a fair trade for a player.

Keep in mind that comps given by casinos tend to be cumulative. That is, the first level of earned comp that you would be offered would most likely be a buffet. Often the next level would be a free room. Once you play enough to get a free room, the lower level comps would still be available to you. For example, let’s say a casino requires $2,000 of action for a free buffet and $5,000 for a free room, when you reach the $5,000 level of action you will get your free room plus the free buffet.

Let me explain in a little more detail what those numbers $2,000 and $5,000 represent. They are the levels of play you are giving the casino NOT the amount of money you bring to the casino, and more importantly, not the levels of risk you are assuming on any single bet at the casino. It is really a matter of recycling your winning and push bets through the slot machine. In the long run you, a phrase that will oft be repeated in discussing comps and gambling results, you will be able to put through the reciprocal of the casinos house advantage times your bankroll. In other words, if you play a game with a 1% house advantage and start with a $100 bankroll, you get 1/.01 x 100 = $10,000 of gambling action. If we increase the house advantage to 5% the amount of action is cut to $2,000, while if we cut the house advantage to 0.5% we would expect $20,000 of gambling action.

These examples highlight the key importance even small changes in the house advantage can have on your bankroll.

Trips and Daily Average

Las Vegas casinos view your visits in terms of trips, even if you play at that casino for only a single day, while they give you comps based on your daily average play. To maximize your comps, you need to understand how 'Trips' and 'Daily Average' work together. An example is the best way to illustrate. Let's say three people, Manny; Moe; and Jack stay at the Big Tuchus Casino for three days and they play the following amounts, or to use the Vegas Vernacular; they give The Big Tuchus the following action: Manny plays $15,000 each day; Moe plays $30,000; $10,000; $5,000 while Jack plays $20,000; $0; $0. Manny and Moe both play the same amount in total, over the same number of days, three, hence there daily average is the same, $15,000. The casino will probably comp them the same amount. Jack, on the other hand played less than half as much as Manny and Moe, $20,000 versus $45,000 in total and yet he has the highest daily average, $20,000 versus $15,000. Who will get the best offers in the mail, almost assuredly, Jack! Jack has the highest daily average, and that is usually what marketing departments look at when determining comps. Believe or not, those zero play days are usually not held against you. The key is for it to be zero and not, a little bit. Those "little bit" days really wreck your daily average. If you are not staying at a casino's hotel and just stop by their casino, to play a little bit, you will get tripped, and that too will destroy your daily average at that casino.

Casino Marketing, Hosts, and Slot Club Booths

The Comp Game is really most successfully played with the Casino Marketing Department, those nice people that send you those free room offers, sometimes with lots of nice extras, like show tickets and expensive gifts plus more. Hosts, on the other hand are liable to notice that Jack actually gave Big Tuchus less than half the amount of play than Manny and Moe, and comp him accordingly. Probably the most important piece of advice when requesting comps from a Host, and this is also true for requesting comps from the pit boss when playing table games, is: Be Nice, or more specifically, Don't Be Rude. Hosts at most casinos have less authority to comps than they used to have. Like everywhere else, the computers are taking over. The people at the slot club booths have even less discretionary authority to issue comps than hosts, but can usually swing a free buffet even when the computer says no way.

Help Build The Casino Database

Posting your comp experience will help expand the usefulness of The Casino Database. The database is set-up to track what level of play is required to earn what level of comps. If you play video poker or slots, your play is easily tracked on your slot card. Simply multiply your slot club points earned by the dollar requirement to earn points. For example, Harrahs requires $10 to earn a single base point when playing video poker, therefore if you earn 1,000 base points in a single day, you played $10,000 that day, that is you cycled $10,000 through the machine. If you play table games, then post average bet and numbers of hours played per day. Finally report what offers you get in the mail following your visit. Note, if you go to Las Vegas and gamble and do not get offers in the mail to stay for free, plus other extras like show tickets and slot tournaments, you're doing something wrong, and this site is here to help.