Guide to Vegas Comps - Part 1

Guide To Vegas Comps – Part 1

What are comps?

Comps are a way for the casino to reward you for your play by giving you back a percentage of your expected losses.  Aside from some video poker machines that have paytables where, with perfect strategy, they actually pay out over 100%, all games have a house advantage, which can vary greatly from table games to slots. Casinos want to encourage you to play, and play, and play, because the more you play, the higher the likelihood the law of large numbers will catch up to you and those house advantages will become a reality.

Why would a casino want to give me money back?

In order to build customer loyalty the players clubs will reward you for your play by giving you a percentage of your theoretical loss, or theo in the form of free rooms, food, slotplay, etc. Please note that some clubs are more generous than others.  The theo will vary from game to game because house advantages vary.  Even the same game can have a different house advantage if there are slight rule changes which is common in black jack where rules can vary from casino to casino or from a table with a low minimum bet to a higher one.   For example, if you play a low house advantage table game like craps (1.41%) or blackjack (.5%) you'll have to gamble a lot more to get anything significant. Remember, you'll only get a small percentage of whatever the house advantage is. On the other hand, if you only play slots you'll find that it's much easier to get more significant comps because the house advantages can range from 2-15%.  So even at a slot machine with a 10% house advantage, you can essentially have 20 times less cash at risk and still get the same comps as someone playing playing blackjack.  I'm not saying you should seek out high house advantage games in order to get more comps because you'll end up losing in the end.  The main point is to inform you that not all games are the same and your expectation of comps will vary greatly depending on how you are gambling your money.

Now, let's say you gambled for a couple hours and had about $1000 coin-in on a slot machine. It doesn't really matter if you won, lost, or broke even in the end, nor does it matter how much cash was actually at risk.  You could have started with a $20 and just happened to last that long on it, which does happen.  If the slot machine has a 10% house advantage then your theoretical loss would be $100 and at most players clubs you'd probably be able to earn about a third of that in comps, or $33. The players clubs will look at how much coin-in you're averaging per day, what games you were playing, and based on those numbers they'll be able to determine if you qualify for free or discounted rooms, food credits, free slotplay, shows, limo rides, etc.

Front-End vs Back-End Comps

Let's say you paid for a room at a new hotel you didn't have any history with and put $50,000 coin-in over a weekend trip. You can go to the players club at the end and have them evaluate your play to see if they can take care of some or all of the room charge, any food charges, etc. These are called back-end comps because they will evaluate your play and decide how much it was worth after the fact. Not only that, but based on your play you are now on their radar and will probably receive offers for future trips where you could possibly get the room at a discounted rate or even for free up front next time, and possibly get free slotplay and/or a food credit along with your reservation.  These front-end comps will be what you can plan your future vacations around to maximize their value.  Just remember that there is a certain expectation of play when you are comped up front and if you don't meet their expectations you may burn bridges and not get as good of offers again.

**Coming Soon** 
Check out the Guide to Vegas Comps Part 2 to see some real-world examples of what you can expect to get comped and why it pays to play the comp game.