What Should Be the Minimum Bet Required to be Rated for Comps?

I personally know of several of the casinos in Las Vegas will currently not rate you at all if you bet less then $25 per hand at the table games. In addition to that, I have heard that there are a couple of casinos that are moving away from offering comps for their table game players, regardless of the amount, unless they are true high rollers.

In a different thread, a member who worked for the casino explained why a $1 slot machine player was of equal value to a casino as a $125 per hand blackjack or craps player. I believe it and understand the logic and math behind this. Still, as a table game player, I feel that this is unfair.

What should be the minimum bet required at the tables to be rated for comps? Do you think that this number will rise in the near future, and soon we will only get rated if we are playing $100 per hand?

For those in the industry, at what point do you start to take notice of a player?

The player is subject to the flashing lights and pretty girls right away and is usually offered booze without all that much regard to his level of play but low level players are invisible as far as comps go.

Good, Bad? Who knows.

You can't get any action from a host or a woman if all you have are red chips.

Effect on a table: Let us say I sit down and play table minimum for three hands and get two blackjacks, thus evoking a comment from the dealer and a murmur from the table. What is my "value" to the casino so far? Its a heck of alot higher than if I had not been dealt those two blackjacks. Ain't none of the players going to take their higher level chips and walk away when I'm getting blackjacks like crazy. They think it will soon rub off on them!

If a low level player asks for a meal comp they are likely to be concerned about a companion before they issue the comp. Its cheap of them, but thats often the way it is.

I would say if someone is betting $10 a hand and wants to be rated, they should be rated. There is nothing more irritating than when I was playing blackjack at my local casino at a $15 table and the pit wouldn't give me a buffet comp after a couple hours of play. He said he needed to see one more hour of play before he could give it to me. It was only about a 10 dollar comp I was asking for, but it would have gone a long way to have received the comp as to me it shows that they appreciate my business. Even if someone is not a big spender they really appreciate getting something for playing, even if it is a soft buffet comp that costs them nothing.

I feel that now more than ever casinos should be rating all play. Many casinos still have the $25+ rating policies from the late '90s when times were better. The $5 and $10 grind players now make up a much larger percentage of the win now. A casino should only shun their low bettors when they're consistently packed with higher minimum play. Even then it's better to just raise the minimums than to allow low minimum players and not rate them. If I'm playing at a casino with players on every game and all the minimums are $25 and up, I can understand that. If I sit down at a dead $10 game and they refuse to rate they might as well just tell me they don't want my action.

I think it's especially silly now that most casinos have table-side tablets. Floor supervisors might be watching more games, but ratings takes less than half the time with the tablets. On top of that casinos have fancy automated database marketing software that take cares of sending offers. There really isn't an excuse for not rating $5 & $10 play.

The intelligent play right now is to aggressively reward all play. It's never been easier to be the most player-friendly casino around now that the trend is to cut back and be stingy. When the economy recovers you'll be on top and can just watch the money flow in. After all, today's nickel player is tomorrow's quarter player. I think the problem is that the casinos are too beholden to their shareholders. It's hard to justify overspending now as part of a plan that may not see a large profit bump for another few years.

Quote: winmonkeyspit3

I would say if someone is betting $10 a hand and wants to be rated, they should be rated. There is nothing more irritating than when I was playing blackjack at my local casino at a $15 table and the pit wouldn't give me a buffet comp after a couple hours of play. He said he needed to see one more hour of play before he could give it to me. It was only about a 10 dollar comp I was asking for, but it would have gone a long way to have received the comp as to me it shows that they appreciate my business. Even if someone is not a big spender they really appreciate getting something for playing, even if it is a soft buffet comp that costs them nothing.

Wait a sec....

During that time you WERE being rated - you just didn't qualify for the comp...YET.

I think a decent rule of thumb for blackjack play is that you are worth about one average bet per hour to the casino. Two hours play at $15 means your rated value was probably around $30. A $10 comp would be 33% rebate. That's probably more than you will get at most casinos. The request for another hours play would bring the rate down to 22%. That's probably about the correct range for that casino.

Mark

Mark. Is there a general rule for craps players?

I know where you're coming from Mark, but I think it's a case of the floor there either not having the proper training or the proper freedom to make the correct choice. Say their buffet runs break-even, gets 1,000 covers a day, and costs $10,000 per day to operate. In that case it costs $10 per person to operate the buffet. However, if the buffet isn't at capacity the 1,001st person costs close to $0 to the casino. Sure, if Table Games threw another 100 covers at the buffet the operating costs would go up but it's by no means a linear increase. Buffet comps are the softest of the soft comps.

Now this local casino has a $15 bettor that's upset enough about being denied a marginal comp that he posts it on a forum. I'm going to guess that winmonkeyspit has probably told that story to other potential gamblers. I imagine these conversations often go like this:

"How did you do at Casino Alpha?"
"I lost about $50 after for playing for hours and they wouldn't even give me a buffet. When I go to Casino Bravo they've never denied me a comp for playing half as long."

Which casino is going to have a higher win at the end of the year?

i am pretty sure winmonkeyspit is posting about TurningStone in Verona NY.
the nearest casino is about 200 miles away, so they are not that worried about him jumping ship

Quote: WongBo

i am pretty sure winmonkeyspit is posting about TurningStone in Verona NY.
the nearest casino is about 200 miles away, so they are not that worried about him jumping ship

I'm pretty sure Foxwoods wasn't worried about anyone jumping ship 10 years ago. We'll see how TurningStone's comp policies change after New York legalizes gambling. I'm sure it will be far too late.

Quote: PopCan

]I think it's especially silly now that most casinos have table-side tablets. Floor supervisors might be watching more games, but ratings takes less than half the time with the tablets. On top of that casinos have fancy automated database marketing software that take cares of sending offers. There really isn't an excuse for not rating $5 & $10 play.

EXTREMELY WELL SAID!!

To that end, love em or hate em Caesars/Total Rewards casinos are the most consistent about rating EVERYBODY. MGM is hit or miss on their properties, and that drives me nuts. I think there's no excuse whatsoever. I think there's just a laziness at some properties. I won't play at Hollywood Casino in Lawrenceburg, IN, and LEFT, when I bought in TWICE on MS Stud, THEN bought in for 1000 and nobody got my card. Not ONE supervisor out of three got my card, and I told them why I was leaving, and where I'd be taking my business for the remainder of the day.

Rate the play, and do it in a timely manner.

Quote: winmonkeyspit3

There is nothing more irritating than when I was playing blackjack at my local casino at a $15 table and the pit wouldn't give me a buffet comp after a couple hours of play. He said he needed to see one more hour of play before he could give it to me

Why did you wait a couple hours rather than asking right away? At 9:00 in the morning during the week, a few times they've told me one hour, even at the $5 minimums. Other times it's been more, but it has never irritated me and never left me feeling unappreciated to know before I start playing rather than after I've lost

I'm assuming if I asked right away I would have been told you can have the comp in 3 hours. I visit this casino frequently and have never had a problem getting a comp before, so I was surprised when the supervisor came over and said I can't do it for you yet. It was someone I had never seen before, so maybe he was just following policy whereas most other supervisors know me and know I will be playing for several hours, not just taking the comp and running. In any event it irritated me as I had been playing from about 9am to 11:00am and was getting awfully hungry for breakfast. And as someone else posted, I did gripe to my dealer, who I am very friendly with and always seek out when I play, as well as a few friends who also go to the casino. The dealer said that he was very surprised since the supervisor should have been able to see my past play when looking up the comp. The casino has been pretty generous to me on previous occasions, occasionally sending me room offers and slot freeplays, but it just goes to show how important customer service as it's just a bad idea to leave a growing boy hungry.

Quote: winmonkeyspit3

I'm assuming if I asked right away I would have been told you can have the comp in 3 hours. I visit this casino frequently and have never had a problem getting a comp before, so I was surprised when the supervisor came over and said I can't do it for you yet. It was someone I had never seen before, so maybe he was just following policy whereas most other supervisors know me and know I will be playing for several hours, not just taking the comp and running. In any event it irritated me as I had been playing from about 9am to 11:00am and was getting awfully hungry for breakfast. And as someone else posted, I did gripe to my dealer, who I am very friendly with and always seek out when I play, as well as a few friends who also go to the casino. The dealer said that he was very surprised since the supervisor should have been able to see my past play when looking up the comp. The casino has been pretty generous to me on previous occasions, occasionally sending me room offers and slot freeplays, but it just goes to show how important customer service as it's just a bad idea to leave a growing boy hungry.

Sometimes, some supervisors will "over comp" a player they know, because as you say, they know they'll put in the hours. This can lead you to having a negative balance in your actual earned. Your theoretical and potential comp balance might be right, but if you're using a lot of free plays and room offers, that can (at some casinos) offset your comp balance.

I play a lot at Horseshoe Casino Southern Indiana. I used to get fantastic offers, 3 buffets, free nights, and big free play $. Now, I get less free play and 1 buffet a month. I asked a pit supervisor why; she told me that it's because I ask for comps (instead of being deducted from my account). It sets my balance for bounceback to a much lower rate. They'll still write it for me whenever I want.

My guess is you may be getting too much in the computer. A jerk supervisor "puts his foot down" and won't issue you a comp, which is silly.

This is the reason I think the old school comp system is terrible for the vast majority of customers. As a player all I want is to know what comp value I have and the ability to use it at my discretion. Who likes playing the "what can I have?", "well what do you want?" game.

Mark

Rating problems seem to happen everywhere from time to time. As I noted in my blog, I have generally received fair to good ratings for my craps play. However, on my last trip, playing from midnight to 3:00AM on a $25 table with 6 players, I got no credit for my play. Somehow, they managed to lose track of my play, which I did not discover until I was leaving the table, which occurred just after shift change, leaving me little to no recourse. I complained to the casino host and they claimed to have checked tape and agreed I was playing at that time, but I don't think they really did anything about it.
Ultimately it doesn't affect me that much I guess. Since they always provide the room and the charter flights that my wife and I take, if they mess up my rating so I don't qualify for the trips any more, then they won't get any play from me. And I'm fairly certain my wife would like to see me spending less on craps, so no more flights will probably make her happier too. hmmmmm

The only consistency is inconsistency. I've been playing $5 UTH at Gold Coast and gotten a $15 comp to one of their good Chinese restaurants. The next day, same level and time, nothing. Who knows what they were looking at. (I had earned about $60 in Boyd points since then so maybe they were thinking, "Why doesn't this guy just use his points?")

If a store consistently offered me a comp based on a certain level of play, they would earn a lot of my business. I've yet to find a place that does, however.

A lot of casinos are going to this method of using your -insert casino company name- points versus them comping you. At the Harrah's properties there no comps except the points in your account(unless you really kiss ass to a friendly pit boss you have known for a while).

Quote: hook3670

A lot of casinos are going to this method of using your -insert casino company name- points versus them comping you. At the Harrah's properties there no comps except the points in your account(unless you really kiss ass to a friendly pit boss you have known for a while).

Really? Are you signed up on their website? They will give you all kinds of room offers that won't deduct anything from your points, but I don't get any snail mail from them, and very few emails compared to the number of offers I see on the website.

Last trip to Vegas, I got a Sunday and Monday night free at the Flamingo (pretty soft comp, considering the days of the week).

Next trip to Vegas (this coming weekend), I got Friday-Saturday-Sunday free at Bally's, which is a lot nicer comparatively. Neither of the above deduct from my RC balance.

I'm not a high roller, but I'm close to Platinum so I've given them a decent amount of action.

Sorry I meant in terms of sitting at the table and asking for a free dinner or buffet. Yes I get tons of direct bet and free room offers at most of their properties and I am a low level Diamond player. Those are seperate comps not taken out of your reward balence.