Free Food, Free Booze, Free Love and Free Lunches.

Okay. I give up on this "free" or "comped" stuff. Its maddening.
We all know casinos often offer Free Fun Books filled with coupons worth a grand but the average visitor rarely uses even half the coupons and most of them ate half-off one for ordering two or something. Or half off an appetizer for ordering a high priced meal.

We also know that "soft" comps means the casino is comping you to the item but not to what you might have to otherwise pay for the item. Rooms go at arbitrary rates and the hotel prices the rooms with the knowledge that sixty percent of them will be comped.

We know there are all these point systems and point multipliers and special this and special that. Now you don't even have to be in the casino, you can play at home via facebook and accumulate your casino points.

The town is awash in freebies and discounts and everyone keeps telling me there is no such thing as a free lunch but if you look in the archives for photos of NY and Chicago bars you see just about every bar on the block offered a free lunch and from the photos or the menus displayed its rather obvious this was a substantial feed, not some paltry plate of solely salty appetizers.

We hear of razor thin margins on table games but darn for a 0.23 percent game, those casinos sure give away alot of cars.

So when you get right down to the real nitty gritty, after the free rooms and free booze and free buffets and free fun books and free multiples of points and free play ... where do all these freebies come from? Ain't no way that 0.23 percent game supplies it. Heck, in order to wake up, I usually need a stinging shower to get all the booze out my pores and I probably use gallons and gallons of water so the hotel loses money right there and then. So how do they really get to give away all this free stuff?

deleted

If you dip $1 at 0.25% enough times, it adds up.

That plus all the 7% edge bets, the players not playing at 100% optimum and so forth.... there's where it comes from. It's just that at the bottom end you may well end up contributing much less than the casino costs to get you in there. That's okay, there's ten of you fleas, and nine of them are over betting for every sharpie who conserves their bank roll and plays the game back on the house.

I've thought about this before. With the value of comps considered I normally come out way ahead, especially if the Hilton paid my airfare. I've wondered before about how many slot and Big 6 and keno players probably contributed to my comps. I'm don't think that I'm (usually) the one paying for them. I mean, I've been known to play through some pretty significant amounts of money at Baccarat, but I normally come out ahead even without the comps, and, like I said, when I don't, the comps usually more than make up for it.

Don't forget that the losses from a single "whale" probably make up for all the fleas.

They don't give away cars at the craps tables :)

As I like to say, everything you see is paid for by the difference between what the losers lost and what the winners won (with a recent addendum: "...plus, where applicable, whatever overhead they get on the tickets for whatever Cirque show is running there").

Don't forget about whatever cut the casino gets from the poker tables.

Quote:

Now you don't even have to be in the casino, you can play at home via facebook and accumulate your casino points.

Am I missing something? How can you get club points on Facebook? (Or are the Facebook-based ones limited to online-only sites like, say, DoubleDown and SlotMania, as opposed to Total Rewards?)

>I think its from the thousands and thousands of 24% slots.
Okay. Yet slot players get the best comps.
>That plus all the 7% edge bets, the players not playing at 100% optimum and so forth.... there's where it comes from.
True. Even at a razor thin margin there are non-optimal bets and non-optimal strategies.

>how many slot and Big 6 and keno players probably contributed to my comps.
Yet sometimes those Keno players and Big 6 players win. And they do get comps too. So its not all umpteen zillion advantage to the casino in that darned Keno room. And if the Sharpie at the Baccarat table knows his spouse is in the Keno room, he makes sure the casino knows to link the accounts so as to keep him happy.

>Don't forget that the losses from a single "whale" probably make up for all the fleas.
Whales usually get a heck of a lot of comps and often win.

>They don't give away cars at the craps tables
True. All casinos need to offer a "mix" of games so as to have the atmosphere of a casino and so as to take care of the needs of companions and have the ability to not be left behind as tastes change. Yet, even if the car is awarded by the slots department, the casino has a united bottom line. "Casinos" such as Dotty's who try to run only one cream-skimming slots department get the law after them. Burger Bars who run a cream-skimming slots department have to actually get both revenue and profits from the burgers and have only limited licenses for the slots so they have to be real Burger Bars.

So, yes. The Free Lunch and the Free Cars and Free Airline Tickets come from somewhere, probably the high house edge areas. All merchants have Loss Leaders and Strategic Planing to capture future market trends by positioning themselves now, but I dread the day when slot players all get up and wander over to a 100x craps table. Look what Steve Wynn had to do to his expensive Port Cochere. He had to turn it into some sort of Trendy Day Pool/Trendy Night Club that required booze merchandizing and DeeJays rather than Dealers.

Casinos keep talking about that lighting bill and the water in the middle of a dessert. Obviously it has not checked investors who keep pouring money into casinos in Vegas though casinos are now everywhere in the USA and seem to be cannibalizing some other casino's customers. In Florida investor groups have been jockeying for "casino licenses" even before the enabling legislation is passed.

People used to make jokes about Seattle with its Latte Shops being all over the place, soon it will be the whole USA that has a casino on every block. Already Atlantic City is offering 3 dollar craps at 10x odds only to find that Pennsylvania still undercuts them and shaves an hour off the travel time

>Am I missing something?
Maybe, but its more likely that I am.
> How can you get club points on Facebook?
Stations Casinos has a captive website WeLuvLocalsDotCom with online fun games that are linked to players club cards.
Southpoint just started an online poker room linked to its rewards card contingent on later legislation but now linked to its player cards for fun games of some sort. Silverton is the highest rated casino in Troy Feet's (Feet.us) Facebook operation known as LocalsGamingDotCom that rates locals casinos and offers slot like games reporting the players hours to the casinos so as to deliver Facebook players to various casinos. Its presently a start up venture more oriented to marketing than to gambling. (His initial listing of Roulette wheels in Vegas showed an ignorance of the fact that if a wheel has a double zero it also has a single zero, so gambling doesn't seem to be his strength, marketing is). It might best be described as a Gambling Promoter in a town that is used to Concert Promoters and Club Promoters and Coupon Promoters.

The Venetian's Ice Skating Rink starting November 21st was first announced via Facebook and the Venetian's website, not their mailings.

Quote: heather

I've wondered before about how many slot and Big 6 and keno players probably contributed to my comps. I'm don't think that I'm (usually) the one paying for them. I mean, I've been known to play through some pretty significant amounts of money at Baccarat, but I normally come out ahead even without the comps, and, like I said, when I don't, the comps usually more than make up for it.

I think this is what The Evil Empire has been all about. They were constantly providing hotel rooms but always lowering their costs. They were constantly supplying FreePlay but always varying the amounts and timing to a finely adjusted "just enough to entice that particular player".
So sure, their policies and computer programs and endless staff meetings all resulted in an ability to offer comps that didn't cost them much but had a high rate of return.

Yet it still boils down to "free" stuff has to come from somewhere.

Its true that the Free Cars are available to all who swipe their cards, yet slot players are the most numerous and so can be thought of as "paying" for the Free Car. (Paying both in numbers and in house-edge). Heck, we even know that many of those card swipes are performed by proxies who swipe the cards for everyone in their retirement home.

How about let's see, $27.99 per person for a Sunday champagne brunch. Thats $56 for 2 people to eat breakfast on a Sunday morning. Gotta be a lotta profit in that. At the pool 1 beer and 1 cocktail = $18, and then I am supposed to tip on top of that. Walking between Paris and Bally's there is a sign 2 slices of Pizza and a drink for ONLY $9.99. My god I can get 2 slices and a drink for $5 anytime any day off strip. The food and drink prices on the strip are absolutely horrendous.

the place I go...has basically NON-STOP conventions/conferences, and THAT pays for the lights to stay on...
They give most everyone free rooms, because they wouldn't sell them anyway, so they figure if they can get you IN the hotel/casino, then you'll gamble...granted, 99% of the machines are "full pay" (JoB, BP, NSUD), MOST people are playing slots and BADLY playing vP (if they even are)
The Rooms = They wouldn't sell anyway
The Food = Trust me, it's overpriced, so those who ARE paying full-price make up for yours
The Booze = It's not top-shelf and booze always has the effect of "loosening pockets"
The FreePlay (Be it slots or chips) = Are you really just going to "suck it out" then leave?

So we have:
Less than optimal play being darn near universal
>The Rooms = They wouldn't sell anyway
......... most casinos seem to sell half their rooms.
>The Food = Trust me, it's overpriced, so those who ARE paying full-price make up for yours
True. Those utterly absurd prices are so far out of my league I forget that some people actually pay them.
>The Booze = It's not top-shelf and booze always has the effect of "loosening pockets"
Yes. The booze they give away is highly profitable to them and to the city's hookers and DUI lawyers.
>The FreePlay (Be it slots or chips) = Are you really just going to "suck it out" then leave?
No. The "one free pull" is a publicity stunt. Its the word "free" that does the trick. There doesn't have to be value behind it.

Yes. The days when Circus Circus introduced their breakfast buffet at three dollars are long gone, but even then the casino was still making a profit on it. I tend to forget the super prices and focus on the more bargain oriented prices that I would want to pay at some locals casino. The graveyard specials are great but most people take the buffet even at half price specials.

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I'm not a slot player but several friends and family members are. They can't always be at the casinos on the days that they are offered free slot play so they give it to me. I play it down to the last free bet and cash out. It makes no difference if it's $1 or $1000. I kept track this year and I'm up about $2800.

Going back to your original statement of not buying the idea that "there is no such thing as a free lunch" is an age old economics quote. The idea of "no free lunch" does not imply that no one in the world can ever find something at no cost to themselves, but that someone always foots the bill for the convience of someone else to procure that "free" item. In the case of the bars offering free lunches in the past, the economics of the situation remained largely the same. The financial guru for the bar decided that by offering free lunches to their patrons, their patrons would be more willing to spend money on the booze which makes for a larger profit anyway. After one bar started this promotion, the other bars needed to match this idea in order to keep business in their bars as well.

The bottom line is that businesses will do whatever they can to make themselves profitable. Being from New Jersey, I have been to the local Sands in Pennsylvania on occasion and they are always running promotions (typically once a month) advertising giveaways for cars. For every x amount of dollars that you gamble, you get points towards the car drawing which draws an enormous amount of people to play. On certain nights, they offer additional promos such as 10x points or even 25x points on the night of the drawing itself. I went to the casino one night that they had one of these drawings (completely by accident) and it was the most crowded casino I have ever been in. There were literally lines 2 and 3 deep waiting to play SLOT MACHINES! Table minimums were almost universally $50 for every game, and had the fire marshal shown up, I'm sure they would have been breaking code. Since the drawing was in 15 minutes (at 9:00 PM), I stuck around (naturally I lost) and then headed out. However, upon leaving I heard an announcement "Don't forget the second chance drawing for $5,000 in free slot play at 11:00!"

This didn't entice me to stay, but it did get me to thinking how a powerful marketing department can work wonders for a casino's bottom line. Even though the car offered was a new 2011 corvette, it was still the base model and msrp was around $40 or $50k. This is suggested retail, and since the casino partered with a local dealership to advertise their products, I'm sure the car was deeply discounted to the casino. On the night of the drawing alone, I would say that the casino could have made 10 to 20 times what they offered for "free" without breaking a sweat.

The whole scheme is intended to make people feel like they are getting a great deal. For the intelligent players who can exhibit self-control and manipulate the comp system to their advantage, more power to them. The sad (or maybe happy) truth is that there are so many more clueless gamblers than intelligent ones that the casinos are willing to eat small losses to the smart people for the massive gains from the foolish. The happiness comes from us reaping the rewards :-)

Quote: duckmankilla

The idea of "no free lunch" does not imply that no one in the world can ever find something at no cost to themselves, but that someone always foots the bill for the convenience of someone else to procure that "free" item. . . .
For the intelligent players who can exhibit self-control and manipulate the comp system to their advantage, more power to them. The sad (or maybe happy) truth is that there are so many more clueless gamblers than intelligent ones that the casinos are willing to eat small losses to the smart people for the massive gains from the foolish. The happiness comes from us reaping the rewards :-)

Yes. I imagine this is economically correct. The "Free Lunch" is free to those who eat it but paid for by everyone who orders a drink there whether it be lunchtime or not. Somebody pays. Of course in a casino it may be the person who most thinks that he is getting something for free.

Manipulating comps? Intelligence and self-control?
That's like those people who took only the free flashlight and did not buy batteries and then six months later took only the free batteries and did not buy a flashlight. Or those who buy their Christmas ornaments fifty-percent off just after Christmas and put them away until the next Christmas. Or buy clothing out of season or any other money saving trick requiring knowledge and self-control. Of course the festive atmosphere, beautiful women and free booze at a casino often makes there be darned few people with self-control around the place and I guess that is why these Special Drawings for a Sexy Convertible are always late at night after everyone is a bit plastered and has probably already paid quite dearly for one of those "free tickets".

So the trick is to stay sober, stay smart ... and somehow squeeze Lady Luck's throat until she favors you.

Quote: FleaStiff

We know there are all these point systems and point multipliers and special this and special that. Now you don't even have to be in the casino, you can play at home via facebook and accumulate your casino points.

Serious? How do they do that if you are not putting up any cash?

>>> Now you don't even have to be in the casino, you can play at home via facebook and accumulate your casino points.
>Serious? How do they do that if you are not putting up any cash?
I'm trying to re-find a website I had previously encountered. I know there were two such sites. One was a website that allowed non-money slot play the other was a facebook related site that was owned by Stations Casinos under a different corporate name.
Now I seem unable to re-locate these sites. I'll keep trying from time to time.

I'm trying something different for my trip to Vegas in February. I'm eschewing the comps and paying for my hotel room. The difference between the comp rate and the quoted rate without "logging in" is so small that it's not worth the obligation to gamble. I'm sure I'll end up gambling but it won't be at the host hotel.

Quote: FleaStiff

Okay. I give up on this "free" or "comped" stuff. Its maddening.

I think it is difficult to do a "bottom up" calculation. Try looking at it from the "top down". Gaming revenue has a very high profit margin compared to most things you sell. Now FY2010 (year ending on 30 June 2010)was a pretty awful year for Vegas, but look at the numbers:

Average revenue for the Vegas strip revenue (per occupied room night ) for 2010 was:
$80.90 from pit games
$98.06 from slot machines
$7.67 from race,sports, and poker

Room rates (including comps) average $112.20 per day.
Employee payroll per room night averaged $30.86

Out of those rooms 23.7% of the value were comped, and an additional 3.1% were comps for other little freebies.
======================
Two years previous room rates were $149 per day and gaming revenue was at least 25% higher (per room basis). You also didn't have as many new casinos with high finance costs.
======================
Now if you have a family resort in Branson, Florida or Hawaii you are just selling the room. You are not giving away 24% of the rooms, but the profit margin is still pretty thin. People are spending money on food and shows and rides, but nothing has that huge profit margin of a casino. And people who win big in casinos are more apt to spring for an expensive meal.

Colorado November 2011 Slots AGP $52,178,939.82 Table Games $6,394,559,44
Hell of a difference, Paco?

>Average revenue for the Vegas strip per room.
>$80.90 from pit games
>$98.06 from slot machines
>$7.67 from race,sports, and poker
Okay so thats about a hundred and eighty dollars a night per room and it shows that the hotel can "give" a room away and not have to worry about whether they play slots or table games because it just doesn't seem to matter all that much.

I just wonder if anything is "lost" in the averaging. If you measure income per Head in Bed or Per Room, you are attributing all such income to someone who was physically in the casino and physically spending the night in the hotel. We know that alot of gamblers wander to other casinos and others go directly to a different casino.

>Room rates (including comps) average $112.20 per day.
Assumption: a Comped Room results in 112 dollars being gambled that otherwis
>Employee payroll per room night averaged $30.86
Major figure in the actual cost of a room. Sure a part of the mortgage payment should be allocated to that room, but that is fixed.

So Comping a room is really cheap... and the important part is what sort of free-spending gambler do they give the room to and does he do his gambling at their casino or some where else?

Quote: FleaStiff

Okay so thats about a hundred and eighty dollars a night per room and it shows that the hotel can "give" a room away and not have to worry about whether they play slots or table games because it just doesn't seem to matter all that much.

>Employee payroll per room night averaged $30.86
Major figure in the actual cost of a room. Sure a part of the mortgage payment should be allocated to that room, but that is fixed.

So Comping a room is really cheap... and the important part is what sort of free-spending gambler do they give the room to and does he do his gambling at their casino or some where else?

Well since only 23% of the rooms are comped, we would presume that they don't comp rooms to the average player. You need to be somewhere above that. But if the average player(s) loses roughly $180 per hotel room night, and the "rule of comps" is roughly 1 to 3, then a room actually costs llittle more than $60 a day you can see how the casino could almost make out with a free room for an average player.

The difficulty with the casino business (or all business in America) is the inordinate amount of debt that most places are carrying. Since much of that debt is not from construction, but from buying and selling existing businesses, there are a handful of people who sold out at the right time sitting on tons of cash.

Quote: pacomartin

Well since only 23% of the rooms are comped,

Thats in Vegas. In the Indian casino hotels, during the
week its 90+% that are comped. They build the hotels
so they can comp the locals with free rooms. On weekends
they have paying customers, but during the week the
hotel would be empty but for comps.

I've stayed in Vegas hotels since 1975. The best room I
ever saw was at 4 Winds in MI. Two big flat screen TV's,
one opposite the bed and one in the sitting area that
had a couch and two recliners. The bathroom had a huge tub
that was also a whirlpool. The shower was tiled on all the
walls, floor and ceiling, was 6' by 6', and had 3 showerheads.
One on the ceiling, and one on each of two walls. You could
have a party in there. The room had a fridge, a micro wave,
a big coffee machine that you couldn't steal because of its
size. I never wanted to leave.

Quote: FleaStiff

So the trick is to stay sober, stay smart ... and somehow squeeze Lady Luck's throat until she favors you.

FleaStiff, I can't tell you how much I enjoy your posts. You can certainly turn a phrase.

Quote: FleaStiff

>>> Now you don't even have to be in the casino, you can play at home via facebook and accumulate your casino points.
>Serious? How do they do that if you are not putting up any cash? ...

It seems the WeLuvLocals.com site is no longer issuing new coupons. I think it was both a website and a facebook application.
I can't find the site that has people playing non=money slot machines but earning PseudoPoints at their favorite casino.
The facebook app and website from Troy Fleet about Locals Gaming that purports to analyze Comp Rates and judge various locals casinos throughout the world is off to an ambitious start in trying to capture and deliver players but its a marketing oriented site rather than being run by gamblers.

The following is reposted in honor of the official 8pm opening of the Margaritaville Casino in Biloxi, MS: Their official policy is to blatantly announce that free play is not free, it comes from overly tight games that pay for the "free" ones. So they have loosened all slots by thirty percent and abandoned all Free Play.

Quote: FleaStiff

Okay. I give up on this "free" or "comped" stuff. Its maddening.
We all know casinos often offer Free Fun Books filled with coupons worth a grand but the average visitor rarely uses even half the coupons and most of them ate half-off one for ordering two or something. Or half off an appetizer for ordering a high priced meal.

We also know that "soft" comps means the casino is comping you to the item but not to what you might have to otherwise pay for the item. Rooms go at arbitrary rates and the hotel prices the rooms with the knowledge that sixty percent of them will be comped.

We know there are all these point systems and point multipliers and special this and special that. Now you don't even have to be in the casino, you can play at home via facebook and accumulate your casino points.

The town is awash in freebies and discounts and everyone keeps telling me there is no such thing as a free lunch but if you look in the archives for photos of NY and Chicago bars you see just about every bar on the block offered a free lunch and from the photos or the menus displayed its rather obvious this was a substantial feed, not some paltry plate of solely salty appetizers.

We hear of razor thin margins on table games but darn for a 0.23 percent game, those casinos sure give away alot of cars.

So when you get right down to the real nitty gritty, after the free rooms and free booze and free buffets and free fun books and free multiples of points and free play ... where do all these freebies come from? Ain't no way that 0.23 percent game supplies it. Heck, in order to wake up, I usually need a stinging shower to get all the booze out my pores and I probably use gallons and gallons of water so the hotel loses money right there and then. So how do they really get to give away all this free stuff?

Quote: FleaStiff

The following is reposted in honor of the official 8pm opening of the Margaritaville Casino in Biloxi, MS: Their official policy is to blatantly announce that free play is not free, it comes from overly tight games that pay for the "free" ones. So they have loosened all slots by thirty percent and abandoned all Free Play.

Chief Operating Officer "retires" three days after a young acrobat falls from a possibly malfunctioning hook in a Margarittaville performance space above a bar. Of course the inevitable question is also: What role did the "No Freeplay" policy play in all this.

Margarittaville opened on a basis of "We've loosened all our slots, so no freeplay will be available since we all know it ain't really "free" because it comes from other slot machines being tightened.

So the COO is out the door... but was it falling performers or falling performance?

news blurb.

Getting even more difficult to sustain free in Biloxi.

Two hundred Margaritaville employees to get the axe.