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Casino consultant |
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Monday, September 8th 2008 |
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In casino gambling the term “comp” is short for “complimentary”, referring to anything that the casino will give a player for free in return for gambling in the casino.
Naturally, the more a player bets, the more the casino is willing to accommodate them. For those high rollers willing to bet thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on the turn of a card or a roll of the dice, casinos will spare no expense to cater to their every whim.
But the lower-limit bettor can also qualify for comps, no matter what their level of play might be. If a player is going to a casino with the express purpose of betting, he or she might as well ask to be rated by the casino in order to see what they can get in the way of comps.
Getting “rated” is simplicity itself. All a player has to do is tell the dealer they want to be rated. The dealer will notify the appropriate floor person, who will then take down the player’s name and put it on a card along with information on how long the player has played and how much the player has bet. Instead of hovering over a player’s shoulder, the floor person with glance over every once in a while to see how much the player is betting and note it on the card. If the player changes tables, they need to tell the floor person so that they can continue to track the player’s betting at the new table.
Usually a casino want visitors to play for at least 3 hours, and practically all casinos use the same formula to calculate a player’s value. They simply take the size of the player’s average bet and multiply it by the casino’s advantage on the game the player is playing, the decisions per hour in the player’s game, and the length of play in hours. The end result is what the casino expects to win from the player during their stay at the tables or machines, and most establishments will return about 40% in the form of comps.
It is important to understand that a player needn’t lose in order to qualify for comps, just put in time at the tables. Also bear in mind that some casino games require skill (such as blackjack and pai gow poker), or offer various bets that have different advantages to the casino (craps), so those factors are sometimes taken into account in the player’s comp equation.
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