Talk to a casino host, or even read the pages of this site, and you’ll see we advise not to spread your play too thin, whether it’s too many visits to one casino or spending a little at a lot of casinos vs. a lot at one casino (in terms of your budget, not necessarily in terms of absolute dollars).
This question strikes at the heart of the topic:
I used to work promotions at a casino in Kansas and they talked about how players were rated. I think they said it was better for a player to spend $500 in one visit than to spend $100 per day over 5 visits. Something about the way player benefits and card levels were calculated. Can you explain in layman’s terms?
John S.
The basic idea is that casinos generally rate a player in one of two ways: Per day, or per trip. For most of us, a casino trip is a single day, so it often is the same. (Where it may vary is, for example, properties in Vegas may build you an offer based on the expectation of a multi-day visit, based on previous data on you.)
The general concept is this: Your casino offers are based on how much you are expected to lose per day, and then based on the particular formula a casino adopts for comps, you may see offers anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of your expected loss to encourage another, similar, visit.
Now let’s use your example. Player A visits five times in one month, bringing $100 each visit. Player B visits once per month, and brings $500 each visit. We presume that the amount of play in total for the month is the same (obviously you can lose quickly or slowly or not at all, depending on the individual visit, but let’s keep the example simple).
All else being equal, Player A is worth $100 to get them in for another visit, according to the computer calculating the offers, while Player B is worth $500 to get them in for another visit. The offers for Player B are going to be at least five times as good, even though both players are spending the same amount of money.
Now, when if player A is getting $20 per visit in free play, and player B is getting $100 per visit, there’s not much of a difference theoretically. But because casinos do offers in calendar based windows, like once a week or twice a month, Player A may not get to take advantage of getting free play five times, for instance, whereas Play B isn’t going to have much difficulty getting their full value.
Player A may only get discounts to a hotel room whereas Player B may get a free room on certain nights, because their budget is higher. Player B only potentially needs a room or food once a month vs. Player A five times a month, so Player B may see their offers balanced in a different way that gives them more value to offset the lack of a need for more room nights.
This is why in the end we’ve always said if you’re looking to maximize your potential offers, consider going less often, saving up your budget, and showing the casino your spending power. If you’ve got a lot of history of going a lot and spending a little, it can take time to overcome that history you’ve built, but over time your offers will improve.
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