We see a lot of confusion about players and how they’re eligible for comps or getting a host at a casino. Oftentimes the point of tier status comes up – players think that because they play enough to reach a certain tier, they are eligible for a host. Or, they wonder why someone who doesn’t visit the casino as often as they do are getting better comps than they do.
Ultimately, whether you get comps (and what level of comps you get), and whether you get hosted or not, has nothing to do with your tier level (although tier level could be a criteria you have to meet along with the one we’re about to share). The core criteria is how much the casino thinks they’re going to make off you per visit. This is sometimes known as ADT: Average Daily Theoretical.
The idea is based on the amount you bet, the game you play, and how many bets you make (which incorporates how long you play), a casino can calculate how much they would, on average, make off that level of play. The more you bet per wager, and the longer you do it, and the higher the house advantage of the game, the more the casino expects to make.
Players that go to the casino often can reach higher tiers even with smaller budgets – they’re effectively grinding away at that higher tier level bit by bit over the course of a year. But they may go with small budgets each visit. To the casino, those players aren’t worth much per visit, and they’re already visiting a lot already, so there’s not much more they can do.
By comparison, someone going to the casino once a month with a larger budget might not hit the same level of play for the year, but because each visit is worth a bigger amount, the casino sees them as a higher value player. Comps are likely to be higher, and it may even catch the attention of a host if the play is high enough.
Hosts care about visit frequency and amount – if you’re only going 1-2 times a year, they may engage if the amount is large enough, but they really want to work with players who balance things nicely between budget and visit frequency. They know that even one additional visit will be worth a meaningful amount for players at their level, and so they will work (within reason) to make that visit happen.
When players say casinos don’t value those who spend more money, they absolutely do, but the way they calculate it is very specific. If you go to the casino and spend $100 every couple of days, there’s only so much room for comps on such a small figure per visit. Pool all that budget into a single visit every month, and they see you differently.
Why? You can only sleep in so many beds per visit. You can only eat so much food per visit. And when you visit less often with a larger budget, just one more visit can generate more play than weeks of that $100/visit player, so they’re going to focus their energies there – pretty standard cost/benefit calculations on that one.
So if you wish to be given those opportunities, and that matters more than the entertainment from the frequency of visits, consider shifting your strategy to playing at a casino with a bigger budget less often.
That is probably the single most explanatory commentary on comps that I’ve ever read. It really clarifies everything. Thank you.
Thanks Neil – we’re glad it proved helpful!