Las Vegas Buy-in Effect On Comps

My go-to casino is unique in that they have a point system spanning both machines and table games. They are very good about giving my playing partner and I dinner after we play 5 hours of blackjack, but we get points also and I'm finding those points very valuable to use for Bingo, which my girlfriend likes.

I always buy in for $500, but last week I bought in for $700, and got WAY more points than I have in recent weeks. (We play almost every Sunday.) I know the floors there and I asked one of them and she said I had a bet range of 10-40 last week (it's usually 10-50) and they gave me an average of 30.

I know that the points/rating formula is pretty complicated but does anyone have a sense how much buy-in affects your score?

 

Comps are calculated as such

https://www.gamblingforums.com/threads/perpetual-comp-machine.24451/

and have to do with average bet X number of hours played.

Buy in does not factor in. You could place $200,000. on deposit, pull all of it at the table and play with just a couple thousand of it and that extra $198,000. all it would get you is contempt and ridicule from the pit boss and anyone who else who noticed.

 

With all respect to MDawg, I disagree. I've been told my too many people that the acronym BAT - Buyin/Average/Time - is the standard. (Including some of my supervisors at the place I used to deal at.)

I agree that it SHOULDN'T mean anything, but I've been told it does.

Keep in mind that I'm playing in a different league. I'm not looking for a week in a suite with F&B and show tickets. I'm happy if I can get $50 worth of free bingo a week for my girlfriend.

(It's already a good deal because they give 10x points on table games on weekends, and 50% off on redeeming points for Bingo vouchers on Tuesday. So I'm already in effect getting a 20x multiplier on the base. On the other hand, if you consider only the base, I was getting about $1-2 worth of points for 5 hours of $20 average blackjack. Not very much, but they do always comp us dinner.)

 

When the pit boss turns in your play, he turns in the average bet X time played (also calculating whether you played every hand, with a % up to 100%), also the amount won or lost. That's it.

The buy in (or amount withdrawn with markers) factors only to the calculation of win or loss.

There was a time where depositing a significant sum at the cage, then finding a host, could get someone a few days room comp free up front, but not even so much these days - they are on to that scheme. Nowadays they just tell the player they will take a look at the end of trip to calculate comps.

 

There is an over arching comp guideline about the maximum comps that may be issued to someone with such and such credit line (or front money deposit), but that is just a guideline and if someone keeps winning the starting amount doesn't matter so much. Nor does the guideline matter if the player gets blown out, pays off his line, and keeps playing within a certain number of days (usually, within about a week it is considered the same trip).

In any case the difference between 500 or 700 buy is so negligible that in your case if you did end up with more comps you probably just played a bit harder because you had more money in front of you. I doubt you hit the ceiling for max comps based on 500, such that buying in for 700, made any difference in that respect.

I know more about comps than most casino staff, and pit bosses (the supervisors you seem to be mentioning) don't handle comps any longer (pit bosses do not write comp tickets any longer haven't for years) - casino marketing and hosts do. The pit boss job is just to turn in the raw data.

 

When I said "supervisors" I was referring to the floor supervisors, and I know they don't actually handle comps, that's either the pit manager or the shift manager depending on what you're asking for.

I think the $30 average they had me in for is probably what mattered, it was on the high side and in the past they probably had me with a smaller average. Now if I can just figure out how to keep this going...

 

Query what would happen at your joint if a cat bought in for 11ks then come over the top to bet flat a green chip, hey hey?

 

I agree that in theory buy-in should have nothing to do with anything. It should be your theoretical loss and/or actual loss. But I've been told by many people that it does.

 

When I go to Vegas I pony up 50ks in front money and draw market at the table. My host expect me to wager 500$ per hand and play minimum three shoe of baccarat per day. I get comp purely on theo-loss, hey hey.

 

My previous host told me that my expected theo loss buckin up against the baccarats is one unit per shoe. He told me that I should expect kicks-back in the form of comp around one third of theo loss. So if I grind four shoe in a day my theo loss is 2ks and my expected comp for that day should be about 650$. And that's based on pure theo loss irrespective of any actual win or loss, hey hey.

 

After some more experimentation, I agree that buy-in doesn't affect rating, at least where I play. I'm pretty sure it was a fluke that they gave me a higher average bet on the same day I increased my buy-in.