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Casino Perpetual Comp Machine

Discussion in 'Casino Forum' started by MDawg, Aug 22, 2022.

  1. MDawg

    MDawg Well-Known Member

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    Perpetual Comp Machine

    As the title implies, this is a discussion about how to keep comps going in casinos, beyond the typically weekend, or few day long trip. As someone who has spent now up to at times nearly a full year straight in Vegas suites without paying for anything, and has done more or less the same thing going back years, I am well qualified to comment on this.

    First let’s discuss the two ways that casinos comp players. Obviously, play must be rated, via a Player Card, so anyone playing under the radar is not going to get any comps, let alone understand the comp system.

    Comps are used to pay for a player’s stay related expenses while in a resort, expenses such as room food beverage (the three RFBs), spa & salon (massage, skincare, haircuts and styling, manicure, pedicure, etc.), events (concerts, sports, and so on) and, at the upper limit of the comp spectrum, special activities arranged for the player.

    A player’s casino action also results in invitations to special events, tournaments and the receipt of gift cards, promotional (free play) chips at the tables, or free spin play at slots. Some casinos build up points or “casino dollars” based on play that may be used to buy food and retail at either casino shops, or online.

    Comps are handed out based on two different bases:

    1) Actual loss. Typically 10% of an actual loss is available for a player’s comps.
    a. This was up to 15% during certain periods, such as for example last year during COVID some resorts were giving 15% of actual loss, but 10% is the norm.

    2) Theoretical (theo) loss. Typically 35% and up to 40% of a player’s theoretical loss is available for comps. Theo loss is calculated based on what the player is expected to lose, based on average bet times number of hours played against whatever the house edge is on the game being played.

    For a weekend or other relatively short play, either of these will do to cover a guest’s resort expenses. But for extended plays, really the only sustainable or even viable way to keep the comp machine going is via comps earned via theoretical loss action.

    Actual loss, when considering high end casino stays in, for example, $1000. a night suites, notwithstanding food and beverage charges, just won’t sustain an extended stay. For example, to cover a 10 day long stay in a casino in a large suite, about $15,000. in comps are needed, if it is a nice stay with decent food and spa services included. To earn $15,000. in comps via a loss, $150,000. in actual loss is needed – and most players don’t even have credit lines or cash available to gamble at that level, let alone are able to afford losing $150K in the first place.

    When you get into stay lengths of longer than 10 days, it becomes even more unlikely that a player would be earning his keep via actual loss, as the required loss numbers to earn all those comps pile up even higher.

    No, what really earns the comps, and keeps the comp machine going, is not loss, but action, that is, play that results in either a win, or just the average loss attributable to the house edge.

    Typically, player club points and casino dollars, too, are earned at a high rate pretty much by play, via theoretical loss, not via actual loss.

    For example, on trip a couple or so years ago I played in the area of around seventy some (under eighty) hours at an average of $1200. a hand, at table games, and earned just about $80,000. in theoretical loss., and notwithstanding that I won over fifty grand on the trip, this theo loss against 40%, earned me over $30,000. in comps. $30K in comps is more than enough to cover a very long stay, even a month long stay, if the suite is coming in at say, $600. or even $800. a day (which remember - sometimes the rate of which the suite is calculated for purposes of comps is lower than the "rack rate" which a non-gaming hotel guest might have to pay for the suite), which leaves room for food beverage and spa too.

    And this is why, one guy might sit at the table and lose five grand, and get $500. in comps, and another might sit at the table, win barely $200., and earn a theo loss which would result in higher comps. Theo loss is the way to go, for max comps.

    Granted, if you want to dine on caviar daily, in a villa, even this model is not going to work as far as keeping the perpetual comp machine going, unless you step up your average bet even higher than a thousand a hand. But the perpetual comp machine model – always involves building up theoretical loss. Blowouts do not lead to much comps. Continued play, does.
     
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  2. redietz

    redietz Well-Known Member

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    A couple of notes:

    1) Occasionally a casino does an audit or inventory of a player's overall history and shuts down comps or free rooms if they see that someone is winning in a manner that defies the house edge. To mention two examples from opposite ends of the action spectrum, Boyd stopped my free room offers. I am up a very modest amount, somewhere around 4K, at Boyd lifetime. My sports is not tracked, so this is simply video poker. Now 4K profit over 30 years of action does not seem like much of a dent, but they ended my offers. At the other end of the action spectrum is Bob Dancer, whose ability to play and drawing opportunities have been seriously truncated, although not completely banned, after a lifetime of advantage play. If I'm audited with my piddly video poker, I have to imagine most bigger players undergo audits to iron out incongruities in theo versus actual results.

    2) The book Whale Hunt in the Desert serves as a useful cautionary tale for those who think that what MDawg suggests is doable without blowing the family jewels.

    3) If you want to examine the likelihood of being able to dance between raindrops and rack up comps without losing one's ass, I suggest going to a local university and hiring a probability prof to do the breakdown for you regarding what's necessary from a standard deviation perspective to pull off what MDawg posits that he's done.
     
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  3. MDawg

    MDawg Well-Known Member

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    The average bet is sky high lately too. It all works out!

    Over all, this is the way we do it, when we are staying in house and actually need the room:

    I check in to a resort and book it for say, 8 nights up front (no time for subtlety lately - I used to ask for just 4 nights or so, then extend, but these days I ask for a week or longer up front). Depending on the resort and the history of my play there, the trip might be comp'ed up front RFB, or might be room comp only with understanding that all food within reason will be comp'ed too.

    During the course of the stay, I might play exclusively at the property we are in, or maybe additionally elsewhere.

    As the 8 day mark approaches, based on my play, I have a feeling about whether it's time to just move on, or extend. If it seems like my play has gone beyond 8 days worth of RFB, I extend. If not, we move on, typically moving to whichever resort I have already played at without even staying, where comps are already set. Sometimes I have played at some other resort so much that by the time we arrive there I am already "owed" at least a week or even two of RFB up front.

    The formula also depends on how much spa the wife has racked up. I want to make sure all of that is taken care of as well.

    Additionally, as the end of the trip approaches I look at what promotions such as promo chips or such I might have coming for the next trip, and consult with the host to see if extending the stay will eat into those.

    If I have booked a loss at a session at some resort along the way, then we move on to that resort. There are occasional losing sessions. But typically almost all of my comps are earned by theoretical loss where I have won.


    After we had been here in Vegas a couple months, some of my friends started saying, "You could probably just stay there forever without spending a dime." At the time, I thought, maybe, maybe not, but right now - actually - it seems that I could. Would want to, is of course a different matter.

    Last year we stayed in house in Vegas for ten months straight in top suites that would normally book rack rate at over a thousand a night easily, some as much as two thousand a night.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2022
  4. MDawg

    MDawg Well-Known Member

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    Actually looking back on this thread, it's clear that Vegas hotel room rates have gone up. I mentioned suites in 2021, where rack rates were 1000 - 2000 a night.

    In 2022, especially the second half, rack rates on many nights for these same suites were anywhere from 3000 - 5000 a night, triple what they were the year before. In fact, in 2022, I was seeing regular rooms at resorts like the Wynn sometimes costing 1000 - 1500 a night, when conventions were in town.
     
  5. soxfan

    soxfan Well-Known Member

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    Casinos generally think hat the baccarats is the unbeatable game so will comp winnings baccarats player for a long time based strictyly on the theoretical losses. And rooms, even high-end suite are a soft cost worth only the cost to clean it, hey hey.
     
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  6. MDawg

    MDawg Well-Known Member

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    How to measure luxury? as in - what is the "most luxurious" resort in Vegas?

    I think one way is to consider the cost of the resort versus number of rooms, taking into consideration the date built and the relative value of money from that time.

    Resorts Worlds cost 4.6B to build. Cosmopolitan cost 3.9B Encore 2.6B Wynn 2.7B Bellagio 1.6B Venetian 1.5B Palazzo 1.8B

    Resorts World has 3506 rooms, completed in 2021, Cosmopolitan 3027 rooms, completed in Dec 2010. Encore has 2034 rooms, completed Dec 2008, Wynn has 2716 rooms completed April 2005.

    So, Resorts World per room cost was $1,312,036 per room in 2021, Cosmopolitan $1,288,404. per room in 2010, Encore $1,278,269. per room in 2008, Wynn $994,108. per room in 2005. I believe that if you consider the relative price of construction in say, 2008, that Encore put more money into its structure relative to the number of rooms than Resorts World.

    If I had exact square footage sizes of these buildings I could make even better comparisons.

    Once you understand the enormous hard costs, you cannot say that a room's cost is merely in the cost to clean and maintain it! A hotel room's cost to build it must be recovered some way.

    In a casino resort, one way to recover hard costs is through gaming. But another, is through charging people to stay in the room. The days of viewing a Vegas room as something that isn't going to generate much revenue and might as well be given away ended a few decades today. Today, with Vegas visitors such as convention goers and other corporate clients and even non-gaming tourists willing to pay full rack rate on almost any night of the week, the value of a room is most definitely what the resort can get for it, full rack rate. Whenever the resort gives the room away to a player for nothing, its value is what the room could have been rented out for that night to a non-player.

    I recently got three nights for five rooms at two of the top Strip resorts over a weekend for friends and family. The rooms averaged over $1000. a night each because of conventions going on. So that was something like $18000. in comps applied, not including food and beverage and show tickets which were comp'ed too. This well over twenty grand did not include our own suite that weekend, or our own food and beverage, which that weekend our suite was pushing five grand a night.

    When something is going on in Vegas, especially lately, standard room rates go over a thousand a night at the top resorts.

    There were weeks when we were trying to get our usual suites at some of the resorts, and every single suite in the hotel was booked by convention goers - obviously not the average convention goer, but the owners and executives of the convention going companies.

    So, to say that "even high-end suite are a soft cost worth only the cost to clean it" is to not understand how much the business has changed over the past forty years.
     
  7. KewlJ

    KewlJ Well-Known Member

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    It is almost 4am and I am just home from a long night in the casinos, so please forgive me for not understanding this post, Mdawg.

    You posted the cost of each of these 4 properties. "Resorts Worlds cost 4.6B to build. Cosmopolitan cost 3.9B Encore 2.6B Wynn 2.7B Bellagio 1.6B Venetian 1.5B Palazzo 1.8B". And then divided that cost by the number of rooms and suites to come up with a cost per room.

    What about restaurants, retail space, concert and show space, convention space, spas, swimming pools, and the large casino's themselves along with all the high-end technology that goes with that? How is it that only the rooms and suites figure into the costs of these mega resort, strip properties? o_O

    Now furthermore, why is this important to you? On these forums we have some people that reside in Vegas and the rest visit, however often they do. 99.999% of people that visit Las Vegas are just looking for a room with a bed and shower, to grab a couple hours sleep between their Las Vegas trip activities of gambling and whatever else they may be doing. It is only you that has this weird need to impress people....to the point of figuring what each room is worth or cost to build. I am trying to get away from attacks and stuff, but I just think that is weird.
     

  8. coach belly

    coach belly Active Member

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    Another false accusation and assumption by a blabber-mouthed idiot.

    https://www.fixr.com/costs/build-hotel

    Hotel Construction Cost per Room
    While square footage is a popular way to break down the construction costs, many hotels are also priced per room. This makes an easier determination of the project’s total cost by projecting the number of occupants, rather than the overall space.

    https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/World's_most_expensive_hotel-casino_opens_in_Las_Vegas

    All of these specifications add up to a record construction cost of over one million US dollars per room. Other expensive Las Vegas properties cost a fraction of the price, such as the Bellagio, which cost half the price at US$533,000 per room. The most expensive hotel property in the world was previously the Grand Wailea Resort in Maui, Hawaii, which cost US$775,000 per room.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2023
  9. MDawg

    MDawg Well-Known Member

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    Well, we wouldn't expect UNKewlJ to understand real estate development cost analysis.

    But, we'd at least expect him to understand the two posts and why the second was a response to the first - or...maybe not??
     
  10. KewlJ

    KewlJ Well-Known Member

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    Leave it to coach belly to jump in here, citing Wikipedia as his expert source.

    Just before thanksgiving 2009, at the height of the financial and real estate crash, I purchased my first condominium through an online auction of foreclosed and repossessed properties. Less than 3 weeks later, I moved into that condo. It was a Monday in mid December. Later that same week, the complex known at the time as City Center opened. City Center consisted of Aria casino hotel, multiple hotels, one The Harmon Tower that never opened, a residential condominium building, a condo hotel (which differs from a hotel or permanent condominiums, an s shopping complex. the cost of this project was 9.2 billion dollars (almost a trillion).

    Nobody would take the total cost of this complex and divide it by the hotel rooms that opened (less than expected with the Harmon Tower never opening). That is ridiculous. And each of these other resort complexes, while not quite what The City Center (now Aria Complex was), each also contain some elements of this multi-use concept. These large resorts aren't just a casino hotel. Many have large retail shopping spaces. Resorts world has 40 restaurants for God sakes. It is the hotel rooms that are actually only a part of these projects.

    However none of that was my point. My point is what difference does it make what any of that costs?
     
  11. coach belly

    coach belly Active Member

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    No problem giving him a pass for being uneducated, or clueless about the way things work.

    But to assert that it's weird of MDawg to provide the info, that it's only important to you, that only you would figure out what each room is worth or cost to build, and you only posted it to impress people, just shows once again that he's a complete tewl.
     
  12. coach belly

    coach belly Active Member

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    You are clueless in this matter specifically, and behaving like complete tewl in general.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2023
  13. KewlJ

    KewlJ Well-Known Member

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    Anyway, I want to get back on track here. Back to the first post of this thread. :p

    Mdawg like to throw around the term "theo(retical) loss". He acts like he thinks no one understands what this is or how it works. Another term for Theo loss is expectation.

    I don't know the members of this forum all that well except those from other forums, but at WoV, where Mdawg also posts all his "theo" rhetoric, the membership is made up of some advantage players and mostly recreational gamblers, some playing at an advantage, some not, leaning more towards the recreation part of recreation players. Every single AP and I would guess 90% of the recreational players he is talking to understands theo loss.

    For AP's it is what we do! Because we are playing with an advantage we are dealing with theo win or expectation, rather than disadvantage which theo loss is based on. But it is the flip side of the same thing. But with both theo loss and theo win is long-term expectation. The shorter term actual results that can be very different from "theo" is called variance. In the short term a player can and usually does run very different in either direction, than theo.

    So Mdawg is right, that initially comps and offers are based on Theo loss. The casino thinking they have the advantage, and they do with most players, make these comps and offers based on theo loss. But as time goes on and a player gets to the longer term, and that is very different for different games, if those results don't start to match the theo loss or expectation, then there is a problem.

    It is at this point that for most of us, the casino will reduce or cut off comps and offers. AP's call this getting "no mailed", meaning no more mailer offers. And the casinos are even ok, with making a mistake and cutting off players that may not even be playing with an advantage in that mix. Once a player gets to the long-term, if his play is substantially different than theo, showing a longterm win instead of expected loss, casinos will cut off most players. If they have made a mistake, big deal. That is the cheapest way to handle it. This cutting off or "no mail" is the first countermeasure casinos take against winning players.

    Now, you will notice I said "most" several times. A higher end player, whale, mini-whale, whatever name you want to give, of which Mdawg says he is, is handled a little differently. Casinos want to error on the side of caution. With these players they want to make sure. So when they get to this point that results aren't matching up with theo with these higher end players, and there is enough play that it should, is when they call in experts, like Eliot, just to make sure they don't make a mistake.

    But either way, there is a point that when a players results don't match up with the expected theo, they cut him. The casino industry, especially Las Vegas, where they know what they are doing, just does not allow players to keep winning, winning, winning, almost every day for years and still offer all these incentive. In other words there is a point where "theo loss" no longer matters and actual results do. That is something every AP deals with and is no different even for higher end players. They may be given a little more leeway, but eventually casinos will cut them off the comp train. Giving away all these comps and incentives to winning players is not how this town and these large casinos were built, despite what Mdawg claims. His claims defy the way Las Vegas works!

    Now there are players that play the comp game well. Get top "bang" for their buck. I have said a number of times, Mdawg may be one of these players. But all the winning, winning, winning, almost daily for years now AND high end comps on top, is just not how the casino industry and Las Vegas works.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2023
  14. MDawg

    MDawg Well-Known Member

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    This is offered by some guy who claims that he plays blackjack under the radar with no player card, and therefore, assuming even what he says is true, is true, would know nothing about comps or how Vegas works.
     

  15. KewlJ

    KewlJ Well-Known Member

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    That would be a good argument except that I have been very clear about what I do and in sharing my experiences.

    For a decade, blackjack play of which I play unrated in most cases, not all but most, accounted for only part (the majority) of my AP income every year. 20-25%, of my income peaking in 2016, 2017, just before my partner passed away, came from machine play and specifically the mailer offers, so I understand exactly how comps and offers work. Like I said, all AP's understand this. It is what we do.
     
  16. redietz

    redietz Well-Known Member

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    It's interesting how comps for sports betting have evolved. Originally, comps were paid at the same rate as horse betting. Then it became evident that hold for sports was much, much less, so comps were downgraded. Even then, however, you could occasionally stumble onto a book (Circus-Circus) that would give you a dollar in comps for every $100 bet. That soon went the way of the Dodo. The standard became a dollar in comps for every $240 in the liberal places and $400 or $500 in the tight. And it's still tightening.

    About ten years ago, Wynn offered to comp my lunch if I bet 20K that day.

    The rule is basically that the more beatable a game, the tighter the comps. Baccarat comps are likely pretty good as you can't beat the game.
     
  17. KewlJ

    KewlJ Well-Known Member

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    Well now this can't be right, red. For almost 3 years now, on almost a daily basis I have been reading otherwise. :confused:
     
  18. MDawg

    MDawg Well-Known Member

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    REDietz you say that it used to be $1. in comps for a single $100. sports bet. If so, that's pretty tremendous because $100. bet at Baccarat has a theo loss of say, $1. (rounded), and all the player would expect to get is 35-40% of that, which would be 35 to 40 cents of comps.

    Triple that to $300., and you get to somewhere between $1.05 and $1.20 in comps.

    So if you are getting a dollar in comps for a few hundred dollars in sports bet, that's about the same as Baccarat.

    But now you get an idea of the dollar amount I am betting, my handle, to get $50,000. in comps in just one weekend. And I am winning to boot! Winning + Comps = a good weekend in Vegas.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2023
  19. MDawg

    MDawg Well-Known Member

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    8Ov7yfCl.jpg
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2023
  20. KewlJ

    KewlJ Well-Known Member

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    Red, while I am not familiar with sports betting comps, I think we all (all real players) are in agreement that comps across the board have and still are tightening. 10, 15, 20 years ago, players could win just by playing the comp game. A blackjack player who I networked with for a while used to make a living just by playing the comp game playing blackjack. He actually posted at VCT for a brief period before deciding that forum wasn't for him.

    He played blackjack using a very small bet spread, that no casino would be concerned about, just enough to play a break even game, then would take all the gifts ad comps converted to gift cards and buy stuff that he would sell on ebay. He made a better living that I do playing blackjack and never had to worry about heat or being backed off. Of course that was a different time and era. As mentioned comps and offers have been tightening for years now.

    This is not my area of expertise, but when did Max Rubin's Comp City come out? I think that may have been responsible for opening some eyes and the beginning of the "tightening" up of things.

    Well tightening for all real players. There is one guy claiming winning, winning, winning while still scoring mega boo comps. At least in whatever alternative reality he resides.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2023

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