Comps for the low budget gambler

The lighter side... playing for entertainment, less concerned about "the math."
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OTABILL
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Re: Comps for the low budget gambler

Post by OTABILL »

wildman49 wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 3:47 pm
olds442jetaway wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 2:44 pm
Agree. In fact I believe Mohegan Sun uses theoretical and I have heard hosts throwing that term around when looking at their computers. I guess I pay the price for playing mostly 99 percent machines, but I don’t like to pay retail for anything so why pay OVER retail.
I have heard the host say the word theoretical but really don 't know much about it. He also said some players play VP on machines that also have slots on them as the theoretical is higher on them since the machine don't separate VP from slots.
In the past, I've played VP on Game Kings that have keno on them as well. I would assume the software is sophisticated enough to determine whether you are playing VP or Keno and, if VP, what game you are playing.

tech58
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Post by tech58 »

olds442jetaway wrote:
Sat May 09, 2020 4:23 pm
Hmmmmm. Funny, neither does our state separate slots and vp for public reporting purposes. Since the casinos opened over 25 years ago, the true player return for quote slots has been right around 91 percent. My guess therefore is that slot returns without vp in there would be in the high 80’s.
I believe your guess is dead on.
I recall a Casino Player Mag. article about 15 years ago where they did an interesting study.
Of course no Indian casinos would testify to how tight their slot machines were.
So they hired a bunch of college students, in several areas around the country,and designed a supposedly statistically valid test involving many hours of play and accurate record keeping of coin-in coin-out.
Don,t remember the exact details but something like that.

Their findings were a fairly consistent casino hold of 12% or player return of 88%!! :pinch:

Vman96
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Post by Vman96 »

wildman49 wrote:
Fri May 08, 2020 1:43 pm
Vman96 wrote:
Fri May 08, 2020 8:56 am

Well, wildman is arguing if you one machine (for say $1000 CI) for an hour (and based on the "top of the hour" at that!). You'll be much better off than playing 5 machines for a total of $1000 CI. From a comp perspective, this makes zero sense to me. But I admit some casinos do reward this more. I know CET used to.

And also based on what wildman said, the player playing from 6 to 7pm, gets treated better than the player that plays from 6:30 to 7:30 pm because the latter player's play is divided into two hourly "sessions" instead of one? That's just plain silliness.

I guess a casino could be that stupid, but I'm pretty sure most casinos don't examine your play hour by hour. I certainly know most Vegas casinos don't. Now some may factor total time played into the comp calculation, but I NEVER have heard of a casino that would treat an hour of play better just because you began play at the TOP of the hour. Why would a casino intentionally treat someone who plays from 6 to 7pm better than 6:30-7:30pm? Makes no sense at all.
Vman the way I found out this info I played the same machine for 5 and half hours never taking my card out of the machine. The session total was 13,720. Now this casino has an APP that tracks your sessions on it. Now one would think the same machine over that time frame would be only one session right? Nope the App broke it down hour by hour not one long session. The first half hour was 1,286 since I started at 5:30p and at the time did not know the hour by hour. The hour sessions 2,755...2,422....2,532....2,321......2,404 stopped at 10pm. I also verified these numbers with my host and they where the same numbers he had on his screen.

Our host tells us this software is used at most all casinos for tracking play. So I was in the middle of trials when they shut down. I cut my total monthly coin in in half but played hour to hour sessions keeping my session average as high as I could and my free play and all other comps never dropped.

I know it sounds crazy, I can only report what I see and do. I think the higher your session average the better off you are as a player. I did do some machine hopping but never used my card since I think the session thing is a big deal.

I do agree if 2 players do 100k coin in a month, no matter how they get to the 100k they should get the same comp reward, but we are finding this to be untrue. I think part of the reason is at this casino we get 1 session point per dollar on VP, but slot players get 2 session points per dollar. So they are using total session points for comp rewards not coin in near as I can understand.
Amazing. I'm dumbfounded. I still think this the STUPIDEST comp tracking method though. Reward a player more for beginning and ending at the top of the hour? But if that's the loophole there, run with it.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

Like I have posted many times before.....how often do we see casino management do anything smart or that makes sense. They survive because they have a captive audience us. Maybe not so much now though with this nightmare we are living through.

tech58
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Post by tech58 »

Vman one point to clarify the "top of the hour" thing.
That is not the most critical factor, session length is.
Wildmans first half hour was his session length for the clock hour from 5:00-6:00. The rewarding is based on his average session length during that hour,(1) session during the hour of 1286 points so his average for the hour is 1286. At the top of the hour,as he continued to play,the computer started a new session and at the end of the hour his total for the hour from 6:00-7:00 was (1) session @ 2755 points his average for that hour is 2755. Similar for the next 4 hours.

He could have played the first half hour,established the 1286 for that hour,then pulled his card and grabbed a beer. A few minutes after 6:00 he could put his card in again,same machine or different one,and play 2755 points before the hours end and be the same hourly session average as his actual play that he posted above.

The program penalizes hit-and-run by the averaging out of all sessions during a clock hour.
For example,hours that i have actually had can run like this. Card in at 3:05, touch screen dead,card out session points=0, move to new machine,card in play three hands, cigar smoker squats upwind,card out session points=15,move to new machine,card in play 500 hands,card out at 3:55 session points=2500.

Now comes the painful part. My session average for the hour is 2515/3=838!!
The computer doesn't care about my problems. For that hour i am an 838 player NOT a 2500 type.
Were guessing that if those numbers held as an overall average an 838 player might get $700 a month in free play(the lowest for the top tier card)and a 2500 player might get 2-3 times as much!
Significant? Not to everyone i guess.

BTW as Wildman has stated our trying to figure this out is still a work in progress. Interrupted for awhile of course. As we further experiment we hope to refine our understanding on this.
Some of our thinking in the above examples may need some "adjusting".

Vman as one of our math.gifted members you, and other less gifted members also,might just have your
interest piqued enough to do your own investigation and add to the cumulative knowledge.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

One thing I have been told for years by various hosts. Never use your card for anything the day you are leaving the casino and aren’t going to play or play off just the free play and split. It will go in as a 0 day for your average. So if the day before you ran 5,000 through the machine and the departing day where you used your card to get a coffee and used your points, your average for the two days would be 2,500 instead of 5,000. It works similarly with theoretical in that they used assigned play level numbers. I don’t know the specifics on that though.

tech58
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Post by tech58 »

Old's the system that you describe makes more sense to me than what we are discovering,except for the buying coffee part.
But i think what were seeing helps explain the problem you and i have bitched about before. 2-3M coin-in and get totally dissed.

OTABILL
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Post by OTABILL »

What constitutes a casino day? I seem to recall being told years ago at a local casino their day for calculating play wasn't a calendar day but rather 6 am to 6 am. I didn't pay much attention at the time but am curious if that is the case at some casinos.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

Correct. Begins at 6 am. Ends 5:59 pm. One Booby trap to watch out for. Many times free play they give you begins at 6am and ends at 11:59 pm. They will almost always tell you that but it is easy to forget. Mohegan Sun has gotten sneaky in their old age. Sometimes they split up the free play and it is good for say 6 to midnight, but they may split it and offer half of it for a time of day you hardly ever play say 10 am to 4 pm. They also do that for giveaways. Of course they are attempting to get you to play there 24/7. Unfortunately, it works sometimes. Personally, I wish the casinos would do away with all of the gimmics or all of the comps except free play which I value as cash. That will never happen though. My favorite comp system that I will probably never experience again was at the Westin Hotel and casino in Aruba. I may have posted about this before. Between 10 and 20 years ago upon arrival you go into the casino and sign up with a host. In our case a beautiful, smart, and personable young lady. My play level down there was nickels and quarters. On your last night in Aruba, the host would say come see me before you leave for the airport to go home. We did and all of the cash we lost on the trip was returned to us. In our case between 400 and 800 bucks each trip. Each time, though we didn’t have to, knowing her taste, we bought her something nice in the Swarovsky store there.

tech58
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Post by tech58 »

Old,s i loved your Aruba story. That was my favorite place back in my former BJ life.
From about 1977 until 1987 my wife and i went there on junkets 4 or 5 weeks each winter.
Air RFB and very liberal play requirements. The Aruba Concorde and the Holiday Inn both changed owners since then i think. Same thing with the hosts and their people. Grease them a little and they just wanted you back next month they did not care about casino profits or your level of play.
MY wife was gifted several $100 Hummel figurines That today are worth an astounding $5-$10 each. :roll:
She has several Swarovsky baubles but i recall buying them out of profits.
I never was reimbursed for my rare losses but on 3 or 4 occasions i had to have friends carry back cash to avoid the 10K limit .

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