Comps for the low budget gambler

The lighter side... playing for entertainment, less concerned about "the math."
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notes1
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Re: Comps for the low budget gambler

Post by notes1 »

when casinos reopen, i believe comps, free play and promotions will be much different, at least until the chinese virus is under control. casinos will most certainly have limitations on crowd size and distancing restraints. the gov't and players will demand it. with that smaller number of players, it would seem logical the casinos will make better offers to those who play/lose more.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

Ah....yes....play/lose. Two of the greatest synonyms in video poker. And the longer the session, the closer they become in definition. Yet we are chomping at the bit to get back into action. I wonder if they will allow full body space suits now. Previous to the close, even masks weren’t allowed. At least in Ct. they weren’t.

OTABILL
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Post by OTABILL »

olds442jetaway wrote:
Thu May 07, 2020 10:57 pm
Ah....yes....play/lose. Two of the greatest synonyms in video poker. And the longer the session, the closer they become in definition. Yet we are chomping at the bit to get back into action. I wonder if they will allow full body space suits now. Previous to the close, even masks weren’t allowed. At least in Ct. they weren’t.
Things have changed. I wore a mask into my local bank branch with no consequences.

Vman96
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Post by Vman96 »

tech58 wrote:
Thu May 07, 2020 5:02 pm
Vman96 wrote:
Thu May 07, 2020 2:36 pm
wildman49 wrote:
Sun May 03, 2020 7:52 am
Come Back Kid wrote:
Sun May 03, 2020 5:54 am
This is so interesting Wildman...Would you remove your card after an hour and start over?
CBK as I said I was still in test mode on this and do think it can make a world of differences in ones comps if they can play the full hour on one machine. If I am holding my own I just play another full hour on that same machine and have played as many as 5 hours at the same machine.

Yes I do move just before the hour to another machine and start a min or two after the next hour starts if the machine I left was not to my liking.

The more high sessions you can put together per full hour the higher your average over time. I was putting in less coin per month and found my free play did not go down. I really need 3 months of data to be sure but it was working in that short time I was working with it.

I used to be a hit and run player for years and never knew it was not good on comps playing short sessions.

Also I used to just play off free play and leave to get to work. I found out I was getting a zero session as I would play out free play to the exact dollar. The zero sessions killed my average month after month.
Virtually no casino does it this way and I would be shocked if the one you're playing at did.

Many casinos nationwide examines your play over the course of the entire "gaming day". Why would a casino ever punish a machine hopper that drastically? What difference does it make if a player put in $10k coin-in on just one machine, or if a player spreads it around 30 different machines? Assuming it's the same paytable, the casino expects to make the SAME amount of money. So why reward the "squatter" much more in comps?
"Virtually no casino does it this way" is totally not true!
I can verify everything Wildman is saying is factual about the computer program that determines free-play at our casino. I have seen the graph of actual play which supports his every point!
The difference that it makes is that the casino recognizes that hit-and-run is not to their advantage.
This is why they penalize short sessions.
The "squatter" is, in their opinion,holding still while the casino edge grinds away at their BR.
The truth is that many casinos nationwide do this exact same thing!
If no one asks questions then no one knows. Even some hosts claim to not know how the program works.

As Wildman mentioned this is still a work in progress. He is attempting to reach out to other players who may help to fill in the blanks.

So, if you don't know,at least don't distract others who seek to learn.
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.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

I could fill a phone book with all of the dumb money wasting things I have seen casino management do over the last 25 years. Part of my prior job was to give businesses ideas on how to save money, not waste money, stay ahead of bureaucratic red tape, andincrease customer base. A couple of classics come to mind that Mohegan Sun did. They spent over 100,000 dollars on some blown glass flowers on a wall that nobody looks at since it was way above eye level above a high limit area and near the entrance to one of the lounges. Another one was a promotional virtual horse racing game which would pop up every hour and you had a one in six chance of winning and getting some substantial free play. You just had to pick the winning horse. All you had to do was have your card in. You didnt even have to be playing the machine. So if you say had a husband wife team, you could put a card in at the machine you were at, and a card in the machines on either side of you. Same for your partner. That way you would pick between you all six horses. Sometimes not only would you win the guaranteed free play, but they would somehow increase the free play based on how many patrons were playing. It was time sensitive so you would have to be pretty quick, but it was fun while it lasted. I didnt have to, but I used to pop a twenty into all of the machines in case somebody walked by and said they wanted to play one of the machines. More often than not I would even play the twenty, just for fun and show good faith. It was nice while lasted.

wildman49
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Post by wildman49 »

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.

BobDancer
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Post by BobDancer »

wildman49 wrote:
Fri May 08, 2020 1:43 pm

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.
A large number of casinos evaluate your play by theoretical rather than coin-in. that is, if someone only plays 9/6 JoB (99.54%), he will earn relatively little comps. If another player plays the same coin-in on 8/5 DDB (96.79%), the second player will receive MUCH better comps. Of course, over the $100K coin-in the second player lost $3,210 and the first player only lost $460, but just looking at comps the second player comes out ahead --- and pays far more than retail earning those comps.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

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.

wildman49
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Post by wildman49 »

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.

olds442jetaway
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Post by olds442jetaway »

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.

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