If there’s one way to tell the difference between the Las Vegas of old and the city that it has become, it’s comps. Comping, as it is commonly known, is a system of rewarding gamblers for their play in a casino. The practice is as old as Vegas and, until recently, there was no other reward system like it anywhere.
In the past, comps were reserved for “high rollers,” or “whales” as they were sometimes called. The system was actually very simple – the casino, through its hosts and pit bosses, would willingly provide big gamblers with up to 5% of the stake they usually wagered in free food and entertainment. If you were a guy and his wife on vacation in Vegas once a year and you put $500 of your hard earned money at risk while you were there, you weren’t getting comped! But if you came to town and routinely deposited a million dollars in the hotel’s safe or at the casino cage, the management was only too happy to lay out up to $50,000 in free stuff. Meals, shows, gifts at the gift shop, rounds of golf, airplane trips, limos to and from the hotel – they were all comped. The corporate types who run the casino operations know very well that big gamblers routinely drop way more than 50Gs on a gambling holiday! Keep ‘em happy with nickel and dime stuff and they’ll go for a bundle. That system sill exists but only for the well-heeled gambler.
At just about every casino in the country these days, comps, rewards points and freebies are available to anyone. In the computer age everyone has plastic comp cards that go into a slot machine or get swiped by a pit boss. For every dollar you wager you are credited with points which can be turned into free stuff. Most comp cards return about 1%, sometimes even less, of what you are wagering but the betting public is happy to get even that since they didn’t get anything before.
US online casinos almost always offer “sign-up bonuses” which is another way of saying comps. Sometimes you can get your initial deposit doubled, sometimes even more. Be sure to read the fine print in the “Terms of Use” section before making a commitment since collecting on that “bonus” almost always has strings attached. It’s all legit but you have to abide by the rules of play.
The more you wager, the more freebies you get. Once again, the casino executives and online casino managers have you right where they want you. You’d be surprised how many people stay at a slot machine longer than they ordinarily would just to accumulate a few extra points toward dinner, or put more money in play than they usually would just to collect on a bonus or accumulate enough points to buy a hat! Getting something for free is often as exiting as winning.
Of course, it isn’t winning but who’s going to tell that to all those smiling players with the plastic cards strung around their necks on a spiral lanyard or the online players anxious to see their “play time” increase! Not me!!
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