Comps Programs Unfriendly to Table Game Players

Any casino that offers discretionary comps widely? Ellis Island comes to mind immediately. South Point is known for its back end comps but I’m not sure the up front points earned is better than on the 99.5%+ video poker spread widely there.

 

Regarding the comment i would agree that the new rio is geared to attracting slot players and not those who play table games or video-poker... I think that's true of most programs. Casinos value slot players more than those that play table games or low hold video poker games. Slots are their profit centers. They don't require a dealer a dealer to staff them. They reliably collect their hold. You're rated and comped 100% accurately, as long as your card is properly inserted.

Interesting that the properties @calwatch mentioned above are both family-owned entities, though. Their hosts and marketing people likely have more flexibility than the corporate places.

 

Mgm properties do not offer free play or promo chips to most table players (they might for whales). I consider that less favourable for table players. Whereas other casinos will offer shopping gift cards, freeplay, match bets, gifts, etc

 

My offers from CET are usually much better than from anywhere else and I am primarily a craps player. MGM will offer me rooms (more at the lower end properties) and minimal FP but CET offers me all the special events (gifts and gift card promos) as well as the discounted and free trips to some of the other locations they have properties. I have been told to avoid craps at Cosmo because they don't rate players on craps, or maybe table games in general, but I am not sure if that is accurate or not.

 

Yep and imo that's another reason a lot of places are pushing more ETGs. They track all play accurately. I wouldn't be surprised if they started using RFID chips to more accurately track table players though. Seems like a smart business move.

 

This is somewhat a loaded question, and the answer will vary depending on play levels.
One thing is MGM does not give freeplay/table gaming chips or vouchers to players that are majority table games players.

The comes the type of freeplay they give to table players.
1) Use it til you lose it - means you get to keep playing it until you lose the bet.
2) Match Play - means you have to bet $X on top to make the total bet $2X (can be use it til you lose it or one time).
3) 1 time bet - meaning you lose the freeplay part whether you win or lose. So if you have $100 table gaming voucher 1 time bet means if you win you get $100 real money and they take the voucher. If you lose well you lose it obviously.

1) is the best but the least common these days. 3) basically matches how freeplay works for slots. When you hit spin on the a slot the wager is lost in a sense. Unlike table games when you bet $100 and win $100 you now have $200.

Then comes how you are rated. Lets say best rules BJ is 0.5% HA. If they used that value then $100 bet is 50 cents theoretical loss. So basically the same as a $5 spin on a slot at 10% hold. Many places will rate you better than the actual HA, say closer to 1% for a 0.5% game. High Limit rooms tend to be kinder on the HA they use for ratings. Slots are go faster than table games. Say BJ is a 70 hands per hour, a slot player is more like 700 spins an hr. So most casinos a good number that I've used in the past is $100 a bet table games player (not including roulette) is the same as a $1/spin slots player. Seems really skewed but the math works out. Now over the years they've gotten tighter with table games players. So its more like $100/bet table player = a 50 cent/spin slots player.

The last thing is what's the barrier point for table game offers/comps to start. Places like Cosmo you get almost nothing unless you're a bigger player for table games. So the casual $25 BJ player gets pretty poor comps. But for slots its really very linear. A $5 spin slots player will get 10x a 50 cent/spin slots player. Where as a $500/hand table player will get say 20x a $50/hand table player. Most places basically don't give a crap about smaller table games players as its not worth it. There is a cost for the dealer, the drink, etc and the rate of hands is much slower than a slot. Think 70 hands at $50 = $3500 wagered for $17.5 theo (assuming 0.5 HA). For that theo, they got to pay the dealers the pit bosses the waitresses and your free drinks. Where as a $1/spin slots player at 10% hold would generate $70 theo and all they gotta pay is the license and electric bills and the waitress/drinks. Then imagine a $10 BJ table where they probably lose money theoretically for the cost of the staff needed to run it.

Not sure on the off strip properties, but CET is likely the nicest to non HL table games players. CET treats them the same as slots for offers, just need to know which places rate your play better. By the same, I mean if you're $100 theo/day tables player you will get the same offers as a $100 theo slots player.

Now for the example that spawned this post. A lot has to do with how you're looking at things. Lets assume their slots promotion and their table games promotion require the same theo for 1 pull tab. So to a math/finance person the math works. So ifs its 20 hours at $100/hand for tables then its 5 hours at $4/spin for slots(or 20 hours at $1/spin). The math and the HA and the return to player on the promotion are mathematically the same. However, the risk/effort/time to earn a tab is off. Just look at the numbers. $100/hand for 20 hours is a lot to risk for most people. Though I'd say 5 hours of $4 spins on slots a lot of players can deal with. 20 hours of $1 spins is a bit more work. If you just glance at those numbers which seems riskier? Most people aren't really mathing it. If they said we want 20 hours of $1 spins for a pull tab many people gut would be ok its just $1 spin we can see why it takes so long, but 20 hours of $100 hands of BJ people will feel like WTF I'm risking all that for this measly pull tab? Math might work, but the 'feeling' of it is bad. Make a better model where the table games tabs are say 1/4th the value, or lower the chances at the higher values so on average its 1/4th the value, then do the same for the required play. So it would be 5 hours of $100/hand or 20 hours of $25/hand. $25/hand and $1/spin most would consider low rollers and understand the 20 hours needed.

Take a look at other programs and you'll see at Wynn for example they have a table games and a slots player new spin promotion. They use very different criteria for each and I'll assume the math still works cause I'm too lazy to do it right now.
Slots - 150 slot points per spin
Table - 1 spin per 2 hours of rated table play

The table method is less beneficial to bigger players in Wynn setup, but the purpose is to entice players to play there. It has to be enticing right? If that said 1 spin for 20 hours of rated table play then well people would be complaining about it too. Most people don't use math and use emotions to evaluate marketing offers. The current values they use at Wynn for their promotion looks good to both a tables and a slots player right? Marketing isn't math, its about tugging at peoples emotions.

 

Sure a casino would rather have a slot player. But generally a slot player will get more just because the math says they should get more. Slots for the most part have a higher house edge, costs a little more upfront for the game, but have little employee requirements (slot technicians and attendants) They also work 24/7 and you don't have to pay them overtime.

To make a fair comparison, you would have to compare equivalent theo and cost of operations to what the player is being offered in comps and benefits.

Maybe there is some truth that table game players are getting less now. MGM and some of the other casinos moved to converting your play more accurately to theo and basing your comps on that.

I haven't had too much of a gripe with my Cosmo offers relative to my play compared to other programs. The issue I had with Cosmo (which is why I didn't play table games there much) was not that they didn't rate you, it was that you didn't earn any points or tier credits that you could see in comparison to slot play. They were not transparent in terms of what you earned and should expect to get or where you were in terms of moving up tier levels.

 

I’ve had pit bosses tell me I averaged x amount. Then have my host tell me I’ve averaged something different. Someone wasn’t being honest. That’s my issue with table play at most places. I’d be all for chips tracking my play.

 

They used to, as did Cosmo once upon a time. But MGM cut out the FP chips many years ago. I know they continued that program for international players for a while, but my guess (and its only a guess) is that they discontinued it for them also because I have not seen anyone playing those chips in many years (I used to see it routinely). I am not sure if they still offer it for the whales, but every whale potentially gets something different anyway.

 

Not sure if there was a middle period, but pre mLife table gaming chips were host offers only at MGM. I never got a corporate offer for them.

 

Mix in some slots (10k coin) and MGM and Cosmo have treated me well. Im speaking at craps $150+ opening for 3-4 hours a day. There are too many variables to explain..

You get $100FP+/$200RC+ and smaller suites almost anytime/anywhere.

 

I can offer a different opinion as it pertains to high limit tables players:

All the reward programs are the same. They are equally friendly or unfriendly to HL tables players. The key variable is finding a good host that understands table players, caters to them, and has the discretion to take care of them.

Slot players are pretty consistent. The house edge is consistent and slot play tends to be the same. Plus (as noted by others) its much easier to track every cent wagered by a slot player. With tables, its completely different. Not only is it harder for the casino to track accurately, but variance seems to play a more frequent role in the outcomes for a trip (probably because of a smaller HA) and table players can vary their bet sizes with sufficient frequency to skew the results far from the expected theoretical result (its why the bac results in the monthly gaming reports vary so widely in results as well as often diverging so much from the expected theo). For example, I just posted in another thread how I played two days at Bellagio this past weekend, generated an expected loss of 8k but ended up actually winning 11k. That kind of deviation is not all that unusual for a tables player.

A good tables host learns how their tables players wager and knows how to adjust their comps appropriately to keep them coming back. Most gamblers that are not tables players (and even some that are) don't understand this because I think its the kind of thing you only learn from experience. For example, my last TR form the Mansion, someone groused that it didn't seem like I was betting at a Mansion guest kind of level. They weren't wrong. That trip, I wasn't. Didn't really gamble much at all when compared to how I gamble on other trips. But that's what a good tables player host takes into consideration. They know that someone playing consistently in the high limit might have those smaller trips, but it could also end up being a trip where they dump six figures or more. There are some tables players out there that are consistent and lose approximately the same amount each trip. But most tables players have a wide range of results from trip to trip. A tables host understands that and knows what it takes to keep that high limit player coming back until they hit a trip where the player loses a lot.

A bad tables host does not understand this, prefers slot players, and usually treats their tables players much like a slot player (strictly by the theo). My best example of this involved the Wynn. A few years ago, my old host there got terminated. He was good, took care of me form the first time I started playing in the high limit there. The next host that took his place downgraded my comps a bit as my play reduced over the course of a year. That was fine and made sense. But he got sick and couldn't work anymore. I got a VMB referral for a new host that mostly handled slot players. Nice guy, but his upfront offer to me was actually less than the corporate offer I could have booked on the Wynn website, lol. He aid he might help me out on the backend depending on how much I played. That's not the right approach with tables players and I ended up staying away from the Wynn for over a year (until I happened to find out that one of my old MGM hosts was now working there and could take care of me).

My point is that when it comes to high limit tables, the program doesn't matter. Having the right host does.

 

I'm sure you're right. I can't recall if it was offers or a host that gave them to me. Frankly, FP chips never moved the needle much for me (except one time in Tunica when a casino offered 2k in FP chips). It was usually the equivalent of a couple bets. I always preferred F&B, shopping, RC etc. because I could make that fun last longer than a couple hands of BJ

 

I’ll weigh in on what I’ve experienced. My gaming buddy plays table games mostly Pai Gow, UTH, and 3 Card Poker. I play slots and VP. We each bring close to the same bankroll to Vegas and play about the same amount of time at CET properties and usually lose nearly the same amount. Sometimes we win but maybe every 10 trips.
I get much better comp offers including junkets and hotel stays than my buddy. Rating table play is so arbitrary but slot play rating is to the penny.

 

I started off in Vegas as a table game player, then transitioned to VP and now slots.

Just before MGM centralized their offers I was getting property specific marketing offers that included play til you lose table chips. That was also around the time I discovered that my drunken night at the NYNY center bar playing low limit VP for hours and hours (I hit 4 duces so I played all night on that single $100, lol) got me treated much better as far as offers went so I started my transition to a VP player from a table player then so can't speak about after the offers got centralized.

Though also anecdotally, it does seem like that was about the time when table players were starting to get fewer offers in general (like the phasing out of play til you lose chips, etc.). Though I can't speak definitively as my table play isn't there to generate offers anymore. But that was about the time when casinos were also rolling out the things like 6:5 BJ and triple 0 roulette, and few low-limit tables, etc., things like that to beef up the house edge. Maybe there was a reconing about how much money the tables were actually worth to the casino at that time, I think there was a similar reconing about VP as well. This was about the time when player tracking was maturing and data analytics were much more robust, there were still casinos rating table players with pen and paper until a few years ago (and some might still).

As far as my thoughts on slots vs. tables:

There are two elements that factor into things:
1) How much the casino makes on each bet (or, to put it another way, how theo you generate on each bet)
2) How many bets you make per hour

Slots win on both these fronts: On a $10 bet the casino makes about $1, and on slots you can make a new bet every few seconds, so those dollars add up fast for the casino.
On VP the casino makes less per bet, but the bets still come fast. that same $10 bet might get the casino say only $0.20 on each bet (and as low as $0.05 or less on good pay table VP - hense why it's hard to find at low limit levels). VP players can still make a lot of bets per hour so it can add up, but not as much as slot players at the same level.
On tables (blackjack mostly, carnival games change this), both the amount the casino makes per bet, and how fast the bets occur, are both low. A $10 bet on 3:2 blackjack might get the casino $0.10 depending on the rules.You might get only 60 hands dealt per hour on a full table, so after an hour that player might make the casino only $6... not even enough to cover the retail costs of the drinks!

The only thing that casinos have going for them is that VP and table games are games of skill, and mistakes by players help give the house an advantage over perfect play.

Lets say the VP and slot players play 500 bets per hour and BJ 60 hands per hour:
A $10 bettor might be worth - $500 per hour playing slots, $100 playing VP, and $6 playing BJ

Normalizing it out, a $10 per spin slot bettor would be worth the same (per hour of play) as a $50 per spin VP bettor, or a $833 per hand bettor on BJ

Now the math of all of this changes when you make worse VP paytables, or uglier BJ rules (like 6:5), or different play speeds etc. Mathematically, I understand why casinos implement these player unfriendly changes, I don't like it, but I understand it. It's also why when playing with good rules, it's hard to justify offers of the same caliber as slot players,not to mention the extra labor costs required for tables.

While theo is theo, it's easier to grind out the same bankroll on slots, and at high limit levels of table play the risk of ruin grows with the same slot bankroll if you're trying to match theo/hour on tables (unless you're willing to put in more hours at lower bets).
The average person isn't looking at the nitty gritty of the math, they just bet what they feel comfortable betting and often don't realize just how high table bets need to be to be on par with slot players.

For example, I'll happily pop $1,000 into slots and make $5-10 bets, or even do $25 bets on VP... but I would be reluctant to buy in with $1k and make $100 bets on tables. I might bet $50 on the tables, and think I should get treated the same as when I do my $5 slot bets... but the math says otherwise.

Looking at Rio's slot vs. table promotion, I calculate the approximate theo for the promotions to be about the same. $125 theo for a minimum $5 on slots ($500 for $25), $500 theo for a minimum $25 on tables. It just happen to work out that more theo is required for table players to participate in a chance at the promotion (because of the 5x minimum reward - don't know if the AVERAGE reward amount follows suit), while combining it with the fact that table players generate their theo slower than slot players at reasonable bet levels.

 

Not specifically for one casino vs another, but the different variance between tables and slots can contribute to the perception of unfairness when comparing comps for table vs slots.

If you're not a hit-and-run player or a walk-away-when-you're-up player, it's not uncommon to regularly lose several multiples of your theo. Whereas on slots, even losing only 2x your theo over the course of a decent length properly-bankrolled trip is a bad result.

So I can go in and lose $3k on a trip on slots and generate three times as much theo/comps as losing the same amount on a table game.

That didn't really manifest for me until after I had gone a few times. I always just played craps, then I was there during the Super Bowl for the first time, got priced out of craps due to the mins, played slots instead and my offers spiked even though I only lost the same amount.

 

@Sonya As the one who started this mess I figured it's only fair to give my opinion

I'll keep it simple
I believe that strictly Theo based comp systems disadvantage table game players (some games more then others)
In the real world as a whole slot hold is much more closely aligned to Theo then table hold

Now to my example
Yes it's a lot for a promo

I have no idea how "friendly" or "unfriendly" the Rio is to table game players and if I gave anyone the impression I was criticizing how table game players were treated I apologize
I was merely commenting on how the promo could be perceived and it's effectiveness from a marketing perspective

 

Two big issues, for sure.

Pit Boss will tell you what you WANT to hear. He does not want to get into an argument with a customer. What he enters could easily be different.

Host may not be willing to give more comps, so he uses a different number. Much easier than saying he is not gonna comp anymore because he already gave out too much to other players, or he is under the gun from his boss, etc.