OK, I hit Vegas 5x/yr, DH went 3x....We are mostly poker players, but DH does sports bets & swipes his card & we both play VP, .25-$1, max bet. My personal comps STINK--I have always felt that CET is sexist as DH gets better comps that me, even though we have the same budget. But even linking our TR numbers our comps are not good any time soon. We had Caesars & PH comped in July...now it is IP & Harrahs (construction seems to have it on the same level as IP), not much else...and our offers are non-existent. Funny, I booked Ballys North Tower for 5 nights over the 1st weekend of March Madness for $335--that is a better rate than I am seeing for IP for 3 nights over a weekend for most weekends in the next 4 months!!!!:Þ What gives?
Well you are playing poker (which the house really doesn't make much $ off of) and Video Poker ( has a low house advantage). When you do the math of percentages and theoretical loss you'll see they aren't making much $ off of you (theoretically). Take it as a good thing
If you go 3-5 times a year, do you normally go this time of year? Just that this time of year, September to mid January, is usually never that great for rates except for a small spot in the middle of November and a stretch in December from when the rodeo ends to New Years Eve. Just that there is a batch of holidays coming up (Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, New Years)... Then there are a few big conventions coming up and even a few times when some fairly large, but not HUGE, conventions overlap, plus there are a lot of smaller conventions. And then because the weather is still great a lot of people that don't take vacations during the summer months usually go during September and early October. We used to go every year in September, but it was just getting too hard to find decent rates... and its been like that for years.
That is weird -- DW and I don't have a linked account and we have same points but she only has 3 offers while I have 20. I have free comped rooms in most places and she has no comped rooms but when we link em we get comped rooms at IP, Rio, Caesars, Bally and some others throughout October. I guess it depends how you play really because we are FAR from Max betters... mostly slots... and mostly $0.50-1.00 per spin. I play some VP but not much but I did go for $5 a game last time and it was high stress .. but usually we keep it cheap. I will say our offers during the summer were a lot better... we had entire weeks available for Caesars and now we only have 2 nights... but still i can't complain
If you were jamming most of your money into poker, and sports bets, you should be pretty happy that Caesars was comping you. That's pretty generous. You can also factor in that the websites will only let you book so many trips before they tighten the screws on you. AND its no longer summer, which is usually better for comps. Either way, based on what you are reporting for theo, I cant imagine casinos will be blowing up your phone to get you in. Sorry.
INteresting to hear everyone's take Funny thing is, VP is a fairly new addition & DH just started swiping at the sportsbook recently... Mom is a .25 VP player exclusively...goes far less than us (maybe once/yr--tho she hits the local Harrahs/Horseshoe more than us)...she gets more. I don't get the systems...sure seems sex, age, game choice are all factors.
Well you got 1 out of 3 right. Sex and age don't matter one bit. Game of choice certainly does. The jist of comp programs isn't mysterious. The casino is willing to give you a certain amount of comps based on how much they can expect to make off your play. (Expect doesn't mean what you win/lose on a particular trip, but over the long run). If every game had the same house advantage, it wouldn't matter what game you play. There are so many small factors that can make a difference as well. Two people playing identical games for 4 hours at the same bet level, can still have different values to the casino. If I play 300 hands of VP in an hour and you play 150 hands I have twice as much value to the casino. There are many more factors, but based on what you said in your OP, you are fortunate to receive free room offers at all. Poker means next to nothing in terms of profit to the casino. They're loss leaders for them, hoping that the poker players play other games when not playing cards. VP is the lowest HA game in the casino. Sports bets don't give you anything really for comps unless you're betting thousands on each game. I don't know how much VP you play, but even if you ran 10k through the machine each trip, you're still only worth about $80 to the casino (assuming 2% HA). If I could make a suggestion however, I would tell you that you should stop playing on two cards, and play on only one persons card. You'll need to pick whoever goes to Vegas more often, as if one of you goes alone they'll need to be able to get the comps in their name, but the casino will view one player playing 5k as being more valuable than two players playing 2.5k each.
First off, when you go that often and are consistent, the offers will slow down because they take you for granted and feel they can bank on you coming. Second of all, when they realize that you are married, they will sometimes send offers to one spouse over the other because they figure you will travel together. Even though you play the same budget, there may be some differences in bet patterns that make your husband more attractive to them. And finally, it is a peak time. September and October are hard to get offers for when you are are a low roller. You can sometimes get comps through the calendar if you book really early but otherwise I just always assume that I won't have a shot at a decent offer before November.
