Hi everyone, I've been reading this board for a while and wanted to ask for some input. I'm new to the entire casino host thing and just got assigned a host my last visit at Planet Hollywood. On this past trip, I ended up playing casino war at about $110 / hand for about 20 hours over three days. Also played poker for about 12 hours (I know this doesn't factor in to the casino's calculations for comps) and pretty much didn't sleep. This was all at TR casinos. I contacted my host about an upcoming trip and am currently getting a strip suite for fri-tues and $550 in FP. I'm thinking of asking for a panorama suite and maybe some F/B but didn't want t come off as being unreasonable in my expectations. Can anyone with a little more experience give me some thought? Thanks
Just email her a quick polite email. They won't take offense to it, and I'm sure they'll do the best they can. Remember, they want to make you happy, and the stuff they give away is the casino's, not their's! Worst case scenario, you get a sorry we're unable to do that, blah blah blah.
I don't know how a casino would value a $100 a hand war player...I'm not sure there's any precedent. But 20 hours of black chip play in 3 days is a lot. However you're booking a five day trip, so the expectation is going to be that you play a little less, on average, I think. Before I get to an answer, how do you plan to play on this upcoming trip? If you plan to play 6 or 7 hours a day of black chip for each of the 5 days, then maybe you've got a case. Second question...do you really want the better room? Because it's going to cost more in comps, meaning you'll get less in another area. Personally I take the minimum room that makes me happy so that my comp dollars can go elsewhere. Third, are you willing to trade something? This makes that call a lot easier. For example, if you'd rather have F&B than freeplay, I think that's an easy call to your host. Generally speaking, admittedly knowing very little about casino war, I think your offer is pretty on par for your play.
I just looked up casino war and the house advantage is about 2.9%. So if they calculate your theo based on that, you've got quite a bit more comps to play with. I assume the game goes pretty fast...let's assume 100 hands an hour. So at your average bet of $110, your theoretical loss is $319 an hour. If they comp you at 35% of that (which is what you should shoot for) then you're earning about 1 average bet per hour in comps. So based on that, I revise my position from above. If you play 6 hours a day, you should be getting $600-$700 in comps per day. So yeah, ask for more.
This is for a weekend and sometimes what extra comps you can squeeze out of them depends on what weekend it is (IE: long weekend, big event, large convention, etc). Either way, you should ask them for more. But a couple of thoughts: Know what you want, and ask for it. They don't want to, nor do they have the time to, sit on the phone all day with you playing some guessing game about what comps you want. And don't be afraid to ask for it. Don't worry about offending them with your asking for more or that you might seem greedy or pushy or whatever... It is what they do for a living: having people call them or meet them in person and asking for more: more free stuff, more comps, better room, etc And in the end if they say no don't take it personally. I think if you never hear a "NO" from a host then you probably aren't asking for enough - you just are pushing and probing those limits enough to find out just how much you can get. But some people take that "NO" from a host like a slap in the face and get all huffy and threatening to take their business elsewhere and storm off, etc. But its all just a math formula and they do what they do to keep you happy, but there are limits to what they can do.
CET doesn't do the best at rating table play. If that was your offer you may have been under rated, also as a comparison what are your offers from Caesar's? How much of your play was at Planet Hollywood last time? We could probably better estimate if you were properly rated if we had a rough estimate on RC's earned last trip.
Thanks for the replies everyone. About 15 hrs of the play was at PH. Those were the rating numbers given to me by my host, not my own estimate. Not sure about RC because I used a bit of them during the trip but I know I earned about 8000 tier credits.
Here is the issue you are facing and one of the problems with being a table games player at CET. Your theoretical loss was probably in the neighborhood of $6500 you earned 8000 tier points. Playing Full Pay JOB Video Poker would be an expected loss of $368. (80,000 coin in). Even playing the 98.45% game that PH has would only result in an expected loss of $1,240. Now it shouldn't really matter because your Comps should be based on your theoretical loss buttttt it has been long proven that CET under Comps table games.
I see. I didn't know until after my last trip that CET had a reputation of under-comping table players. Even then, I didn't think that there would be that large of a difference. Where would you guys recommend that I start playing if I were to continue playing table games to receive appropriate level comps?
I don't believe that the 8,000 tier points generated $6,500, theo. That's too high. It's a couple of thousand less than that. Just don't want people to read this and have unrealistic expectations of what their "expected" theo is. Having said that, while TR was not comping low black chip player as much as MGM, I believe that has kind of change with the new MGM's express comps earning, etc. MGM seems to be cutting back so they are not as generous. Also, playing about 20 hours of war at $110 is either an anomaly, or you have a very large bank roll. That is a very tough and fast game. Hence, you will earn theo very quickly. But you can lose very quickly, also, I guess like all the games, really. As for the host, try to cultivate a good relationship with one, and you will be surprised what you can get comped off.