Comps aren't as bad as they seem

Comps aren't as bad as they seem

Nov 16, 2015

A few days ago I was visiting a casino I hadn't been in for a while. I noticed they had a player rewards desk where previously there had been none, so I picked up an explanatory booklet they had on the desk to see if there was anything on offer for blackjack play.

Non-blackjack play was quite specific:

One point for every £5 played on slots

One point for every £20 played on electronic roulette

(etc)

Table games were typically unclear, however:

Points on the table games are based on the length of play and the amount you bet

So, since blackjack is table game it appears to come under the reward system. But how are the points calculated? I asked the comp manager, who didn't know and pointed me towards one of the table managers. He also didn't know, but he noticed two higher lever managers on the other side of the floor and pointed me in their direction. They also didn't know, but one of them remembered where the information was located in the office and went off to hunt it down.

The upshot was this: £14:30 of play on the blackjack tables equates to one comp point, and one such point is worth one pence (£0.01). On the face of it this seems a derisory comp level, but it's not as bad as it seems: one pence is 0.7% of the £14:30 of play required to earn it. The blackjack game in question has a house edge of 0.45% with perfect play, of which that 0.07% represents a 15% reduction of the house edge, for a total comp-adjusted casino advantage of 0.38%.

For a tight blackjack player looking to eke out as much value as possible, one penny for £14:30 of action isn't too bad a deal at all.

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