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Gaming Guru
Comped all the way!1 April 2010
Let me take a look at three players and their comp styles. These are not made-up people because they truly represent the players rubbing shoulders with you in just about any casino in the major venues of America. So let's hear about them. Jimmy speaks: "My Uncle Louis is comped like crazy in the Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos. I am talking about the best casinos in these cities too, the most famous ones. "Uncle Louis gets everything for free, every single thing. When he shows up at the airport a limo picks him up and takes him to the casino. He gets the biggest suite in the hotel with views that you could kill for. He even has butler service if he wants it. There are bottles of wine and baskets of fruit and candy in his room as gifts from the casino hosts. Sometimes there are other free gifts for him as well. "Uncle Louis can go to any restaurant he wants to go to. He can have a private table in a private room if he wants it. He can drink the most expensive wines and liquors. He goes to exclusive parties and boxing matches and all the big-name shows. He has been introduced to all the celebrities that attend these exclusive private parties. "And it is all free, everything. My Uncle Louis is an amazing man. He plays blackjack with a progressive betting method that goes up when he wins. He loves to play the trend-finding systems at craps. His favorite saying is, 'When you see a horn, bet a horn.' He knows trends start with horn bets. He plays the twenty-five dollar slots and he loves to bet a thousand dollars on the green numbers in roulette. The casino will even give him a private table for any game if he wishes. Wow!" OK now Carlos speaks: "I go to the casinos but I am a ten dollar player. At craps I only make pass line and come bets with odds. I use the basic strategy in blackjack. "I like the really nice casinos so I don't get any comps at all. I like to eat in the gourmet restaurants, which cost me and my wife about two-hundred fifty dollars a meal. I spend about forty dollars a day at the café for breakfast and lunch. I pay for the shows I want to see and I take a taxi from the airport to the hotel. I sometimes get some coupons for the middle-level hotels that are owned by the big companies. I pay for my room too. "I am a low roller. That's all I am, a low roller." Let's hear Kathy: "I go to the mid-level casinos, not the high-end ones. In Vegas it is the local casinos that I like. They comp better for my level of play. My play is appreciated at these casinos and I get a lot of comps. I don't have to play over my head. Whatever comps I get I am happy about. During the week I get free rooms and plenty of match play. I play video poker and I get cashback too." Here goes. Carlos is pretty smart - he doesn't mind paying for what he likes and thus he can bet what he feels he can afford to bet. He's smart in his selection of bets at craps and by playing basic strategy at blackjack the casino only has about a half percent edge on him. Jimmy is pretty stupid. He thinks Uncle Louis is somehow special because Uncle Louis gets everything for "free." Jimmy doesn't realize that to get all that "free" stuff Uncle Louis must have an expectation of losing tens of thousands of dollars on each of his visits to the land of Lady Luck. And what of Uncle Louis, the man himself? He probably has a lot of money to burn because, based on Jimmy's assessment of Uncle Louis' style and range of play, his dear old uncle is burning that money with abandon. At craps he plays the idiotic "see a horn, bet a horn" strategy proposed by the ploppies of craps. This represents the worst type of playing method in a random game - looking for trends that cannot be predicted into the future. What about playing straight up numbers at roulette for a thousand bucks apiece? Yuck! Twenty-five dollar slots? Fast game, high house edge, equals more big losses over time. In short, Uncle Louis is himself a ploppy, despite the fact that he is probably rich. Money equals mind is not an accurate equation in a casino. Some of the wealthiest, most successful people in the outside world lose half their IQ points when they walk into the casinos. Weird but true. And what of Kathy? In the world of comps, she has it all together. She plays at the casinos that appreciate her play but she doesn't have to play beyond her bankroll to get the type of comps she enjoys. She is taking full advantage of the casinos where she plays. She is one smart cookie. Most people fall into one of these four categories, give or take a little of this or that. Comps are fun to get as long as you don't play longer than you should, bet more than you should, or think that somehow comps make you better than you really are. In truth, there is no difference between a red-chip player and a gold-chip player. Smart players bet smartly; ploppies do the ploppy betting strategies. The color of the chips is irrelevant. This article is provided by the Frank Scoblete Network. Melissa A. Kaplan is the network's managing editor. If you would like to use this article on your website, please contact Casino City Press, the exclusive web syndication outlet for the Frank Scoblete Network. To contact Frank, please e-mail him at fscobe@optonline.net. Recent Articles
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