Hi and welcome to our series of educational videos
that are designed to make you a smarter gambler my name is Steve Bourie
and I'm the author of the American casino guide which is the number one
best-selling book in the US on the subject of casino gambling and travel
and the only book that comes with more than one thousand dollars
in casino coupons. If you want to know more about me or my book
be sure to visit my website at americancasinoguide.com
In this video we'll be hearing from Jean Scott who is also known as the
queen of comps
and she'll be giving us her tips on how to take advantage of the casino comp
system Jean is the author of The Frugal gambler as well so its sequel
More Frugal Gambling and her books give detailed information on how to get the
most for your money
when visiting any casino Jean has appeared on many TV shows including
dateline , hard copy and 48 hours
as well as many travel and Discovery Channel documentaries
I'm sure you'll learn some great tips from Jean to help you better understand
the casino comping system
and how you can use it to your advantage now here's Jean Scott
If you've been around casinos a lot
you know what a comp is, but there's a lot of people who don't know
what a comp is and I hear you people say oh you're going to get
these comps at a casino what is that? A comp
is short for complimentary and it simply means
something that's free and anything that the casino gives you
that's free we call that a comp
Now if you're just sitting at a slot machine for instance and
the cocktail waitress comes around and asks if you wanna drink
that's free and that's probably the most simple comp that you can get
and then you maybe you've heard of high rollers that get
free charter flights to the casino
and bring their whole family and they have all these rooms and suites
and you have spa visits and so forth those are all comps.
Anywhere from something little to something big
but they all mean something the casino has given you free.
People ask if both the table player and machine players can get comps and
the answer is definitely yes
there's just a slightly different way that they get the comps
a different system When you have a players card and you're gonna play a
machine
you put that there is a slot in every
machine that you put your players card
in and what it does is you start accumulating
points and those points you can cash in
usually for comps sometimes for cash
sometimes for free play but usually for comps
and when you're playing the table games of course there's no place
no slot for you to put your card in so what you do is you take your players
card
you give it to the dealer whether it's the roulette table the blackjack table
whatever game you're playing
and the dealer gives it to the pit boss
and they start rating you and that's how you get the comps
on tables. We've been talking about the slot club
the Players Club using your players card and
I should mention that that's one of the best ways to get comps
because you can go after you play awhile you can go into the slot club desk
and you can say I have this many points or they tell you how many points and
you can see what
comps you have earned That's the first way
to get comps particularly for somebody who's not real knowledgeable
a new player but the second way
to get compss that's perhaps one of the best ways
and that is when you join the Players Club
they're gonna ask for your name and address and you think
why do they need that and people say
I don't want to give my name and my address & phone number and that sort
of thing out
Yes you do. I always say yes you do want to give your address to a casino
because the casinos loved to send mail
and they send mail that has offers in it
and particularly if you want to get free rooms
the mail comps that's the best way to get them, the offers that come in the
mail and you might be surprised
by how little you have to play
because when the casinos are in a slow period
like the month before Christmas or whatever
they send out more offers and they might send offers to almost everybody that's
ever played in their casino
so it's very important to give your name and address
to the casino so that you can get these mail offers and that's the second good
way
that you can earn comps.
Some people think that if you just go in the casino
the casino is just going to give you comps, offer them right and left
you would think that would happen you would think they would want to make
their
customers feel good but in actuality
the casinos do not offer comps
very often very rarely
Other than what I mentioned earlier that if they might offer you a free drink when
the cocktail waitress comes around
that's about the only thing that the casino is going to offer you
that's why you have to join the Players Club you have to use your card
and then you have to go to the slot desk and say
what kinda comps have I earned? Now some casinos make this easy
they have a little like a menu at the front of the
Players Club and it says well if you earned such and such a point you
earned a buffet, if you
earn more you get a coffee shop comp and so forth
But you have to go and get them
and back in the old days if you played table games
it was a little less structured and the pit boss saw you
betting and if you were betting kinda big for that casino
whatever their level was, he might come up and say hey can i buy you
dinner
I don't see that happening nowadays as much unless you're a really huge player
Usually you've got to give your card
to the dealer and then
ask to be rated then when you're ready to get up and you want a buffet
of you want a gourmet
meal or whatever you have to say I'd like to talk to the pit boss
The dealer calls the pit boss over and you have to ask
probably one of the most common questions I get
is well Jean
you're the queen of comps I want I wanna know where you play and then I wanna go
play there cuz I know you go play
where you get the most comps and they want specific I want should I go to this
casino or this one
and I have to say right away I can't answer that question
For one thing I live in Las Vegas
so the way I get comps is entirely different
from somebody who comes to Vegas for three days
and they want different things and they do it differently
or let's not talk just about Vegas let's talk about
how you perhaps you live near a riverboat and how you get comps there may be
different in the way
than when you come to Vegas so it depends on your goals
I've already mentioned this a good way to get food comps
is to go use your points and then go to the slot club and see
what you can get for your food comps. The best way to get
room comps is if that's what you need
is room comps then give a lot of casinos your name address and see what you get in the
mail
a local for instance, like I am I don't need rooms as much as an out of towner
does
I do get them sometimes because I have relatives or friends come and i wanna
get a room
but even then a lot of those comps that I get
I get from mail offers because locals
and whether you live in Illinois
or new jersey or in Las Vegas
all the casinos are going to mail you offe
offers so that's the best way
I can't give you specific
examples of where you should go
you have to kind of explore that for yourself
Earlier I've talked about two ways to get comps, one is you use your card you go
through the Players Club
the second one is you give your name and address
to the casino so that they'll mail you offers
now I'm going to go to the third way and that is using a host
and using the host system in a casino
now this is a little advanced technique
and it's not for a beginner because it's a
fairly complicated system A host
is someone who is in the casino and the job is and it can be a man or a woman and
by the way
you call a host the same you do not call a host
a woman host a hostess that's somebody that's seats you a the restaurant
A host can be a man or a woman and this person is the one
they call that has the power of the pen that means that they can write you
out comps This is a very complex
subject it took me pages and pages to cover this
in one of my books called more frugal gambling
and you should thoroughly learn how to do it through the Players Club
and through the mail offers before you do this but
once you've played for a while in a casino
you can ask to see a host
now a good way to ask to see a host is while you're playing at a machine to
we're talking about machine players now because the pit bosses
take care the comps with the table games but if you're a machine player
and you wanna see a host because you think maybe you could get some comps
without using your points
or whatever reason it's always good to ask
somebody on the floor that you see
could I speak to a host and choose a time
when you're in front of a machine the highest denomination you usually play
I don't mean if you usually play pennies you don't go to a
five dollar machine and talk to a host
she or he is gonna find out this pretty soon because they can go look at
your records
but if you mix up your played for quarters and dollars for instance
wait until you're wanting to play dollars anyway and then ask to see a host
one thing you need to remember is that there are different levels casinos
and I sometimes say do you wanna be a little frog
in a big pond or do you wanna be a big frog
in a little pond there's the high
level casino resorts they're the ones with the spas and
the big suites and luscious
palm trees everywhere and then there's the lower level
what you call maybe grind joints and then most casinos are kind of in the middle
if you wanna get more comps
and you're a mid-level player then you need to go to the lower or mid-level
casinos because they will appreciate your business more
Let's face it if you play quarters even just
even as much as six hours a day there are some
swanky resorts that aren't gonna give you too much for that because they're
giving all their comp out
to the high rollers on the other hand
if you're a a quarter player a solid quarter player you could go to a
lower level or mid-level and and these mid-levels
doesn't mean that they're grind joints or they have sawdust on the floor
or anything
and you would be surprised how much
that you will get from them I've had many many quarter players
say to me I didn't think I could get any comps
but you told me Jean to always use my card when I play
you've told me to join several
players clubs at different casinos give my name and address
and I'm amazed by the mail that I get
offering me free rooms I thought you had to be a high roller to get free rooms
you don't but they're choosing casinos
that are mid-level low or mid-level
meaning not quite so fancy One of the main pieces of advice
that I would give anyone that's trying to use the comp system and maximize
the benefits that they get from a casino
is to never play just for comps
if you lose two hundred dollars
while you're trying to earn a ten dollar buffet
that is going to be the most bitter tasting meal you ever had in your life
there are just literally thousands of little things that we've done over the
years Brad and I have done
and we have had a wonderful life because we have had so many comps
but I can't give them all here but you're fortunate in
that I put hundreds of them in a book
that I've written called more frugal gambling
and I've written several other books also and so
you can go to my website and find lotsa resources including
all of my books that I've written about gambling
and you can learn more about the comp system and
with all these resources you too can be a frugal gambler
Don't forget that you can see more of our educational gaming videos on our
YouTube channel
just go to youtube.com/americancasinoguide