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Casinos are apt to offer comps without being asked.
I’ve always been surprised by the number of people who have a fantasy of the eagle-eyed pit boss noticing their play and strolling over to say, “I can tell you’re a player and the kind of customer our operation is looking for. Let me buy you lunch.” It just doesn’t happen to the low roller. Well, occasionally it will—you’ll have been playing blackjack for ten hours and be all bleary-eyed and the pit boss will finally take pity on you and ask if you’d like a comp to the buffet, Of course, this is usually at two o’clock in the morning!
Just belonging to the slot club is no guarantee that you’ll get everything you deserve. For example, more often than not, no one will tell you that you’re entitled to cash back for your accumulated points. You might be informed that your points are worth comps, but a surprising number of casinos not only don’t have printed literature on what the points are worth, but slot club booth personnel either don’t know or are instructed not to tell you. Some casinos operate differently. At the good ones, all you have to do is walk up to the booth and ask someone to look up your account. Then, if you qualify, a clerk writes a meal comp or refers you to a supervisor. But even here, in almost all instances, the single-most valuable word in a casino, the critical three letters that have taken me farther in casinos than any others, are “A-S-K.” You have to make them aware that you want something and that you’re entitled to it.
Let me illustrate this important concept with two stories, one from our high-roller days and the other from our low-rolling.
Back when we were green-chip bettors, we were on a junket to a casino in Tahoe.
We’d been playing for several days and it was time to check out. At the cashier, Brad asked if we had qualified to have our airfare reimbursed. The cashier said, “Yes,” and handed him $600.
Another guy was standing next to Brad, and said, “I’ve lost $20,000 since Tuesday and I didn’t get my airfare back.” Brad said, “I bet you’d get your airfare back if you asked.” The man did. After a call to a casino host, the cashier informed him that he qualified for the maximum reimbursement, peeled off ten $100 bills, and handed them over. This man had certainly had his room and meals comped, but he didn’t know about airfare reimbursement and the casino wasn’t volunteering to tell him. If it hadn’t been for Brad, that man would have been permanently out that $1,000.
A similar episode occurred on the opposite side of the spectrum while we were playing $5 blackjack at Slots A Fun, a small casino next to Circus Circus in Las Vegas. It’s a fun place to play $5 blackjack; a young low-roller crowd is attracted by the free Heineken (for players). We’d been playing several hours when I said jokingly to Brad, “I’m hungry. I wonder if they’ll give us a comp to the snack bar.” Slots A Fun serves those obscenely huge hot dogs, which only cost $1 in the first place, so I was laughing when I asked the pit boss, “Hey, have we played long enough to earn a comped hot dog?” I thought it was a joke right up until the time the boss said, “Sure! Are there just the two of you?” I said yes and he gave me an unlimited comp for two.
