Every week somebody flies home from Vegas convinced the casino owes them a free room because they lost $1,500 at the tables. Then the offer shows up in their inbox and it’s 20% off a Tuesday at Excalibur.
The casino doesn’t care much about what you lost. It cares about what it expected to win from you. Those are different numbers, and once you understand the difference, the whole comp system makes a lot more sense.
Comps aren’t a scam. If you gamble anyway, you should be getting something back for it. But the people who get burned are the ones who start gambling more to earn the free stuff, and that’s exactly what the system is built to get you to do.
Theo: the only number that matters
Casinos rate you on theoretical loss, which everyone in the business calls theo. It’s how much the casino expects to win from your play based on four things: how much you bet, how long you played, what game you played, and the house edge on that game.
Your actual result doesn’t enter into it much. Say you sit down at a slot and lose $800 in 20 minutes. The guy next to you plays smaller for four hours and walks out up $200. He probably earned better offers than you did, because the casino got a lot more action from him, and over the long run action is what pays the casino.
Your wallet cares whether you won or lost. The casino’s computer cares how much you ran through the machine.
How the math works
Slots
You play a slot at $2 a spin. A decent pace is about 500 spins an hour, and you play for four hours. That’s $4,000 run through the machine.
That doesn’t mean you lost $4,000, or that you brought $4,000. You might have started with $300 and kept replaying your wins. The casino counts every spin.
If the machine holds around 10% (I’m using that to keep the math easy; actual hold varies by machine and denomination), your theo for the session is $400. That’s what the casino expects to make from play like yours over time. You personally might lose $100 that night or $900.
Blackjack
Now say you play $25 a hand at blackjack for the same four hours. A full table moves at maybe 60 to 70 hands an hour, so call it 70. That’s 280 hands, or $7,000 wagered.
You’ve bet more money than the slot player. But blackjack has a much lower house edge. A perfect basic-strategy player gives the house well under 1%, and most casinos rate the average player at around 2% to account for the people who split tens and stand on 12 against a dealer 2. At 2%, your theo is $140.
The slot player bet less and generated almost three times the theo. That’s why slot players tend to get more mail than table players at the same level.
Video poker
Video poker is the other end of it. The good full-pay machines have a house edge under 1%, sometimes close to zero for someone who plays perfectly. You lose less than you would at almost anything else in the building, and the casino knows it, so your comps are thin.
That’s the trade with comps. The games that lose you the least money earn you the least back. Don’t switch games to earn better offers. You’d be paying $100 extra to get a $30 food credit.
Get rated, every time
None of this counts if the casino doesn’t know about it.
Slots and video poker track automatically when your card is in the machine. Put it in before your first spin, every time. If you play for an hour without it, that hour doesn’t exist as far as the casino is concerned.
Table games are rated by hand. Put your card on the table when you sit down and the floor supervisor estimates your average bet and time. If you don’t see anyone take your card, ask the dealer if you’re being rated. Nobody’s going to be annoyed. It’s their job.
One small thing at tables: the floor person watches your average bet, so the first few bets you make tend to stick in their head. Tables are also where a bump in your bet when the supervisor walks over gets noticed and remembered. That’s not a trick, just how a person with a clipboard works.
Pick a company and stick with it
This is the most useful advice in the whole article, and most people ignore it.
There’s no card that works everywhere. MGM Rewards covers MGM’s properties (Bellagio, ARIA, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay and the rest of their Strip hotels). Caesars Rewards covers Caesars, Harrah’s, Flamingo, Paris and the rest of theirs. Off the Strip, Station Casinos runs my|BoardingPass at Red Rock, Green Valley Ranch, Palace Station and the other Stations and Fiestas. Boyd runs its own program at the Orleans, Gold Coast, Sam’s Town and its downtown places.
If you spend a little at MGM, a little at Caesars, and a few hours at Circa, nobody sees you as worth anything. Put all of it on one card and you can actually move up.
What tier status gets you
Tier status and comp offers are two different things, and people mix them up constantly.
Tier status is the color of your card. It comes with fixed perks and you earn it with tier credits.
Offers are what the marketing department decides to send you based on your theo. A base-level card can still get a free room offer. A top-tier card doesn’t guarantee one.
The tier perks that actually save you money in Vegas are parking and resort fees:
- MGM Rewards: Pearl (25,000 tier credits) gets free self-parking at MGM properties. Gold (75,000) gets resort fees waived on up to two rooms when you book direct with MGM. Platinum is 200,000 credits, and Noir is invite-only.
- Caesars Rewards: Platinum (5,000 tier credits) gets free self-parking and valet at participating properties. Diamond (15,000) drops the resort fee entirely, plus a $100 celebration dinner and priority lines.
Here’s what most visitors don’t know. Both companies have credit cards that hand you that first parking tier with no gambling required. The no-annual-fee MGM Rewards Mastercard comes with Pearl status. The Caesars Rewards Visa bumps you to Platinum after your first purchase. If you drive to Vegas a few times a year, that alone pays for itself. As always with credit cards, read the terms, and don’t carry a balance to save $20 on parking.
Both programs also run status matches now and then, where they’ll match tier status you hold at a competing casino, sometimes with a challenge to keep it. MGM status can also be matched into Marriott Bonvoy, though Marriott status doesn’t match back into MGM. These change every year, so check the current terms before you plan around one.
Locals casinos are a different game
The Strip is where people want the free suite. Off the Strip is where regular players get the most back for normal play.
The locals casinos live on repeat business from people who live here, so they compete harder for it. You’ll see more free play in the mail, cheap or comped meals, point multiplier days, drawings and birthday free play. Stations lets you redeem points for cash back, slot play or comps. If you’re a $1-a-spin player, you’ll usually get more noticed at Red Rock or the Orleans than at Bellagio, where you’re one of 10,000 people that day.
Parking is free at most of them too.
Free drinks are a comp too
The easiest comp in the building is the drink a cocktail server brings while you’re playing. Some video poker bars now track how much you put through before they’ll pour, and top shelf is usually extra. Tip the server. We get into the details in how to get free drinks in Las Vegas.
Why your offers got worse
Everybody’s mailers seem to get worse over time. A few reasons:
- Your play changed. Casinos look at your average daily theo across your trips, not one big night. One huge session followed by three small trips drags your average down.
- Their pricing changed. When the Strip is selling out at $300 a night, a comp room costs the casino more, so it gives fewer of them away.
- The dates matter. A free room in August is easy. A free room during CES or F1 is a much bigger ask. Expect a “free” offer to have blackout dates around big events.
- You booked the comp and didn’t play. Casinos notice people who use the room and spend 45 minutes on the casino floor. The next offer reflects it.
Nobody outside the casino knows the exact formula, and it varies by property. Anybody promising a specific reinvestment percentage is guessing.
Is a “free” room actually free?
Sometimes yes. Often it’s free minus a few things.
Read the actual booking before you click confirm:
- Resort fee. A comp room often still carries the resort fee unless your tier waives it. At $50-plus a night, that’s real money. Our Las Vegas resort fees chart shows what each hotel charges.
- Taxes on whatever isn’t comped.
- The deposit hold on your card at check-in.
- Minimum stays and blackout dates.
- Comped vs. discounted. Mailers mix “free” and “50% off” rooms in the same email. Click through and see which one you’re looking at.
Free play is also not cash. It has to be run through a machine at least once, and sometimes more, before anything is cashable. $100 in free play is worth well under $100.
Is a comp worth it?
Say you could book a room for $180 a night for two nights, or you have an offer that comps the $360 room. If you were coming anyway and you’ll gamble your normal amount, take the comp. That’s what it’s for.
If you’re going to gamble an extra $500 to keep the offers coming, you just paid $500 for a $360 room. Add resort fees and you’re further behind.
Sometimes the cheapest trip is a paid room at a place with no resort fee and no pressure to play. Our three-day Vegas budget guide breaks down what a trip costs without counting on comps.
How to get more without chasing it
- Use your card every time you play, even if it’s just 20 minutes while you wait for dinner.
- Keep your play with one company.
- Ask the rewards desk what you’ve got. Comps sometimes sit in your account unused, and nobody’s going to remind you.
- If you’re a bigger player, ask whether you qualify for a host. A host can help with rooms, dinners and show tickets, but they’re not going to comp everything just because you asked.
- Decide your gambling budget before you leave home and don’t touch the rest of your money.
If the offers come, great. If they don’t, you didn’t lose anything you weren’t going to lose anyway.
