Casino Comps “Comps” is a short form of “complimentary”. These are the nice little freebies that the casino rewards its high rated players for their patronage. Depending on how you play and how much you bet you could get yourself a free meal, a free hotel room or even free air fare. By playing blackjack you’ll get yourself more casino comps than playing any other casino game. If you buy $200 to $300 worth of chips at a blackjack table, the pit boss will probably spot you as ask if you want to be rated. In some casino you’ll be given a card similar to an ATM card and the blackjack table will have a slot for you to insert your card. Take washroom breaks, you’ll bet less and stay on the clock for your casino comps card. To maximize your comps edibility you must first understand how casinos judge how much your “action” is worth. Your action is the amount of money you wager over a period of time. For example, if you are dealt 100 hands per hour, your average bet is $10 and your play for 4 hours, your total action is $4000. You have given the casino $4000 of action. To determine how much of a player’s action they can expect to win, the casinos use this formula: action x casino advantage = player's theoretical loss. Pit bosses can watch every player at every game in the casino, so they estimate an house advantage of 2%. This means the casino can expect to win $80 in the above example ($4000 x 2%). Most casinos will award players 20% to 40% of a player’s expected loss. This means the above player will expect about $25 in casino comps. If this doesn’t seem like much for just giving the casino $4000 you're right! The first thing a blackjack player can do to increase their casino comps is learn basic strategy. If you learn when to hit, stand, double down, split pairs and surrender, you can reduce the house edge from an estimated 2% to .5%. This reduces a player’s expected loss from $25 to $20. The player is ahead by $5. That’s not all. Slow down your play, play at full tables, and take your time to make your decision. Take a few bathroom breaks. If you slow down to 50 hands per hour, this means your expected loss drops to $10 and you're still getting $25 worth of comps. You are now ahead by $15 not $5. Yes, it is even possible to do better than this. If you play at tables with favorable rules you can reduce the casino edge to about 0% If you learn card counting you can actually gain an advantage over the casino. Theoretically your loss would be zero and your casino comps would be bonus. There are other tricks you can do to increase your comps. For more information check out the second edition of Comp City by Max Rubin and The Frugal Gambler by Jean Scott.

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