 
Getting
Maximum Comps by Playing Blackjack
by
Henry Tamburin, published on Monday,
October 29 2001
“Comp” is short for complimentary.
It’s the nice perks that casinos
give you just for playing. Depending
upon your betting level and how
long you play, you could get comped
to a buffet, a café, a gourmet
room, a hotel room, a suite, even
air fare. And by playing blackjack
you can get the most in comps compared
to other casino games. Here’s
how.
First let’s make sure you understand
how casinos determine how much your
action is worth. Action is defined
as the amount of money you risk
over time. Assuming you are dealt
100 hands per hour, your average
bet is $10, and you play for 4 hours,
your total action is 100 hands x
$10 per hand x 4 hours = $4000.
In your 4 hours of play you’ve
given the casino $4000 worth of
action.
Casinos use the
following formula to calculate how
much of a player’s action they
expect to win.
Action x Casino
Advantage = Player’s Theoretical
Loss
Since pit bosses
can’t watch the play of every
individual blackjack player to determine
their skill level so they generally
will estimate a 2% advantage over
the masses of players that play
blackjack. This means they expect
to win about $80 in the above example
($4000 x 2%).
Most casinos will
give players comps worth 20 to 40%
of a player’s expected loss.
This means the above player can
expect a comp worth about $25.
Now here is how
a blackjack player can get more
in comps then their theoretical
loss.
First a player can
and should learn the basic playing
strategy. This is a set of rules
that tells the player when to hit,
stand, double down, pair split,
and surrender. By learning and using
the basic strategy flawlessly at
the tables, a player will reduce
the casino’s edge from 2% (which
is what the pit boss is estimating)
down to 0.5%.
Now let’s recalculate
the player’s expected loss
in the above example. With a 0.5%
casino edge facing the player his
expected loss is only $20 ($4000
x 0.5%). Your expected loss is only
25% of what the casino thinks they
are going to win from you.
Do you see where
this is heading? The pit boss has
the player earmarked for a $80 theoretical
loss so he dolls out a comp worth
$25. Meantime the player’s
actual expected loss is only $20.
The player is actually ahead of
the game by $5. Not a bad deal.
If you think this
is a good, wait to you see how you
make it even better. Instead of
playing 100 hands pr hour S-L-O-W
down your play at the tables. You
can do this by playing at full tables
instead of with only a few players.
Take your time making your playing
decisions. Skip a few hands and
take a few “restroom”
breaks. The point is that if you
slow down your play so that you
are betting on only 50 hands per
hour (instead of 100) your expected
loss drops to $10 and you are still
getting $25 worth of comps. Now
you’re ahead by $15 instead
of $5.
Can you do even
better then this? Yes, if you play
in very favorable games with very
good rules it’s possible to
reduce the casino’s edge to
virtually 0 with basic strategy
and by learning card counting you
can actually gain the advantage.
Your theoretical loss in this scenario
is 0 and the comps you earn will
be gravy.
There are other
tricks to getting more value in
comps for your perceived skill and
betting level when you play blackjack.
In fact books have been written
about how to go about this (two
of the best are the second edition
of Comp City by Max Rubin written
for the high roller and The Frugal
Gambler by Jean Scott which is geared
more to the low roller).
By adding the value
of the comps to your expected return
when you play blackjack it’s
possible to gain the monetary edge
over the casino. By playing perfect
basic strategy your expected return
is 99.5% (assuming a 0.5% casino
edge) and if add to this the value
of comps, it’s possible to
gain a slight monetary edge (overall
return greater than 100%) when you
play. That’s the smart way
to play blackjack.
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