Online casino comps
The "comps" system
Games and house edges revisited
32 Red
Ladbrokes
Dash casino
Hundred Percent Gambling!
The "comps" system
All casinos, both on land and online, offer player reward systems of one kind or another. On land the format depends on whether you play table or machine
games and is beyond the scope of this article. Online, you simply get a certain number of points for a certain amount wagered, and these points are then
convertible into cash.
For example: Casino Average offers one point for every £10 wagered, and will give you £1 for every 100 points. So, in order to earn a pound in comp cash,
you need to wager £1000 in total. One pound in a thousand works out at 0.1%. Now, just add this to the return of the game in question, and you have the
overall return, with "comp points value" included. For example: a Jacks Or Better video poker game, at 99.54%, improves to 99.64% with 0.1% comps.
For the majority of players these comp points really don't amount to much relative to the games they play; if you play slot machines with a player
return of 95%, the fact that you get 0.1% in comps (or 0.5%, or even 1% or 2% for slot players) really doesn't matter a jot. However, for our purposes
these comps represent a significant addition to the overall return, because the house edge on the games we're considering is already so low; for example: a
99.90% game jumps all the way to a 100% break-even game, with just that relatively tiny comp-value factored in.
Games and house edges revisited
Now let's look back briefly at the games and the numbers:
Microgaming single deck blackjack: 99.87% (99.90% including the composition-dependent exceptions). Recommended casinos:
Dash Casino
and
32Red.
Microgaming All Aces video poker: 99.92%. Recommended casinos:
Dash Casino
and
32Red.
Playtech "blackjack switch": 99.83%. Recommended casino:
Ladbrokes Casino.
And now let's take a look at the reward systems and work out the final numbers - all information correct at the time of going to press.
For Classic Blackjack, every £100 wagered earns you one point, and 1 points earns you £0.01 in comps. This works out at a rather miserly 0.01% comp value,
or £1 for every £10,000 wagered.
Single deck blackjack 99.87% + 0.01% comp value =
99.88% overall return. Factor in the
Microgaming composition-dependent strategy variations and we arrive at
99.91%.
For All Aces video poker things really get very tight: to earn one point you need to wager £500, which works out at £1 for every £50,000 in wagering.
This gives a comp value of 0.02%. 99.92% + 0.02% comp value =
99.922% overall return.
Standard Playtech comps offer 1 comp point for every $10 wagered in blackjack switch - then $1 in "comp cash" for every 100 points. This equates to $1 for
every 1000 wagered, or 0.1%.
Blackjack Switch 99.83% + 0.1% =
99.93% overall return.
The same as 32Red, Classic Blackjack, every £100 wagered earns you one point, and 1 points earns you £0.01 in comps. This works out at a rather miserly
0.01% comp value, or £1 for every £10,000 wagered.
Single deck blackjack 99.87% + 0.01% comp value =
99.88% overall return. Factor in the
Microgaming composition-dependent strategy variations
and we arrive at
99.91%.
For All Aces video poker things really get very tight: to earn one point you need to wager £500, which works out at £1 for every £50,000 in wagering.
This gives a comp value of 0.02%. 99.92% + 0.02% comp value =
99.922% overall return.
Hundred percent gambling!
You can see that each one of these games, utilizing perfect strategy combined with comps, returns over 99.9%. Still: nobody's perfect. It's likely you WILL
make mistakes along the way. The video poker game isn't not easy until you've got some good practice and experience under your belt. It happens. Practise
the blackjack games in "free" mode, and use a good video poker programme like
Winpoker until
you're proficient at the game. You'll get there. In time, and with a little sweat, you'll be playing in the knowledge that your game is getting you to
within a gnat's whisker of breakeven.
Speaking from experience, it's a good feeling!
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