In mid-2016, the casinos began instituting controls on drink comps for gamblers at the bars. We'd seen it tried before, but this time, it’s sticking.
MGM Resorts, Cosmopolitan, and others went to a voucher system at all of their bars. At Caesars Entertainment properties, a light prompt on the backs of the machines indicates when a patron has played enough to be comped. Both the lights and the vouchers do the same thing: Put controls on drink comps.
The first instinct is to assume that it’s just another take-back by the casinos, but we don’t believe that’s what’s behind it, with two reasons for feeling that way.
The first comes from talking to insiders who insist that the customer isn’t the target of this move, not even those who blatantly seek to game the system by sticking $20 in a machine, then playing one quarter every few minutes to score free drinks. Instead, the target is bartender theft, which is enabled by the power to comp at a cash bar.
One industry expert put it like this, “When you have slot comps and cash at the same bar, it gives bartenders the ultimate opportunity to steal. When comping is discretionary, they can pocket the cash from a paying customer and charge the drink to a slot comp. The moment you roll in the vouchers, you eliminate the theft. It’s an age-old problem that may finally be eliminated.”
So, while we don't know for sure, we do buy into this explanation and it seems to be supported by the fact that only cash-bar comping is affected, not the serving of drinks at machines or in the pit.
The second reason this doesn’t bother us is empirical, meaning we’ve test-driven it. The first time we counted down a voucher system on a 25¢ game, the first drink ticket was dispensed by the machine (it comes out of the money slot) after five hands. The second time it was eight hands from the start. When we played through, the longest duration between voucher delivery was 64 hands and others came much sooner. To be honest, we couldn’t drink fast enough and walked with two vouchers in our pocket.
Of course, more research needs to be done on more systems. And if it turns out that it is a dirty deal, there will be plenty of alternatives for avoiding the big guys that are imposing the restrictions. But we're certainly not panicking yet.