Analysis
Thanks to all 1,074 of you who took part in last week's poll about which Las Vegas poker room offers the best comps to players. It yielded some interesting -- even puzzling -- results.
Poker players are notoriously short-changed when it comes to comps, since the house has no edge on your play and is generally making a lot less money from you than it is from a slot player, who's hence going to be a lot better compensated for his (or her) action. As with other comps, you have to 'log in' when you sit down to play in order to qualify for anything. Some rooms offer a separate card for poker players, some use the regular players club card, and some accept either, but regardless, your poker play will be rated separately and according to different criteria than other casino play.
In addition to the free drinks that all players receive (aside from video poker players at Wynn -- see the Today's News item from earlier this week), cash-game poker players can generally expect two kinds of comps. The first is an hourly rate generally awarded in points and/or food and beverage comps; the second is discounted (but not free) hotel accommodation. The former generally runs at $1-$2 per hour, while the room rates and the kind of action you have to offer to qualify for them can vary significantly. Hence, once we'd called to verify a number of rooms' official policies, we were pretty surprised by the results of the poll.
With a margin of a mere 1%, you narrowly voted Treasure Island the best poker room for comps. So, we called 'em up to see what they offer and were told it's $2 for each hour of action on a live game, redeemable for food and beverage comps only, anywhere throughout the property. In our experience, this $2 rate is at the top of the poker-comp ladder (although we did read that the Venetian offered a $3 rate promotion for a while when it first opened). As far as the 'poker rate' is concerned, you have to play 6 hours per day Sunday through Thursday and 8 hours per day on the weekend and the rate's only available for a maximum of five consecutive nights. It varies throughout the year, depending on prevailing room rates: We called to check for the nights of October 21-25 and were quoted $79/night for 21-22, $129 for the nights of Oct. 23-24, and $189 for Thursday 25th. You have to call ahead to the marketing department to lock in this rate, too. A quick check on their Web site revealed that the $79 rate was only $10 cheaper than the regular room rate for those nights. The 23rd and 25th were not available (so being a poker player might also help you get a room when they're apparently sold out) and the poker rate for October 24th was a $30 discount on the $159 prevailing rate for that night.
Your second favorite choice was the Venetian, but they informed us that they only offer $1 to a maximum $1.50 per hour in food comps, depending on which game you're playing. The standard 'poker rate' is $169 during the week and $259 Friday and Saturday, for which you must show them six hours of live cash play per day, per room.
With 82 votes or 8% of the total, Binion's came in at #3 in the poll results. Their poker room manager was extremely helpful and informed us that they offer the $2/hour rate to players, which can be redeemed in the property's restaurants or gift shop. There's that $2 rate again, and it's more significant here, since it's applied to any raked game -- as low as 2-4 at Binion's. They're also more flexible on play than others when it comes to the room discount -- he said sometimes two hours a day is enough to qualify and they don't expect more than four -- plus, it's pretty fixed at $29 during the week and $45 on the weekend and you don't have to pre-arrange it. Just sit down and play and if they like your action, you'll get the rate.
For comparison's sake, we also called a couple of the lower-ranking rooms that just a handful of you picked. Boulder S
