We’d wager that the reason you can’t get an answer is because the casino employees really don’t know. We don’t know either, because there is no set answer -- these games are treated differently from casino to casino.
The points-to-coin-in ratio that a rewards system uses is based on a game’s theoretical win ("theo"), which is the casino’s mathematical advantage. But that’s often tempered by assumptions about how well customers play. These determinations, as well as the basic programming of a machine (where errors can occur), vary, and affect the eventual classification put on a game. Hence, blackjack and keno on mixed-game units, as well as stand-alone craps, roulette, and other games played on machines, award points differently at different places.
We asked a couple of experts for their opinions and they both agreed about the variability, while offering slightly different takes on it.
Response #1: It depends on the casino. However, recently, if a multi-game machine has video poker on it, it seems like the "other" games are much more likely to be lumped into the "lower points" category than they were back in glory days gone by.
Response #2: It depends entirely on the casino and game, but there are tendencies. For example, and this is oversimplified, but as a general rule the more "stupid" games that are on a terminal that includes video poker, the higher the theo points generally are overall. For example, "All-Star Poker" terminals that offer lots of strange games are reasonable candidates for being more generous with comps.
While there is no hard and firm answer, there are definitely opportunities to capitalize on the confusion. Within the "advantage-player" community, the discovery of situations in which games pay out more points than the mathematics dictates is very valuable, as it can turn a losing game into a winner. For years the stand-alone blackjack games with huge video screens that feature voluptuous female dealers -- commonly referred to in the business as "big-titty blackjack" (hey, that's what they're called) -- were known to be potentially over-generous. Since blackjack rules aren’t uniform, players would find the games where the edge against basic strategy was very close to breakeven and play them for the points. The good finds were played hard and guarded closely.
In the end, the only way to really know the rate at which a game is dispensing points is to clock it yourself. That requires monitoring how much you have to play before another point ticks up on the card reader, which you can do if you want to (though more easily on some systems than on others). If you find a good one, play it hard and guard it closely.
One more point -- and note that we're adding this after receiving informed comments on this answer since it's been up -- there are additional levels to most systems that make this subject much more complex. Beyond the obvious point tallies, the theo of a game can carry even more weight in the determination of "discretionary" comps, e.g., written comps and mail, which is why some players seem to be treated like royalty while others (with more coin-in) don't.
