Okay, let’s first answer both questions directly.
First question: It might seem, initially, like the big casinos are "cutting back" on the free drinks, but that’s not really the case. As we’ll see, they’re simply instituting stricter controls over them at the bars.
Second question: This is the age-old question of losing more money gambling for a comp than it would’ve cost just to pay for it. The answer is, it’s not your actual loss (which we assume you mean when you say you "had to run through $6") that matters; if that’s the case, buy the drink and there’s no problem. It’s your expected loss that counts against the drink.
Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that you were playing a video poker machine with a 97% return. Your expected loss for playing $6 through one time is 18 cents. If you played $20 through once and lost $6, that's an expected loss of 60 cents. You’re gambling, of course, so anything can happen. You could hit a royal and you’d be making $1,000 (or whatever) for your comped drink; you could lose $6, as you did, and be down $2 for your comped drink. But in the end, it’s the mathematically precise return on your action, based on the payback percentage of the particular machine, that matters when it comes to calculating the "cost" of your comped drink.
Now, what about those new controls on drinks at the bar? LVA subscribers got Anthony Curtis’ analysis of the situation in the October issue of the Las Vegas Advisor. For all you non-subscribing QoDers, here, in part, is what he wrote.
"MGM has been experimenting with a voucher system to control drink comping for quite some time, while others have already gone beyond experimentation. After a trial period at limited bars, the Cosmopolitan has gone to a voucher system at all of its bars. And it’s just been announced (quietly) that Caesars Entertainment has installed controls at its bars too. The CET system works differently, employing a light prompt on the backs of the machines that indicates when a patron has played enough to be comped, but both the lights and the vouchers do the same thing. The MRI properties will, without a doubt, be next.
"The first instinct is to assume that it’s just another take-back by the casinos, but I don’t think that’s what’s behind it, and I have 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. Nope. The target is bartender theft, which is enabled by the power to comp at a cash bar.
"One industry guy put it to me 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.’
"It’ll be a while before we know for sure, but I 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 me is empirical, meaning I’ve test-driven it. The first time I 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 I played through, the longest duration between voucher delivery was 64 hands and others came much sooner. To be honest, I couldn’t drink fast enough and walked with two vouchers in my 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. I’m certainly not panicking yet."
