Question of the Day - 04 May 2019

“They don’t want players washing their bets for comp dollars,” responds Chris Wester, products director for electronic table games at Scientific Games.

What he means is, they don’t want you playing $100 on red, while the missus is putting $100 on black, bets that mostly cancel each other out, while racking up points spin after spin.

This is an issue handled by the individual casinos, not at the manufacturing level. “Our games don’t ‘know’ that there’s a player-tracking system installed,” says Wester.

However, the electronic-table-game (ETG) industry has certainly provided the option for player tracking on ETGs. 

“It’s an operator’s choice. They’re afraid of you grinding out points,” echoes another industry source. “I've seen some operators offer different ratios on point earning on ETGs versus slots. I've also seen some operators restrict the redemption of free play on ETGs.”

In other words, it’s totally at the casinos’ discretion. For video blackjack, the "different ratios" the industry source cites above generally means at a lower rate than table play. And bubble crap machines often don't reward club points at all (last we heard, the one at the Cosmo still wasn't after many years in operation). 

So you can look for e-roulette machines that accept players cards and award points. Or if your play is high enough, you can talk over the comp possibilities with a host. 

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