If you’ve ever dreamed of earning a free room, or being treated like royalty while in Vegas, you may want to learn about comps. These are not just for the uber rich. You can be a small time gambler and still benefit. The trick is to understand the system. On the strip there are 2 major players club systems that you can participate in. At any casino, find the desk to sign up for a card, similar to what you get at most grocery store chains. They will ask for your ID and a phone number, usually. (At the Wynn, if you give your email address, they’ll throw $10 worth of money on it to gamble with.) You will walk away with a free card to use any time you gamble in a participating casino. The big 2, in my opinion are: The MGM Mirage Player club card, and the Ballys Total Rewards, but I also like the Wynn card.

The MGM card works at the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Mirage, Treasure Island, Monte Carlo, New York New York, Luxor, and the Excalibur. They just purchased the Mandalay group, so now they own half of the strip. See MGM Player’s Club for more information. The nifty thing about this system is that the amount of money you spend gambling is kept as points on your account. Then you either spend the points, which work out to about 1 cent of value per point, or way better, you can talk to a players card representative and they will give you things based on your play. For example, if you bet enough to earn, say, 3000 points in 24 hours, they may give you a free room. I earned 1009 in one day and I got $45 worth of food and beverage credit, since I was staying at Treasure Island, one of their properties. I had probably bet around $800 on the slots to get that many points. Remember, what matters is how much you gamble. If you start out with $20 but you go up and down on the slots and it takes 30 minutes and 60 $2 pulls to lose it all, you may have accrued a couple hundred bucks in bets and not even realized that. I certainly didn’t start out with $800, I had maybe $200 in cash to start, but after I was done, I had actually bet about $800.

With the Total Rewards card (Bally’s Caesar’s, Paris, Flamingo, Rio) you start out with 500 points that have to be counted down to earn one point. Honestly, it seemed kind of weird. You then get bonus points from machines, but the representative at the desk said these are almost random, and awarded by the machine you are playing at. Then you can use the bonus points and regular earned points toward items such as, yes it’s cheesy, a toaster, or a drill. Once again, the real value is in the comps that the hotels will give you based on your betting patterns. If they see that you have spent a lot of money at their facility, they may give you room upgrades, food credit, or other incentives to patronize their casino. You just have to ask.

For the Wynn, the card only works at their casino, BUT, for 100 points, you get 2 free meals at the buffet. I was happy about this, since my husband and I love the buffet anyhow, especially at breakfast. It is usually about $20 per person, and it is fantastic. I think it is the highest quality buffet in Vegas. At the Wynn, you have to spend $3 to get a point at the slot machines. With my original $200 today, I ended up gambling about $600 worth, and earned 4 meals at the buffet. Pretty cool. At the tables, you have to spend a bit more, but I don’t remember how much.

With all of the cards, you may want to mention that you have a card before you book your return trip to the hotel. You may get a reduced room rate. We actually booked our Treasure Island room through Vegas.com and then got our players card when we arrived. We earned points during the day and then asked about possible comps. We were told that Treasure Island could not comp our room, since we had already prepaid online at vegas.com. If we had booked directly through them, even via TI’s website, then they may have been able to comp it, since you settle your bill at the end of your stay. Also, be polite. The host wants to please you, and they may have some flexibility in what they choose to offer you. Like mom says “You’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar….”

Remember, in Vegas, the casinos all want your business. (aka, your money) If you ask, you will often receive. And even if you don’t, you are no worse off.

One of the first things people think of when they think of Las Vegas is probably the gambling. (We all know what else, but this post is about gambling, so get your minds out of the gutter.) For some unknown reason, I like the slots. They really like me too, unfortunately. There are some tricks here. You may think the penny slots are cheaper, and therefore you can play longer, but think again. Most penny, and even nickel machines offer numerous lines to play. I’ve seen as many as 30, plus a 10-credit bonus possibility, which means 40 cents per play. And that is if you are only playing one credit per line. You can easily be sucked into playing more than a couple bucks per pull. So next time you walk past a dollar machine and think it’s too expensive, think again. Supposedly those should have better odds than the penny machines, anyhow. Personally, I prefer quarter machines. Some of my favorite themed machines follow: I love the giant Wheel of Fortune game. It is a huge contraption in the middle of the floor and about 8 stations are set up. You have to bet extra to be eligible for the bonus round, like I mentioned above, but it’s quite fun when you get to it, and I’ve seen people win a few hundred bucks per bonus. I think this is a nickel machine, with a minimum bet of 30 credits ($1.50) to be eligible for that bonus. I also like the Hot Shot Game. It has a feature, where if you get any 3 or more Hot Shot symbols you automatically get a bonus turn. I’ve seen this as both a quarter game, and a nickel game. You’d do best to bet 5 lines at a time. Video Poker is also quite common. There are always plenty of these in the casinos. And, of course, I always waste $20 on the Megabucks. This is a linked system with Reno, NV and West Wendover, NV. But you can win millions! Well, somebody can.
Table games are quite popular as well. There is Let it Ride, a poker style game, Carribean Stud, another poker spin-off , craps, roulette, and various others. Most hotels offer tutorials for these games, often via the hotel channel on the TV in your hotel room. I always find this channel as I lay lamenting about my day’s losses.

I play Blackjack periodically. It has the best odds in the casino, after Craps, which looks complicated to most people. When I took my mom to Vegas, she was a bit nervous about playing Blackjack, since it can feel like everyone else at the table knows what they are doing. Don’t be discouraged. Most players and dealers will actually give you advice on what to do. The other players will, since you are not playing against each other, like poker, but a against the dealer. You can also buy a little credit card sized strategy card in most casino gift shops. My husband’s rule of thumb is to start this game with ten times what each bet will be for you. So, if you are playing a $5 minimum game (good luck finding one on Friday or Saturday nights), you should start with a minimum of $50. My first time ever in Vegas, I was down to my last 10 bucks, and 2 hours later had well over $200, so the tides can turn. But if you don’t have that bankroll, you may lose a lot at first and never be able to stay long enough for it to turn your way. Most casinos have tables whose minimums start at $10 bets in the evenings. The nicer casinos, Caesars, Bellagio, the Wynn, will have the $25 minimum bet tables. If you really want to find $5 minimums, check the Imperial Palace (south of Flamingo), Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville (just north of Flamingo), or something of that caliber. You could take a cab and head downtown to the old-Vegas. That’s where you’ll find the Golden Nugget, Binions Horsehoe, and all of the scenes from the National Lampoon’s Vegas movie. There is actually some decent gambling downtown, and a completely different feel than the strip. More on that another time…