Congratulations. Perhaps that's one of the positives to come out of the Yanks taking over the running of the LCI establishments - a culture of rewarding regular visitors with something significant may be taking shape. There again, it could be an inducement to keep people playing there as the games deteriorate - would you have gone there if the comp hadn't been offered? Let's face it, there are far better games in the Capital?
In the UK, there doesn't seem to be any ingrained culture of offering regular punters goodies to keep them coming back. Most places I'm a member of offer a 0.1% rewards points incentive (a point with a redeemable value of 1p for every tenner bought in), but that's about it at the bottom end of the market. A Gala casino in a University town does offer a £5 free bet on BJ on one day of the week before the evening, but that's just to get the students through the door during the slack period, and as most of them make a drink last all afternoon, I doubt whether it really has any impact on their takings. In actual fact, when I was there, the dealer actually breathed a sigh of relief when I sat down and bought in for a pile of chips which meant I was going to play more than my free bet and three or four additional hands at max (typical student practice) - I think he had spent more of his afternoon looking at people looking at people than dealing the cards.
I finally realised the other day why my fortune points balance at Gala always seems to have been short-changed (I reckon it's about £15 on the light side overall). When you first buy in they always ask for your card, but never for subsequent buy ins. I was told once "we only need it the first time so your name's on the monitor as long as you sit here", but during my last visit, there is just no way the four subsequent buy ins were ever recorded - they're always put on the system by the supervising face, and he was away keeping an eye on how many errors the trainees were making. With seven players at the table regularly putting the folding stuff across the felt doing it later on would have needed the memory of a herd of elephants.
It's clear now that the main reason they always ask for the card, rather than respond to players who present it, is so they know the identities of those sitting at the table at anytime.
I can't see anything changing in the regions in the future. In Town there's more competition so thngs may look up if such moves start diverting players from one place to another.
In the States I'm told there are still places that will comp a room for the night in return for $5K of action. Can't ever see that happening in the UK.
