Online Casino Comps

COMPS, for all intents and purposes, are simply "complementary points" awarded to gamblers by casino operators in order to encourage players to continue wagering with real money. Originating from the ‘brick & mortar' casino world, today's online casinos also extremely active in advertising various 'Free Comps' programs in order to draw in more player traffic.

The already vast and growing range of online casino comps available varies, naturally, from one online casino site to another. In the land casino world, comps have traditionally been giveaways in the form of free drinks, meals, hotel accommodations, show tickets, you name it. In the online gaming sphere, comp ‘points' are granted according to how much a player gambles. In this respect, the online gaming sector enjoys a considerable advantage - and subsequently more control - over its land casino counterparts in terms of the former's capacity to monitor and analyze every players' every move, plus reward them accordingly and often generously.

How Online Casino Comps Work
Depending on the particular casino game you are playing, comp points are typically awarded to players based on the placing of a minimum wager. For instance, an online casino site may reward players with one point for every $20 they spend at that online casino.

Why Online Casinos Offer Comps
Online casinos offer players comp points for the exact same reasons regular land-based casinos (and increasingly more industries) regularly treat their patrons to various freebies; to keep them coming back to the casino for more action. For both players and shrewd casino operators, online casino comps simply add up to a winning business practice.

Yeah, But are Comps Really Free?
While some folks may refer to gambling comps as ‘free stuff,' as most of us have already learned, anything of any significant value is rarely free. And if it is really free, you can bet it won't be for long. Comp points are truly free when you're winning. After all, the whole thrust behind casino operators even offering comps is to encourage you to play and wager more cash. Thus, if you're winning and collecting comp points in the process, yeah, you bet they're free. But if you are losing, or as we like to say, "not winning" - then the comps are no more than an enticement, let alone a poor excuse for losing, oops, we mean "not winning."

Comp Hustlers
Surfing from online casino to online casino looking for the best comps may be fun for some people, but the fact is most folks are gambling at their favourite online casinos for the gaming thrills and not solely to bank a bag of loot and retire early, say before age 30. That's not to say online casino comps are to be ignored entirely when considering whether or not to park yourself at any given online casino. Just like deposit match bonuses, we're talking real money here, and that's never something to sneeze at and you might as well capitalise on all you can. However, unlike initial and ongoing deposit bonuses, which can be VERY large indeed, online gaming comps require accumulating, and that can take time.

What if I Decide to Change Casinos?
Should you decide - for whatever reason - to leave a particular online casino for a new one, you run the risk of losing whatever comp points you already managed to collect. If you have been frequenting an independent online casino company, that is, not one of the online gaming groups overseeing a number of venues, then you're pretty much stuck with little more than ‘points,' unless you can find some way to cash them in and swiftly "take the money (or equivalent) and run."

Those larger gaming groups providing a number of online casino venues, on the other hand, tend to provide their players with the option to transfer their accumulated comp points to and from various casinos within a network.

Bottom Line on Comps
Just like a player's losses can add up, so can online casino comps, and often the points one collects over relative periods of play can seriously offset one's losses, or augment a player's overall gains. Let's face it, at the end of the gambling day, it's not whether you win or lose; it's how much fun you have winning and losing. So comps or no comps, play to have fun and you'll always come out a winner!

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