Originally Posted by redietz View Post
To answer Rob -- I don't play enough at Caesars/Harrah's for it to matter. I get a couple of comped rooms a year, but only during slow times. I've lost money playing vp the last two years, but am still ahead lifetime. Since I've only played 40-50 hours a year, the room offers and such come close to balancing the losses the last two years, but I would not count them or meals as offsetting losses. I think that's silly. I certainly wouldn't count movie passes or junk won via Palms drawings as offsetting losses, for example. Back in my youth, I never counted meals won or free trips via drawings as "winnings." I "won" a cruise for two and a trip to a Chargers game, but I think it's rationalizing to count these things as "winnings."
You can only count comps as "winnings" if you use their value TO YOU.

Retail value does not matter if you were not going to otherwise pay for it.

So when you get a free cruise, you have to ask yourself, "Would I have paid for this cruise had I not gotten it as a comp?" And if the answer is YES, then you have to answer "How much?" The answer to "How much would you have paid" is exactly what you can claim it was worth.

Same thing goes for hotel rooms, meals, etc.

The only comps you can fully count as money is freeplay, and even there you need to subtract expected losses from it. So if you have $500 in freeplay but are playing a 99% return machine, your actual value is $495. Whether you win or lose is immaterial to counting comp value. I'm not saying winning isn't important (it's the MOST important), but when counting comps, you need to figure the value BEFORE you play the freeplay, not after.

The only exception to devaluing freeplay is if you were definitely going to play anyway. So if you're on a trip and were certain you were going to play at least as much as the value of your freeplay (even if you had no freeplay), and if the freeplay works on the machines you want, then you can count it at full value. Why? Because the freeplay takes the place of actual real money you would have inserted in the machine.