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“Comps occur on two levels: the comps that anyone can get and the comps that are given only to qualified players. The only people who get this kind of stuff are players from whom the casinos think they’ll win a lot of money.”
Max Rubin, Comp City
The offers began rolling in. Two or three a day, sometimes more. Some days my mailbox became so full with offers that the mailman put whatever didn’t fit in my box on the first step of the stairway leading to my unit. Caesars, MGM, Wynn, and Bellagio in Vegas; Tropicana, Trump, and Borgata in Atlantic City; of course, our staples in Connecticut, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun; and even sister properties in Louisiana and Michigan.
We both read Comp City by Max Rubin, the ultimate gambler’s guide to maximizing comps, which is the term for complimentary gifts and services. Freebies. Over the next few months we flew to Vegas for title fights, stayed in luxurious suites, saw Cirque du Soleil shows, and ate at some of the finest restaurants in the world. We took everything we could get, from portable DVD players, to designer clothes, to sporting-event tickets, to coupons for free shot glasses. Gifts could be used or re-gifted and unwanted coupons or tickets could be sold at a discounted price to fellow players at the tables or scalped on the street. The profitability of our team was growing in ways we hadn’t considered. Mondays through Fridays were spent rebalancing client portfolios, researching investments, and helping families plan for retirement and their children’s educations. But on the weekends, I was getting an education of my own, learning the ins and outs of a gambler’s world: RFB. Room, food, beverage.
Most gamblers spoke of the free rooms they would get. They’d lose $5,000 playing craps, then brag to their friends back home that the casino offered them free stays in a $200-per-night room. It made no sense to me.
As professionals, we never played only for comps. Spending an extra hour playing through a shitty shoe just to get more comps was like Picasso doing paint-by-numbers. It was amateur. So we never played specifically for comps. In time they came organically. That saved us lots of money on expenses, which meant our bankroll was solely dedicated to blackjack play.
Our bankroll had grown and we were nearing $40,000, which made costs for our flights a small overall expense, percentage-wise. Once we arrived in Las Vegas or Atlantic City everything was free. Limos picked us up at the airport and while our casino hosts couldn’t officially pay for or reimburse airfare, they made up for it through additional comps, such as event tickets that we’d end up scalping to cover our overhead.
Although most of our expenses were covered, we were diligent in outlining an expense-reimbursement schedule in our team manual. Whoever drove, for example, would get reimbursed per mile, covering gas and wear and tear. Every expense was detailed. Our manual was evolving into our blackjack bible, complete with dress codes, character descriptions, money-management considerations, and session statistics to track and evaluate our play.
Our two-man team was becoming a well-oiled machine.
Then came the call.