Comp points is a term that is usually associated with online casinos. They specifically refer to points that players can earn whilst playing casino games and are handed out for free by the casino as a way of ‘rewarding’ their most consistent players. The free nature of the points means that they are complementary, which is where the term comes from: complementary points is simply shortened to ‘comp points’. Outside of online gambling in real world casinos, players are often rewarded ‘comps‘ if they keep gambling, the whole idea of them is to keep the player seated at the table. Comps can be anything from an extra drink on the house to free parking.
Due to the fact that online casinos are unable to offer their players an extra drink or free parking, they have to look at other ways of rewarding their customers. Obviously their ultimate aim is to get more money out of the customer but there’s no better way of doing that than making the customer feel valued. This is done with ‘comp points’ where the more a player gambles on any online casino games, the more points they accrue. As soon as a player has a decent amount of points with one particular online casino, it makes it difficult for them to switch things up and join another casino, especially with the knowledge that they will start at the new casino with zero comp points.
Each online casino will have different rules and regulations surrounding comp points. Most of them however will give the players the option to exchange their comp points for cash, but only the type of cash that can be used to play casino games. This ‘casino cash’ can of course turn into real cash if the player gets lucky on a particular game.
Other casinos will offer up rewards for some of their best customers by holding tournaments that are only open to players who hold a certain number of comp points. This is a particular incentive for online poker players who target high comp points games as quite often they offer good cash prizes for the winner.
A small amount of casinos will offer players the chance to trade in their comp points for real cash, although this is quite rare and reserved for their best customers. Some will give players the chance to exchange their comp points for merchandise or other bonus offers.
Ultimately, if someone is a serious online poker player, being part of a loyalty program that gives them the chance to build up their comp points total is a good idea. This way they will be able to enter tournaments they otherwise would not have been able to as-well as gain casino cash. If however a particular player only plans on using online casinos occasionally, it may pay to be wary of comp points as they may end up encouraging them to gamble more often than they planned to.