As reported by: Philadelphia Inquirer
For spending $100 or so on the slot machines, Gloria and David Hykes used to get a free room at Harrah's Resort casino.
No more. The couple from York Haven, Pa., paid $99 for a room there last week, and they know why.

"I didn't even ask," said Hykes, 53, as he sat with his wife at a penny slot machine at Harrah's Resort. "They're going to give people who spend a lot of money the comped rooms. We don't spend a lot of money."

The slots player used to be the cash cow for the 11 casinos here. But now that kind of player is held in less regard, and for two reasons:

Atlantic City is losing slots players, at least the frugal ones, to the Pennsylvania slots-only casinos, and the generally lousy economy is hurting the Shore resort.

The casinos are comping less, and when they do, it is happening for the high-roller slots players and far-more-profitable table-game gamblers.

The Atlantic City casinos spent $375 million in the three months ending June 30 for premium hotel rooms and other freebies. In the same period a year earlier, the casinos spent $422.2 million on comps.

"No longer does everybody get a comp no matter what," said Andrew Zarnett, a gambling analyst with Deutsche Bank AG in New York. "They [casino operators] have to be very discerning to give those comps to people who earn them.

"They've come to realize that defending your market by giving out comps to customers that don't contribute to your bottom line is bad business," he said.

For Atlantic City, defending the market had meant not losing low-end slots players to the casinos in Pennsylvania. Now, the casinos here are surrendering those players, and Pennsylvania is paying to get them.


Article By: Philadelphia Inquirer