What are some of the Hidden Costs Gamers Incur at Land Based Casinos?
We all know about the overt costs of gaming at a land based casino. These include travel costs, food, souvenirs and gifts, way over-priced shows, and so on. But a lot of people who think they like gaming at land based casinos are not fully aware of the hidden costs inherent in land based casino gaming.
Here is one curious example. For some reason, people who go often to a land based casino are drawn to buy a product that purports to tell them how to win on slot machines.
At Jackpot Capital, we frequently remind our gamers that there is no sure-fire strategy for winning at slot machines. Would that land based casinos would tell their gamers the same. So, being tricked into thinking that there actually is a strategy through which we can be sure to win at slot machines is one of the hidden costs of gambling at a land based casino!
Time Spent at a Land Based Casino
We can develop a formula for the cost of the time you spend at a land based casino. TW=TT + TS. This looks like a formula that might win a Nobel prize in applied mathematics! NOT! It is as simple as can be!
TW is Time Wasted; TT is Time Travelled; and TS is Time Spent on the casino floor. The formula simply states that as you travel longer or further you will naturally want to spend more time on the casino floor in order to “get your money’s worth”.
The Details of Our Amazing Formula
Note that Time Travelled is actual time, not distance. Let’s say that you fly to a land based casino haven. You need to include the time it takes to get to the airport, the hours before your flight you have to get to the airport, travel from the arriving airport to the casino, and all of that in reverse. You should also include time spent packing a suitcase, looking for a flight online, time spent making a hotel reservation, and any other time you spend putting this land based casino extravaganza together.
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None of these hidden costs are present when you play online. You might have to add the time it takes you to get out of bed, the time it takes to make a cup of coffee, the time it takes to make a sandwich, and the time it takes to fluff the pillows on your sofa! Oh, Monty, Monty as they said a few decades ago!
Return to Player Rates Are Lower at Land Based Casinos
Land based casinos have costs that they have to transfer to gamers. Online casinos have none of these costs. Land based casinos have to produce an environmental impact report. They need architects, unionized construction workers, and many other costs of building the casino. Land based casinos have to replace the carpet on the casino floor frequently if they have a lot of foot traffic or never if they have very little foot traffic!
Land based casinos have to pay a huge sum every month in salaries. They have to buy thousands of decks of cards as the older ones are taken out of circulation. They need to replace, reupholster, or repair the chairs gamers sit at to play at the many terminals. They have to pay people to take out a terminal for every new terminal they put in.
The list of inherent costs incurred by land based casinos is very long indeed. Just the paper the casino might need to print that long list can be considered a minor cost!
The bottom line for gamers is that the return to player rates in slots are lower than the return to player rates you can get at Jackpot Capital online casino. All modern video slots use a Random Number Generator to determine the results of any spin or hand in the several card games. The Random Number Generator can be calibrated to return a few percentage points less to players at land based casinos than at online casinos.
You Might Never Be Able to Use the Bonuses You Receive from a Land Based Casino
Online casinos have loyalty programs in which you accumulate loyalty points which you can redeem for casino credits some time down the road. Land based casinos have something similar which they call player cards.
When you play using your player card at a land based casino, you also collect points that you can redeem for chips down the road.
So, the big question is: What if I never come back to this land based casino? In a very real sense, the credits you can always use at an online casino are a benefit while the credits you might never use at a land based casino are not exactly a cost but they are certainly lost benefits!
Deposit Bonuses at Online Casinos are a Great Boon to Gamers
When you take a deposit bonus at any online casino, you have to complete a wagering requirement before you can withdraw winnings. The wagering requirement is a factor of the bonus. Some online casinos do have extravagantly high wagering requirements. We at Jackpot Capital are proud of the fact that our wagering requirements are quite reasonable.
In any case, at any online casino, you can eventually complete your wagering requirement and withdraw your winnings. It is almost impossible to play enough at a land based casino even in a long weekend to complete the wagering requirement so land based casinos tend to find other ways to give away “money”. These are generally in the form of food, drink, hotel rooms, and sometimes shows.
Free Food, Free Drinks, and Free Accommodations are a Big Hidden Cost!
First of all, when you get free food, drink, or hotel rooms, you are by definition at a land based casino where the temptation is very powerful to play on even when you’re hungry, even when you are sleepy, even when you are slightly or more than slightly tipsy.
When you play at home, you can stop to rest, to eat, and if you want to drink some alcoholic drinks, you can simply close the session and come back at a different time. Players at land based casinos don’t like to close sessions because every minute they are not on the casino floor may be seen as a waste of time! The irony is that the opposite is true as our formula above demonstrates.
Free Food Fills Your Body and Makes You Tired
Most adults know that after they eat a big meal, at holiday time or anytime, they quickly get very tired. That’s the sign that your body is using its energy to digest the food. At home, you can do many things other than play online casino games. But at a land based casino, most gamers want to gamble as much as they can which leads them to play even when they are really too tired to gamble wisely.
Free Alcohol Makes for Poor Decisions
This one is so obvious that we ought not to have to mention it. Still, a lot of land based casino gamers take those free drinks and then make some very poor decisions gambling. We always tell our gamers to leave the alcoholic drinks for after they close a gaming session.
Free Hotel Rooms Are Never Completely Free
As we said, when you get a free room at a casino hotel, you will be very powerfully tempted to play on and on even after you should be relaxing or sleeping in your free room!
The Hidden Cost of Being in Close Proximity to Other Gamers
You might not get drunk while gaming but a lot of other people do and you might have an unpleasant encounter with one such person. You don’t overeat at the buffet but a lot of people do. Your return to player rate may very well be a function of their over-eating!
If you play blackjack and try to follow the best strategy, you will be accused of costing the other players at the table hand after hand! These accusations may get more and more strident as you make the correct decision on every hand and the others, who have no idea how to play correctly, see you increasingly as an enemy!
The Last Word
There are so many reasons why online gaming at Jackpot Capital is better than at a land based casino that we feel compelled to return to this very pertinent subject from time to time. The hidden costs of land based gaming are a hidden reason why land based gaming is so often so not fun whereas online casino gaming can be SO much fun!
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