Casino comps for newbie

[Debbie1961lovelady]

I’m about to go on my first cruise with Royal Caribbean. I’m planning on visiting the casino but I’m not a big gambler. I’ve heard about the free trips and comps you can win. How much do I need to invest before I’m considered ‘a gambler’?

[dkjretired]

11 hours ago, Debbie1961lovelady said:

I’m about to go on my first cruise with Royal Caribbean. I’m planning on visiting the casino but I’m not a big gambler. I’ve heard about the free trips and comps you can win. How much do I need to invest before I’m considered ‘a gambler’?

 

At least several thousand.

[proggieus]

7 hours ago, dkjretired said:

 

At least several thousand.

not really-

 

you need to play $12,500 in coin in through the slots to reach Prime tier- 1 point per $5 bet on slots.

 

that's not losses. just coin in.

 

mathematically I figured it could cost you ~$2500 in losses if you had fairly bad luck and only saw a 80% payback on the slots. This would be the worst case scenario as I don't think the machines have a 20% expected house advantage programmed into to them. I suspect its more like 10-15%(which is still horrible)

 

of course you could get lucky and win a small jackpot that would more then cover the losses needed to hit the magic 2500 points.

 

I earned prime membership for a good bit less then my calculated theoretical worst case  in a single cruise.

 

if you get 2400 points in a single cruise you will also get a free cruise certificate from the casino before you leave the ship- so you would get two free cruises if you made prime on a single cruise.

 

I  saved far more on 1 of the cruises that I booked with my prime certificate then I spent earning it, that being said, I would never recommend playing for just for comps, but its nice if you are going to play anyways.

 

 

Tables are a whole different beast with how they earn points.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by proggieus