As the gambling market is an especially competitive one, many gambling firms both live and online offer loyalty programmes to their customers. These programmes reward players for sticking with one company rather than shopping around the market, and are usually based on how much a player wagers at a casino or on a website.
In casinos, customers are usually given a card when they join which they can swipe whenever they play at a table or slot machine. Based on how much they wager, they can accumulate points that can often be exchanged for free meals, invitations to exclusive events, or complementary tickets to entertainment. At large casino resorts, loyal players can even earn free stays.
With online casinos, loyal players can often find themselves rewarded by higher bonus levels, exclusive entry into tournaments, and quicker processing of withdrawals. For high roller members the benefits can get even better, with online sites even offering free holidays to live casino events and the chances to win non-monetary prizes, such as cars.
Online poker players are often rewarded for their loyalty with points that they can use to buy into satellite tournaments for larger, high stakes poker tournaments as a cheap way of gaining entry. They can also usually swap loyalty points for poker gear such as cards, patches, hoodies and caps, which they can wear to live poker events.
For experienced high stakes online poker players, enough loyalty points can even earn them the holy grail of online poker – a rakeback. With a rakeback, players are able to earn back a percentage of the house profit (the ‘rake’) from hands that they are a part of. Achieving this level of loyalty points is no small feat; however, depending on the hours and simultaneous tables played at once, it can prove to be very profitable.