How do Turf Clubs work?

Question

I was on the Tropicana Atlantic City Turf Club website and it's not clear to me. Do I have to be member? What are player ratings?

Answer 1

Turf Clubs at casinos are for the high rollers.  It's not for the $5 player.  Most of them "comp" the players very well--food, drink, racing forms, sometimes even rooms and show tickets.  But you have to use a special card when you bet (you slide the card through a reader on the betting machine); this card is also slid through a reader at the door so you can enter the room in the first place.  Minimum play standards vary by casino, but the lowest minimum betting requirement you're going to find in a Turf Club is about $25,000 a month, and some expect/require six figures.

Ratings are casino lingo for how much a person bets in a given period (per visit, per month, per year).  Casinos use ratings to determine how much to comp a player.  Whether YOU win or lose is irrelevant in determining your rating, only how much you bet in total.  With racing, the casino receives a fixed percentage of your total wager, so it means nothing to their bottom line whether you win or lose.  With table games and slot machines, the casino expects to collect a certain percentage of the total bets of everybody.  Slot machines are set up to pay back a certain percentage of total bets, most are in the 90-96 percent range.  So if the slots are set to pay back 94 percent, that means that the casino is going to make a profit of $60,000 out of each $1,000,000 in total bets on the  machine.  When a certain player bets $1,000 in a slot machine in a day, he's rated as a $1,000 a day slot player.  That player can lose $300 or win $30,000--it doesn't matter to the casino.  The casino knows that if 1,000 people come in and each bet $1,000 on the slots, they are going to clear $60,000.  So by rating players on their total play, the idea is to encourage the more active players to come back to that casino and not go someplace else.

Answer 2

The Turf Club, or Clubhouse, at a race track is basically an upgrade from grandstand seating in the general admission portion of the stands at a track.  All you have to do to enter the Turf Club is pay an additional admission plus pay for reserved seating, if you want it.  Usually there are several grades of reserved seating in the Clubhouse or Turf Club, starting with plain reserved seating, going through box seating, and on up all the way to the special facilities where you pretty much have to be known as a big player or a VIP of some kind to get in.  (One of my friends is a mutuel clerk and she's occasionally gotten to clerk in the rooms where the VIPs and high rollers are served.  Cushy digs:  they get their own clerk and a runner to take the bets from their table or seats to the clerk, plus special catering, all courtesy of management.)

To access all except the most primo levels of Turf Club facilities, all you have to do is pay the admission.  You don't have to be a member in the sense of paying a fee to join.  If all you want to do is go to the Turf Club on an occasional day, you just call them up ahead of time, specify the number of seats you want in the clubhouse and what kind of seating you want, and they'll take your credit card number and either mail the tickets to you or have them waiting for you at the "will call" window.  (If you want to eat at the restaurant at the Turf Club, call the restaurant and make a reservation;  they'll tell you all the details you need to get admission and what the dress code is, if a dress code applies.  FWIW, most Turf Clubs do have a dress code in force for at least the more exclusive areas-- a lot of horseplayers are not fashion plates out of the pages of GQ or Vogue, but there are areas where the track would like to give the impression that they run a class joint.)

Player ratings are like a slot-club premium:  the track gives you a card with a player ID, and takes cognizance of how much you wager.  You earn "comps" for the amount that you wager, commensurate with how much money you wager.  The more you play, the more comps you earn.

If you want to sit in the clubhouse on a day when there's a major race, then you're well-advised to order your reserved seating or make your reservations at the restaurant well in advance, because days when there's a big race going off (or days when the track has a popular promotion or giveaway going on) tend to sell out early.

Answer 3

YOU HAVE TO BE A MEMBER TO BE IN A TURF CLUB.....AND THEY CHART YOUR BETS THAT'S HOW THEY GIVE YOU A RATING, DRESS CODES WILL BE ENFORCED, SO STAY IN THE CLUB HOUSE AND GET A HAM ON RYE SANDWICH WITH YOU DRINK, AND GO AND HAVE A WINNING DAY!!!!