I’ve been to a casino exactly one time in my life, and it was earlier this year. Went for the cheap hotel.
I did not spend any money at the casino, but I did get $15 free for being a certain demographic of new customer. I played that, won $158, cashed out and won’t ever do it again (unless I get more free money, anyway).
I’m sure what they wanted by giving me a win on the last $2 (it’s all controlled by cards, they know what my demographic is, and that people in it are likely to be depressed and on the poor side, and thus potential gambling addicts) was for me to keep playing to try to score more, but what it really did was point out dark patterns and make me wildly uncomfortable with the whole situation…
lol no, silly, they don’t give you free money for that. That’s just the demographic they compare everything to as a baseline :)
It obviously depends on the establishment in question, but you get free shit for being a veteran, teacher, healthcare worker, firefighter or other emergency worker, stuff like that. Or a senior probably, they get tons of free shit, too.