Yes, they do give retention bonuses and preload them on your card. With some land casinos, if you pay attention you see some type of marking on the slot machines, and these will be the ones you can play your free money on. The size of the bonus depends on your player loyalty status, it can be hundreds for average players and even thousands of dollars for high rollers. The marked machines are the majority of the machines. Some of the bonuses have a restriction – you can pick what machine you like, but then you have to stick with that particular machine. You have to play the bonus through once, and the machine keeps track for you. Push a button and it displays where you are. What you have left after one playthrough is yours.
I once got a $200 preloaded bonus at the Palazzo and walked away with $300 actual cash.
The lower bonuses are given if you fall into a certain player category, the higher ones are given on an individual basis and also depend on frequency of patronage.
And you have bonus hunters – people who have player cards everywhere and go around playing a bit of money at every one to collect comps. The catch is here that you don’t end up getting larger bonuses that way since you cannot stay at that many hotels on one trip.
I once had a lengthy conversation with a host and he was complaining bitterly about gving comped rooms to players that showed some promise on their first stay. They would claim the free rooms but not play much at his casino but go next door and who knows where and play there. Same problem we see online.
I don’t know as much about the initial freebies – I know one place I was playing some, first stay, and a lady came up, called me by name, and said I had a $10 freebie on my card and handed me a $20 restaurant coupon.
Landbased casino comps are actually quite high, free rooms even for players who just drop a few hundred, plus free food coupons and small cash bonuses.
The host explained that they have to keep the casino full, and if it doesn’t fill up on it’s own they have to bring people in on comps to fill the casino space. So in bad times (like right now, Vegas is suffering) comps shoot through the roof. An empty casino is no fun and will die.