Played card craps at Rincon with promo chips

I did something different the other day with some promo chips. I had $50 of free play and decided to take the free play in $5 promo chips instead of a $50 ticket for video poker.

I went to the card craps game with this strategy:

Bet $5 on the pass line and $5 on the Fire Bet and hope a shooter would get hot.

It turns out that the position that was open on the table was two positions from the current shooter.

I did not make a bet when the current shooter held the dice -- that would be poor dice etiquette. I waited for a pass or a 7-out before making a bet. the shooter threw another number and then 7 out.

The dice went to the player on my immediate right. I placed a promo chip on the pass line and a promo chip on the Fire Bet. At Rincon promo chips can be used on any bet -- and not just on even-money bets.

The shooter established a point and next roll was a seven out.

I had $40 of promo chips remaining and placed $5 on the passline and a $5 Fire Bet.

My first roll was a come-out winner 7. A "live" $5 chip was paid to me on the passline but the dealer removed the promo chip. At Rincon promo chips are like "front money" and you do not keep them after they win.

I had $30 in promo chips remaining and placed one on the passline. I rolled again. Another winner 7 and again a "live" chip was paid and the promo chip was taken.

I put another promo chip on the passline.

Well... to make a long story short, I had a craps on one come out roll and made six more passes -- but only three numbers which were the 6, 10 and 4. I made the 10 twice and the four three times and I was working on the four for a fourth time (yes all those 4s) when I sevened out. And I ran out of promo chips and at the end I had live chips on the passline.

I converted the $50 of promo chips into only $25 of live chips that I took to the cage. Too bad that you don't keep the promo chips that won -- because I actually would have won some money instead of having the promo chips going back to the casino.

Absolutely riveting story.

Actually, it is a riveting story, but only for one reason: I didn't realize that Rincon's promo chips aren't "sticky" (i.e. you lose them whether you win or lose the hand/round)! That makes them a terrible deal, and far inferior to video poker freeplay.

Ignoring the fact that card caps is absolutely no fun (not Rincon's fault, blame California gaming laws), I don't understand why they let you keep your winnings on promo video poker credits but not promo table chips. This especially makes no sense because you can choose either one, at equivalent numbers, when redeeming your promotion.

These promo chips are literally worth half the value when they are not sticky.

I'll demonstrate with a simple example.

Let's say you are playing a fictitious game called "Coin Flip" which has a 50% chance of winning, and pays even money when you do.

Let's say you have $100 in promo chips, and bet $10 per hand.

In the average 10 hands, you will win 5 (getting $50) and lose 5 (getting $0), and all your promo chips will be gone. So you will have made $50 on average from $100 in chips, even with zero casino edge!

Now let's look at the same thing if the promo chips were sticky.

After 10 hands, you will win 5 (getting $50), and lose 5 (getting $0), but you will still have 5 promo chips left!

Those 5 promo chips, with the same average win rate, will eventually yield another $50 on average, because while they would another yield $25 immediately, and you would still have $25 in promo chips left to keep playing. Eventually you would finish with $100 total on average.

Now, when you're playing non-even-money games, this is slightly different, as promo chips force you to keep playing negative-edge games (until they're gone) rather than just being able to turn them directly into real money and walk away after a minimum number of hands. Again, video poker doesn't require this. If you have $50 in freeplay, you need to run only 10 $5 hands period, whether you win every one, lose every one, or something in between. Basically, video poker freeplay is 100% equivalent to real money play, except it requires a minimum number of hands played before cashout. So even if the chips were sticky, they would be inferior, but not by that much.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Actually, it is a riveting story, but only for one reason: I didn't realize that Rincon's promo chips aren't "sticky" (i.e. you lose them whether you win or lose the hand/round)! That makes them a terrible deal, and far inferior to video poker freeplay.

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Exactly right.

Later I discussed this with some players who told me that for table game players it doesn't "pay" to take the free play at Rincon... but to use free play at tables in Vegas where the free play table vouchers are good till you lose them.

Todd,

A topic that we agree upon 100%. Pechanga and pala utilize the play until you lose promo chips. Thus making them worth their true face value. Rincon's "halfsies" with their promo chips is just an overall epic fail.

If you are going to use the free play chips at Rincon it's actually a better play if you use them for non even money bets such as the hardways and the fire bet. I know a player who uses them for craps and yos bets. I think using them for one-roll bets is a mistake and he would be better off using them on the hardways, but that's how he uses them -- on C and E.