Some casinos are making you choose your promotion offer. In some cases you can choose between a "gift card" to a store or gift card for gas with a particular brand, or you can have the same dollar amount in "free play" for either table games or slot or video poker play.
Which would you choose?
Here's how I look at an offer for $100 for a gift card to Macy's or $100 of free play:
The Macy's gift card to me is worthwhile because my wife often shops at Macy's and that's $100 in the bank, so to speak. Had it been a $100 gift card to Starbucks the card would be worthless to me, but I might send it to my daughter who goes to Starbucks on a daily basis. If it were a $100 gift card for backpacking through the New Mexico desert during August I would simply pass.
The $100 of free play option makes you dream of using that $100 to hit it big -- so big that the $100 gift card would seem like pocket change. But I would look at the $100 of free play and ask myself -- what are the chances of turning that $100 free play into money in my pocket?
If playing a game such as 9/6 Jacks or Better which returns about 99.5% the math is already telling me that I will likely lose some of that money.
But if I could use that "free play" as entry into a poker tournament, or as a buy-in for poker where I stand a chance of beating the odds, taking the free play option might be better.
What we don't know is how much the casino paid for the gift card? If the casino paid only 80% of the gift card's value the casino might prefer that we take the gift card than play a game with a 99% or better return. But then, the casino might be thinking that even if we take their "free play" to a game with a 99+% return we might end up losing it all anyway.
What do you think?