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Thread: Free Play discussion

  1. #1
    Let's keep the discussion about the use and value of casino free play here. I will be back with my own thoughts and I have many on this subject.

  2. #2
    I've been thinking about the points made about the use and value of free play and I think I might write a full article about it. In the meantime, here are my thoughts:

    First of all "free play" has no value outside of a casino except if you find a willing buyer outside of a casino who plans to use the free play voucher or chips in the casino that they are issued by. Here you have to be careful because there have been many reports about counterfeit chips being sold to unsuspecting arriving passengers at the Vegas airport with the sellers claiming they forgot to cash them out when they left the casino to catch their plane.

    How much is free play worth? Well, like all commodities the value of free play will vary with the value assigned by the buyer and the seller. Both have to agree or there is no deal and no value.

    When a casino issues you a free play voucher for $25 the casino has assigned a value of $25 to the voucher. When you put that $25 voucher into a slot machine you have accepted the voucher's value as $25. But you might also consider the cash value or "expected value" of that free play voucher in terms of cash or US Dollars, or coin of the realm, and here you have to consider the expected return of the game.

    For example, if you are playing 9/6 Jacks or Better video poker with an expected long term return of 99.54% you might say that your $25 free play voucher is worth 25 X 99.54% = $24.88 or you might use a different formula based on your own experience.

    You might estimate that with a $25 free play voucher you have only five plays at a $1 video poker machine and you are only likely to win three of those five hands and a pair of Jacks which is considered a win is only a "break even" hand. In that case the $25 voucher no longer has a value of $24.88 but is much less.

    How much is your free play voucher worth to another player in the casino? To some players your voucher might be worth 100% of the face value, but to others it might be worth only 90% of face value or 50% of face value because they are considering the chance of turning the free play into real cash.

    I recall being at the craps table at Rincon in San Diego when a player at the craps table was called as the winner of a $1,000 reel rewards free play voucher. When he came back to the table he said to the player next to him "I don't play slots, wanna buy this?" He was offered $900 cash and the deal was done.

    Several years ago I won "tournament chips" at a poker game at the Bicycle Casino near Los Angeles. I had no intentions of playing in the tournament but I had $500 in tournament chips. I stood by the registration window as tournament players bought their entries and I had no problem selling the five $100 chips at full face value. This was common at the Bicycle -- for players to buy tournament chips at full value as a courtesy to other players with no negotiation involved.

    There is also a question about the use of free play. Do you use it playing your regular games or can you use it to play something you normally wouldn't? For example, would a player who normally plays a conservative Jacks or Better video poker game use his free play for something more daring and more volatile such as Triple Double Bonus? Sure a player could do that if they consider the free play as a free ticket to try something more daring.

    Personally, I would use the free play with a little more recklessness than if it were my own money out of my wallet. I once got $2,500 in free play from Caesars and used half of it playing a few hands of $25 Bonus Poker ($125 for each push of the button). I would never play $25 video poker otherwise. And I got lucky, hitting a straight flush which paid $6,250.

    Was playing $25 video poker the conservative thing to do with my free play? No, it wasn't. But the free play was a chance to do something different and I got lucky at the right time. Generally, I have found that playing a conservative video poker game such as 8/5 Bonus I am likely to convert free play into a range of actual cash of from 50% to maybe a bit more than 100%. Yes, I have had a few sessions where a small amount of free play turned into big cashouts -- but they are few over more than ten years of playing video poker.

  3. #3
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    Generally, I have found that playing a conservative video poker game such as 8/5 Bonus I am likely to convert free play into a range of actual cash of from 50% to maybe a bit more than 100%. Yes, I have had a few sessions where a small amount of free play turned into big cashouts -- but they are few over more than ten years of playing video poker.
    Forgive me for diverting too far away from topic, Alan, but I had to say this from a slightly historical perspective:

    Going back ten years (2003-2005), most Midwestern casinos gave out straight CASH coupons instead of the free play. You had the choice of either cashing the coupon for 100% face value at the cashier's cage or, in later years, put the barcoded coupon in a machine for the same value in credits which could immediately be cashed out with no play at all.

    The Ameristar casino chain still offered full value coupons up until 2012-2013 when it was sold to Pinnacle Entertainment. All the casinos have migrated towards free play for a reason

  4. #4
    Up until about two years ago Rincon in San Diego used to give the monthly "cash back" as an actual "cash back" that could either be played or cashed out of the machine. Then they switched to the money must be played as credits.

    Caesars Palace in Vegas up until about five years ago (or so) used to give cash back that you could take as actual cash at anytime during your visit. Then it was eliminated without warning.

  5. #5
    Originally Posted by Count Room View Post
    Forgive me for diverting too far away from topic, Alan, but I had to say this from a slightly historical perspective:

    Going back ten years (2003-2005), most Midwestern casinos gave out straight CASH coupons instead of the free play. You had the choice of either cashing the coupon for 100% face value at the cashier's cage or, in later years, put the barcoded coupon in a machine for the same value in credits which could immediately be cashed out with no play at all.

    The Ameristar casino chain still offered full value coupons up until 2012-2013 when it was sold to Pinnacle Entertainment. All the casinos have migrated towards free play for a reason
    I was getting cash coupons from Golden Nugget in Vegas for two years. When I finally took up two of the offers in a weeks time, which came with a block of free rooms, I immediately stopped getting offers. Most likely because I gave them absolutely zero play while on those offers.

    Back on topic, I don't think there is any wrong way to use free play. Just be smart enough to know what purpose the casino uses it for. I definitely see larger crowds on promo days where free play is offered.

  6. #6
    One more thing. I prefer the free play where it takes an initial bet and then reimbursed when the hand is over and deducted from the amount shown. I hate downloading or the vouchers where you have to count down the hands played.

  7. #7
    jbjb its the "second version" where you don't have to put any money in which is the true "free play."

    If I recall at MGM I had to make an initial bet to start the free play coming. At Rincon or at Caesars I just use the free credits without making a bet with my own money.

  8. #8
    I prefer the MGM type only because it's easier to keep track of. Other than that, it doesn't matter. It's all the same.

  9. #9
    If you ever played at Rincon, they keep track for you. There is a meter on the machine. As soon as you exhaust your free play and you have won some hands, you will start earning tier points when it's your money that is being played.

    At Caesars you have to keep track, and the last time I was there you earned points on your free play.

  10. #10
    Re: Keeping track of # of hands played to run through free play once

    Tropicana and Pinnacle properties (at the ones I've visited) have been great about this. There is a "Promotional Credits: $xxx.xx" header in the little screen next to where you insert your player's card. It deducts the exact amount you are betting with each hand all the way down to zero.

    Even when I am playing in a casino where I would have to count hands on my own, I can always hit the "CASH OUT" button to generate a ticket in the middle of the free play sequence. The remaining credits on the machine divided by 5 (max credits each hand, right?) is the number of hands I would have left. I've had large free play coupons where I might lose track of how many hands I played more than once, and I end up cashing out several tickets for a perfectly accurate once-through accounting.

  11. #11
    Free play is worth nothing to the player outside of a fast beating heart and sweaty palms, unless and until it is cashed out. Anyone who assigns an arbitrary value of 50% or 90% or 110% or whatever--or who foolishly assigns the long-term theoretical value of the game being played, is wasting their time.

  12. #12
    Rob you're being too hard. Everyone assigns some sort of value to free play in order to justify casino trips. For example when I get a free play offer of $50 I estimate that is worth about $30-40 in cash and knowing that I will not go to the trouble and expense of a casino trip. But when I have combined offers that could put $200 cash in my pocket I would make the trip. Everyone has to estimate the true value of any offer.

    You must do the same thing Rob even if you don't realize it. You would not make a trip to a casino unless you estimated your profit potential. In fact Rob your entire system rests on estimating your profit potential. All of your special plays are about profit potential.

    And so it is with free play.

  13. #13
    $100 worth of free play is worth $100. You are going to be at the casino anyway. I do not know a single one of you that is posting on here that would let a $100 of free play keep you from going to the casino. If you get the itch to play video poker or craps or whatever else you like to play you are going to go to the casino. And it you don't stick the $100 free play voucher in the machine you are going to stick the $100 bill in the machine. All free play is is free money from the casino to gamble with. They want you think that you have the advantage but we all know that unless you get lucky whose odds the deck is stacked in favor of. And you do have the advantage if you just run your free play through, cash out and leave. But if you do that, your offers will be lowered and eventually disappear entirely.

  14. #14
    I do not. Free play to me is nothing more than units to gamble with, worth nothing unless and until I cash it out and leave with whatever cash it afforded me with. For the vast majority of players however, it's very effective bait that gets them to make trips on the casinos' terms that they otherwise would not have made.
    Last edited by Rob.Singer; 06-16-2015 at 05:37 AM.

  15. #15
    Originally Posted by seemoreroyals View Post
    $100 worth of free play is worth $100. You are going to be at the casino anyway.
    But $100 is not enough to get me to make a special trip -- even to Rincon which is a 2 hour drive. I am certainly not going to make the trip to Vegas for just $100 of free play or even $500 of free play. However, I will make the trip to Vegas if it's for a trip with my girlfriend and we also plan to see a show or use comps for a fancy dinner.

    My next trip to Vegas is likely to have only $200 of free play but I will have my $500 "anniversary dinner credits" which can be used at one or more restaurants, plus other banked reward credits. But in this case the $200 of free play is "incidental."

    The actual amount of free play I get is the #1 factor in whether or not I make a trip to Rincon because I am not going to spend the night at Rincon and I am not going to make a weekend of it. In the past I might have gone with my girlfriend to Rincon for dinner at Fiore but after two very disappointing dinners at Fiore that restaurant is now off our radar -- they lost us as customers.

  16. #16
    But Alan if all you do is run your free play through and leave your ADT is going to go down and your offers are going to be reduced and eventually disappear. We don't get much free play much at Vegas anymore either because the machines are too tight or we are not lucky enough to make our budget stretch enough to keep are ADT as high as we would like so we could get the better free play offers there like we used to get.

  17. #17
    seemoreroyals my offers have been cut by so much it doesn't matter anymore. A year or so ago I was getting as much as $2,500 per trip to Caesars and now it's down to $200 whether it's free play or shopping. And because the offers are less my travel to Vegas is less.

    And to be honest -- with less travel to Vegas I stand to lose less.

    So, did Caesars make the right move? No. I think at the end of the year they will see that by cutting my offers they got less of my money.

  18. #18
    First and foremost hugest mistake. Playing for offers or comps.

  19. #19
    Originally Posted by jbjb View Post
    First and foremost hugest mistake. Playing for offers or comps.
    Absolutely 100% correct.

  20. #20
    See more, if you are in the trap of making trips to get more juicy offers with free play etc., then you have one foot in the losing grave. It's EXACTLY what the casino wants and expects you to do.

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