Free Play - Interesting Article

https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/study-diminishing-impact-casino-free-play-promotions

UNLV is a joke of a university whose only meaningful degree program is How To Become a Clueless Casino Suit Who Stares Into Space, or "Hospitality."

In this study, the amounts of free play offered weren't enough to influence people's decisions to go to the given casino. Who would bother to drive even five miles, or spend a half hour of their time, for $5, $10, or even $15?

This really smelled like one of those studies designed to reach a desired conclusion. The casinos want to justify the diminishing of player perks and benefits. So this study supposedly "proves" that the amounts offered don't matter, people will show up or not show up. Oh yeah? Try offering something meaningful, like $50. Then stand back and wait for the mob rush.

And as far as the "cost" of the free play goes, the slot manager at GVR told me several years ago that 95% of all free play money was recouped by the casino. So they could be MUCH more generous and attract far more people, without any risk to the bottom line.

I wonder if there are any studies or statistics to verify this.  I've always figured that most people run their FP through the machines until it's gone (and then usually feed them some of their own money).  People tend to be reckless when it's "the casino's money."

I think Kevin and jstewa22 both make good points, I would tend to believe the free play offers are very low cost to the casino. At the local casinos in my state the floor is 95% slots and 5% video poker, and I'm sure the slot players run it through pretty fast and I appriciate the slot players because I think it keeps the casino comfortable offering the free play promos.

I love getting freeplay from casinos. I usually run it through a JoB or Bonus Poker and just try to "push." Converted $35-> $40 (cash in hand) and then $35->$50 at the Palms earlier this week. Basically paid off my resort fees for the stay, pretty awesome! 

Yes, the proper approach to free play is to try to convert it to real money with as little loss as possible. That's why JOB or BP are the games I use to launder free play, even with bad paytables. I figure I won't get torched, no matter what.

Free play works for the casinos because 99 out of 100 players do the exact opposite--they look upon it as a free chance to hit some kind of megasuper jackpot; rush over to the $1 Money Squeeze machines; and piss it away in short order.

Agree.  The best approach, especially if you're not looking to get on the casino's radar and are just doing a hit and run, is low volatility.  I know one person who advocates video BJ, the ones on the multi-game VP machines.  If I remember correctly, naturals usually pay even money, so the EV is about 97%, but variance is miniscule compared to even JoB.

The local casino that I go to, I'm not in Vegas, is huge on free play, it kept me busy for the 4th of July weekend. In a nutshell, we went on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, for the three days I received $235 in free play, on $13,680 coin in. Correct me if my math is inaccurate but I calculated that as a 0.017 return, I play 8/5 Bonus Poker for a theoretical return of 100.9% with the free play. I lost $320 on Thursday, lost $120 on Saturday, and won $120 on Sunday for a $320 loss for the three days. 

I'm still up several thousand from when I started going there 16 months ago, also my wife won a Cadillac in a drawing last Labor Day weekend, so I hope they keep the free play promos going. It was packed on July 4th and on Saturday.

You got a 1.7% return for your play in free play, and were playing with an 0.83% disadvantage, so yeah, you were getting 100.87%. That seems awfully high. Was this a straight play-as-you-go return on points earned, or was something else working for you as well?

Pretty much a play-as-you-go return on points. We go every Sunday morning, they offer a kiosk game that changes a little bit each month but they have run the promo every month for the last 16 months. You can swipe at the kiosk after running $1,500 coin-in and then swipe again when you play another $500 coin-in, the minimum is usually $35 free play when qualifying for both levels. They start they're bounce-back free play on Sundays, for me it's around $30 per week, every week. Last Sunday I had the $30 bounce back and "won" $55 at the kiosk, for a total of $85 free play, on $2,000 coin in. Playing 8/5 Bonus Poker I come up with a theoretical return of 103.42%,  but I want to play more hands than that, more opportunity at a Royal, and more tier points for better comps. So I usually play between $5,000 and $6,000 coin in putting me at between 100.7% and 100.6% return. Although last Sunday I was tired from playing so much and I had lost the two previous visits so played $3,850 coin-in and cashed out with $120. Sunday was a good day, I didn't put any money in I was able to play just on my free play hitting two four-of-a-kind 4's very soon after loading my $30 bounce-back play.

Then on July 4th, they had a special promo for that day, they run this promo every two or three months, although this month they ran on the 4th and they're offering it later this month as well. At my tier level, I was able to earn $20 in free play for every $1,000 coin in and I could do that 5 times for a total of $100 free play on $5,000 coin in.  I played $6,210 through the machine.

On Saturday they had a drawing for a car, we always go for the car drawing, I want to win one too! I don't factor in my casino cash as I earn it, I calculate it when I use it(I don't know if this is a good method, but it makes me +EV on days I go with no other promos). So Saturday was $10 bounce back and $40 casino cash for a total of $50 free play, I ran $3,620 though, and wasn't drawn for the car.

Also had food comps, beer, and gin and tonics. On the 4th we took my 90 year old mother-in-law with us and my son and his fiance met us there as well. Used a $80 food comp for everyone to have lunch, didn't feel like eating out on Saturday, but we had ramen on Sunday with a $50 comp. Also showed my son how to vulture some slots, found a Rich Little Piggies with the blue pig at 19, and let him and his fiance play, they hit the yellow for 7 spins, then popped all three at 20 free spins and doubled their money. 

If anyone sees any flaws in my analysis I would appreciate any input, thanks!