how do you "play" this promotion?

What casino is offering this?

this is at Rincon. Its for this coming weekend-- a three day promotion, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You actually get to play it all three days if you happen to be there all three days. I will go there Thursday night and will actually only be able to play Friday.

I would assume it's not a rip off, and they're just gathering information, for marketing profiles, or whatever. So I would assume the expectation of the switch is somewhere below, but close to FP200. Based on those assumptions, that the expectation is close, I would flip a coin.

Im curious what you mean by "rip off" and why would they using this to gather info for marketing profiles?

No.

DonDiego advises whenever one is given the chance one should go for the bush, especially when there may be $1000 in it.

Oh, . . . and another thing !

Say some rube gets his buddy to drive him 50 miles to the nearest hickville airport and flies to Vegas with his spouse for their first real vacation in 5 years, . . . and upon his return to "bumkinburg" Iowa his hayseed friend asks him: "How'd it go?", . . . and he has to answer: "Wel-l-l-l, . . . have I got a story fer you. When we showed up at thet-there cas-ee-no they give us'n a chance ta turn $200 inta $1000. But we jes' kep the $200."

What a memorable story, eh?

Let's say the "rube" in the aforementioned posting took a chance and received $100 instead of $200- that would be a story I am sure he could not wait to tell his "hayseed" friend. That would be a "memorable" story - yeah, right.

If the weighting is split this way, and I would suspect it to be pretty close to this or possibly worse, the expected value is $145. Take the $200.

Holy-Moly ! ! !
Some folks responding to this post are coming up with pay-tables and expected values ! ! !

Read the original post, . . . $200-free-play registers on a machine; the player can "gamble" to get either $100, $500, or $1000. PERIOD. That is all the player knows.

Ahhhhh, . . . but the player does know one other thing: the Casino will know what he chose to do.
Hmm, . . . considering possible future offers, what should the player want the Casino to think.

It seems unlikely that a player's decision whether or not to take that risk will be factored into his or her profile. And in any case, it does not take a casino very long to learn that a player is not a ninny. More of a red flag would be to ask for the details of an offer in a way which indicates one knows arithmetic.

As for telling friends back home what happened in Las Vegas, can not one say whatever one wishes to say?