Jean Scott was kind enough to answer this question for us.
I'm glad you asked this. It gives me a chance to use some of the material I didn't have room for in Frugal Video Poker. (I always have leftover material when I finish a book, but my editor and publisher always tell me, "Save it for the next book." Someday I'm going to fool them and not write any more books. Then they'll be sorry they tried to fence me in!)
But back to your question. You're correct that, on the surface, it doesn’t seem right, kind of like hitting a guy when he’s already down.
But let's examine the details. Most casinos figure your slot points by coin-in. That is, when you put $100 through the machine (either in new money or replaying credits), you earn the same amount of points for that $100, whether you win or lose.
A few casinos, however, award points according to the amount won, which is the coin-out figure. It seems unfair -- until you remember that a lot of hands, on slots and especially on video poker machines, are ties. You play a $5 max-bet hand on a $1 Jacks or Better game and you get a pair of kings and you earn $5 in credits. You think of this as a push, but the slot club considers it as a win and gives you points for it. They call any paying hand a "win," even if you only get your original bet back.
Therefore, the difference between the two systems isn't as big as you might expect. The following example shows the math that perhaps will keep you from worrying needlessly about whether a slot club bases its award system on coin-in or coin-out.
Let's say you play six hours of 25¢ 9/6 Jacks or Better and you average 600 hands per hour. You just put $4,500 through the machine. At $1 equaling one point, you've earned 4,500 points with a coin-in system.
Now, let's assume you don't hit a straight flush or a royal and you lose about $23 an hour, which is about your expected average loss. With a coin-out system, you’re only penalized six (hours) times 23 (points), or 138 points altogether. You've still earned 4,362 points for the session. Even if you were playing dollars, taking all these figures times four still wouldn’t show a huge difference.
The long and the short of this is that you'd be better off worrying about other things: finding good promotions, looking for higher-paying machine schedules, and choosing casinos which have more generous slot club benefits you can use.
