{"id":884970,"date":"2025-05-06T09:59:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T16:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/?p=884970"},"modified":"2025-05-06T09:59:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T16:59:48","slug":"evaluating-a-promotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blog\/evaluating-a-promotion\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluating a Promotion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I received an email from a player who told me of a promotion at a Caesars\/Harrah\u2019s\/Eldorado property. He wanted to know if it was worth playing, although he didn\u2019t say which exact property it was or even in which state it was located, although the player lived in the southeastern part of the United States so that narrows it down somewhat. It seems like for a particular day, the property was offering 5x Next Day Bounceback (NDB) cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than one property in the Caesars Rewards system has daily NDB. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re playing that promotion on a Monday. At the casino where I\u2019ve played it, if you play at least 100 Tier Credits between 6 a.m. Monday and 5:59 a.m. Tuesday, you\u2019ll receive free play at noon on Tuesday. The free play is generally good for 90 days. These parameters do not have to be the same for other properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At most of these casinos, it takes $5 coin-in to earn one Tier Credit (TC) for slots and $10 coin-in to earn one TC at video poker. I\u2019ve been at other properties where, for the loosest video poker, it can take $20, $25, or even $50 to earn one TC. Just staying with the standard $10 per TC at video poker, it\u2019s obvious to those with at least a little bit of mathematical facility that it takes twice as much coin-in at video poker to earn the same number of TCs as it does at slots. Therefore, the percentage return of NDB for video poker is half as much for video poker as it is for slots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you would earn, say, $200 in a \u201cnormal\u201d NDB day, at the casino where I\u2019ve played, playing on a 2x NDB day gives you that $200, and then when you\u2019ve played that off, gives you another $200. The second $200 expires in seven days, not 90.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any of these parameters can be different at other properties, but at least this gives you a template of what to look for. If I were considering playing at this 5x NDB day, I would do the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. I would find out how much \u201cregular\u201d NDB is worth. You can do this by actually playing, keeping track of how many TCs you earn, and then see how much NDB you receive the next day. If you know some other player who has played at that casino when NDB was in effect, perhaps they\u2019ll be willing to share the information with you.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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    1. Let\u2019s assume at this casino that the daily NDB returns 0.25% for video poker. A 5x NDB day would then be worth 1.25%. Games like 9\/6 DDB and 15-9-4-4-3 Deuces Wild now become slightly positive for competent players. If the regular NDB is 0.50% for video poker, then 5x NDB would be worth 2.50% and several additional games now are worth more than 100% if you play them correctly.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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      1. Normal Caesars Rewards benefits remain in effect. That is, Reward Credits (RCs) (generally earned 1-1 along with TCs) may be redeemed for comps, free play, or sports bets. Play enough and you can earn Platinum, Diamond, or Seven Stars status — each with benefit packages. Playing 500 TCs in one day earns you a 500 TC bonus. There are a number of steps topping out at a 10,000 TC bonus for 5,000 or more TCs earned in a day. If you play enough, you may well get offers in the mail with incentives to come back.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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        1. I would check to see how long the NDB free play is good. If this is not a casino that I knew I\u2019d be back to before the free play expired, I would stay at least until noon the next day and play off what I\u2019ve earned. Although this will reduce my daily theoretical by 50% for this trip (assuming it will become a two-day trip instead of a one-day trip), generally speaking collecting the NDB I\u2019ve earned is worth more than the reduced theoretical.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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          1. I would check the entire floor to see what games are available. If there are only a few \u201cgood\u201d machines, I might be there at 4 a.m. for a promotion that starts at 6 a.m. If I had a friend or two who were interested in playing the same machine during the same promo, I might agree on a schedule where all of us got to play our hours over the 24-hour period. I would look for friends who could be depended on to play the hours they agreed to. I would not want someone who, say, would leave early if they got down $1,000 or so. If that happened, whoever had a \u201cshift\u201d after that might well not have a seat available.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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            1. If the best game isn\u2019t one I knew how to play, I would learn it. I sell strategy cards and Winner\u2019s Guides for a number of games and the Wizard of Odds website has a video poker strategy calculator that works for several games. Videopoker.com has, for a fee, an online \u201cPro\u201d game where you can practice and get corrections until you have a game mastered. You can get a monthly subscription or an annual one. The more time you have between knowing which games are available and the day the 5x NDB is in effect, the more time you have to perfect your skills. There will always be players who show up on the day of the promotion and \u201cwing it\u201d without preparation, but that\u2019s not the practice I recommend.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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              1. If I were a big player (say, $25 machines or maybe $5 Ten Play) I\u2019d definitely check with Caesars Rewards if there\u2019s a limit on how much I can earn in a day. If the 5x NDB were worth 2%, for example, playing 9\/6 Double Double Bonus perfectly is worth about 101% until I reach the daily limit but only about 99% thereafter. That would certainly affect how many hours I wanted to attack the machines.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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                1. Assuming profit maximization is my goal, with the NDB, with or without a multiplier, it can be better to play a lesser game EV-wise at higher stakes than a higher game EV-wise at lower stakes. For example, let\u2019s assume for $1 stakes you can play 8-5 Bonus worth 99.17% and for $5 stakes 9\/6 DDB, worth 98.98% is available. If you can play $4,000 coin-in per hour on the dollar game and $20,000 coin-in per hour on the $5 game, with most NDB amounts the DDB game has a higher dollar EV. Keep in mind that even though playing DDB has a higher dollar EV, the variance is much higher than that of BP and it\u2019s possible to lose MUCH more than what you\u2019ll get back from NDB. If you have the financial and psychological bankroll for this, go for it! But it\u2019s not my fault if it doesn\u2019t turn out well for you this particular time. As in all gambling, if you can\u2019t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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                  1. There are properties where even with 2% bounce back, there are no games I would consider playing. Since I don\u2019t know which casino we\u2019re talking about, I can\u2019t give a definite recommendation to play. But if I lived relatively close and was going to be available on the day of the 5x event, I\u2019d definitely check it out.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                    I received an email from a player who told me of a promotion at a Caesars\/Harrah\u2019s\/Eldorado property. He wanted to know if it was worth playing, although he didn\u2019t say which exact property it was or even in which state it was located, although the player lived in the southeastern part of the United States […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":843442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[601,558,557],"tags":[561,585],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/spinach-2.png?fit=500%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":884971,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884970\/revisions\/884971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}