Would You Play This Promotion

**Midwest Player** · 10-26-2019, 10:25 AM

A certain casino is offering a video poker or slots promotion that I don't think is worth very much. Here is the deal. If you earn 10 points on slots, you get a guaranteed prize of $5 - $100 free play. In my experience, it seems like the guaranteed prizes are always weighted towards the low side like $5 or $10 free play. They don't disclose the odds of winning a certain amount.

Most promotions like this let you earn points on either table games or slots, but for this one it has to be on slots or video poker. Now in order to get 10 points you have to run $100 thru the machine. The video poker is pretty good at this casino because they do offer 9/6 JOB.

I usually just use my free play on video poker and then don't play anymore video poker, but in this case I would have to risk $100 to get a guaranteed prize of maybe $5 or $10 in free play. Would you bother to play this promotion?

**21forme** · 10-26-2019, 10:42 AM

Me personally, if I were at the casino, I'd play it. I wouldn't make a special trip for it. Given your level of play, sure, why not?

Assume you don't hit a Royal, so 9/6 JoB is about a 97% game without one. Your $100 coin in is worth $97. Minimum promo return is $5, so that makes it worth at least 102%. Sure, there's variance, but there's variance in every game we play. To minimize it, play the lowest denomination on the VP machine.

**Midwest Player** · 10-26-2019, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by 21forme

Me personally, if I were at the casino, I'd play it. I wouldn't make a special trip for it. Given your level of play, sure, why not?

Assume you don't hit a Royal, so 9/6 JoB is about a 97% game without one. Your $100 coin in is worth $97. Minimum promo return is $5, so that makes it worth at least 102%. Sure, there's variance, but there's variance in every game we play. To minimize it, play the lowest denomination on the VP machine.

The minimum promotion return is not $5, but $5 in free play. Also you only get 9/6 JOB if you play at the $1 level. You can play at the 25 cent level, but the odds are not as good. I'm not sure what they are. Are you saying play only one coin at a time instead of the usual five needed to maximize the royal?

**21forme** · 10-26-2019, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by Midwest Player

The minimum promotion return is not $5, but $5 in free play. Also you only get 9/6 JOB if you play at the $1 level. You can play at the 25 cent level, but the odds are not as good. I'm not sure what they are. Are you saying play only one coin at a time instead of the usual five needed to maximize the royal?

I understand about multiplier for your free play. Using the same 97% return, $5 in free play is close enough to $5 to consider it that. If you want to call it $4.85, go ahead.

What I meant is play the 5 unit bet, so if you do hit a Royal, you get full pay, but play the lowest denomination you can, so you maximize the number of spins to get closer to theo. If you play a $1 unit, you have 20 spins for your $100. If you play a 5 cent unit, then it's 400 spins.

I know you tend to stress short term results, so you may want to play the small unit with a worse pay table (8/5?) to have less variance. If it were me, I'd play the $1 unit and if my return is only 50% because there are only 20 spins, that's part of the game. OTOH, maybe you'll hit quads on your first spin.

RS · 10-26-2019, 09:34 PM

I honestly can't tell if you're serious anymore, tbh.

**BoSox** · 10-27-2019, 05:26 AM

MWP, just go to a $10 machine and play max coins for two spins. If you hit the royal you can show up at the Thanksgiving family dinner with a new leased Cadillac.

**nighterfighter** · 10-27-2019, 09:51 AM

MWP,

You should almost never play one-coin VP.

The house edge is calculated and heavily weighted towards getting a 5 coin Royal Flush.

Anyway... Are you sure the 9/6 JoB game counts? A lot of casinos won't give you points on the better paying VP games.

**Midwest Player** · 10-27-2019, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by nighterfighter

MWP,

You should almost never play one-coin VP.

The house edge is calculated and heavily weighted towards getting a 5 coin Royal Flush.

Anyway... Are you sure the 9/6 JoB game counts? A lot of casinos won't give you points on the better paying VP games.

I have never been able to get a royal flush in my entire life and that includes practice playing on line. I don't play a lot of video poker, but even with just practice playing I never hit the royal. The closest I came was a straight flush at a casino and that was only once. In playing deuces wild I have gotten the royal with the deuces but that is not the same.

Yes, I'm sure the 9/6 JoB game counts for the promotion.

This is the site where I like to practice. There are probably better ones out there, but I like this. It shows the best plays and eventually you learn.
https://www.freeslots.com/poker.htm

**nighterfighter** · 10-27-2019, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by Midwest Player

I have never been able to get a royal flush in my entire life and that includes practice playing on line. I don't play a lot of video poker, but even with just practice playing I never hit the royal. The closest I came was a straight flush at a casino and that was only once. In playing deuces wild I have gotten the royal with the deuces but that is not the same.

Yes, I'm sure the 9/6 JoB game counts for the promotion.

This is the site where I like to practice. There are probably better ones out there, but I like this. It shows the best plays and eventually you learn.
https://www.freeslots.com/poker.htm

I'm the same, basically. Never hit a royal, except with Deuces Wild. I did hit a Royal at a 100 Play machine, but only at the 1 cent denomination. I also have used that site for practice, I like that you can adjust the paytables to see how that changes things.

But regardless, that's still not the point... the EV of the game is a lot lower if you aren't playing max credits. You're trading EV for volatility.

**Meistro123** · 10-27-2019, 11:02 AM

I usually just use my free play on video poker and then don't play anymore video poker, but in this case I would have to risk $100 to get a guaranteed prize of maybe $5 or $10 in free play. Would you bother to play this promotion?

No, I wouldn't play the promotion, giving up my ID is not worth $10.