Free play

While in Biloxi my wife won $500 in free play. We cashed out around $300. This is the type of free play where you put money in to activate it oppossed to downloading it. Question does the machine(machines) know it's freeplay and if so what is the expected return.

Yes, the machine "knows" it's free play. In the situation you're describing, the machine plays with your money, and then rebates back the cost of your spin. The machine needs to know it's freeplay, so that it can rebate back the cost of each spin. The fact that it was freeplay does not affect the payback on the machine.

If the machine had a theoretical payback of 90%, and you played through the $500 exactly (ex. 250 spins at $2.00/spin) you "should" have walked away with $450. But that theoretical average includes possible huge wins that you weren't lucky enough to receive, so your actual payout was less.

Quote: rdw4potus

Yes, the machine "knows" it's free play. In the situation you're describing, the machine plays with your money, and then rebates back the cost of your spin. The machine needs to know it's freeplay, so that it can rebate back the cost of each spin. The fact that it was freeplay does not affect the payback on the machine.

If the machine had a theoretical payback of 90%, and you played through the $500 exactly (ex. 250 spins at $2.00/spin) you "should" have walked away with $450. But that theoretical average includes possible huge wins that you weren't lucky enough to receive, so your actual payout was less.

This is almost right. Actually, the machine knows nothing. The card reader is attached to a player tracking system which instructs the backend accounting system to issue an electronic transfer to the machine.