Best use of a casback offer

Hi, a little help/advice please.

Having been granted VIP status by my online and BM casino, they are welcoming me aboard with a 20% cashback offer. That would seem to be a refund on Monday of 20% of whatever I lose over the weekend.

Of course, if I don't lose over the weekend, I gain nothing !!! And I don't aspire to lose !!!

At first, in the absence of any way of hedging or matching this, it looks to be worthless, but I understand that it is reasonably +ev since I'm risking less of my real bankroll to make the same potential profit.

So, looking for advice on how to enjoy this bonus. Any caveats I'm missing?

There doesn't seem to be a wagering requirement on any cashback. It also appears to apply to ANY game I play. My favourite game of choice is rng blackjack with a house edge of about 0.45% I trust the house.

Below are a subset of the offer terms. How should I play it???

"we’re offering you a 20% Cashback bonus of up to £1,000, paid to you on Monday."
3. In order to qualify, customers must enter the code [redacted] and play any game to receive 20% of their losses up to a maximum of £1,000 as cash.
4. 20% will be deemed to be total stakes minus total winnings. Winning customers will not be eligible for the bonus.

There seems to be a typo there in (4) and some ambiguity whether the max cashback is £1,000 or 20% of £1,000

Your collective wisdom? I can afford to play and perhaps lose.

wow, usually there are specifications, you have to cross a threshold of losses for instance. If this is a pure 20% rebate go for it bigtime. Make them cry uncle ... well, remember the golden goose thing too.

do the math. In a coin toss you lose 0.8 units on a loss and win one unit on a win. Getting the picture?

the recommendation is that you bet in such a way to make the variance work for you. One big bet , or just a few large bets. With the cashback, if you have to do any betting with it to keep it, grind it out with small bets.

The wizard page confounds me in places but it is good to check out

https://wizardofodds.com/games/slots/loss-rebate/

the idea is *not* to lose on purpose ... don't get confused and think that is what you are doing. I hope others can explain better.

Quote: odiousgambit

the idea is *not* to lose on purpose ... don't get confused and think that is what you are doing. I hope others can explain better.

Quite so... It's a bit counter intuitive in that I only get any benefit if I lose money...
But that RNG BJ game with it's tiny edge is the nearest thing to a coin toss. I can pretty much make the variance whatever I want it to be by sizing my wager, though increased number of smaller bets would set the HE against more action.... Yes. I NEED to follow my own sig and 'embrace the variance'.
My initial thought is that I MUST take them up on the offer so they recognise that I'm the kind of guy they want in the VIP scheme.
I'm inclined to limit my potential losses a bit on this first outing, even though I won't be getting max benefit. I think I'll just attack it with some decent size nibbles, such as a 25,50,75,75,75 progression with an aspiration of doubling my £1,000 buy in. 5h1t or bust. Double it or lose it and if I lose it, get £200 back.... Or I might do what I SHOULD do, and go bigger. MUCH bigger.

If you can afford it, the best return is from trying something with a far bigger variance than Blackjack. If they offer single 0 roulette I would suggest taking a $1000 bankroll ( sorry I don't know how to show a pound symbol) and betting $50 per spin on a single number and repeating until you hit it or you go bust. A quick spreadsheet says that would have an EV of $95 for the session. and allow a reasonable length session.

If you want a whole lot of information on loss rebates take a look at Eliot Jacobson's (former?) site here https://www.888casino.com/blog/casino-promotions/the-loss-rebate-theorem

PS You get a higher EV if you put all 1000 on a single number and quit either way, but the casino would probably not be happy with you doing that with a loss rebate,

Quote: someone

PS You get a higher EV if you put all 1000 on a single number and quit either way, but the casino would probably not be happy with you doing that with a loss rebate,

That’s exactky what I was gonna suggest.

In essence , you’re risking 800 on a single number to win 35,000. You’ve turned the roulette single number payout into 44-1

Quote: OnceDear

What's the question? You know damn well you should just bet the max.

Quote: AxelWolf

What's the question? You know damn well you should just bet the max.

LOL. You know that I know that ( Though I hadn't considered single number on roulette )
But, then again I did say that I don't aspire to lose.

Reading the offer again with its "20% up to £1,000" I take it that if I lose £5,000 they will rebate me £1,000. I will check with them first, and will read the articles linked to.

I think I should aspire to make a profit equal to or close to the max potential value. I'm just not inclined to just pop £5,000 on one number. Please check these maths...

Let's say the max refund is £1,000 on loss of £5,000. Intuitively, shouldn't the absolute maximum cash expected value of that be £1,000?

What if I just bet pretty big at BJ (£500 per hand) at house edge of 0.45% and take £5,000 to the table with the aspiration of walking away with £6,000. My probability of success of making £1,000 profit would be just under 5/6=83% and with cashback, my maximum loss would be £4,000. That would seem far more sensible than roulette.

I know I'm missing something. Off to read those articles now. I may come back and edit these back of the envelope estimates.

And yes, Foxy. I am Chicken 5hit.
:o)

OK... Interim progress report.
I've confirmed that they would rebate me £1,000 if I lose £5,000 over the weekend.

I don't aspire to lose £5,000 !!!

So anyway... here's progress so far, bearing in mind that if I can milk £1,000 profit out of this, I'll be a happy bunny.

Had credit in my account of just over £300. Activated bonus and braced myself mentally for topping that up with up to £5,000 to lose!

Fired up online RNG Blackjack.

Played a modest little 10, 20, 30, 30 ,30 progressive for about an hour. Occasionally drifted from that and biggest wager was a 50 that got doubled down.

Never fell below £200 balance.

Balance currently over £800.

I'm clearly doing this wrong, but what the hell, I am >£500 ahead so far.

We might come back here later to find I lost it all. Or maybe I'll just chicken out now.

:o)

Quote: someone

If you can afford it, the best return is from trying something with a far bigger variance than Blackjack. If they offer single 0 roulette I would suggest taking a $1000 bankroll ( sorry I don't know how to show a pound symbol) and betting $50 per spin on a single number and repeating until you hit it or you go bust. A quick spreadsheet says that would have an EV of $95 for the session. and allow a reasonable length session.

If you want a whole lot of information on loss rebates take a look at Eliot Jacobson's (former?) site here https://www.888casino.com/blog/casino-promotions/the-loss-rebate-theorem

PS You get a higher EV if you put all 1000 on a single number and quit either way, but the casino would probably not be happy with you doing that with a loss rebate,

as far as I can gather from previous looks at this, all good advice. Thanks for posting the Jacobson link.

Oncedear, there is much that is not intuitive to overcome. But I sympathize with your objection to losing 5000 quid even if it is the smart thing.

It's a little clearer what is going on if it is one of the 100% rebates that are here and there for new player's card holders. That is purely a free-roll situation. Yet the principal still applies for your rebate. I think BJ was not the ticket, but you admitted that.

Quote: odiousgambit

Oncedear, there is much that is not intuitive to overcome. But I sympathize with your objection to losing 5000 quid even if it is the smart thing.
...
I think BJ was not the ticket, but you admitted that.

OK. I have a secondary objective to even playing this loss rebate: I'm only a probationary VIP and I want to give the impression of a player who is responsive to the bait of a bonus and that it will be in their interests to keep my status. I expect they will analyse my resulting 'extra play'

To absolutely crush the bonus might make them decide I'm just too much of an AP.

Now for some more back of the envelope estimations of the worth of this rebate.

Let's say, for the sake of interest they will rebate me £1,000 if I lose £5,000. (20% rate)
Let's also say that a friend has the same offer at the same time ( not the case if you are looking, Mr Casino )

So, I ( player a ) place one £4,857 wager on single zero roulette, red.
Friend ( player b ) places one £4,857 wager on single zero roulette, black ON THE SAME SPIN.
To hedge the zero, we each place £143 of our spare money on zero,

Let's say it comes up Red. Player a scoops up £9714 from the table. Player B loses his £5,000

We meet up on Monday and player B has received his £1,000 rebate.
Our total combined resources then are £10714 for a net, no risk, profit of £357 each. (OK. zero could keep coming up.)

So at first sight, the loss rebate offer is worth £357 per person....
If there had been no need to wager that 286 on green, the loss rebate was worth exactly 500 per person.

But wait...

Only one of us had actually exhausted his loss rebate. It starts to get a bit messy now, but with another friend, player c, we get a chance to rinse-repeat in some way. Of course, though player a will never get 'the benefit' of his loss rebate untill he loses all that he won. So, player a and player b retire to the bar with their £357 profit each. Wihout doing the actual maths, and assuming zero edge game and an unlimited army of friends to hedge with, I'm inclined to think the value of the offer iterates to >£750 per player.

Making the >£500 that I already made a bit of a reasonable compromise.

It's a pity I couldn't make a loss :o) I will never see the benefit of the money that I failed to lose .LOL.

My thoughts at this point... In an almost zero edge game, a 20% loss rebate offer of up to £1,000 rebate is actually worth something in the region of £500.... So I've already had the free value that I should have aspired to.

The same casino has a similar regular offer to all members of 10% rebate of up to £200 (Slightly worse game available). By the same sort of logic, if house edge is negligible. That should be worth around £100 per cycle, Though £2,000 would need to be the potential loss.

Interesting. Will revisit later with proper analysis.

let me read this later, check out your PMs at DT

edit: OK, read that, not sure, doing this eliminates the variance which in theory is what you want? It gets over my head. But that language in your offer really bothers me.

Quote: OnceDear

Making the >£500 that I already made a bit of a reasonable compromise.

It's a pity I couldn't make a loss :o) I will never see the benefit of the money that I failed to lose .LOL.

My thoughts at this point... In an almost zero edge game, a 20% loss rebate offer of up to £1,000 rebate is actually worth something in the region of £500.... So I've already had the free value that I should have aspired to.

Groan...

Like a mouse with a mousetrap, I just couldn't resist going back for another nibble at that juicy cheese.

Should I have been satisfied to turn £250 into £300 into £320 and then I activated this loss rebate offer....
and onwards and upwards to £820 for an extra juicy £500 profit, today?

How in the name of Zod was I ever going to exploit this loss rebate if I couldn't make a loss to save my life?

Eeek Eeek... Scurried back for just one more nibble...

Please Zod, let this weekend be over. Take this cheese away.
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So now I'm up £700 on the day at £1020

Wager Count	255
Average Wager	£12.59
Total Action	£3,210.00
Expected Loss	£14.45
Total Profit	£703.50

LOL. I just can't make this 'Loss rebate' work.

Quote: AxelWolf

What's the question? You know damn well you should just bet the max.

Well,
I certainly did not exploit this bonus offer in the optimal way - I barely got a chance to.
The biggest wager I placed was £50.
My starting online account balance was about £320.
The lowest it got down to was about £250.
I failed dismally to lose £5,000. Was I prepared to do so? Maybe? Maybe I'd have chickened out at -£2,000

Ask me if I'm bothered $:o)
I'm now comfortably £800 ahead of where I started and that's me done for the weekend.

The bonus offer probably did what the casino wanted it to do, in that it got me back to the table.
They're happy and I'm happy. Nobody died.

Thanks to all that advised. I'll accept all feedback on how I handled it, how it worked out for me, and maybe next time it will be different.

This topic is now written up in my blog.
https://wizardofvegas.com/member/oncedear/blog/#post1703

Wager Count	470
Average Wager	£10.90
Total Action	£5,121.00
Expected Loss	£23.04
Total Profit	£814.00

Quote: someone

If you can afford it, the best return is from trying something with a far bigger variance than Blackjack. If they offer single 0 roulette . . . You get a higher EV if you put all 1000 on a single number and quit either way, but the casino would probably not be happy with you doing that with a loss rebate,

I've re-evaluated this option and remarkable, even against the normal house edge of roulette, this milked almost £1,000 of EV from the offer, but at the price of an horrendous risk.
Remember, the offer was actually £1,000 of rebate if I lost £5,000. So consider, and sum up all the possible outcomes of ONE £5,000 Wager on a single number at single zero roulette.

Total Profit From All 37 Possible Outcomes	31000
Average Profit each Outcome	£837.83
Probability of Success	2.702%
Player's Profit From Success	175000
Player's Loss From Failure	4000
Player Edge	16.76%

More underlying data in my blog. I still need to analyse the less risky option of multiple small bets on single number.

1) You're "VIP" with only $300 in your account?
2) The 20% rebate means you should be loading up and betting huge (lots of options).
3) Not that it matters too much, but why are you playing a BJ progressive betting scheme? What's the point?

THE BIGGEST ONE:

4) Does is reset every week? I.E. If you win $1k this week, do you have to lose that $1k profit AND THEN you get 20% of your loss AFTER that? Or, if you win $1k this week, then next week if you lose $1k they still give you a $200 rebate? Very important to clarify this time frame/window/etc.

Quote: Romes

1) You're "VIP" with only $300 in your account?
2) The 20% rebate means you should be loading up and betting huge (lots of options).
3) Not that it matters too much, but why are you playing a BJ progressive betting scheme? What's the point?

THE BIGGEST ONE:

4) Does is reset every week? I.E. If you win $1k this week, do you have to lose that $1k profit AND THEN you get 20% of your loss AFTER that? Or, if you win $1k this week, then next week if you lose $1k they still give you a $200 rebate? Very important to clarify this time frame/window/etc.

Hi Romes,
1)I think VIP tier is just like any other marketing ploy: I'm not a whale. £320 happened to be my account balance at the time they granted me the offer. I routinely withdraw funds back to my bank when they reach about £500 and when my balance is depleted by losses, I pop cash amounts of up to a few hundred back into the casino from my bank. I'm a low roller but have been there a while, playing several times a week and the sum of my buy-ins there over the last 12 months or so has been about £30K. I play lots of low edge BJ, so my total action is a lot more than that ( Could work it out from my comp points but would estimate between £500K and £1m at that place)
2)Yes. I reckon that to get the max value out of that, I should be prepared to wager and lose £5k on ONE Big High variance wager. Of course, It's NOT 20% of total action, it's a simple 20% rebate on my aggregate loss over the weekend. £5k on one wager, even with low variance and modest risk is well outside my comfort zone. It just happened that I got up 800 on the 300 that was sat in my account without having to re top up. Having made that profit, I was just not prepared to push my luck. Actually you'll see in my refreshed blog post graph, I did try pushing for more and nearly lost my shirt, being very lucky to lose and claw back 600 or so. That actually ended just after the midnight cuttof of the rebate offer anyway.
3)It amuses me. Nothing moreI know it has no monetary value. I feel comfortable enough with modest 1,2,3,3,3 or 10,20,30,30,30 or even 25,50,75,75 ( occasionally ) Wagering >£100 gives me the heeby jeebies, even where it's the best option.
4) The biggy. This '20% up to £1,000' rebate was an introductory one-off offer upon being granted VIP status. I've spoken to them, and apparently, they make VIP for a trial period of maybe a month before confirming status with the black card. That's reading between the lines from my conversation with the guy who rang to tell me about the status being granted and a follow up call later. I've never had an offer anything like that good.

Black card VIPs get enhanced offers, so there MAY be repetition of this or similar.
https://www.grosvenorcasinos.com/vip/blackcard
There IS a similar repeating regular loss rebate on just Live dealer blackjack. That regular offer is 10% capped at £200 and runs on a weekly cycle.. House edge on the live games is a pretty crappy 0.7% or so. The RNG game I play most is of the order of 0.45% with another 0.1% returned as 'play points'
https://www.grosvenorcasinos.com/promotions/lc-exclusive-cashback

Obviously 20% capped at £1,000 is far more valuable and just running over a weekend is significant too.

I'm still evaluating how I SHOULD have attacked it. Don't feel too bad that it expired without me ever making a massive bet or making a loss. I can't see a way of hedging it effectively without halving its value or worse.

Quote: OnceDear

I've re-evaluated this option and remarkable, even against the normal house edge of roulette, this milked almost £1,000 of EV from the offer, but at the price of an horrendous risk.

Yes, the key to getting EV from a loss rebate is high variance. It works out that log shot bets like roulette single number are far better than even money bet like red/back.

The intuitive way to see this is that you wish to either win big or to get full value out of the rebate so you can take the money and play it again hoping to win big.

Quote: OnceDear

Now for some more back of the envelope estimations of the worth of this rebate.

Let's say, for the sake of interest they will rebate me £1,000 if I lose £5,000. (20% rate)
Let's also say that a friend has the same offer at the same time ( not the case if you are looking, Mr Casino )

So, I ( player a ) place one £4,857 wager on single zero roulette, red.
Friend ( player b ) places one £4,857 wager on single zero roulette, black ON THE SAME SPIN.
To hedge the zero, we each place £143 of our spare money on zero,

Let's say it comes up Red. Player a scoops up £9714 from the table. Player B loses his £5,000

We meet up on Monday and player B has received his £1,000 rebate.
Our total combined resources then are £10714 for a net, no risk, profit of £357 each. (OK. zero could keep coming up.)

So at first sight, the loss rebate offer is worth £357 per person....
If there had been no need to wager that 286 on green, the loss rebate was worth exactly 500 per person.

Why can't you yourself be both players A and B? Simply sign-up at another online casino that is not Grosvenor and that uses the same Live Dealer provider, then make a £5000 bet on Player/Banker on Baccarat and lay it off at the other online casino with a similar £5000 bet on the opposite bet in the same round. Suppose you lose the bet at Grosvenor and win at the other casino. You would be down £4000 at Grosvenor and £5000 up at the other casino (or £4750 if banker won), for a profit of £1000 or £750.

If the bet goes the wrong way around and you win at Grosvenor (no cashback) and your balance is £10,000 there, you could repeat the same with £10,000 bet at both casinos on Baccarat to increase EV further, or wait for a new cashback opportunity next week.

What is true is that this betting style will likely get you banned from the cashback offers rather quickly, but who knows maybe they don't notice lol.

Quote: Jufo81

Why can't you yourself be both players A and B? Simply sign-up at another online casino that is not Grosvenor and that uses the same Live Dealer provider

I'd have to check, but the offer may only apply at their own branded tables.
No doubt they would soon cotton on if I tried that without a vpn. They check ID pretty thoroughly before cashing out.
Nice thinking though. Thanks.