Free bet ploy

With all this talk of free and match play vouchers, have ya seen this?

As you know, free bet tickets are tickets issued by a casino to regular players to get them to visit the casino more frequently. Free bet tickets are placed on even-money bets, and are taken when they lose, or paid and then taken if it wins.

The assumption here is that a $50 free bet ticket should have a “cash-in-hand” value of about $25, as it is only for use on an even-money bet. The problem is that if the ticket is bet alone, without an opposing bet to “hedge” it, it will only win or lose, thereby having a 50% chance of producing absolutely no income. Players know this and sometimes think, “Okay - Gas money.”

What players do is basically bet it at a crap table with an opposite bet of half the ticket’s value, so that it will always yield its full value by spending half the face value, thereby guaranteeing its cash value of half the ticket’s nominal (face) value. An obvious assumption, but what about throwing a crap-12?

So, a player shamelessly does - with a $50 free play (I was new on dice then...):
Bets the free-bet ticket on the pass line, with a quarter on the don’t, because if a crap number is thrown, the paper ticket is lost, and you take back down your real cash at risk.
Bet $2 on the 12 (1/25th or 4% of the ticket’s face value on the 12), which pays 30 for 1. (An additional $2.)
Now, the boxman is just frozen, with a “you have some nerve” look on his face, but is listening, interested. Okay…WTF, lemme see ya do it….so…He puts a quarter on the don’t, the free play on the pass, and $2 on the 12, and says here’s gas money. WTF, go ahead.

If the pass line wins from a come-out winner or a point being made, the ticket wins $50, and the don’t pass bet and the 12 bet lose (a total of $27), but were spent to guarantee this total $50 take-down and a profit of $23. So, $27 was spent to get $50, a good deal.

If a don’t pass decision occurs (a 2, 3 or seven-out), the don’t pass wins $25 along with the $25 original don’t bet, for a take-down of $50 and a profit of $23. Paper ticket was lost, WTF.

IF a come-out crap-12 is thrown, the $2 bet on the 12 wins $60 and down, with the don’t pass of $25 pushing (not losing) - also taken down as it is still the come-out. The only thing lost was the free-bet ticket, which cost the player nothing. Total take-down in this case is $85 with a profit of $60 (the $60 win on the 12, plus the $25 don’t pass taken back, (it’s still the come-out), and the $2 bet on the 12 taken down. Nothing was spent, but $27 was technically “at risk,” with the $60 additional profit, for leaving with $85.

He threw a 3 ace-deuce, collected and left, with no tip, and put gas in his car, I guess. Never came back. Left town, as many do in this town. I assume he must have been taken off the freebie list (I would hope so).

Nice little parting demo show and chit chat, just funny.

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The MGM Detroit, I can see that...
...I didn't think of Baccarat, because we don't have it where I work (I don't deal it either..) but I guess that would be real nerve (I mean, as it would seem to a casino worker), hedging a huge free bet at Bacc.

By the way, I heard an account from a fellow casino worker that, when he was working at Detroit MGM when it opened, the first day people just reached into the tables' chip racks and just ran out - pandemonium - and dealers and floormen were literally crying, panicked...

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I don't get why the player only hedges half of the bet.

Do a full hedge and unless the Come out is a 12 (1/36) you will end up with a profit equal to the coupon.

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Oh.... I was on the assumption that if the coupon wins you are paid both the win AND the face value of the coupon...

Yes, in that case do a half hedge

Or you could bet the Don't Pass and get a free shot at 0 House Edge on craps

I only get 5-20$ comps :(

Those freebies are loss leaders. They get players inside the casino doors earlier. They don't care how disciplined you are using them. Once you are in the casino for the night, there job is done. They know that if a couple sets out to just use their freebie and then go elsewhere, that couple will wind up spending the night in the casino.

FleaStiff is on the money there. Heck, Harrah's just out-and-out gives me cash coupons to redeem at the cages. Small amounts (usually only like $5-10), but it works. It gets me to their casino.

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The casino shouldn't care how you manipulate a free bet/matchplay, since the coupon has a fixed expected value. If you hedge it with other bets, that actually LOWERS the cost of the coupon for the house. HOWEVER:

When I visited town last month, I had a couple of friends in tow (boyfriend and girlfriend). I encouraged them to buy the ACG coupon book, and said we would have fun bopping around town cashing in the coupons, eating with the 2-for-1s, etc. I thought it would be fun for them to see all the different casinos and stick a toe into the gambling experience at the same time. One coupon in the book was a $25 matchplay at the Sahara. I told them that the expected value of the coupons was $12 each, and since they had two of them, the best way to play them was for him to bet his coupon+$25 on Red, and for her to bet her coupon+$25 on Black. I said I would also bet $3 on a 0-00 split to "insure" the two bets, and the winner could pay me back if a normal red or black number came up. Well, my friends did as I instructed, and the floorwoman nearly had a stroke. She came rushing up and said "you can't do that!!!!!". My friends were confused, and I asked the floorwoman why on earth not. She said that "you can't bet both sides at the same time". I let that one go (of course you can do that!), but I said to her, "These are two different people making two distinct, separate bets." She said, "it doesn't matter, they both can't bet at the same time." I was getting exasperated, so I said, "Can I bet anything I want?" She said yes. So I told my friend to take one coupon+bet back, and I would bet $25 on the opposite color. I realized that if my bet won, then there would be no profit from the coupon, but on the other hand, if the coupon bet won, we would have a net profit of $25. To make a long story short, the coupons won BOTH times, for a net profit of $44 ($50 minus the two losing 0-00 bets), so the casino gave my friends $44 rather than the $22 they would have been happy to collect. Poetic justice!

I was actually tempted to do what I call the "maxi-hedge", which is to bet $37, not $25, on the opposite color, and $3 on the 0-00, which locks in a $9/10 win unless a green number comes up, in which case you lose $6--just to be annoying. Why this retarded harpy should have given a crap what we did with the goddamn coupons escapes me, but they don't exactly hire America's best and brightest to run the casinos.

Good that the coupons won!
The floor supervisor was completely wrong. She cannot say "you can't bet on Red" if someone ELSE's coupon is countering it. If there's a different person betting it, related or not, it shoudn't factor in. Expect to see your fair share of knuckleheads in gaming.

Quote: Paigowdan

Good that the coupons won!
The floor supervisor was completely wrong. She cannot say "you can't bet on Red" if someone ELSE's coupon is countering it. If there's a different person betting it, related or not, it shoudn't factor in. Expect to see your fair share of knuckleheads in gaming.

Well, that really depends.

What did the fine print say?

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Well, that really depends.

What did the fine print say?

Just as Paigowdan says, the fine print said, "Expect to see your fair share of knuckleheads at our casino."

Quote: Ibeatyouraces

I think I am one of the few, who, if I have no other business in a certain casino except for a freebet or freeplay only play it out win or lose then leave.

Few in the world? Probably, yeah. Few on this board? Somehow, I doubt it.

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Quote: Ibeatyouraces

and as soon as the FP is done, I am done.

Okay. You got will power. It happens. It a cost of the casino doing business. They occasionally come up against someone with will power.
I remember that Tale of Two Casinos thread wherein the woman in high heels who walked all the way through the casino to spin the wheel for her Free Play amount and received one whole freakin' dollar, decided right then and there to play that one dollar, put none of her own money into the machine and to never come back to that casino.

Somehow I think those coupons must work for the casinos else they wouldn't be re-printed each month.

I get $800 a month of "free table play" (in the form of $25 house chips)
The way they work, is the same (even money bets, they pay face value and take the chip)
I USED to hedge them ($25 on the do, $25 house chip on the don't; just hope for a 7/11 winner or the point to be made)
Then I changed my way of playing..I wait until someone has made 2 points, then put one chip in the don't.
90% of the time they don't make a 3rd point
When they DO, I just put $50 in the don't, 99% of the time they don't make a 4th.
I usually get about 80% of my money.

Quote: TIMSPEED

I get $800 a month of "free table play" (in the form of $25 house chips).

Wow. That is a substantial amount. With that amount of money, I'd not hedge either. I'm often a Dark Side player, so I'd do pretty much what you do. Are these "chips" or matchplays where you have to put up real money to use them? If there just chips you can use but only use once if they win, its a great bargain.
Generous casino!!

Why even bother hedging these bets? It's not like you aren't getting your value anyway. Playing them out can be fun, and you subject yourself to less house edge, so it's the best play from either point of view. Since you lose the coupon on either losing or winning, getting rid of "bad money" isn't a consideration.

I would only hedge a bet if it was an amount I wasn't prepared to gamble in one stake (say, $800 came as a single bet), but if you have at least a few, seems like clearly a better play to gamble with them.

What's funny though is how casino staff can sometimes be scared of this, as if it was some powerplay that beats the house. But then, again, people find evidence to believe that probability of independent events depends on the previous outcome, so...

Quote: minnesotajoe

I only get 5-20$ comps :(

That works at a $10 table, too.

You guys seem to get a lot of free money for your action in the States! I generally play baccarat at $75-$150 a hand in Macau and even bet over $500 on some hands and all I get are free ferry tickets from/to Hong Kong and free soft drinks. I estimated that $700 in action gets me one point and acording to Sand's website I need a ruby card (earn 888 points within a year) to qualify for free rooms and free show tickets and even then I am not guaranteed to qualify if I don't play enough!

Quote: FleaStiff

Wow. That is a substantial amount. With that amount of money, I'd not hedge either. I'm often a Dark Side player, so I'd do pretty much what you do. Are these "chips" or matchplays where you have to put up real money to use them? If there just chips you can use but only use once if they win, its a great bargain.
Generous casino!!

These are physical "chips" although marked with "no cash value".
There are a couple dealers that let us "wash" these chips at the Roulette wheel (we get them broken down to $5 chips and put one on each number, including the single zero). This results in a guranteed $175 win (out of $185) But we don't do that too often, as to not get the dealers in trouble.

I've wondered about this before, with the single number bets in sic bo. They pay out even money if the number that you chose comes up one one of the dice, and thus should be covered by free bet coupons. But, if the number that you chose comes up on two of the dice, it pays out 2:1. Here's the kicker. If it comes up on all three dice, it either pays out 3:1 or 12:1, depending on what country you're in and the house rules (Bodog and 3Dice both payout 12:1 when that happens, as I've had happen on three separate occasions -- won $480 on a $40 bet two of those times -- and I've heard that Australian casinos always pay 12:1 for this).

If they'd let you do that, you'd have about a 1/271 chance of getting paid some serious money on that free bet.

I think there are really two issues here:
How much a casino requires you to bet before they suddenly notice you and start to mail you these various Free Play/Match Play/Whatever Play coupons.
The other issue is how to best make use of the coupons...

Now its obvious the coupons are going out to "well liked" players so even if a dealer or Floorperson is unhappy he won't be too likely to do much about it. First of all frequent players are often frequent tippers and may be "known" to the dealers but even if not known as a George its rather clear they are known as desirable players. I knew of one dealer whose girlfriend got the same mailers and each month they would take opposite sides and enjoy a sure thing that would pay for the first round of drinks or their first raid on a nearby slot machine inlaid in the bar top. Each month. No flak from anybody. Not once.

I see nothing wrong with doing this "offset betting" and quite frankly I see no great advantage to a hedge on the 12 if you do offset betting at craps.

My local casino barely mails anything of value and when they do this fifty dollar match play it takes half the night to get the coupon photostated along with your players card and your drivers license, birth certificate and photo of your pick-up truck. After all the rigamarole, it usually comes up Player if, as usual, I've bet on Banker. I've never asked anyone to do it "offset" with me at my local casino because they make it such a pain to use the freebie coupon.

Two words, when I was younger and looking for a "free" trip's stay in Las Vegas...Vegas World. I spent hours awake in bed thinking about how to use his guaranteed "action money." I played 50% on PL and 50% on DP, put a couple of real dollars on the 12 and hoped for the boxcars to come in. Never did for me, in all the times I did this play. It did come in for my brother, and I was giddy as a school girl, as he now could split the 50% on the PL and DP again, and have nothing but a great profit. Ahh...Thanks Bob. You got me to Las Vegas way more than I should have been when I was in my 20's. Miss those days. And, all the free drinks I wanted, "even if you're not playing" using what we called the drink card. Good times.

Offsetting pass and don't pass bets seems to be a good way to extract the conventional 50 percent of the face value of the offer.