Do you travel for free play

I recently received a $400 free play credit only good for one week. Debating if I should travel to claim this free play credit as they’re also giving me a 3 day weekday comp to stay as well. Do you all travel when there’s free play? Is there a dollar value where it’s worth to travel for the free play?

Quote: sdg84

I recently received a $400 free play credit only good for one week. Debating if I should travel to claim this free play credit as they’re also giving me a 3 day weekday comp to stay as well. Do you all travel when there’s free play? Is there a dollar value where it’s worth to travel for the free play?
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You just have to weigh how much the free play is worth to you. When I was younger I would chase almost every dollar. As I am older and more financially secure I wouldn't walk out to my mailbox for $20, but when I was younger I would drive across town for it. I have travelled from the east coast to West coast when the dollar amount was enough.

When I was getting $400 to $800 a week in free play I would drive 90 minutes to collect it every week. That was enough money for me at the time to give up four hours of my time. If it was less than $400 it wasn't worth my time.

Like Drich says it all depends 0nly you can answer that question.

I am willing to drive 5 minutes (round trip) out of my way to pick up a $40 incentive these days.
I am not willing to drive 5 minutes out of my way for a $10 incentive.

I used to make about a 7 hour (round trip) drive to collect $400 worth of offers, but $400 used to be worth more than it is now.

If I was considering going to that property that week anyway, I would let the extra $400 incentivize my visit.

Quote: sdg84

I recently received a $400 free play credit only good for one week. Debating if I should travel to claim this free play credit as they’re also giving me a 3 day weekday comp to stay as well. Do you all travel when there’s free play? Is there a dollar value where it’s worth to travel for the free play?
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I used to be tempted to travel if I figured I could net $200 after allowing for the theoretical losses required to keep the offers coming and I enjoyed the property. During the pandemic, I was getting $4000 once per per month in Vegas. I only picked up three of these offers. My current LV offers got reduced to about a third of that, and I have not been back. One problem is that I cannot legally play online at casinos in my home state if I am travelling outside the state. I simply have no offers that are +EV after accounting for the opportunity cost of being out of state. I might make a day trip or even an overnight to pick up $400 if the drive isn't too long. I would not fly anywhere for that amount even if the airfare was comped.

I would much rather stay home and play online, then go out and support local restaurants with my profits. I enjoy this more than flying somewhere to eat comped meals. I generally don't enjoy B&M casinos. I only travel to get places that I want to stay at for a vacation. I guess I barely travel purely for gambling any longer. It just doesn't make financial sense.

Quote: Mental

Quote: sdg84

I recently received a $400 free play credit only good for one week. Debating if I should travel to claim this free play credit as they’re also giving me a 3 day weekday comp to stay as well. Do you all travel when there’s free play? Is there a dollar value where it’s worth to travel for the free play?
link to original post

I used to be tempted to travel if I figured I could net $200 after allowing for the theoretical losses required to keep the offers coming and I enjoyed the property. During the pandemic, I was getting $4000 once per per month in Vegas. I only picked up three of these offers. My current LV offers got reduced to about a third of that, and I have not been back. One problem is that I cannot legally play online at casinos in my home state if I am travelling outside the state. I simply have no offers that are +EV after accounting for the opportunity cost of being out of state. I might make a day trip or even an overnight to pick up $400 if the drive isn't too long. I would not fly anywhere for that amount even if the airfare was comped.

I would much rather stay home and play online, then go out and support local restaurants with my profits. I enjoy this more than flying somewhere to eat comped meals. I generally don't enjoy B&M casinos. I only travel to get places that I want to stay at for a vacation. I guess I barely travel purely for gambling any longer. It just doesn't make financial sense.
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Mental,

From what you said, you object to traveling out-of-state to pick up offers because while away from home, you forgo the opportunity to play your home state online casinos, due to their location policies.

Could you use a "remote desktop" program to circumvent this? Leave a desktop PC at home, then control it remotely from out-of-state. Since the PC is in your home state, the casino software will see it as a valid location.

Just a thought.

Dog Hand

Quote: DogHand

Mental,

From what you said, you object to traveling out-of-state to pick up offers because while away from home, you forgo the opportunity to play your home state online casinos, due to their location policies.

Could you use a "remote desktop" program to circumvent this? Leave a desktop PC at home, then control it remotely from out-of-state. Since the PC is in your home state, the casino software will see it as a valid location.link to original post

This would be very difficult and possibly stupid. The 'player location check' software is quite good and is being continuously improved. I download new required updates to various PLCs about 400 times per year just by counting the number of old downloaders in my Downloads folder. These PLC check the process table on my PC to look for any known VPN or PC remote software. They also look for any utilities that can be used to build remoting software. Then, they check my router and any nearby routers to make sure they are all in my home state. If I get near the border, I sometimes get rejected just because the PLCs certainty about my location falls below their standards. This is because my mobile device sees cell towers in the other state.

I have significant balances online, and I would be violating state law and TOS to play remotely. If my funds were confiscated, my state would not pressure the casinos to pay me off if there is evidence of unlawful activity on my part. I cannot stress enough, if you have a cash cow, do not risk it by doing something unlawful and stupid. If you try playing remotely yourself, I hope your software skills are very good to hide your misdeeds. There are ways to defeat PLCs. I won't even think about them for a minute. It is really a lot of work to play on a desktop. Dealing with bad internet service and playing on a small mobile screen would probably make me hate my life pretty quickly. I can barely stand to play on my phone in my home state, and playing at two sites at once would be really tough.

I work seven days a week. I am glad to have an excuse not to log in to work when I am on vacation. But I do sometimes regret missing out on a big promo that appears in my mailbox when I am overseas. I also have to plan ahead if I am going to be away. If I win a $5000 leaderboard prize that is not paid out until I leave on vacation, I may not be able to play it through before it expires. The casinos may reinstate these prizes if they value me as a big slot player, but I much prefer to fly under the radar and never interact with support/hosts unless significant money is at stake.