Free play

At the casino I frequent they have a weekly drawing that awards between 100 and 400 dollars of free play. It's your choice to take it as slot or table play. Both times I've won it I've taken it as slot play and used it on $1 JOB. I may be misunderstanding the way it works, but when you use it on video poker, the average amount of money you should make on your free play should be just $400 (or whatever the prize was) multiplied be the return on that particular machine, yes? So $390 or so.

But with table free play, if you lose they take the coupon, and if you win they replace it with the same amount in chips, right? Assuming an even money game like BJ or pai gow poker. So won't your return on $400 free play be more in the line of $200, assuming low house edge? Isn't it always better to take the slot free play?

Yes, that's correct.

But casinos have different rules. Some let you keep the free chips or voucher until it is lost. But even then, I'd rather take the freeplay and play it off on VP.

What RS said, with the addition that pai gow poker is definitely not a game I'd play free play on. Craps, Bac, or ideally blackjack+counting. Much better off on VP for the lower variance too, since you're playing 80 $5 total hands, instead of 1 $400 hand.

I think they give you twenty $20 vouchers for table play. But thanks for the info.