Free bets and match-play's

HI there,

This forum is great and I have always been a fan of the main site 'Wizard of Odds'!! I am in the UK and my casino has recently started sending out free bets and match play coupons. The coupons they generally send are;
£5 lucky number bets for roulette (can only be used on numbers and coupon is retained upon winning or losing)
Free bets on Blackjack (various values, £5/£10 etc)
Match play for slots often £10 or £20 but sometimes more.
They also have a slots 'bonus' where we hand over £20 and they give vouchers to the value of £30 to play on the slots.
My question is, how much do these vouchers affect the house edge? If you could go through each type of voucher and what they are worth to the customer and how you come to this figure I would really appreciate it!
Many thanks :)

The roulette and slots bonuses are easy, so I'll cover those first:

Lucky number value = (5*35)/37 = 4.73. 35 is the payout if it hits, and 1/37 is the chance that it will hit. I'm assuming a single zero wheel.
Slots bonus = voucher value * slot EV - cash. Let's use 30 for the voucher value, 95% for the slot EV, and 20 for the cash:

30*.95 - 20 = 8.50

The blackjack free bet value varies depending on what, exactly, they pay for a blackjack. But generally it's worth slightly less than half its face value.

There are two versions of match play that can be used for slots, and you'll have to tell me which interpretation they use:

a) Play 10, then get 10 that has to be played
b) Play 20 - 10 of your own money, 10 as a match

The value is about the same for both (match value * 2 * slot EV), but how they work is a little different.

Those coupons are nice when you can find them, since they flip the house edge heavily to your side. Have fun.

Fremont it's easy for you, that's obvious. But not for most of us. So Thanks

Thanks fremont!

The match play bonuses can be straight matches such as £10 of my money which they match so I have a £20 ticket or a 'bonus' whereby I put £20 down and they add £10 giving me a £30 ticket.

As always, these coupons are "come-ons". They are designed to get you into the casino earlier and more frequently than you might otherwise go. And win or lose the casino figures once you are there, you will stay for awhile.

Good luck.

I generally just take a few cents off the half-the-nominal-value and consider that close enough, but I always know that there is no way I am going to drive to the casino and only spend an hour or so.

Taking the cents off is a nice idea.

Quote: geefer12

Thanks fremont!

The match play bonuses can be straight matches such as £10 of my money which they match so I have a £20 ticket or a 'bonus' whereby I put £20 down and they add £10 giving me a £30 ticket.

No, thank you for the update.

The 20-10 match coupon is worth 10-(20*.95)=9
The 30-20 match is worth 10-(30*.95)=8.50

in both cases assuming 95% return on the slots.

Nice, but as advised here, don't go too far out of your way to use them. Unless you've got a whole bunch of them you can use at the same time.

Quote: geefer12

Thanks fremont!

The match play bonuses can be straight matches such as £10 of my money which they match so I have a £20 ticket or a 'bonus' whereby I put £20 down and they add £10 giving me a £30 ticket.

The simplest way to look at it is that a match play of face value X is worth x/2 dollars, pounds, whatever. They're actually worth a little less than that, but exactly how much depends on the house edge of the game on which they're played, so 50% of the face amount is as good a way as any to value them.