vpFREE2 Forums

The Cost of "Free" Play

#1

As I noted months ago many slot tournaments now are awarding prizes in the form of FreePlay (slot credits) instead of cash.

And, many of you now receive offers that with a stay have some sort of slot credit component attached.

Yesterday I ran some computer simulations to analyze one of my upcoming offers. Before I tell you the results, let me state very clearly that this process was by no means scientfic. I just wanted to get an idea of what might occur.

I started with an offer of $500 in slot credits. To redeem these credits, I chose to play a $1 single line version of 3 games: 9/6 Jacks, 8/5 Bonus and 9/6 DDB. Although my results should have improved playing at the 25c level, I assumed none of these games would be offered full-pay at that denomination. So, I am proceding with the knowledge that I am underfunded for $1 play in the long run.

Back to the trials: $500 in slot credits is exactly 100 hands.

Next, I wanted to look at two scenarios.

The first scenario was to simply walk away after redeeming my slot credit. Whatever is yielded by the $500 is immediately cashed out.

The second scenario was to continue playing until I reached $20K coin-in or I went broke, whichever came first.

In the first round of play (walking away after redeeming the slot credit) my results showed that $500 played through once:

Returned a low of $325 and a high of $815 playing 9/6 Jacks
          a low of $385 and a high of $820 playing 8/5 BP
          a low of $205 and a high of $765 playing 9/6 DDB

In no trial was there a higher paying hand than a 4K. I guess that pretty much rules out "expecting" a royal in 100 hands, which makes sense! In fact, many times in such a small number of trials you won't even see the 4K.

To me, these results suggested that if you plan to walk away after exactly using your slot credits, then choose the most conservative game. Personally, I don't want to risk taking home less than half of my original slot credit on DDB for only a 30% or so chance of improving it.

Next, the results of the second scenario (continuing play) disturbed me but were not surprising. Some of you already know what to expect.

But for those of you new to the game who think you'll get back 99% or more of your $20K played through on full-pay games (meaning you walk away losing only $200 or so) please note the following:

In at least 70% of the JOB, BP or DDB trials I lost everything well before reaching the $20K coin-in threshold. And in at least half of the DDB trials the total coin-in didn't even reach $6000.

Not surprisingly, in any trial when a royal was achieved the $20K coin-in mark was easily reached.

These very unscientific results are a sobering reminder that in many instances you are not playing a winning game, even with perfect play (I assume my computer played perfect strategy). The full-pay percent return pertains to a very long timeframe. Your bankroll has to allow you to play again when, during that small percentage of the time, you recoup what was taken before.

#2

Boy Mikey, you sure have a way with the obvious.

···

--- On Thu, 12/10/09, mikeymic <mikeymic@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: mikeymic <mikeymic@yahoo.com>
Subject: [vpFREE] The Cost of "Free" Play
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, December 10, 2009, 2:54 PM

As I noted months ago many slot tournaments now are awarding prizes in the form of FreePlay (slot credits) instead of cash.

And, many of you now receive offers that with a stay have some sort of slot credit component attached.

Yesterday I ran some computer simulations to analyze one of my upcoming offers. Before I tell you the results, let me state very clearly that this process was by no means scientfic. I just wanted to get an idea of what might occur.

I started with an offer of $500 in slot credits. To redeem these credits, I chose to play a $1 single line version of 3 games: 9/6 Jacks, 8/5 Bonus and 9/6 DDB. Although my results should have improved playing at the 25c level, I assumed none of these games would be offered full-pay at that denomination. So, I am proceding with the knowledge that I am underfunded for $1 play in the long run.

Back to the trials: $500 in slot credits is exactly 100 hands.

Next, I wanted to look at two scenarios.

The first scenario was to simply walk away after redeeming my slot credit. Whatever is yielded by the $500 is immediately cashed out.

The second scenario was to continue playing until I reached $20K coin-in or I went broke, whichever came first.

In the first round of play (walking away after redeeming the slot credit) my results showed that $500 played through once:

Returned a low of $325 and a high of $815 playing 9/6 Jacks
a low of $385 and a high of $820 playing 8/5 BP
a low of $205 and a high of $765 playing 9/6 DDB

In no trial was there a higher paying hand than a 4K. I guess that pretty much rules out "expecting" a royal in 100 hands, which makes sense! In fact, many times in such a small number of trials you won't even see the 4K.

To me, these results suggested that if you plan to walk away after exactly using your slot credits, then choose the most conservative game. Personally, I don't want to risk taking home less than half of my original slot credit on DDB for only a 30% or so chance of improving it.

Next, the results of the second scenario (continuing play) disturbed me but were not surprising. Some of you already know what to expect.

But for those of you new to the game who think you'll get back 99% or more of your $20K played through on full-pay games (meaning you walk away losing only $200 or so) please note the following:

In at least 70% of the JOB, BP or DDB trials I lost everything well before reaching the $20K coin-in threshold. And in at least half of the DDB trials the total coin-in didn't even reach $6000.

Not surprisingly, in any trial when a royal was achieved the $20K coin-in mark was easily reached.

These very unscientific results are a sobering reminder that in many instances you are not playing a winning game, even with perfect play (I assume my computer played perfect strategy). The full-pay percent return pertains to a very long timeframe. Your bankroll has to allow you to play again when, during that small percentage of the time, you recoup what was taken before.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#3

Good analysis....

So have you decided, what you are going to play yet with that free play ??? :slight_smile: Are you going to be conservative or take that chance to play more or play a riskier game ?

It's amazing to me that when I play a full-pay machine, or something close to or over 100% and I don't win but lose, I'm much more disappointed it seems, then when I don't win while playing games that are below 100% payback then. On those sub-par games, I almost expect to lose, but sometimes, it is just the opposite of what happens.

Aren't there roughly 2.5 million unique 5 card hands that can be dealt to you out of a standard 52 card deck ? Does anyone know what the reasonable hand count that would have to be play in order for you to play EVERY hand at least one time. I have no idea, but would it be like 10-15 million hands ? Of course you'd get many repeated hands of the exact same hand before you could achieve playing every hand exactly one time.....

I'm just trying to "grasp" the length of what "long run" means in trying to equate it to hours of play. If I played 1000 hands of single line an hour and it took me 2500 hours to play that 2.5 million hands. Even at a 40 hour a week play time, that would be 62.5 weeks of solid play, playing 40 hours a week, and not even close of playing every unique hand once even.

I just know sometimes you can play a very good game and your session result can be very, very bad, and I guess the reasoning is, you just were dealt bad cards/hands out of that 2.5 million "chances" that you had, and even playing 8 hours total, is really, a very small percentage of hands that you played.

Then you see someone sit down next to you and play a bad game like 8/5 JOB and they win like crazy. That's when you know it's time to go home and just call it a day, a very bad day . . . lol

-L

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "mikeymic" <mikeymic@...> wrote:

As I noted months ago many slot tournaments now are awarding prizes in the form of FreePlay (slot credits) instead of cash.

And, many of you now receive offers that with a stay have some sort of slot credit component attached.

Yesterday I ran some computer simulations to analyze one of my upcoming offers. Before I tell you the results, let me state very clearly that this process was by no means scientfic. I just wanted to get an idea of what might occur.

I started with an offer of $500 in slot credits. To redeem these credits, I chose to play a $1 single line version of 3 games: 9/6 Jacks, 8/5 Bonus and 9/6 DDB. Although my results should have improved playing at the 25c level, I assumed none of these games would be offered full-pay at that denomination. So, I am proceding with the knowledge that I am underfunded for $1 play in the long run.

Back to the trials: $500 in slot credits is exactly 100 hands.

Next, I wanted to look at two scenarios.

The first scenario was to simply walk away after redeeming my slot credit. Whatever is yielded by the $500 is immediately cashed out.

The second scenario was to continue playing until I reached $20K coin-in or I went broke, whichever came first.

In the first round of play (walking away after redeeming the slot credit) my results showed that $500 played through once:

Returned a low of $325 and a high of $815 playing 9/6 Jacks
          a low of $385 and a high of $820 playing 8/5 BP
          a low of $205 and a high of $765 playing 9/6 DDB

In no trial was there a higher paying hand than a 4K. I guess that pretty much rules out "expecting" a royal in 100 hands, which makes sense! In fact, many times in such a small number of trials you won't even see the 4K.

To me, these results suggested that if you plan to walk away after exactly using your slot credits, then choose the most conservative game. Personally, I don't want to risk taking home less than half of my original slot credit on DDB for only a 30% or so chance of improving it.

Next, the results of the second scenario (continuing play) disturbed me but were not surprising. Some of you already know what to expect.

But for those of you new to the game who think you'll get back 99% or more of your $20K played through on full-pay games (meaning you walk away losing only $200 or so) please note the following:

In at least 70% of the JOB, BP or DDB trials I lost everything well before reaching the $20K coin-in threshold. And in at least half of the DDB trials the total coin-in didn't even reach $6000.

Not surprisingly, in any trial when a royal was achieved the $20K coin-in mark was easily reached.

These very unscientific results are a sobering reminder that in many instances you are not playing a winning game, even with perfect play (I assume my computer played perfect strategy). The full-pay percent return pertains to a very long timeframe. Your bankroll has to allow you to play again when, during that small percentage of the time, you recoup what was taken before.

#4

My advice: play exactly what you would normally play if you were using your own money. My reasoning is that the free play is just supplanting money you would have needed to bring anyway.

···

Good analysis....

So have you decided, what you are going to play yet with that free play > ??? :slight_smile: Are you going to be conservative or take that chance to play
more or play a riskier game ?

#5

Or maybe most of the time that poor result is a strong possibility that we ignore.

Before running the trials I had an idea in my head of what to expect. And while not as proficient as many of you, math was always my best subject from 1st Grade right on through an MBA degree.

I would have predicted playing 9/6 Jacks that I would lose all my money 1/3 of the time, I would have lost a portion of it 1/3 of the time, and I would have won modestly 1/3 of the time. It never occured to me that in 70% of the 9/6 Jacks trials I would lose everything.

For fans of 9/6 DDB, that game had one trial with the highest profit of the day: $5855. Being curious, I went back to original dealt hands to see how an obvious royal started. 2 suited cards? 3? 4?

When I saw no final payoffs associated with any of those starting hands I was clearly perplexed.

But as I glanced at the final statistics, it then dawned on me: the highest profit of the day was won with no royals at all! Further inspection revealed one instance of 4 A's w/ K, 2 2's-4's w/K, one 4 A's, six 2's-4's, etc.

As for what I would play with my slot credits, I'll follow the same advice I would give to others in financial planning. Basically, you assume more risk when young, because you want the upside potential but have time to recoup losses. You stay conservative when old so that you don't jeopardize what you have worked your whole life to achieve. And since I'm in the middle, by splitting the FreePlay 45% BP, 35% Jacks, and 20% DDB I'll have the best of both worlds.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "len_jz" <len_jz@...> wrote:

I just know sometimes you can play a very good game and your session result can be very, very bad, and I guess the reasoning is, you just were dealt bad cards/hands out of that 2.5 million "chances" that you had

#6

9/6 Jacks is mostly a loser until you hit a royal, and even then, on average it costs you about $5,000 to hit a dollar royal. Even if you play a royal cycle's worth of hands (about 40,000), your odds of hitting at least one royal are still only about 66%.

If your goal is to get as much out of your freeplay as possible without committing other funds (your bankroll), you're better off with low variance games like blackjack (even even money blackjack) or craps or roulette or 1 or 2 spot keno or some low variance reel slots (look for the ones with small value paytables).

Maybe now you're beginning to understand Kelly bankroll. If you don't have at least the Kelly bankroll (approx. variance/edge bets), and can play at least N0 (variance/edge^2) hands, you're a fool to play, even if the game is positive in the long term. Unless you enjoy burning money, in which case, burn away!

http://wizardofodds.com/kelly

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "mikeymic" <mikeymic@...> wrote:

I would have predicted playing 9/6 Jacks that I would lose all my money 1/3 of the time, I would have lost a portion of it 1/3 of the time, and I would have won modestly 1/3 of the time. It never occured to me that in 70% of the 9/6 Jacks trials I would lose everything.