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> We just got our EI locals mailers for January. The cash vouchers are back, replacing the free play that would automatically be loaded on our cards.
>
> For many years spouses could redeem each others cash vouchers but they cracked down on that a year or so ago. Then they went to the free-play option. I guess too many people were picking up free play for other people???
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Forgive the slight digression, but your question brings up an interesting point. The other day my wife and I were having a discussion about free play vs. cash vouchers. We were speculating whether or not the near universal change from cash back (including mailed cash vouchers) to free play has hurt, rather than helped the casinos' bottome line.
The casinos originally switched over to free play because (I'm assuming) they were tired of watching some of their cash back simply "walk out the door". They figured - probably correctly so - that the average player would continue to play long past the required number of spins needed to satisfy the free play amount, and would therefore just eventually lose whatever was won from the free play back to the machine. Additionally, the free play will generally cost the casino somewhat less than face value, due to the house advantage. ($100 of free play run through a 98% machine is only worth $98.) Taken over millions of dollars of free play it adds up to a fair amount of savings.
But there are some downsides to free play as well (again from the casinos' point of view). One big consideration is mentioned in Jean's original post (see above). This opportunity generally was not available in the days of cash vouchers. Plus, I'm not convinced that free play is really making much of a difference in the amount of money that simply walks out the door. I'm guessing that many of the people (mostly AP types) who frequently just collected their cash back and left are the same people that will now often play exactly their free play and no more.
Somewhere along the line the casinos had to make some major programming changes to their machines and slot systems in order to get free play to work. Granted, this was a one-time expense, but it still must have cost them something.
Then there are the intangible psychological considerations. I'm thinking that the average player received more personal satisfaction from someone handing him an actual $20 bill than they now receive from a machine ringing up $20 in credits for free play, even though that same player would often just stick the $20 bill right into the nearest machine and play it anyway. Advantage players understand that in the long run $100 in free play is worth very close to the same as $100 in cash, but I'm not sure the average player makes this connection. Perhaps the casinos have lost a bit of good will with the elimination of cash back.
This is all speculation of course. What do the rest of you think?
EE
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