Ask the Slot Expert: Bounceback cash or point multiplier?

A friend who lives near the Gulf Coast casinos called a few days ago to get my take on the current video poker conditions in Las Vegas. He visits Las Vegas frequently -- or, at least, used to visit frequently, pre-pandemic. There was almost complete overlap in the Venn diagram of the casinos we visit most frequently. I would often run into him at Gold Coast on Wednesday (Young at Heart day) and we would sometimes make plans to meet at South Point.

I told him that I haven't been to South Point since Jean Scott moved and I've been to only Red Rock and Suncoast since the pandemic began.

No, I lie. I went to Arizona Charlie's Decatur on Presidents' Day. But not to play.

Dunkin Donuts gives 100 bonus points for placing a mobile order on Mondays. I had been going to the DD near Red Rock or the one on the way from Gold Coast/Palms to Red Rock. But now that a Monday morning run has to be to pick up a cold brew and a snack and come right back home for a conference call with a client, close-to-home became a more important criterion than near-a-casino or on-the-way.

I was always traveling south to a casino, so I knew the roads south of home but not north. I defaulted to the DD on Sahara for my Monday morning run. There are a couple of locations about a mile closer than Sahara. The closest one is up north. I already knew how to get to Sahara, so I kept going to Sahara.

At the end of January, I said to myself, "Self," I said, "you really ought to try the north DD. It's the closest one to you."

It was easy to get to and had plenty of parking. My order was ready and complete when I went in to pick it up. This would be my new go-to DD except....

There was a sign on the door saying it was closing for renovations the next day and would be closed for most of February. It's still closed, but the app says "temporarily closed" so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it hasn't closed for good.

The next closest DD is on Decatur in Arizona Charlie's. It also has the On Tap system, so I could see what that was like. Maybe this could be my new go-to DD.

I parked and pulled up the app to place my order. When I got to the order confirmation page and saw the prices, I realized that I had forgotten about the in-casino surcharge that adds on 10-25% over the standalone location price. I was already there, so I placed the order and removed the location from my favorite-locations list in the app.

I told my friend that, in my limited knowledge and experience since 2020, South Point is the only place that still lets you play NSU at breakeven or better every day. VP still pays 0.3% in cashback. VP play at Boyd and Stations pay only 0.05% in cashback on a normal day and 0.5% on a 10x points day.

I told him that I was perfectly happy playing NSU at breakeven (Who wouldn't be?) under the old point system and I wondered if I was going to get flagged for playing almost exclusively on multiplier days.

My friend asked me how I was doing with bounceback cash. Bounceback cash is the free play that a casino offers you to get you back through its doors. Years (and years) ago, Atlantic City's casinos used to give you a roll or half-roll of quarters after you did your time in line at the redemption booth. Now, casinos have much more control over bounceback cash. You can redeem it at a machine, but you don't earn points on it and you can't cash it out. No more spending my free play on a pretzel and soda at the shop next to the casino on the boardwalk. No more walking out of the casino with your bounceback cash.

I told him that I've never seen bounceback cash offers as high as the ones he's received from the casinos near him. He gets in a week what I get in a month. It's impossible to know how much the games we play, the amount of action we give, how frequently we visit, and how other factors affect our offers. Still, he's getting about four times what I'm getting and jokingly suggested that I might want to consider moving to the Gulf.

His question made me finally compare point multipliers with bounceback cash. I had always favored point multipliers because they make NSU a positive expectation game, but maybe I was giving bounceback cash short shrift.

My bounceback offers vary a lot from month to month because the amount I play varies a lot from month to month.

My cousin and I have always ridiculed bounceback cash offers of $5 to be too little to entice us, but maybe these small offers are more valuable than they appear.

Under the new point system at Boyd and Stations, you have a 0.23% advantage playing NSU on a 10x day. I have to play about $2174 in action to have an expected win of $5.

Now let's look at bounceback cash. Adding cashback of 0.05% to NSU's long-term payback of 99.73% gives a negative expectation of 0.22%. Playing about $2273 gives an expected loss of $5.

I can play NSU or any video poker paytable or any machine, for that matter, at breakeven as long as I stop when my expected loss equals my bounceback cash. If I stop before that point, I have an expected profit. You can turn any machine positive as long as you stop playing before your expected loss equals your bounceback cash.

Many players say that it seems like you never get much from free play, whether its bounceback or redeemed points. You may not get many hands from free play, but your chances of hitting a high-paying hand are the same on a free-play-funded hand as on a cash-funded hand.

One casino ran a promotion in which you won the amount of free play on a card you drew from a bin when you hit a royal. A friend of mine hit a royal, activated her free play, and then hit another royal on the free play she got from the first royal.

I have a new respect for bounceback cash. Maybe not so much for $5, but with a larger amount, I might actually a have greater expected profit using bounceback cash than playing on 10x point day.

Which do you prefer? Bounceback cash or point multiplier?

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