Our recent article on Free Play Abuse attracted a lot of attention. In it, we discussed how casinos might cut off players for redeeming an offer without doing any play. One of the comments on our article got right to the point:
Except they owe it to you for all the losses previously.
Anonymous
We’ve spoken here in the past about the point of a players card – you play using the card, the casino gets valuable data. But part of that trade-off is they learn more about your play, and then extend casino offers to woo you back to the casino.
The casino offer has two aspects to it:
- It’s based on your historical play
- It’s based on the expectation you’ll play that way again
So what disrupts this pattern is when you show up to a casino, claim your gift or play your free play, and then leave without much further play, if any play at all.
Now you’ve done two things:
- You’ve added a 0 or low play day to your historical play
- You broke the expectation that by showing up and claiming your offer you’ll play the way you normally play
In the most aggressive cases, the casino will note this as Free Play Abuse and cut off offers. More often you’ll just see your offers diminished by the addition of a no play day.
Of course, it depends on how often you do this – doing it once isn’t a pattern, and there are plenty of casinos that shrug off one deviation from the norm. We’ve even spoken with players who went to the players desk when they were cut off after one scenario, was told about the policy, and then had their offers restored. It’s treated in that way like an educational moment and you get a second chance.
So the important thing to remember is that while your offers are based on historical play, the moment you don’t play and collect an offer, that itself is part of your historical play, and casinos will use that new knowledge accordingly.
You earned that gift or free play based on your previous play, but the moment you accept an offer and don’t offer play in return, casinos are not obligated to keep giving you more offers. If you want to receive more offers, you’ll need to play.
Have a question? Submit yours here!
