Okay, how do you make money on slot bonuses?

[EasyRhino]

I slowly have come to the realization that many seemingly -EV casino bonuses can be turned positive if they are played aggressively enough. However, slots-only bonuses are still kryptonite to me. I just automatically assume that the 5-10% house edge will clobber anything useful.

But maybe I'm wrong? However, I don't have an intellectual framework with which to evaluate slots bonuses. How do I find one that can turn a profit?

Additionally, how the hell do you size the bets when playing for the "big win" early in the bonus? With simple games like baccarat or pai gow, I can just bet everything on one hand, with BJ, two hands (to allow for split). With some kind of raise-type poker game, something more like 1/6 (two raised hands). But what the hell do you do with a slot?

 

[KenSmith]

The only advice that seems appropriate is... Choose fewer paylines and higher denominations. Ideally, you want to bet lots of high-denomination coins on just one payline. That's the highest variance play, and in this case, variance is good.

 

[EasyRhino]

Now hang on, we don't want to take variance too far. I know that theoretically, single-number roulette is a great way to take advantage of a match coupon or insurance regime. However, that's taking things too far, considering we may be talking about dropping $100 or more dollars with a bankroll that's only in the single thousands.

Playing a single line on a 20 line machine seems like it would approach single-number roulette in results, wouldn't it?

But thanks Ken, the idea of reducing lines hadn't even occured to me. It looks like $5 per line is possible, so mega-betting shouldn't be impossible.

Beyond that I guess it's just a matter of setting a target that produces acceptable return and risk (for instance, 4x starting chipcount), and then crunching the numbers on individual bonuses as they show up?

 

[bluewhale]

Now hang on, we don't want to take variance too far. I know that theoretically, single-number roulette is a great way to take advantage of a match coupon or insurance regime. However, that's taking things too far, considering we may be talking about dropping $100 or more dollars with a bankroll that's only in the single thousands.

Playing a single line on a 20 line machine seems like it would approach single-number roulette in results, wouldn't it?

But thanks Ken, the idea of reducing lines hadn't even occured to me. It looks like $5 per line is possible, so mega-betting shouldn't be impossible.

Beyond that I guess it's just a matter of setting a target that produces acceptable return and risk (for instance, 4x starting chipcount), and then crunching the numbers on individual bonuses as they show up?

with a BR in the single thousands i'd say to stay away from slots bonuses. however, as mentioned, betting high is the way to go. I recently did a 40% match upto $40 slots bonus on a microgaming site. i know its a terrible bonus, but i got caught there (i thought they allowed blackjack, but it turned out that it was slots only and my money was stuck). so anyway, the strategy i used was to bet the highest possible thing on a machine with a relatively low jackpot. the reasoning here is that you want lots of variance (high bet), but also u don't want to see a big jackpot (very low chance of hitting the jackpot and smaller other prizes on the machine). i ended going with double magic slots, bet 20 bucks a hand ($10/coin, 2 coins). as you can imagine, my 140 started to drop pretty quick, lucky for me though, i hit a 100x payout and then ground the rest on $0.50 bets, netting 1250 bucks.
so long story short, slots are +EV, but unless you're prepared to see 20 or even more busts in a row, stay the hell away from slots.

 

[EasyRhino]

(i thought they allowed blackjack, but it turned out that it was slots only and my money was stuck).

At most microgaming sites, if you're below the minimum balance, you can just deposit more money to get the cashable balance over, say, $50, and then withdraw no worries.

It's something I forget about usually, but it's sometimes the most +EV thing to do

 

[shadroch]

I'm not sure if it works but a good friend swears by this theory.
When playing a game that has more than5 lines,he plays 1/3 of the lines.
If a game has 9 lines,instead of playing a few credits on each line,he'll go ten credits on three lines.I've seen him hit some very nice scores and when he loses,which is quite often,his money last longer and his comps are outstanding.And when he hits a bonus,he's got ten credits on it so the payout gets pretty big.

 

[bluewhale]

At most microgaming sites, if you're below the minimum balance, you can just deposit more money to get the cashable balance over, say, $50, and then withdraw no worries.

It's something I forget about usually, but it's sometimes the most +EV thing to do

this site was a little shady to begin with (vegas country), and although their site said it allowed BJ, their support emailed me and said they didn't after i attempted to cashout. also it wasn't ur typical MGV site as my bonus balance always showed 0, even when i initially got my bonus. so basically my money was locked in the site until i met the WR, i could have tried to fight em on it, but i'm lazy, and i figured i was getting brake even or maybe even marginall ev with the slots method i implemented.

 

[aka23]

I slowly have come to the realization that many seemingly -EV casino bonuses can be turned positive if they are played aggressively enough. However, slots-only bonuses are still kryptonite to me. I just automatically assume that the 5-10% house edge will clobber anything useful.

But maybe I'm wrong? However, I don't have an intellectual framework with which to evaluate slots bonuses. How do I find one that can turn a profit?

Additionally, how the hell do you size the bets when playing for the "big win" early in the bonus? With simple games like baccarat or pai gow, I can just bet everything on one hand, with BJ, two hands (to allow for split). With some kind of raise-type poker game, something more like 1/6 (two raised hands). But what the hell do you do with a slot?

It's good to see a familar name here. Yes, aggresive betting can make just about any bonus EV+, including slots only bonuses. To simplify things lets say it's a 100% $100 slots only bonus, a 30xB playthrough, the slot has a 5% house edge, no max bet size, and a 3/4 of the time the slot does not return anything.

If you played through the bonus on minimum variance slot bets, you are expected to lose the full bonus and a portion of your initial deposit.

However, if you bet everything in 1 bet before playing through. On that first bet:
3/4 the time, you'd lose your $100 deposit and the $100 bonus, and
1/4 the time, you'd gain an average of $560 (total bankroll $760).

If you then, met the remaining 28xB playthrough on the same game with minimum variance bets, the average loss is the bonus +$40.

So after the bonus is removed... 1/4 the time, you have a net gain of $560-$40=$520; and 3/4 the time, you have net loss of your $100 deposit. This makes the EV of the bonus $520*.25 - $100*.75 = +$55.

You generally cannot bet your full bankroll on a slot spin, but the principle is the same. Start out with high variance bets until you reach your target gain or bust, then switch to minimum variance bets after meeting your target gain.

 

[EasyRhino]

I've been trying this out with really small ($20) bonuses, and to be honest, I'm not enamored so far, I prefer the ability to use table games to construct your own level of aggressiveness

Tne thing I'm having trouble setting is a "target level" for the bonus. I'm toying around with if I get a chipcount that is 5x whatever I started with, then that is an appropriate time to start the grinddown. But I'm not sure if that's aggressive enough.

 

[aka23]

I've been trying this out with really small ($20) bonuses, and to be honest, I'm not enamored so far, I prefer the ability to use table games to construct your own level of aggressiveness

Tne thing I'm having trouble setting is a "target level" for the bonus. I'm toying around with if I get a chipcount that is 5x whatever I started with, then that is an appropriate time to start the grinddown. But I'm not sure if that's aggressive enough.

With this type of strategy, you will bust the majority of the time. But in those rare cases where you hit a bonus round or similar with a large bet, you will win big.

The more aggresive your betting, the higher your expected gain and the greater risk of busting. If you could find a bet such that you'd bust 99% of the time, then the average gain would be near the maximum of Bx(house edge of slot). However, with such a low win ratio, you might never see a win.

You can run tests in practice mode to decide on appropriate values... which depend on the bonus, the slot game, and your risk tolerance.

 

[bluewhale]

hey easy, i don't know what level of bonus hunter you are, but slots bonuses require an extremely large bankroll. also there are many good bonuses out there, like 3 card poker, pai gow, war, etc. all these are better than slots bonuses. so unless you are completely high and dry, i don't think you need to tap them.

 

[EasyRhino]

Yeah, I'm starting to think they're just not worth it.

I'm grinding down an RTG slot as we speak. I only deposited $20, yet if I want to grind it down using 10 or 20 cent pulls, we're talking THOUSANDS of slot pulls, which even though it's on autoplay, is going to take like two days.

Screw that.

 

[EasyRhino]

Incidentally, on the one casino where I hit a win with a $20 and then proceeded to grind down the WR with tiny-ass pulls, it took a few days of doing thousands of autospins off an on (babysitting each 1000), and my cashout request was $26.

I am so over this.