Cumulative WR versus zeroing out - pros and cons (rep friendly)

[jstrike]

I'd like to field some opinions from players on this sticky situation (pun intended) that's come up with the little "hobby" site I built, which I won't name here.

We have a 30x WR on bonuses (including on the deposit amount, if it's a deposit bonus). Certain games (roulette, blackjack, craps) count 20% towards clearing it, while the rest of the games and poker count 100%. It's a little unusual in that it clears a penny at a time as you play, so you can always withdraw winnings if you're willing to forfeit the part you haven't cleared. In other words, players don't have to wait until the whole thing is cleared to withdraw, which somewhat makes up for the relatively high WR multiplier.

Now, here's the problem. By default, the WR accumulates from one bonus to the next. With deposit bonuses, I've gotten in the habit of just clearing it as a courtesy to players, so they don't have a reason not to re-deposit. This is good for them and good for me. But recently I started playing around with new things... a cashback bonus and a no-deposit bonus. And the problem with these is, especially for the cashback bonus, it would be suicide to clear the WR on it every time a player zeros it out. It was a 50% cashback, which is ludicrous I know and it's mostly a failure. Luckily most people haven't heard of it, and I'm going to stop offering it soon. But in the meantime there are situations where players have fairly big leftover WR from these things, and then leave the site and don't want to redeposit because obviously they don't want to have to clear it. But if I promise to clear it every time, it's a lose/lose situation for me... basically it becomes the same as giving them a 50% cashback with no WR at all every other time, since half the time they can just double up and the other half the time they'll lose it with no penalty. And that's not what I wanted to do -- there's another, 10% option with no WR, but a lot of people ignore that one and go for the bigger bonus.

So I'm dealing with either players who take a cashback and win back their losses, or ones who take a cashback, lose it and never come back. Either way it makes it impossible for the house to ever win. I feel like it's pretty generous to always clear WR on deposit bonuses as it is... I know some sites like Intercasino don't even do that. But on cashback bonuses it's a different animal because, also, this cashback works regardless of other bonuses they've already taken on deposit.

What I'm wondering is, how do you feel about cumulative WR on no-deposit and cashback bonuses? I feel like it's fair, from my point of view, but would it drive you away from playing again at that casino? Would you rather play at a casino that didn't offer any cashbacks at all, or only offered a low one, than a casino that offered a big one with those kinds of cumulative restrictions?

I'd love to hear any and all points of view on this, from players or casino reps... I'm in a bind and not sure if I should just back out of this or keep trying it.

 

[Jufo]

You said that the player is always able to cash out the non-bonus portion of balance anytime while completing the WR for the bonus? If the bonus balance has already gone to zero by busting out the whole balance and the player makes a new deposit then where exactly is this bonus balance that the player is left to fullfil? Are you saying that the new deposit is converted entirely into bonus money that cannot be cashed out? I am sure players don't like that.

Players can increase their EV by busting on a bonus balance early. If you force them to complete the whole WR with their subsequent deposits, you are trying to get them to give you back that EV they already earned. Why do you expect them to give it to you voluntarily, ie. it's mathematically better for them to not come back until you remove the WR from their account.

Also, WR carrying over needs to be informed to the player very clearly so that they won't get tricked on their next deposit with a bonus locked balance.

 

[jstrike]

You said that the player is always able to cash out the non-bonus portion of balance anytime while completing the WR for the bonus? If the bonus balance has already gone to zero by busting out the whole balance and the player makes a new deposit then where exactly is this bonus balance that the player is left to fullfil? Are you saying that the new deposit is converted entirely into bonus money that cannot be cashed out? I am sure players don't like that.

Players can increase their EV by busting on a bonus balance early. If you force them to complete the whole WR with their subsequent deposits, you are trying to get them give you back that EV they eadned. Why do you expect they want to give it to you voluntarily, ie. it's mathematically better for them to not come back until you remove the WR from their account.

Also, WR carrying over needs to be informed to the player very clearly so that they won't get tricked on their next deposit to a locked balance.

Basically it's not a WR on the bonus itself - it's a withholding on the whole account. Let's say you get a $10 cashback bonus. There's now $10 "withholding" on your account, which gets cleared at the rate of $0.01 for every $0.30 you play (or every $1.50 you play one of the 20% games). If you bet $10 on, say a live poker game, and double up, you can take out your $10.33 right away - your winnings plus the $0.33 you've cleared - but only at the cost of voiding the $9.67 uncleared in the bonus. This definitely raises a player's EV since they didn't even deposit to get the bonus, so it's a chance to win for nothing.

On the other hand, if they lose that $10 bet, there's going to be $9.67 locked up on their next deposit that has to be played through 30x before they can withdraw it.

That's not true for regular deposit bonuses, where the WR gets waived if they zero out. Just these ones where it's basically free money to play with, and the deposit is already gone (and maybe they already got a deposit bonus on it too). In other words we're giving them free chips to win with, but it seems fair (to me) that if they can withdraw their winnings right away, they shouldn't be allowed to cancel the WR if they lose the chip. But then again, even though it is a fair deal (the bonus is optional, after all), maybe it's just having like...a negative psychological impact instead of a positive one? That's what I'm wondering.

 

[Jufo]

That's not true for regular deposit bonuses, where the WR gets waived if they zero out. Just these ones where it's basically free money to play with, and the deposit is already gone (and maybe they already got a deposit bonus on it too). In other words we're giving them free chips to win with, but it seems fair (to me) that if they can withdraw their winnings right away, they shouldn't be allowed to cancel the WR if they lose the chip. But then again, even though it is a fair deal (the bonus is optional, after all), maybe it's just having like...a negative psychological impact instead of a positive one? That's what I'm wondering.

Well, it's a fair deal yes, but at the same time you cannot expect the players to not think about their best interest and not deposit any longer if the next "fresh" deposit gets tied to a WR. Yes, in my opinion the effect is negative if I feel like I am being punished for making a fresh deposit (ie. be forced fullfill previous bonus). On the other hand some player may opt to fullfill the WR voluntarily if he expects better offers later on so it might also be a mathematically calculated move.

I think not carrying WR over would be fairer. To compensate that you could demand the entire WR to completed for any cashouts to be allowed from any non-deposit bonus or cashback bonus. After all if it's entirely free money, it's not unreasonable to expect whole WR to completed in order to cash out.

 

[jstrike]

I think not carrying WR over would be fairer. To compensate that you could demand the entire WR to completed for any cashouts to be allowed from any non-deposit bonus or cashback bonus. After all if it's entirely free money, it's not unreasonable to expect whole WR to completed in order to cash out.

Yeah, I think that's very good advice. Even though it might work out to the same number of playthroughs in the end, it's better to load that up in front as opposed to asking the player for it later, and maybe turning them off from depositing again.

Gotta think about how to separate them, I guess it's just as long as any cashback or no-deposit bonus is active there would be a hold on the account. But it's a good idea.

I have to do the math on it but I think it's actually worse for players the way you're suggesting, than it would be for long-term players who took things the way they are now. But ...psychology, right? Lol. This is why I'm a programmer and never should have gotten on the management side of this or anything else.

 

[Nifty29]

I agree with Jufo. Holding over WR from bonuses stinks and the majority of players like myself would baulk at it.

My advice:

1. Make bonuses and winnings non-withdrawable until WR is met. You could reduce the WR to soften the blow.

2. Stop offering cashback on deposits where a bonus has been claimed. Very few casinos allow it. Either they get their bonus upfront, or afterwards, but not both.

3. Stop carrying over WR.

4. Clearing WR etc on a per account basis is fine with a tiny operation, but will be unworkable after some growth. The bonus issue needs to be sorted now so that it works regardless of how many players you have.

 

[zanzibar]

How about

5. Stop offering bonuses and save yourself the time, aggravation, and money spent dealing with "bonus abuse".

I am surprised that no casino that I have ever seen has used this strategy as a point of differentiation in an ultra-competetive and almost homogeneous market. Do something different and advertise it, tell people why you think its better (no locked deposits, withdraw at any time etc).

The benefits I see:
- No confusion or traps for players.
- Experienced (and possibly high value) players who know the pitfalls of bonuses are likely to be attracted.
- Money saved on your side in development, accounting and staffing costs.

The drawbacks:
- Players who only play with bonuses won't play there.
- You lose the ability to trap players with bonuses that smooth out short term payout variance.

Seeing as no-one else is doing it, I figure the benefits would outweigh the drawbacks as you would be positioning yourself totally differently to the hundreds of "me-too" casinos out there.

 

[jstrike]

Thanks for the advice!!! This is exactly what I was hoping to hear. I swear, turning to the community here produces such better ideas than sitting in conference weighting all these things...

I agree with Jufo. Holding over WR from bonuses stinks and the majority of players like myself would baulk at it.

This is what I was worried about. So it's like I'm shooting myself in the foot, offering a bonus and not getting any love. I have to say too, in my completely unscientific experience, most bonus players don't show much loyalty anyway after the bonus is over. So your point's well taken, I think I'm going about this all the wrong way.

My advice:

1. Make bonuses and winnings non-withdrawable until WR is met. You could reduce the WR to soften the blow.

After looking at it, I think this is too hard to do because of the mixed bonus situation. I don't want the deposit-based bonuses to be non-withdrawable, I think that's too harsh and I like being a place where the bonuses might not be 1000%, but on a 50% or 100% bonus you can get your winnings back out whenever you want. It's unusual, but I want players to feel safe that I'm not trying to hoard their deposits or put them in a no-win situation. As it is, the most of the bonus players on the site break even over the bonus... but that's why it's "bonus play", I'm not trying to use it as a hook to take people's money, I'm trying to use it to build loyalty so people think, well, those guys are nice.

I've walked a fine line in the time I've run this project because I want to be liked. I don't, actually, feel great about taking anybody's money when I have an edge. This is a really, frankly, terrible position for someone who owns a casino, and it might explain why the project is still in the hole and hasn't turned a profit yet. But seeming fair and being fair are also different things... I mean a rollover WR is actually fair, but seems unfair. And maybe my stance about non-withdrawable bonuses is too old-fashioned or hung up... but the truth is I'd almost rather have no bonus than a non-withdrawable one. But I'll get to that in a bit...

2. Stop offering cashback on deposits where a bonus has been claimed. Very few casinos allow it. Either they get their bonus upfront, or afterwards, but not both.

This was something I thought was more common. I got the idea from another casino, I don't remember which one. It seemed like a nice extra perk for loyalty. But looking back...I don't know if it makes sense.

3. Stop carrying over WR.

4. Clearing WR etc on a per account basis is fine with a tiny operation, but will be unworkable after some growth. The bonus issue needs to be sorted now so that it works regardless of how many players you have.

It is definitely a pain to keep track of. Right now there are just under 2000 players on the site, and my brother and I still pretty much know what all the active players have taken, know their styles of play and go in and manually do it if one of them zeros out a bonus. Right now, it's few times a day usually. But I can see that around 4-5000 players it could start to get hard to keep track of that way.

How about

5. Stop offering bonuses and save yourself the time, aggravation, and money spent dealing with "bonus abuse".

I am surprised that no casino that I have ever seen has used this strategy as a point of differentiation in an ultra-competetive and almost homogeneous market. Do something different and advertise it, tell people why you think its better (no locked deposits, withdraw at any time etc).

The benefits I see:
- No confusion or traps for players.
- Experienced (and possibly high value) players who know the pitfalls of bonuses are likely to be attracted.
- Money saved on your side in development, accounting and staffing costs.

The drawbacks:
- Players who only play with bonuses won't play there.
- You lose the ability to trap players with bonuses that smooth out short term payout variance.

Seeing as no-one else is doing it, I figure the benefits would outweigh the drawbacks as you would be positioning yourself totally differently to the hundreds of "me-too" casinos out there.

I actually really like this idea, and I would have no problem differentiating us that way if everyone thought like you. Really, I don't like bonuses, I never take them at other casinos, and like I mentioned before they don't really bring in the kind of players you want at the tables. On top of that they use up a lot of my time dealing with questions and people scrapping for bits and all kinds of potential for abuse, and I mean no-depo bonuses are rife with that, and since I started a no-depo bonus we've had umpteen different attempts to sign up more than once to get the bonus, and exactly zero people who deposited after they played their bonus out.

The problem is if you start running ads that say, like, "absolutely no bonuses," I think most people would just not understand that. There's this convention in casino advertising that you have to offer the biggest most ridiculous bonus -- whatever the terms are -- to get people's attention these days. I haven't done anything over 200%, and even that was uncomfortable because of the way the site's structured. And for me it would be natural to have no bonuses at all. But I worry people would just react negatively to that.

Anyway, I think that's the direction I'm heading in... I'm going to do 10% cashbacks with no WR, and I've pulled the 50% cashback bonus. I'll probably cancel the no-deposit soon unless something changes drastically in the kind of players we're getting from it... that's great if I were trying to impress somebody by how many signups we had in a month, but it's not doing anything for the bottom line. So maybe I will take this advice, and make us the first casino with no bonuses at all, if I can just figure out how to frame that so players appreciate it's in their best interests in the long run and it doesn't upset them...

Thanks for the great rundown of points and advice, you guys are the best. You should be running this thing, not me :notworthy

 

[zanzibar]

You can reward players in other ways - like you said a regular cashback or even a comp point rate that is well above the others in the industry. I just figure that as you're a smaller operator your time could be far better spent on things to make your site better rather than being tied up dealing with bonuses.

I take your point that saying "no bonuses" might turn off some players, but its about how you frame it. Don't stick it front and centre on the homepage, but you could do your standard promotions page that everyone does and advertise the cashback and comps. And then add a section that explains why you don't offer bonuses and why you believe that is better for players. Make the casino about the games, the service, and the experience instead of the deals. The more I talk about it the more I think I should open my own one!

 

[jstrike]

The more I talk about it the more I think I should open my own one!

Take mine! Please! I haven't had a day off in a year and a half!

 

[binshakindown]

I don't like bonuses

because of the strings attached. I will take a no deposit bonus, but if I bust out I do not want it sticky. Since probablity and statistics is super complex to many depositers, simple is easier and more better. Some folks are bonus experts and can quickly determine if it is good or bad. I am just simple I guess and don't want to be stuck with the terms of the bonus the next time I inject new money into the casino. It may be better to give your loyal player a bonus after they lose their "no bonus taken deposit"

Also, you can be a nice guy and still be fair to yourself. You are in the business of making a profit by entertaining folks and this is nothing to be beating yourself up over. You won't be doing your players any favors if you have to close up shop. A person can run a profitable business and not have to sacrafice integrity, etc.

Of course, just my two cents.

 

[binary128]

I am surprised that no casino that I have ever seen has used this strategy as a point of differentiation in an ultra-competetive and almost homogeneous market.

Cough.

Chris

 

[binary128]

The problem is if you start running ads that say, like, "absolutely no bonuses," I think most people would just not understand that. There's this convention in casino advertising that you have to offer the biggest most ridiculous bonus -- whatever the terms are -- to get people's attention these days. I haven't done anything over 200%, and even that was uncomfortable because of the way the site's structured. And for me it would be natural to have no bonuses at all. But I worry people would just react negatively to that.

Josh,

Agreed - I view this as a "Marketing challenge". You need to effectively "convince" the Player that your "No Bonus Deal" is better for them than the "Bonus Deal" thing that they are so used to. Unfortunately, to do so takes words (and even worse, MATH). People don't read, they "browse".

(ChopleyIOM and I discussed this a bit awhile ago. One of the unavoidable advantages of the SUB - it extends play time.)

In addition, if you are using any Affiliates, then convincing them that a "No Bonus Deal" is better, or even good, is a huge (and perhaps not winnable) challenge. Pick an affiliate site - after the name of the Casino is the SUB deal. (With an exclusion nod to thePOGG.)

Chris

 

[jstrike]

Josh,

Agreed - I view this as a "Marketing challenge". You need to effectively "convince" the Player that your "No Bonus Deal" is better for them than the "Bonus Deal" thing that they are so used to. Unfortunately, to do so takes words (and even worse, MATH). People don't read, they "browse".

(ChopleyIOM and I discussed this a bit awhile ago. One of the unavoidable advantages of the SUB - it extends play time.)

In addition, if you are using any Affiliates, then convincing them that a "No Bonus Deal" is better, or even good, is a huge (and perhaps not winnable) challenge. Pick an affiliate site - after the name of the Casino is the SUB deal. (With an exclusion nod to thePOGG.)

Chris

Hey Chris, long time. Thanks for the advice. It's great to have an industry veteran weigh in on this, uh, relatively inconsequential little problem of mine (and your other suggestions in the past).

I'm afraid you're right about affiliates. I mean from what I've seen, affiliate marketing leans hard on ranking sites by the "size" of the bonus, even if the player's not really getting a fair deal or what they expect from that "size". I guess it's a little like selling breakfast cereal. If they can find a way to say something has less than zero calories, that's what they're gonna tout first. Everyone knows nothing's got negative calories, but plenty of people are eating that cardboard crap anyway, hoping for a miracle. And you and I (and lots of players here, it looks like) know better, but for some reason that doesn't stop the marketing train. And I think I know why that is... it's the same reason I feel like I need to put something that can have an exclamation point after it in every tweet or email I send out about the casino. It's like if you're not offering something newer and better than the next guy, you're history.

Right now, though, all our referrals come from players - no "real" professional affiliates - and they only get an extra bonus based on actual first-time deposits after a 1x playthrough, not clickthroughs or signups or anything like that. That part at least seems to work pretty well. A pretty good number of referrals tend to be real players, so it's good for the referring player and good for us.

But as I'm watching this, uh, slow motion marketing disaster unfolding with my no-deposit and cashback, I've noticed... there definitely is a sweet spot of players who can do that math and figure out why a certain bonus is at best unnecessary... and they seem to differentiate pretty well between these. For the most part, the no-deposit has just led to a lot of abuse, to the point that now I feel like I'm running a zoo. I'm seeing stuff like six signups from Indonesia on the same day from slightly different IP addresses who all take the one-time bonus and (obviously) never come back. So far after like 5 days of this I've got about 22 people who took the bonus and none of them deposited. The cashback thing is better...in a way...because at least it's going to loyal players who've already deposited something and I'm happy giving them something back as long as it's not going to break us. It's a much more sophisticated player who takes that one and figures out ways to complicate it (help tickets like, "please give me a cashback bonus for all my losses in the last 24 hours", when it only officially applies to the last deposit and the player's already withdrawn twice in the last day - but he's a good player - so what do I do? Give him most of what he's asking for 'cause I'm a softie, I guess...)

Here's a little blunt disclosure... when I kicked this thing off with the idea being to appeal to "nerds" (and I think you even called my site a "nerd casino" once), a honcho at one of the last standing Costa Rica casinos told me I was being an idiot. And he might've been right. But he told me that, in his words, smart people aren't the market I should be aiming at. They're not the people who lose a whole bunch to the casino. They're just looking for an EV+ situation or a bonus they can take advantage of, and I should focus on marketing to people who aren't smart enough to figure out why bonuses are a lousy deal. And at the time I rejected that advice and thought it was pretty rotten to say something like that about your customers. And I still don't want to aim "low", I want to run a fair game and feel good about what I do.

And I think this is a conversation we need to have -- and by "we" I'm like, loosely including myself in an industry where you're a professional and I'm a total amateur. But we need to have an honest discussion in the industry about why 1000% bonuses and crappy terms aren't good for anybody and why it's a death spiral to try to out-bonus the next guy while throwing more and more fine print at the TOS, and it undermines player trust, and it's not good for anybody. And while we're at it we should talk about how a lot of people who do gamble online shouldn't be gambling at all, and how they're not the players we want. I want people who don't care if they win or lose $1000 and are playing for fun, not someone who's betting their rent or trying to make $25 a day switching IP addresses to cheat our bonuses.

I'm not sure really where that conversation starts, but I think marketing's gotta change and people have to wise up to the reality of what bonuses do to players, and I know you agree with that.

 

[zanzibar]

Cough.

Chris

Ok so I looked your profile up and I'm assuming you mean Pinnacle Sports. I like what I see there, but I still think my comment stands in as far as 1. it seems primarily a sportsbook and 2. there is no promotion of the "most bonuses are bullshit and thats why we don't offer them" angle. But thumbs up and I'll looking into adding it to my site.

In addition, if you are using any Affiliates, then convincing them that a "No Bonus Deal" is better, or even good, is a huge (and perhaps not winnable) challenge. Pick an affiliate site - after the name of the Casino is the SUB deal. (With an exclusion nod to thePOGG.)

Well I run an affiliate site (you would probably know it) and I'm the one suggesting it! And yes, bonus offers are displayed prominently on our site. Unfortunately players have become conditioned to expect them from casinos. It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem - the main differentiating factor between so many casinos for so many players is the bonus offer and the games. Many don't look much deeper than that until after they have a problem. So we try to educate people on site that bonuses are not always as great as they appear to be.

I'm afraid you're right about affiliates. I mean from what I've seen, affiliate marketing leans hard on ranking sites by the "size" of the bonus, even if the player's not really getting a fair deal or what they expect from that "size".

I think this is a fair comment in general and it annoys me too. You see sites advertising 3000% bonuses with cashout limits and insane playthrough requirements as good deals. And people believe it. However it doesn't apply in our case. Send me a PM, I'll let you know how my site ranks bonuses (its a bit more sophisticated than that) and you can tell me about your casino.

 

[me_and_ed]

You can reward players in other ways - like you said a regular cashback or even a comp point rate that is well above the others in the industry. I just figure that as you're a smaller operator your time could be far better spent on things to make your site better rather than being tied up dealing with bonuses.

I take your point that saying "no bonuses" might turn off some players, but its about how you frame it. Don't stick it front and centre on the homepage, but you could do your standard promotions page that everyone does and advertise the cashback and comps. And then add a section that explains why you don't offer bonuses and why you believe that is better for players. Make the casino about the games, the service, and the experience instead of the deals. The more I talk about it the more I think I should open my own one!

I like the increased comp value, VPL use to have Casino US at 5x the industry standard comps but only offered a bonus for first deposit of the month, rarely did I ever have less than $200 mth in comps, it was a great program.

 

[binary128]

Josh, hey. Yeah, long time (or it seems so).

I might have told you before - Galewind has a bonus casino product. It's not deployed right now (it was at Heroes), but we've got it. So, I've given some thought, on and off over the years, to this whole thing with bonuses.

First, let me state that our bonus system is an "after wager" bonus. (Others have described it as a "reward" bonus.) Therefore, we don't have (and I don't agree with the use of) non-deposit bonuses.

(I'm also well aware of the impact that an "after wager" bonus has on the typical "bonus hunter". That impact is not positive - ChopleyIOM and I have talked about this a bit. An "after wager" bonus does not ring ChopleyIOM's bell because what he is looking for is extended game play. He recognizes Galewind Software's "abnormally high RTPs", but a 2% (or more) increase in slot RTP does not equal a match bonus for extending play time. Chopley, jump in if I'm off the mark here.)

Second, our bonus never expires. If you deposit $100, get a $100 bonus, and play through your $100 deposit - the bonus is still there, with the remaining WR as it was when you left it. Deposit another $100, meet the WR, you get the bonus.

So, it may cost the Player less than $100 to get the $100 (they make some money), or it may cost them more than $100 to get the $100 (they lose some money).

I've concluded that the WR should be "reasonable" (20X deposit?), that all games (except Craps and Roulette) apply equally, and forget about using, or enforcing, "robot exclusions", "pattern betting exclusions" or any of that. You can then calculate how much money you can expect to lose on the bonus. I'll include some weird numbers just as an example.

10% of Players are going to make money on their original $100, PLUS they get the $100 bonus.

50% of Players are going to lose some money (from $1 to $99) on their original $100, BUT that is made up with the $100 bonus.

40% of Players are going to lose all of their $100 before meeting the WR. Of those 40%, half are going to deposit again and win the bonus. Half are not going to deposit again but leave the Casino.

I have no idea what the real numbers are, but the examples above cover the possibilities.

IMO, the greatest practical use of bonuses is as "comp bonuses" for long time (or losing) players. In this case, just give them some amount of money with a "sure to be met" WR (like 10X the bonus amount).

So, that's what I've thought it through to. That is, bonus programs should be deployed in such a manner that you know you're going to lose some of the money but you're not going to be taken to the cleaners. Expect APs, expect "robots", expect "2-tier players". Just factor it in.

The problem - if you're a small operation, or just starting out, then you're going to get nailed with a higher percentage of APs, "robots", "2-tier" players, etc. (In other words, you're going to lose money.) So, you need to have a budget to absorb this. It's a "long term" strategy, and proceeds under the assumption that your product, your Casino, will retain some percent of players every month and thus grow.

@zanzibar - if you go to Pinnacle's home page and click the orange tab labelled "Promotions", you'll see the words that they have decided to use to describe their marketing strategy. There aren't a lot of words (people don't read), but those words are just one click away, and the header goes right to the point.

Their casino has been running since September 2004 without any bonuses.

I agree with your statement about affiliates and bonuses - it is a chicken and egg thing. I remember (about 4 years ago) when Pinnacle approached a Sportsbook affiliate about promoting them. It was a total failure because of 1 reason - Pinnacle did not have any bonus to promote. That was it. Pinnacle is one of the most highly respected Sportbooks in the world, but without any bonus to promote, an Affiliate hook up failed out of the gate.

Chris

 

[jstrike]

Chris, (I'm taking notes) - is an "after-wager" bonus only given if the player zeroes out, like a cashback? Or on deposit?
Also, you're saying the WR is 20x bonus+deposit?

I'm not sure if the calculations I did on this awhile back are wrong, or what, but I was originally offering 30x WR (d+b) on Blackjack and getting absolutely slaughtered by robot players. They were just playing tens of thousands of hands at 10¢ each and averaging a 99.5% RTP. You mentioned Roulette and Craps, but I actually think those games are less dangerous to the house than Blackjack - I'm not sure why so many casinos don't clear WR based on those. The edge for perfectly played blackjack is the slimmest in the house and I had to start counting it (and Roulette and Craps) at 20% clearance (effectively 150x WR) to end the robot war.

 

[binary128]

Chris, (I'm taking notes) - is an "after-wager" bonus only given if the player zeroes out, like a cashback? Or on deposit?
Also, you're saying the WR is 20x bonus+deposit?

I'm not sure if the calculations I did on this awhile back are wrong, or what, but I was originally offering 30x WR (d+b) on Blackjack and getting absolutely slaughtered by robot players. They were just playing tens of thousands of hands at 10¢ each and averaging a 99.5% RTP. You mentioned Roulette and Craps, but I actually think those games are less dangerous to the house than Blackjack - I'm not sure why so many casinos don't clear WR based on those. The edge for perfectly played blackjack is the slimmest in the house and I had to start counting it (and Roulette and Craps) at 20% clearance (effectively 150x WR) to end the robot war.

Josh,

An "after wager" bonus is a bonus that is given after the Player has met the WR. That is, they do not get the bonus immediately added to their bank with the purchase. The only funds available for them to meet the WR are the actual purchase deposit. (That's why it is a problem for Players that are looking for the bonus to extend their playing time.)

If you're working with the "bonus tool", spend some time on the beatingbonuses web site.

The "bonus scenario" I laid out in my previous post assumed that you either had the funds available to absorb the losses from the robots, the APs, etc., OR that you had enough of a base customer list to offset these losses. If neither of these conditions is true, then you're right - you're going to get slammed.

I "auto exclude" Craps and Roulette because of the "Pass/Don't Pass", "Red/Black", "Odd/Even" low risk way to burn through a WR. But you're right there too - the robots are going to be coming in for BJ, JOB, any/all of the high RTP games.

But don't take any notes on what I've got to say concerning Bonuses. All of what I have to say is theoretical, and is based on having one, or both, of the conditions I mentioned above - a lot of cash to absorb initial losses, and/or a large and established base customer list.

I'll again suggest - beatingbonuses.

Chris

 

[Jufo]

Josh, even though I have never played at your site, I understand from your posts that it contains a lot of unique content that you have invented yourself. Therefore when it comes to designing promotions and being the intelligent person that you are, I am surprised that you are not thinking more "outside the box" here.

An idea that came to my mind - you said that you are running a "nerdy" casino. What do nerds do a lot of the time? They play computer games. What satisfaction do they get from playing these computer games? Well, for one thing they collect achievements or "experience points". For example in a RPG computer game you may walk into a cave, kill a dragon and get experience points. With these points you can get new perks like being able to perform magic and cast spells. Since you are the same age as me Josh (born early 80's), I am sure you have played these kinds of computer games where you collect achivements and experience points to get new perks.

So, my idea is that you incorporate this concept of achievements and experience points into your casino product to attract these "nerdy" players. And not just nerds, the concept should appeal to all players, as it will transform the casino playing experience from regular gambling into something more like a quest or journey.

Here is an example which shows how the player could obtain these experience points:

"MONDAY: Play roulette and earn 250 experience points if you hit a straight-up win on any single number two times in a row (you are allowed to cover at most 4 numbers on both spins to eligible).

TUESDAY: Play Caribbean Stud poker and earn 500 experience points if you get a Three of a kind or higher hand that gets beaten by dealer's hand. Get 1500 experience points if your flush or higher gets beaten.

WEDNESDAY: Earn 200 experience points if you get a free spin feature on a slot that re-triggers at least once during free spins. You earn 400 experience points if it re-triggers two or more times within the same set of free spins.

THURSDAY: Earn 150 experience points when you get a Blackjack in spades in any blackjack game.

FRIDAY: Earn 100 experience points if you get any Flush in Hearts in video poker. If you get a straight flush in hearts you earn 1000 experience points.

SATURDAY: BAD BEAT REWARD: Earn 500 experience points if you lose 8 times or more in a row in Baccarat. You must be betting on either Banker or Player on every round, betting on the tie will not qualify.

SUNDAY: BAD BEAT REWARD: Earn 200 experience points if you get a 20-point hand in blackjack that gets beaten by dealer 21.

If you collect achievements from 5 or 6 days, you earn extra 1000 experience points.

If you collect achievements from all 7 days, you earn extra 3000 experience points."


These experience points could be exchanged for cash at a specified rate (100 exp = 10€) or there could be a non-linear tiered conversion structure so that they player would earn a larger reward by collecting a larger number of experience points first (ie. the effect is that he will end up playing longer time for bigger reward). You could also offer to exchange the experience points for a bonus rather than cash (naturally the bonus reward would be larger in size than cash reward because of the WR tied to it), or exchange the points for items etc.

What do you think? I am trying to say that there are ways to design much more interesting promotions than the usual pre-wager / post-wager SUB deposit match or cashback on losses. Think outside the box Josh!

 

[jstrike]

@Jufo,

First of all, I think those are really great ideas.

Personally... I've never really understood why "social achievements" like stars and new costumes are such a big motivator in games... I mean, when I play games I like to gamble. When I want to unwind a little I usually play blackjack or VP, not Warcraft. And that's also why my hobby's writing casino games instead of free-to-premium iphone games or something. (Which is ironic, 'cause if I'd done that back in 2008 when I started this, I could've probably retired by now).

But I do understand that a lot of people do like those kinds of in-game perks...and when you say convertible to cash, now we're really talking.

I really like the idea of giving extra points or bonuses for certain things like bad beats or hitting certain numbers. I think that's something I'm going to look into next. I guess the downside is that my edge is already pretty much nonexistent. I can't just be paying people to play at my site, but I also don't want to run some promotion that's just a lure with no real meat. But maybe if I just get rid of all the bonuses and focus on something more "outside the box" that would be the way to go.

Thanks for the advice... you can see I'm just still processing it, but it's given me a lot to chew on.

 

[Jufo]

@Jufo,

First of all, I think those are really great ideas.

Personally... I've never really understood why "social achievements" like stars and new costumes are such a big motivator in games... I mean, when I play games I like to gamble. When I want to unwind a little I usually play blackjack or VP, not Warcraft. And that's also why my hobby's writing casino games instead of free-to-premium iphone games or something. (Which is ironic, 'cause if I'd done that back in 2008 when I started this, I could've probably retired by now).

But I do understand that a lot of people do like those kinds of in-game perks...and when you say convertible to cash, now we're really talking.

Where the future trends of gambling are discussed, there seems to be a consesus that the direction is towards a seamless incorporation of gambling aspects into regular video games. So in the future there might be a real-money element in popular video games such as Counter Strike, Battlefield or World of Warcraft, which might be luck and skill-based (just like in poker). That's why I brought up the idea of collecting achievements/experience points because I see this as a likely direction of future trends in gambling.

 

[binary128]

@Jufo,

I think that Josh "thinking out of the box" is a fantastic idea. He has a unique product, and caters to a unique market. He can take advantage of "out of the box" thinking where other casinos, other products, can't.

All of my suggestions are "slow growth" ideas - thus the need for either deep pockets or a large established customer base.

Josh, if I were you I'd buy a reasonable quantity of hallucinogens, head off for a backpacking trip with a tape recorder, and spend a week recording anything and everything that comes to mind.

BTW - I never called your site a "nerd site"

Chris

 

[jstrike]

@Jufo,

I think that Josh "thinking out of the box" is a fantastic idea. He has a unique product, and caters to a unique market. He can take advantage of "out of the box" thinking where other casinos, other products, can't.

All of my suggestions are "slow growth" ideas - thus the need for either deep pockets or a large established customer base.

Josh, if I were you I'd buy a reasonable quantity of hallucinogens, head off for a backpacking trip with a tape recorder, and spend a week recording anything and everything that comes to mind.

BTW - I never called your site a "nerd site"

Chris

hehe. Was it "geek site"? I know you said that in a moment of excitement, I remember you were trying to convince me of something

In seriousness, I appreciate the suggestions and the perspective. And my thinking has gotten kind of square about this since I've spent so much time looking at what other casinos do for their marketing and trying to emulate them. A lot of my wilder ideas for games and promos were either ill-thought-out or didn't get enough attention to make them work -- like when I started adding money like crazy to a progressive pot and promoting it in emails and forums, but only got 2 new players for the game (one of whom, of course, won it), or the time I made a leaderboard for who'd win the most over the weekend, which would get doubled if they came in first -- where it turned out the winner five weeks running was all the same guy under different accounts, who figured out how to hide his wins from the leaderboard until the last second by keeping them on a blackjack table overnight. That just drove other players away.

It's a different thing to build a site than to run it, it's just a different skill set and a way of looking at the world. And it's a really different thing to launch a site with $15k behind it and $0.25 tables, and slowly raise your table limits but never be able to take money out of it or afford a dime in advertising, and have to do everything by word of mouth. Because, like you said, there's no way to rely on tried and true methods where you need deep pockets to back up the volatility.

But I do think I'll take your advice, go to Amsterdam for a week and consult a local shaman about it, because I'm getting killed by thinking the same old way now.

 

[Jufo]

It's a different thing to build a site than to run it, it's just a different skill set and a way of looking at the world. And it's a really different thing to launch a site with $15k behind it and $0.25 tables, and slowly raise your table limits but never be able to take money out of it or afford a dime in advertising, and have to do everything by word of mouth. Because, like you said, there's no way to rely on tried and true methods where you need deep pockets to back up the volatility.

But I do think I'll take your advice, go to Amsterdam for a week and consult a local shaman about it, because I'm getting killed by thinking the same old way now.

The fundamental problem I see here is that you want to offer promotions that have some value to the players (using your words: they have some meat in them) but at the same time you can't afford to do it because you are scared of ending up losing money. I am afraid that any drug trip to Amsterdam to invent innovative promotions while watching the stars will not change the bottom line that you can't make value out of thin air. So you may either have to take the risk of putting up a loss leader promotion which causes you to have some losses in hopes to get more player traffic longer-term or resort to having only "meatless promotions" which are designed to look lucrative but don't really contain any value to the player.

I receive these "meatless promotions" to my e-mail inbox all the time. Every day there are about 20 promotional e-mails from different on-line casinos to my inbox. The vast majority of them are total garbage like "wager 1000€ across out slots and you may be one of the lucky ones to receive a 25€ bonus to your account in our daily draw" or "get a 10% bonus on your next deposit with just 300x turnover". Occasionally among those 20 daily e-mails there are some "meaty promotions" which have at least some +EV when played properly (they usually still carry a very high chance of losing because 2-tier betting is still needed to squeeze out any value), so every day I go through my e-mail inbox and filter out the meatless rubbish promotions out of the rare decent ones. As for the ratio of meaty promotions to meatless promotions things have really gone to shit. Back in 2008, maybe something like 50% promotion offers I received to my e-mail were meaty ones (and if I didn't have time to do them all I could be picky and choose only the best ones) but these days I am lucky if even 5% of those promotions I receive to my e-mail have any value to them. In other words when I filter through the daily set of 20 promotional e-mails, maybe one of them is remotely worth making a deposit for.