Thanks for taking the time to engage with us all here BET-AT, I for one do appreciate it.
I really appreciate your post likewise and its for that reason, the challenge, I opened the thread.
I'll try to break things down but I wont necessarily be able to win you over as it's the question I'm also battling with. Lets break down the wagering using your example first (side note: $500 is a misdenomer - Max is 200% match on 500 deposit totalling a 1000, needs a change).
In your example you have £250 real, £500 bonus. At RTP rate of turnover you'll be able to stake £5K taking into consideration you are consistently losing. It's a far cry from £17,500 necessary to turn it over, less than 30%. You now need to deposit another £250, and eventually another £325 losing at the same rate to unlock the £500.
Math tells you the bonus has a substantial negative EV. On that premise, we're quote safe, abusers be gone - but you're a little stumped. It's a frustrating situation to be in as you say so yourself. It's the very reason why I'm looking into options of change.
Before I continue, I would however like to point out a few things: You don't necessarily lose at 95% flat. Your session RTP% (and its tracked, visible in real time) may be higher or lower. If you do win a couple of big hands in the 5K wagered, they are open to you to continue turning toward the bonus at a more favourable rate or pull out. If you do bust out, you can continue playing with the bonus and hit it big needing to redeposit a small amount and still go out positive.
The system IMHO extends your game play also, and provides opportunity to do hit it big with bonus, but give a little in return while grinding down.
Look at the alternative where bonus funds count toward wagering: 200% match wouldn't go for less than what? x50,x60, x70 turnover? (or x30b+d as it became norm) Lets say x60 to be more lenient. Lets say you wagered the remaining £500 at 95% RTP, putting in another £10,000 toward requirement.
You're now 15K wagered, another 15K to go and all is depleted both deposit and real funds. To turn that bonus around you also had to play at positive RTP, at least for a while. At 95% its unachievable looking at both systems, as it should be - as otherwise all casinos would go bust.
You didn't trade a better chance of winning for a worse one, you traded the inability to cash out early for extended chance to hit it big later and manage to grind down to a bonus amount higher in value than what you deposited. Its about the mindset, nothing else as both systems work only if your RTP is over 98%.
Above is relatively irrelevant, as you very aptly put it doesn't appeal to the mindset of a player who did select a bonus. Just wanted to make sure you are seeing both sides of the coin clearly.
Regarding our current system - I needed to step off the ledge safely not to get destroyed through generosity so we retained very safe turnovers. Overly safe even.
However, the end intention is to either:
1) Decrease the turnover of bonuses to 25-28 making the EV gap much smaller. Through wager real first system the turnover shouldn't be much higher than what would be lost to cash out the bonus. Since you're betting real funds it should eventually pay out as 50% cash back on your losses for your first experience IMO.
2) Devise a new system (hence the Clearplay integration question). Lets look at your example again using Clearplay -
You wager £5K using initial deposit. In the process you will unlock about £170 in £10 increments (166.66 i think, but im rounding).
Using the unlocked funds, you wager another 3.5K and in process unlock another £100, You wager another £2K and unlock 60... etc.
By now you have seriously extended your game play, received 150% real money cashback on your deposited losses, while playing and all-while had the opportunity to withdraw fro the very start, should you hit big and never dip into bonus.
Writing this up my mind is almost made up. It's good, it's goooooood (bruce allmighty). I think it even needs a bit of tightening up as its overly generous.
I think I've fairly presented both players and casinos perspective in my posts (although a newbie) to date so I wont stop here. Above, to me at least reads like a dream on surface. There is a downside. Can you see it?
I'm gonna let this sink in before i post further becuase even my head is spinning - i think this is on the right track though. Keen to hear back
