I have tried those tournaments as well. My best results are being top 6 and top 9 on a 1000 person freeroll. What disturbed me the most was that the prizes for these positions didn't even cover the cost of continue playing options. So you pay for the option to continue play and hit the top 10 out of 1000 players and you still lose money... not very nice...
By the way is there any way to speed up the spins? I am always left with 400-700 coins after 5 minutes is up but I have noticed that there are players who manage to play all their coins in five minutes.
Not Now, Microgaming placed a "fix" at the server end to ensure slow spinning within the range of 5 to 6 seconds - this "fix" kicks in when there are two or three consecutive spins that fall within a present range, and the server holds onto the result for 5 seconds each spin, the player sees this as the "waiting server" indicator cycles and the reels just spin. Also to be noted that during this phase the coins left will NOT decrease when you press "spin", but when the server returns the result.
Spin speed is not a problem at the weekender, as the continues offer 10 minutes also, but only 5000 coins, so coins left over from the first round can normally be used up unless you hit loads of bonus rounds.
With a fast top notch PC, and a separate graphics card, it is possible to speed up the spins a little. Another trick for an old PC is to drop both the screen resolution and colour resolution.
Casinos register large numbers of players for the weekender, and while some require users to claim first, others just do it & tell you. This is why some 200 players seem to take the trouble of registering only then to not play. There is also a "dodge", whereby players can withdraw from the tournament the casino has paid for, pocketing the $20. Casinos are aware of this, and will respond accordingly under "bonus abuse" rules, usually not giving said players any more free entries.
As for no-one really playing the other tournaments, the answer is simple, the house edge is considerably greater than the 5% enjoyed by the casino in the lobby slot games. I some cases, the tournaments can pay back only around 50% of the money made from players from buyins and continues. The problem is that increased participation does not boost the prize pools, after declaring the prizes, casinos keep 100% of any revenue from an unexpected increase in interest.
Another reason is simply that, for the low prizes, the tournaments are boring because game play is just so damn SLOW. Rather than remedy this, MG have done the opposite in ensuring EVERYONE has to endure the boredom of a bonus round taking 1 minute to complete and pay nothing. Game play is even SLOWER during the free spins as every win is displayed, and unlike normal play, the player can't skip this by pressing "spin" if they just want to move on.
There is also a misconception with the $500 and $200 prize events. You get hundreds registering for the "free" ones, and only around 50 for the $2 or $5 buy-in one. This is plain silly, with 5 continues, it still costs 5x $2 or $5 to play out a free entry one where you are against hundreds, but only one extra $2 or $5 to compete against a much reduced field.
Unlike the slots games, MG DO NOT PUBLISH the average monthly payouts on the tournaments (prizes paid out as a percentage of total revenue from buy-ins and continues). For the sit & go, the calculation is easy! 90% is of the buy-ins are paid out as prizes, and 10% is kept by the participating casinos. This compares unfavourably with spending the money just playing the slots in the lobby, where 95% of all wagers placed are returned as prizes.
Where multiple continues are available, the house edge can increase to "embarrassing" levels, which might be why no figures are published.
With many tournaments, it is possible to estimate how many continues were bought by looking at the number of coins left when play has ended, the higher the figure, the more continues the player has bought.
Microgaming could easily make these tournaments more attractive, and this will make them more popular, the first hurdle is to publish figures and PROVE that the house edge is fair in the long term, and that tournaments with terrible 50% payout rates are balanced by some that pay out more than 100% to participating players.
Secondly, speed up game play to a level that allows the juices of excitement to flow, rather than having us fall asleep through naked spin boredom.
Thirdly, add some more games, including some non-slot offerings such as Video Poker. Blackjack would be hard though, the variance being too low for the current tournament system.
While some of this might happen, I'm not holding my breath - this is MG
Most entries are 1tourney credit, a buck.
