NAIL on the
HEAD!
When I started all this 'advantage play' malarkey I used to sign up at 3 or 4 new casinos every month to grab their welcome bonus. But this has now dwindled right down to just 1 or 2 if I want to suss out a new place. Most of my play now is at casinos who keep me coming back again & again with sensible monthly bonuses.
This is better for me (no registrations to do - and no withdrawal hassles), and better for the casino for the same reasons I would have thought.
Some casinos just don't get it. Many offer pathetic bonuses, or none at all.
The stupidest ones I know are Colosseum & Grand Hotel; I made $270 & $600 profits off their SUBs back in 2005. Since then they've sent me regular e-mails telling me all about the great new games they have - why don't I go & play?
Great! What bonus are you offering me? ... None?
OK I'll go play at 32Red or the Palace group instead!I got lucky & made a nice profit off their SUB's - but they ain't
never going to have to chance to get any of it back off me if they can't give me a good reason to deposit again!
VWM has it right (again!), make your bonuses as non-abusable as possible, don't offer repeat bonuses to 'abusers' and keep your good players coming back with decent offers. You don't have to make them +EV for the player - just give them a fighting chance!
2c.
Mutual back patting aside
This highlights ANOTHER issue. When BY LUCK (rather than "abuse"), a player makes a profit early on, WHY do casinos automatically decide they need to ditch this player as "unprofitable". How on earth can such a determination be made with such a small history. After all, when WE PLAYERS complain about a game not "being fair", we are told that we are jumping to conclusions based on too small a sample. The fact that the CASINOS "jump to conclusions" based on similarly small samples leads me to conclude one thing,
THE CASINOS DON'T BELIEVE THEIR OWN ARGUMENT!
So, why should we.... the games ARE rigged, even though my samples are small
I played at Colosseum, Vegas Poker, and Vegas 7. I busted out on the SUB on EACH ONE. They offer 10% or 20% weekend bonuses, which was just on the borderline of being enough to tempt me in a few weekends, and I managed to make a PROFIT at Vegas 7, but am still down at the other two.
Now, Colosseum and Vegas Poker send me 10% or 20% offers every week, but from Vegas 7 I get F*** all.
Occasionally, if I ignore the weekend offers, they drop 15 into my account and give me 100% to 100, and 10% on all deposits for 2 weeks. This gets me back if I have been neglecting my 20% offers.
It seems these casinos will CONTINUE to do this UNTIL you make an overall profit, and then they will dump you rather than try to get it back. Since I am up at one, and down at two, and play mostly slots, I surely do not look like "double up & grind man".
From MY perspective, I simply move on. Casinos where I am DOWN tend to offer more, so this is where I have the better chance of winning (assuming the rules for the promotions are not stupidly restrictive). These casinos have a greater chance of winning from ME, and quite a few HAVE won loads off me by offering regular bonuses that offer a chance, but are not easily +EV (you have to play with a degree of "flair" to stand a decent chance).
It seems that some operators of online casinos fall victim to the "gambler's fallacy", and assume that certain players are "professionally lucky", which would ONLY be the case were the games to be RIGGED in some way. With RANDOM games, there is no way to beat the house over the very long term, so provided promotions are constructed carefully, they can be fired off equally to both overall winners and overall losers, with the casino standing the same chance to win in either case.
Let me take Ruby Fortune as an example, I am VIP and get showered with boni, 2 lots of 250 for 250 so far this week, and this excludes the regular weekly/weekend event. You might think I am coining it in off the back of this, but you would be wrong. While my "flair" got me that damn lucky 15K run off a similar offer at Spin Palace (Munchkins), similar "flair" has not paid off at Ruby Fortune. Sadly, Spin Palace seem to have considered me a "professional Munchkins player", and have stopped sending offers, maybe I shouldn't have used that "Munchkinmeister" avatar
I have far more chance of winning with Ruby Fortune than Spin Palace, yet both are just as reliable when it comes to support & getting paid, they are both afterall in the same group. Were they NOT in the same group, then Ruby Fortune would be getting loads of my action, and Spin Palace none of it.
Jackpot Factory is a little different. In general, they just don't offer high percentage bonuses to regular players, but they have an unusual level of creativeness when it comes to running promotions. They tend to run something for a month, divided into weekly, or even twice weekly, periods. Some are scoreboard related, and others are based on lucky draws. Alongside this, they recently introduced a long term 10% VIP bonus, with pretty high levels, currently 1000 per month at VIP Lounge, which caters for 10,000 monthly in deposits. They have introduced rules to prevent the deposit of large amounts, and withdrawing before getting the bonus, but this can be used alongside their many promotions, and they DO get me coming back, yet with a mere 10% regular bonus, and without the need to thow out large offers. They do also send out small free chips, usually around 50, which are themed to an event or holiday, and are usually delivered by snail mail with a claim code. They even give out occasional gifts to regular VIP players. I have had iPods, bath kits, Amazon vouchers, etc.