So a nearby casino sent me some promotions in the mail recently, one of which was a $25 "free bet". And it is just what it sounds like. However, there are a few restrictions. You can't use it for poker or keno. Just the basic table games. Blackjack, spanish 21, and some others.

It does allow you to use the free bet on roulette with some strange restrictions. It makes sense that you can't use it to bet on a single number straight up. The house woudl be crazy to give up free shots at a 35 to 1 payoff. In fact, I understand why they don't allow any bets on a roulette wheel that would pay better than even money.

However, the restrictions go further. YOu can only bet on even, and red. YOu can NOT bet on odd or black.

Why? Why would they care?

My guess is that they don't care, but they don't want you to get two of them, and then bet one on red and the other on black. You could then back it up with a small bet on 0/00 and guarantee a win.

Nice analysis

How? You break even on the colors so the free money is irrelevant there. And on 0/00 you lose 37 times for each win and only get 35 to 1 payout, exactly as without the color bets. What am I missing?

I think they just don't want you turning 1 free bet (or two) into 36 free bets, on average by betting both sides. That costs them time, money, drinks/ comps etc.

Why do you think this makes sense?

He's saying bet a coupon on red, a coupon on black, and a small bet on 0/00 all on the same spin. 36 times out of 38 he wins $25 less his small bet, and the other 2 times his small bet pays off at 17:1. Of course he'd have a higher EV if he didn't make the small bet, but then he wouldn't win every time. Each coupon is worth $11.84 in EV for any even money Roulette bet. I'm assuming you don't get your coupon back when you win (or the $25).

If the house let people bet on a number, they would be giving away $23.03 in EV instead of just $11.84. There would be a 1/38 chance of paying off 35*$25 = $875 instead of just an 18/38 chance of paying off $25. Again this assumes they don't include the $25 in your winnings the way they would if you had made a $25 bet. If they did, then the EV would be the same, but the house's variance would still be a lot higher if they let you bet on a number.

You don't break even on the colors, you win on the colors. If red hits, you win $25 on it, and lose $0 on black. Vice versa if black wins. If you had bet $2 on 0/00, then if either red or black hits you are up $23. If you had not bet 0/00 then you are up $25.

If 0/00 hits, and you did not bet them, you end up with $0. If you had bet them, you are +$34 (17-1)

If you had an unlimited number of these coupons, you wouldn't need to bother with the extra bet. Just bet red/black every time and win $25 every time that 0/00 doesn't come up. If you only had 2, and wanted to make sure you won, the extra bet would guarantee it.

I was assuming losing the coupon was like losing money (like free chips with cash value), but now I'm clear on how it works.

This. It's not very intuitive, but the fact that they take the promo chip instead of pushing it back on win changes the math considerably. This is why the Wizard states that if casinos didn't restrict these to even money bets, you should place them on the longest odds possible.

And the reason they don't want you betting these on both red and black (cancellation system) is because they don't want you grinding these into $$, they want you "gambling" with them.

The casino's EV is positive. They aren't giving these coupons out to nuns from the convent down the street. They're sending them out to known gamblers. If anything is won on the "Free Play" the casino expects to get it all back and then some.

If they pay out $875, they don't necessarily expect to get that back and then some. Even if the guy starts betting bigger than he otherwise would because he's "playing with the casino's money" as stupid gamblers think, in order for the house to recoup this over say 100 spins, they'd have to win an extra $8.75 per spin from him, which means he would have to bet $166.25 per spin more than he normally bets since the house only wins 5.26% per spin. And if he does manage to give all that back, he'll probably be dejected and quit, or worse, he'll quit before that to lock up a profit. Whereas if he only lost his free $25, he's more likely to keep gambling because the night is still young.

Now if you thought some high roller would only come to your casino because he has a coupon that says he can bet $25 on a number, but he wouldn't have come if he could only bet it on a color, then you would be justified in giving up 11 bucks in EV to let him do that. Casinos make their money off of volume. But for players who would have come either way, you're just giving away money while increasing your standard deviation by a factor of 35.

They send those coupons out to anyone who ever gave their name for comps or stayed at their property. They even send them to advantage players who make a sizable percentage of their profits off of these promotions. David Sklansky must have promotion coupons coming out of his ears. To an intelligent gambler, being allowed to bet on a number makes the coupon worth almost twice as much in EV, and that's the important point to understand.

I don't disagree with anything you said. But even if the casino loses money on an individual that hits their number, there will be plenty of people that make the decision to go to the casino today because of the coupon, miss on their $25 match play, and drop $100 more on that visit.

I receive these free bets all the time. This year I decided to keep track of these free bets. I always make the same bet.....RED.

So far this year I made 45 bets and won 22. Let me correct that statement and say I walked away with money 22 times.

A couple of them have been 00. Since AC gives you half your bet back (If the free bet was worth $10, You would receive a $5 chip) I consider that a win.

Obviously they don't give the coupons out to lose money. They don't make money on every player every visit, with or without coupons. Instead of a $25 coupon, many of us get stuff in the mail for free rooms and other comps. They still expect to make money on me, or more precisely on an average "me".

The question wasn't whether the casinos make money on coupons. Obviously they do. The question was whether they would make less money if they let people bet on a number. They must agree they would or they would let you do it. There would be plenty of people who don't even play Roulette, or who are advantage players, or people who don't even gamble who just come in to see shows, or eat at the restaurants, or go to a nightclub, or attend a convention. By design, those people are forced to walk right through the casino to do all those things, so they'll stop by just to plop that coupon down on a number, and 1 in 38 of them will walk away with $875. That's certainly what I would do. Most of those people probably wouldn't bother for $25.

No it wasn't. At the end of the OP the question was Which was discussed.

But in the lead-up to the question the OP wrote To which I wrote
The casino is spending money on marketing. They need to have some estimation of how much this Free-Play coupon will end up costing them due to the play of the coupon and how much additional gaming revenue will come in as a result of sending out the coupons. Just because the payoff is 35 to 1 doesn't mean the casino shouldn't do it. Maybe the casino wants some feel-good stories to tell in its next promotion - "Last month 100 lucky WINNERS used their FREE play and walked away with $875!!!" - hoping that even more people come in. Now obviously this casino did not go down that route. But to say it makes "sense" that they didn't would not be correct.

The question I was referring to was yours: "Why do you think it makes sense?". I explained why it makes sense. There may be sensible reasons why they might allow it, but it certainly makes sense to not allow it.

What exactly is a "complete" bet in roulette?

A complete bet on a number makes all of the inside bets that include that number. This is usually done for the table maximum by high rollers, called "maximum complete". The amount you have to bet depends on the number, ranging from 17 to 40 times the bet placed on the straight bet for that number. The table maximums increase in proportion to the number of numbers in each type of bet, so a maximum complete bet would be for 17 to 40 times the table maximum for the straight bet. Some people apparently use the term to refer to only the straight bet + split bets + corner bets.

Learn dealer signature or visual ballistics

If you had 2 coupons (with friend) and covered both sides (with $1 on green), you would guarantee a win. You can guarantee a $12 win anyway if you use coupon on red, bet $12 black and $1 green.

Use it on blackjack. Better odds. Guaranteeing a $12 win is only significant if you're really poor.

I use mine on Craps pass line.

I would probably use it in craps on a field roll, 1 and done

I calculated wrong on the roulette, only $11 win guaranteed (but still enough to get some food)

I've tried even money coupons on a field roll before and they've stopped me because of the bubble paying 2-1. I would have been fine taking even money for them but whatever's clever I guess