I have a small freeplay ($35) at Luxor. What's the best way to spend it? Spread out over a few max-coin $.25 video poker plays or concentrated in $1-$5 slots and/or video poker? I'd love your expert advice... Thanks!
It's how you want to view your free-play. If you view it as what you have won already, play it the same way you always play video poker. If you view it as an extra, play a higher limit than you usually play. I'm thinking that for $35 in free-play, your normal play might be quarters, so play the dollar VP for $5 per hand for 7 hands and see what you win. I get $300 in free-play, and my typical play is $1 VP. So I use my free-play on the $5 VP for $25 per hand for 12 hands. I've gotten 4OAK twice doing this (on two different trips), and it makes for a great start to my trip.
It depends on what you are trying to get out of it. If you are trying to convert it, then JoB would be your best low variance play. If you want to do something different, max bet a .1c/.5c video slot machine. I would say do $1+, but it might only be 1-2 spins.
Agree with the above posters. I let my wife use the free play since she loves slots, and this is how she spends it: (1) Up-front free play (what we get as part of our offer) - she treats this as the start of her bankroll. She plays machines normally how she plans to play the majority of the trip. For her, that means playing the heavy-branded "themed" slot games that tend to be .01 @ 2-3x bet. Whatever she converts it into is just added to her actual bankroll. In a typical trip, she'll convert 50-75%, on more than one occasion she's turned it into 100%+ the original amount, and twice she's hit decent bonuses that starts her off gret. (2) Back-end credits - whatever points we earn each trip are converted into free play on our last day. These are used to just try and hit something big, so we'll normally go and play $5-$10/spin at a $1 machine. Last trip she won over $1000 using about $300 in that way. Its a fun way to end the trip. Of course, sometimes she strikes out and walks away with nothing. But we view it as nothing to begin with, so it doesn't bother us. On at least two trips, this "last hurrah" has been the difference between going home down or up. So as was said above, just depends how you view it and what is going to make it "fun" for you.
I blow my FP on a higher slot I normally wouldn't bet on. $35 is a smaller amount so it depends if you want to drag it out and play a while, or if you hope to walk away with more than they gave you. I'm a fan of putting it in $1 or higher slots and blowing it on a few spins. My mom won $500 in FP and we blew it on $5 slots, walking away with over a grand in cash. You just can't use it on progressive machines or machines that say "does not accept free play".
Play it just the same as it were cash in your pocket. After all, it plays the same way. I just look at it as increased bankroll. If I like to play 3 Cherry machines, then I still do. If I like xxx machine, I still do. It is just a few more spins no matter what.
If I have FP to use over the course of a 2 or 3 day trip, I don't touch it the first day unless I blow through my daily allotment quickly. If things go well through the second day, then I will play the FP at higher denom slots or VP than normal to see if I can make something exciting happen. If things didn't go well, then I just use the FP to replenish my bankroll and play my usual stuff at my usual bets.
