In the past I’ve talked about the importance of making a first impression at casinos, because your initial offers will be calculated based on both your first showing and their being interested in getting a second visit from you. I’ve also discouraged first-time visitors to Las Vegas from spreading their play too thin, so they can get strong enough showings at properties to see some offers come in for the next visit.
There’s another reason why putting up a first good showing can matter: Many of the sign-up offers require some sort of play. There are casinos who will give you some sort of sign-up bonus that day, such as a small amount of free play or free bets. In the last year my best sign-up bonus was an offer at Hard Rock Tampa that provided 5 $10 free bets the day of sign-up, and another 5 $10 free bets if you came back the next day, or any of the next few days after that.
But that was the exception. A number of other casinos, as another way to entice players to come back, are doing loss rebate offers. The catch is you have to come back to claim it, and it comes in the form of free play. If you know you’re going to make a return visit to that casino before long, you can maximize your benefit by playing enough to cap the loss rebate offer.
Examples of play-based first-time offers abound, even in Las Vegas (just to cite a few examples):
- M Resort has a somewhat similar offer still running, but is broken into two free play chunks sent to you a minimum of 14 days later.
- Sister property Tropicana has a complicated program that lets you earn escalating free play based on the number of points you earn.
- Casino Royale promises to rebate the first $20 you lose instantly as free play, and then another $20 for every $100 after that. (I attempted to avail myself of it but instead won $300. Darn.)
- Oyo Las Vegas offers $10 in free play for every 250 points earned, up to $500 in total.
With benefits from new player offers driven by play, the more you play at a single location, the more you can take advantage of offers such as these. If you spread yourself thin, you not only exhaust new opportunities and likely subdue your offers from them, but you’ll also fail to maximize the earnings potential of these new player offers.
So on top of not watering down your offers potential in the future, not spreading yourself too thin could mean getting the most out of each new player offer when you sign up for a players card.
