Every month in this magazine, Jeffrey Compton and Jean Scott tell you which casinos are offering double points or an extra 100 coins for four Jacks, or maybe double pay for a straight flush in hearts. Any of these promotions could be a good deal. And any of them could not be worth the bother. It takes time to collect all of this information.
Various sources supply it, with various degrees of dependability.
Calculating the value of double or triple points is very easy-if you know how much single points are worth. We give formulas for this periodically, but basically, a return is how many dollars you get out divided by how many dollars it takes to get those dollars out. But this is only useful information if you also know which machine you're going to be playing and how much that machine is normally worth. For St. Patrick's Day, several casinos offer promotions relating to clubs, figuring a club is close enough to a four-leaf clover. To get this number, you need to use a computer program.