Sim1000x Score – WTF?

If I’m honest, I’ve still got a ways to go on the Sim1000x Score. It’s so reductive and, without reading through a lot explanation, quite opaque. Yet the whole premise of the site is to provide users with a simple top line number that ranks the value of the casino deposit bonuses in the market. As a wine drinker, I have to admit the idea comes straight from Robert Parker points. But I hope we can reduce the subjectivity quite a bit.

So let this be a primer for how it’s currently calculated. Very interested in hearing different views.

First, let’s acknowledge that there are a few different ways of valuing a casino bonus. Some people will want one that has the best chance of leaving them with a positive balance. Others will want one that has moonshot potential. And there may even be people that just want as many spins as they can get. Are there other value drivers for deposit bonuses?

My gut says that the lion share will put a premium on a positive balance once the wagering requirement has been reached with some multiplier on the average size of that balance. I’ve left the number of spins out of the calculation but I do report it separately as an interesting data point.

So, after 1000 simulations, we have two groups: winners (players with a balance greater than their deposit) and losers (players with a balance less than their deposit). We easily calculate the percentage of winners and their average balance less their deposit. We can also look at the distribution of balances to see what portion barely covered the deposit amount and what portion 10xs it.

When I started this endeavour I was sure that there were great stories (and customer value) in those 10x-plus winners, but seeing that every site has a Maximum Win term & condition, I now understand its actually a sad story, and likely to be a big disappointment for those few (un)lucky souls as their bonus funds get “tenthed” (1/10x) on their way to the real money account.

Nonetheless, the Sim1000x score is currently the lesser of the Max Win or the Average Winning Balance times the percentage of winners. 

One immediate critique is that while the winning balances are all less the deposit, there is probably a big value differential for the 80+% of losing players when the initial deposit was €300 as opposed to €100 – and yet the €300 deposit often looks better for that less than 20% as they have higher ending balances than the €100 depositors.

The other critique, that came slower to mind, is that the value of the bonus could be looked at in aggregate. It is easy to calculate the total ending balances minus all of the deposits for winners and losers to understand how much the casino is getting from pure slot play, and then how much the Max Win term is reducing their liability. But I’m leaving that aside, as when a player is looking for value I think they’re pretty focused on the value for them – and not the amalgamated value from all players (which if we want ongoing casino operators has to be less than zero, right?)