I recently did a Visa trip from Pattaya to Poipet using a Casino Bus. The bus leaves at 8 am and arrives at Poipet 4 hours later. At 6 pm the bus goes back to Pattaya. They charged me 200 Baht for the roundtrip. So with the cost for the E-Visa of around 900 Baht (25$) the cotal costs were only 1100 Baht.

There are a couple of nice casino hotels in the area between Thai and Cambodia immigration. When i headed back to Thailand I saw advertisements on some hotels which offered free rooms if you changed certain amounts of money into casino chips.

Has anybody tried this deals and can comment on the pros and cons?

MichaelMF

I've done this several times. I usually stay at the Tropicana - the rooms are fine - clean, nothing special as you'd expect, but more than adequate. You have to change 15,000 midweek and 25,000 at weekends to get the free room. The chips they give you are marked "promotion" and cannot be exchanged for cash, so don't plan on cashing in as soon as you check in.

Personally I like having the promo chips. That way when I sit down at the blackjack table I have a pile of promo chips on my left which gets smaller and then a pile of cash chips on my right which (hopefully) gets bigger (all winnings are paid in cash chips). Once the pile on my right gets bigger than the pile on my left I know I'm doing OK. I find it to be a good way of gauging how I'm doing.

You'd be surprised how quick it is to turnover 15K in chips. On a blackjack table playing one box at minimum bet of 200 Baht you can do it in an hour or two, easy.

You also usually get 4 (assuming double occupancy) tickets for the buffet when you check in. Most of the casinos there give you buffet vouchers if you change a certain amount of cash (around 4K). These are cash chips so if you feel like it you just change 4K, eat the buffet and then change the 4K back to cash again.

If you're a blackjack player, it's worth knowing that the different casinos have different rules. I like the Tropicana because they have a strange rule that allows you to double down on anything, regardless of how many cards you have (many casinos only allow doubling down on 10 or 11 and only after the first 2 cards). So at the Tropicana if you land 3,2 then turn a 3, then a 2, you can still double down hoping for that face card or ace. To my mind, that gives the player a huge advantage. Having said that it's still not often that I come away from there with any money in my pocket.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the information!

So if I would change 15000 Baht to promotion chips and play Roulette, where the casino advantage is 2.7 %, I would have at the end statistically 14600 Baht in cash chips and a loss of 400 Baht, which is compensated by the free room.

Of course the question is now what is the room rate of the Tropicana without chips changing. If it's not well above 400 Baht the whole procedure makes not too much sense.

MichaelMF

Your assumption is of course correct, but then who goes to a casino operating on the assumption that they will lose exactly the house advantage? If that's your angle then changing the promo chips for a free room is probably not for you on account of the fact that should you strike lucky early you would probably want to quite while your ahead and having the promo chips does not allow you to do that. The room is probably 1,000 or 1,200 per night. Can't say for sure coz I've always gone down the promo chips route.

Go in pair. Split the chip into 2 equal pile. One bet red, the other ber black, equal amount, on the Roulette. In no time, the promotion will be converted to the normal chip.

i actually did that at a casino in australia for my one and only live bet on a roulette table.

it landed on the green!

Go in pair. Split the chip into 2 equal pile. One bet red, the other ber black, equal amount, on the Roulette. In no time, the promotion will be converted to the normal chip.

I recently did a Visa trip from Pattaya to Poipet using a Casino Bus. The bus leaves at 8 am and arrives at Poipet 4 hours later.

Never heard of a casino bus in Pattaya. Please advise. Thanks.