Online Casino Tournaments

What a Casino Tournament Is

A casino tournament is a competition run alongside the ordinary games, in which entrants play the same game and are ranked against each other rather than settled individually against the house. Pennsylvania's interactive gaming rules describe one as "An organized event that permits a player to purchase or be awarded the opportunity to engage in competitive play against other players (that is, a tournament) may be permitted providing all of the following:" Note the two routes in: an entry can be purchased, or it can be awarded.

The land-based equivalent is defined more tightly. A slot machine tournament is "A contest whereby individuals engage in competitive slot machine play against other individuals utilizing points.", and the points are "Noncash equivalent electronic instrument utilized for slot machine tournament play only, the total of which determines the winners of a slot machine tournament." Those two definitions carry the whole structure of the format: competitive play, ranked on a score, with the score kept in something that is not money.

In a typical casino tournament the entrants all buy in for the same amount and receive an equal number of chips. From that point the object is to amass as many chips as possible playing whichever game the tournament features.

The Entry Fee Is Not the Whole Cost

An entry fee buys entry. It is not a ceiling on what a tournament can cost a player, and the regulator's own list of what tournament terms must disclose says so. Among the items Pennsylvania requires a tournament's terms and conditions to state is "Funding source amounts comprising the prize pool (for example, buy-ins, re-buys or add-ons)." Buy-ins, re-buys and add-ons are all funding sources for the same prize pool, and a re-buy or an add-on is a further payment made after the entry fee.

The entry fee is real money to the operator in the first place. Pennsylvania requires an interactive gaming licensee to keep "A full accounting of gross interactive gaming revenue for each tournament including cash received as entry fees and the total of cash or cash equivalents paid out to registered players.", and in the land-based rules, "A slot machine licensee may charge an entry fee to participate in a slot machine tournament." So the cash flows one way at entry and, where re-buys and add-ons exist, can flow the same way again.

What a regulator does require is that each of those further payments is a decision the player makes, not something the product does for them. The Gambling Commission's technical standards state in their guidance that "the amount of funds taken into a product should not be topped up without the customer choosing to do so on each occasion, for example, when a customer buys-in at a poker table they should have to choose to purchase more chips to play at the table, automatic re-buys should not be provided". That guidance sits under a requirement which reads: "Gambling products must not actively encourage customers to chase their losses, increase their stake or increase the amount they have decided to gamble, or continue to gamble after they have indicated that they wish to stop." Its stated aim is "To ensure that products are designed responsibly and to minimise the likelihood that they exploit or encourage problem gambling behaviour.", and the Commission explains the test: "By actively encourage, we mean the inclusion of specific features, functions or information that could reasonably be expected to encourage a greater likelihood of the behaviours described occurring." The same guidance adds that "written or graphical information should not encourage customers to try to win back their losses".

This page therefore says the plain thing and stops: a player who enters a tournament has spent the entry fee, and in any tournament that offers re-buys or add-ons can choose to spend more. Nothing here suggests spending more to recover a deficit, and a well-designed product will not suggest it either.

Tournament Chips Have No Cash Value

The score a player accumulates during a tournament is not withdrawable money, and the rules are explicit about keeping the two apart. For interactive tournaments: "While enabled for tournament play, a game may not accept real money from any source, nor pay out real money in any way, and must utilize tournament specific credits, points or chips which do not have cash value." For slot machine tournaments: "Slot machine tournaments may not be played with cash, value chips, plaques, gaming vouchers or other cash equivalents." The machine itself is locked down for the duration — a licensee must "Have the functionality of the bill validator, ticket printer and electronic funds transfer meters disabled during the slot machine tournament so that the slot machine does not accept cash or credits or make payouts during tournament play."

That separation is why a tournament stake and an ordinary stake behave differently. During the tournament the chips are a scoring unit. What converts into money is the prize, decided by where a player finishes.

The Rules Must Be Published Before You Enter

Tournament terms are not optional reading that appears afterwards. Pennsylvania requires that "The terms and conditions shall be followed and include, at a minimum, all of the following:" and enumerates the minimum contents, which include "Rules concerning tournament play and participation.", "All conditions registered players shall meet to qualify for entry into, and advancement through, the tournament." and "Any conditions concerning late arrivals or complete tournament no-shows and how auto-blind posting or initial entry purchase, or both, is handled." Those are the clauses that decide what happens to a player who joins late or never arrives.

Publication is a duty too: "The terms and conditions of all interactive gaming tournaments communicated to players shall be posted on the interactive gaming web site and stated in a clear and conspicuous manner using plain language." and "The terms and conditions of each interactive gaming tournament must be readily accessible and remain available for review by the player until the interactive gaming tournament is complete." In the land-based rules even the advertising must carry the rules or say where to get them — a licensee must "Include a copy of the slot machine tournament rules or state how a copy of the rules may be obtained."

Playing Against Other Players Does Not Remove the House Edge

A tournament changes who a player is ranked against. It does not change the game. The underlying games keep the advantage they were built with, and regulators require that advantage to be disclosed: "For each virtual event, game (including bingo), or lottery, information that may reasonably be expected to enable the customer to make an informed decision about his or her chances of winning must be easily available before the customer commits to gamble.", with the information including "the house edge, margin or over-round, for example for a virtual race" and "the average theoretical return to player percentage."

Nor does a run of results make anything due. Ontario's Registrar's Standards require that "The probability of achieving a specific game outcome shall be constant and independent of game history, player or any other factor, unless clearly explained in the terms governing play.", and list among prohibited material anything that would "Use language that suggests the probability of a particular outcome is more likely to occur than its actual probability." A player's decisions genuinely matter in a tournament — a blackjack decision changes the odds of the hand, and a bet-sizing decision changes the distribution of outcomes — and decisions can reduce a house edge, but no decision eliminates it.

The operator's position is also not neutral. Entry fees are gross revenue, recorded as "A full accounting of gross interactive gaming revenue for each tournament including cash received as entry fees and the total of cash or cash equivalents paid out to registered players." Where a tournament is free to enter, the operator is buying attention rather than taking a fee, which is a marketing decision and not a gift.

Formats You Are Likely to Meet

• Slot tournaments. Defined in the land-based rules as "A contest whereby individuals engage in competitive slot machine play against other individuals utilizing points." — a fixed number of spins or a fixed clock, ranked on points.
• Card and table tournaments. The interactive rules define the thing itself as "An organized event that permits a player to purchase or be awarded the opportunity to engage in competitive play against other players (that is, a tournament)", and allow it subject to conditions. Blackjack and poker formats commonly use chips with no cash value and a published blind or round structure.
• Freerolls and awarded entries. The interactive definition allows a player to "purchase or be awarded" the opportunity, so an entry can arrive as a promotion. Where it does, the promotion's own terms apply as well as the tournament's.

Whatever the format, the three things to read before entering are the same: what the entry costs, whether re-buys or add-ons are offered and what they cost, and how the prize pool is divided.

Tournament Strategy

What follows is reasoning from the rules quoted above rather than a further rule. There are two layers to casino tournament strategy. The first is the ordinary strategy of the game being played. Blackjack and craps both reward it: in blackjack the decisions a player makes change the odds of the hand, and in craps which wagers are chosen changes which house advantage applies to the money staked — the figure a regulator requires to be available before a player commits.

Slots and roulette sit outside that first layer, because neither offers a decision that changes the odds once the bet has been placed.

The second layer is how those games are played in a tournament, and it applies to every format. The object is not simply to win money; it is to finish with more chips than the other entrants, because what pays is where a player places. It is a thin distinction and an important one.

Bet sizing therefore depends on things outside the game itself: how many chips a player holds relative to the other entrants, how much of the tournament is left, and what the other entrants are doing. The published prize structure is what tells a player what finishing position is worth aiming at.