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MSE News: TSB current account customer? You can now earn even more cashback

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  • Spidernick
    Spidernick Posts: 3,803 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    That would be a good plan if Waitrose wasn't so blooming expensive! I couldn't imagine doing my weekly shop there, as there's the 5% cashback (and more) gone straight away. We just buy bits and bobs there when needed, as it's only a five-minute walk from our house.

    The free coffee is good though.
    'I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my father. Not screaming and terrified like his passengers.' (Bob Monkhouse).

    Sky? Believe in better.

    Note: win, draw or lose (not 'loose' - opposite of tight!)
  • Pincher
    Pincher Posts: 6,552 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 6 October 2015 at 2:19PM
    A fluke, but it's true.

    I bought a scratch card for £10, and it paid £25!
    Obviously it was in combination with the free newspaper and coffee and other bits as well.

    So, with the 5% cashback, I got £25.50 for spending £10.

    I think I can consider the £5 cashbacks for September, October and November paid in full.

    On the roulette wheel, if you can shift the odds in your favour by 5%, I think it's a theoretical win.


    Assuming the roulette wheel has 1 to 36, with a single green zero, and it pays 1:1 for red. Without the cashback, and you bet £1, you either lose £1 or it pays out £1 if it's red. Zero you lose, of course.

    If the game was neutral, it should pay 37:36, i.e. £1.027777 for a £1 bet on red. In this case, betting £1 a million times should end up with you neither winning nor losing.

    With the 5% cashback, you are betting 95p, for a pay out of £1!
    This is equivalent to betting £1 for a pay out of 1.052631.

    £1.052631 > £1.027777 !!!

    So it's paying out MORE than the neutral pay out!

    Each time you bet £1, using the TSB Contactless card, you will win a theoretical 2.41822p ( = (£1.052631 - £1.027777) / 37 x 36 ). Play 100 times, you will win £2.42 .
    Actually, you will be down by £2.58 at the table, but up by £5 in your TSB cashback account.

    So, how do I pay a casino Contactlessly? Up to £30 a time, of course.
  • colsten
    colsten Posts: 17,597 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Seventh Anniversary Photogenic Name Dropper
    Pincher wrote: »
    So, how do I pay a casino Contactlessly? Up to £30 a time, of course.

    Simple. Find one that accepts uKash (lots do). Next find a COOP with a Paypoint. Buy a £30 uKash voucher and pay contactless. Use your voucher to deposit at the casino.

    This "strategy" will, of course, cost you a shedload of money as the casino house edge will be stacked sky-high against you and you are 99.99% certain to lose.
  • Pincher
    Pincher Posts: 6,552 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    colsten wrote: »
    Simple. Find one that accepts uKash (lots do). Next find a COOP with a Paypoint. Buy a £30 uKash voucher and pay contactless. Use your voucher to deposit at the casino.

    This "strategy" will, of course, cost you a shedload of money as the casino house edge will be stacked sky-high against you and you are 99.99% certain to lose.

    Green double 0 really takes the urea.
  • bsms1147
    bsms1147 Posts: 2,276 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    colsten wrote: »
    Simple. Find one that accepts uKash (lots do). Next find a COOP with a Paypoint. Buy a £30 uKash voucher and pay contactless. Use your voucher to deposit at the casino.

    This "strategy" will, of course, cost you a shedload of money as the casino house edge will be stacked sky-high against you and you are 99.99% certain to lose.
    £30 contactless - £15 on red, £15 on black.

    £1.50 profit every time.

    (Until you get a zero)
  • SeduLOUs
    SeduLOUs Posts: 2,171 Forumite
    edited 6 October 2015 at 6:29PM
    bsms1147 wrote: »
    £30 contactless - £15 on red, £15 on black.

    £1.50 profit every time.

    (Until you get a zero)

    The law of probabilities says that for every 37 £30 bets of £15 red/£15 black you'll make £1.50 x 37, and lose £15 x 1 when it lands on zero (assuming I'm right in recalling that you get half of your stake back for an outside bet when the result is zero - it's been a while since I went to a casino!). Net profit per 37 plays in the long run is £40.50.

    On a double zero table you'll get 38 x £1.50 and lose £15 x 2 in every 38 plays, net profit still £27...

    The problem is you can only make 3 (and a third) £30 bets per month with cashback, so it would take you a full year to do one cycle, and a single cycle isn't likely to land the true odds.
  • Pincher
    Pincher Posts: 6,552 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    bsms1147 wrote: »
    £30 contactless - £15 on red, £15 on black.

    £1.50 profit every time.

    (Until you get a zero)

    I just realised something, if I can draw out the £30, why bet it at all? I already have the £1.50 cashback in my TSB account.

    If only pay outs from bets can be redeemed, then I would prefer to bet £1 each way, so the wipe out event from green zero only takes out £2.

    In 37 throws, one Green 0 happens, lets say.
    £1 bet each way means you wager £2 x 37 = £74, generating £3.70 in cashback, but you lose £2 for the green 0 event.
    So you win £1.70 overall.

    With a green double zero as well, you wager £2 x 38 = £76, generating £3.80 in cashback, but the two green events wipe out £4, so you lose 20p every 38 throws.

    Double Green sucks. :mad:
  • SeduLOUs
    SeduLOUs Posts: 2,171 Forumite
    Pincher wrote: »
    I just realised something, if I can draw out the £30, why bet it at all? I already have the £1.50 cashback in my TSB account.

    If you find a genuine and legal way to push the house edge into your favour you should be betting as much as you possibly can!

    Now, if you could find a cashback card with a much higher limit...

    I reckon the 'breakeven' point is a cashback rate of 1.35%*. If you have a card with a higher rate than this (AND one that doesn't treat casino spends as a cash withdrawal), get down to the casino and hammer those each way bets :D

    * Let's imagine placing 37 bets of y (£), making payment with a card that pays z (%) on purchases. In 37 spins of the wheel we are set to spend 37y. We can expect to win 36y, and have one ball land on zero, giving us 0.5y in return. We will also earn 37y x z/100 in cashback for the purchases.

    In order to make profit, our winnings plus cashback need to be higher than our total spend:

    37y < 36.5y + 37yz/100 Rearrange for z:

    0.5y < 37yz/100
    0.5 < 37z/100
    50y < 37z
    50y/37 < z
    1.35 < z
  • Pincher
    Pincher Posts: 6,552 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 6 October 2015 at 10:07PM
    SeduLOUs wrote: »
    treat casino spends as a cash withdrawal)

    Actually, I have long considered a casino as an excellent way to launder money in general.

    If I run a lottery that pays out 90% of the bets, it's effectively charging 10% to launder money. It works by you buying 100,000 tickets with a well designed set of numbers, for say £1 each, and you statistically will win £90,000 back, which is clean money on pay out. The draw is totally legitimate, in fact, we could even use say, the UK Lottery draw numbers.

    As far as the TSB 5% deal is concerned, I just need petrol stations to charge 105.9p per litre, AND accept Contactless, so I don't have to seek cashback elsewhere.
  • Goldiegirl
    Goldiegirl Posts: 8,806 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Rampant Recycler Hung up my suit!
    I'm a bit late to the party, but this morning I've done my first TSB contactless transaction for £3.89, at a local independent chemist. I was quite surprised that they did contactless, so it must be getting quite widespread now
    Early retired - 18th December 2014
    If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough
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