If you play a $100 live chip on a table with 3% hold by the casino, in the long run after playing many $100 hands you will lose $3. True the chances of winning any one hand is about 50/50, but you may also win that hand. In the long run, the value of a "play till lost" promo chip is the same as a cash chip. I don't know why Palms would account for them as 50% of face unless most of their players only play their promo chip and leave. Even then, taking the average value to ALL the players who receive the promos and play them, the cost to the casino about face minus the game advantage.

From personal experience, can attest to the "play till lost" character of promo chips from Caesars Palace, Venetian, Mandalay Bay, and Ballys. I also know that Beau Rivage in Biloxi (also an MGM-Mirage property) gives away promo chips that are one-play only and so worth about half face.

I look at promo chips in Las Vegas the same way I do free-slot play that many Nevada casinos offer players today. Free-play is worth about the same as cash-back to the player, but is usually given out much more freely than cash-back is.

An interesting side note is that MGM-Mirge is offering slot free play for their 2008 players holiday gift-points at about TWICE the value of the points in gift merchandise!