Did someone from bitcointalk ever redemeed these type of prizes though, kinda interesting to know if some of us would make it till this point.
I don't think so. Only whales who wager a huge amount of BTC are likely to be able to redeem these kinds of prizes for RP, although I think it would be a strange decision for even the most wasteful whale. For comparison, iPhone 15 pro max 1tb costs $1599 on Apple's official site, while freebitcoin asks 5,135,617 RP for it, which is equivalent to $1920 at the moment.
You are right and I completely agree with you, so for a whale, it's better for them to simply order for the product from the official store rather than spend thousand of dollars on wager simply to be able to gain enough reward point to claim such a price.
Anyways, I think even a pleb can surely be able to reach such a level and claim the prize, but the thing is that, it will take a very very long time and a lot of commitment from the party as well, for it is not easy to hold reward points up until it reaches 500,000, not to talk of millions.
I personally have been saving up on reward points for several years now, and up on until now, total I have is just a little about 1000, and this is because most times, I end up spending some of it to buy wheel of fortune spins.
Well, can't we think that let's suppose a whale is constantly wagering at freebitco without any intention of collecting RP and redeeming them for an iPhone? After some months, they have enough RP to redeem it for an iPhone. So this would be free money (free iPhone) for them as they would have wagered even if freebitco did not have this Reward Points system.
Yes, if your initial intention is to get an iPhone through RP, then you are risking way too much money but if your intention is only gambling and you are able to collect enough RP, there is nothing harm in redeeming them for a prize.