Re: Are free games in online slot games designed to really suck?
Some people will tell you that what you use money for its achievement will tend to last more than the one that just comes on a platter of gold, we should know this for that reason, free things are sometime unpredictable and their value may not be as up to to the quality of what we get when we are actually using our own earned personal money for gambling, i don't know what's behind this, but that is how it has been for some time now.
Trust anything free and roast yourself alive...lol 
That is how I see free things today. It was better initially but maybe for competition or a higher patronage, things changed all of a sudden. The OP was even referring to the spinning games, I wonder how that can be productive since it is already programmed on how it should act. If one wins from the real wagers through spins, the person is just lucky, but how much more when it is free money, you can be sure to have more difficulties than before. The system has been programmed to make sure of that, but this doesn't mean you can't still be lucky by spinning the free money but your chance of luck will be slimmer. This is if the additional terms and conditions will even favour the gambler as bookies make sure that the condition of getting money from the free bets is more stringent.
I got your idea here and it's impressive, we are actually both hitting the nail on the head, further more on this, if we are to look into other reasons why some may think of going for free things is regarding the aspect of gambling platforms making promotions with the offer of free bonuses to their subscribers, though in this, it may have to come with some demands and task to fulfill while they are participating, while at the end, the time wasted and energy given on all may not commensurate with the reward to later get, and that is of they even have any at the end, some at the cause would have spend more than they anticipate to receive when gambling all because they wanted to earn something out of nothing.