I teach a lot of classes and one of the most frequently asked questions I get is, “If I’m having a bad session, when do I change machines?”
My answer was always some version of, “It doesn’t matter. Changing machines has absolutely nothing to do with the winning process.”
Several years back I started trying a different answer. Not that the old answer was wrong, it’s just that the newer answer stressed things a little differently.
“Why are you playing video poker?” I ask.
If the answer comes back to me, “To make money,” I then ask the question, “In the game you are playing, who’s the favorite — you or the casino?”
The conversation can go several ways from here. If the player tells me that he’s the favorite (because he knows the return on the game, the contribution of the slot club, and the promotions in effect — and they add up to enough over 100% to make it worth his time) I then tell him, “Keep going. You have the advantage. Assuming you have sufficient bankroll to weather the swings, a small setback is irrelevant.”
If the player tells me he doesn’t know whether he’s the favorite or not, or worse, he knows that the casino has the advantage, I then openly question why he is playing in the first place. It can’t be to make money because the house has the advantage.
One of the basic principles of winning at gambling is to bet when you have the edge and don’t bet when you don’t have the edge. If players can accept that, they’ll stop asking such silly questions as when to change machines.
So for the past few years, this has been the type of answer I’ve given. And it’s still a good answer. But recently I’ve been looking at it a bit differently.
What about the cases where you know the return on the game and the base rate of the slot club, but you don’t know what the mailers and comps will be down the road? What then?
It would be useful to have all that information up front, but often you don’t. If you’ve played at the casino for a long time and are used to their system, the best assumption is that “the future benefits will be like the previous benefits.”
We know that this assumption isn’t perfect. Games are removed or excluded from benefits. The amounts of the mailers change over time. They raise the prices in the restaurant and your comps don’t go as far. They might add a resort fee to comped rooms that they didn’t previously. Etc.
Even though the assumption isn’t perfect — it’s the best one we have. We need to have some idea of what we are getting in order to decide whether it makes sense to play and a “best guess” is better than no idea at all. If you want to say “the benefits in the future will be 90% of what they’ve been,” fine. That takes into account that benefits have been decreasing over time. But it still provides a best guess to use in your calculations.
If you’re new to a casino and have no idea what they’re going to offer, you might talk to others. Some players are very knowledgeable. Some aren’t. Don’t assume that everything you hear is true.
If it’s in your home town, you likely already have a good idea of who is a reliable source and who isn’t. If you’re traveling and don’t know anybody, use your best judgment.
It can happen that you’re at a brand new casino, so nobody has any information. What are you going to do? The games themselves are very likely worth less than 100%, including the slot club. It’s appropriate now to take your best guess as to what you will receive.
Use the following kinds of background information to make your decision: What do other casinos in the area offer? What do “related” casinos offer? (That is, if it’s a brand new Harrah’s, then what do Harrah’s casinos offer elsewhere?) Are there signs up at the slot club about some offer that might be interesting to you? (Perhaps a logo jacket if you hit a royal flush. Maybe 1000 points earns you the gift of the month — which you may or may not consider to worth collecting. Occasionally there will be a promotion such as the top 50 point earners through the first three months of the year earn a free cruise.)
Sometimes you just can’t tell. You have to give them some action and then find out later whether the actual rewards more than make up for the EXPECTED loss. (This is completely different from comparing the benefits to the ACTUAL loss. That’s largely irrelevant, assuming you’re playing within your bankroll.) Some of us only want to play when we have the advantage, but it’s possible we just can’t know until later how much of an advantage we have — if any.
There’s a reason it’s called gambling!