Bob Dancer

Posted on December 13, 2022August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 14 Comments

A Mailer to Appreciate

I recently wrote that I had hit a $120,000 royal flush at Dotty’s in October. I mused that possibly the plug had been pulled on my welcome as I had hit a number of big jackpots there in the past. Several readers responded that surely my time was up there.

In November, I received no mailer at all. I looked at this as a “possible sign” of the end of my welcome, but not definitive. In October, my mailer was for $1 a week for the first three weeks, and a whopping $2 for the fourth week. I left them uncashed, except for cashing one of them on the one day I went in to play.

Posted on December 6, 2022August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 5 Comments

Adventure at Railroad Pass – Part 2 of 2

My play at Railroad Pass had largely stopped. While they still had dollar $1 9/5 Triple Bonus Poker Plus with a 0.75% slot club on Wednesdays, I could only play 400-hands-per-hour on those coin-droppers. I had earlier played dollar 8/5 Bonus Poker Wheel Poker (99.59%), which was much more lucrative because it required $30 per hand to fully load. This was worth more, and was a lot more fun to play.

When that game was pulled, I pretty much retired from Railroad Pass, except for playing enough to keep my account active (at least one point every six months) so that my comp dollars didn’t evaporate.

Posted on November 29, 2022August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 12 Comments

Adventure at Railroad Pass – Part 1 of 2

Railroad Pass was built some 90 years ago. Insofar as Las Vegas casinos go, that’s ancient. Railroad Pass isn’t actually in Las Vegas, of course. It’s in Henderson, almost to Boulder City. At the time this story happened, almost 20 years ago, they actually had a traffic signal in the middle of the 95 freeway to get into the place. In addition, it was owned by the MGM – Mirage corporation, although totally separate from that players club. Today that signal is gone, and MGM no longer owns a piece of the Pass.

A lot of the machines were coin-droppers. With a 0.25% slot club, I favored dollar 9/5 Triple Bonus Poker Plus (99.80%) on Wednesdays, which was 3x point day. I couldn’t get many dollars per hour through the machine. When credits on the machine exceeded 400, dollar coins fell into the hopper. Quad 2s, 3s, and 4s ($600) were a hand pay, as were four aces ($1,199). It was about a $20-per-hour play, but they had mailers and comps which added considerably.

Posted on November 22, 2022August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 24 Comments

Dazed and Confused

I recently received this email — slightly shortened and lightly edited:

Just got back from my first trip to Mohegan Sun in Connecticut and Foxwoods.

Posted on November 15, 2022August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 5 Comments

Comparing Two Different Games at Dotty’s — Part Two of Two

The story from last week continues. If you didn’t catch last week’s blog, you need to read that one first for context. Last week was more about my decision process. This week is more about the actual results when I went to play at my local Dotty’s for $150 a hand.

My first $3,000 was lost in about five minutes. It took a full eight minutes to lose the next $3,000. A half-hour later, still with no W-2Gs, I was down $15,000. This was not the way I envisioned the game!

Posted on November 8, 2022August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 8 Comments

Comparing Two Different Games at Dotty’s — Part One of Two

Today I’m going to discuss a play that is of limited interest to most of my readers. It includes, however, a “how did I figure it out” discussion that could be useful to many of you.

Long-time readers of mine know I sometimes play at Dotty’s. Dotty’s has numerous (more than 100) locations in Nevada which are mostly 15-machine locations. It does have a few full-blown casinos with several hundred machines each, and at least one intermediate-sized location (at Sunset and Green Valley Parkway) with about 50 machines in it.

Posted on November 1, 2022August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 7 Comments

What Was Your Best Gambling Decision?

Pick your one or two best gambling decisions throughout your life. Pick them before reading on. Take however much time you need. This blogpost will be here when you get back.

This post has been inspired by my recent reading of Annie Duke’s books, “Thinking in Bets” and “Quit.” I wrote about these books last week. I’m not sure which book spoke about this topic. I read them more or less concurrently as audiobooks checked out from the library, and they’ve both been returned.

Posted on October 25, 2022August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 8 Comments

How Much Should I Lose Before I Quit?

I’ve been asked variations of this question more than one hundred times over the years. Sometimes phrased as, “If I lose $100 (or some other number), should I give up for the day?”

My answer usually was some form of the following:

Only play when you have the advantage. If the house has the edge, don’t play. It’s fairly easy to calculate in video poker whether you have the edge or not. In general, if you don’t know if you’re the favorite or not, you’re not.

My answer assumes you have sufficient bankroll, actual and psychological, to ride it out. How to calculate how much bankroll you need is a discussion for another day.

Are you still playing alertly?

Posted on October 18, 2022August 29, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 13 Comments

Putting Bills Into a Machine

Before playing a video poker machine, I typically load it with $500 or $1,000 in bills or tickets. I do this for a number of reasons:

I keep records of how much I win or lose each day. It’s easier for me to remember round numbers. If I’m playing a $2 game, ($10 a play), it’s common to be up or down several hundred dollars in a session. If I add another hundred-dollar bill as needed, it can be difficult to remember whether it’s four or five of those so far.

For each additional bill, I could record it on my phone (I use the Notes app on my iPhone), but I can keep thousand-dollar increments straight more easily. If I go in for $3,000 or more in a session, I write each $1,000 play as I go.

Posted on October 11, 2022August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 9 Comments

Help Me Make Sense of This

I received the following email. It was originally intended for the Gambling with an Edge mailbag, but I felt it was too technical to be discussed over a podcast:

I know video poker has a ton of variance, but I recently endured a hellish series of events on $5 NSU Deuces Wild at a tribal casino.

Author: Bob Dancer