Author: Bob Dancer

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History of Your Bankroll

A player, “Alex,” came to one of my video poker classes and chose to tell me how his bankroll developed. I’m guessing he was 45 years old, although I could be off in either direction. He started by borrowing $100 from a friend, hitting a good hand which allowed him to end the first day up $500, and slowly building it up from there. Now he was up to “five figures” with no money input at all from himself. It was a point of pride with him that his gambling bankroll was entirely sourced by other people’s money and his skill. He called this his “pure” bankroll.

He never told me what his “five figures” actually meant. While it could be anywhere between $10,000 and just shy of $100,000, I’m going to assume for this article that it’s $11,000 or less. I’ve never heard of anybody bragging about their bankroll in terms of a number of figures and I imagine he probably passed the $10,000 threshold recently and was quite proud of it.

Playing mostly for quarters while building up a bankroll of that size is pretty impressive, and it definitely took some time. In no way am I putting him down.

He then shared what games he was willing to play and under what conditions. He treated this $11,000 pure bankroll as though if he lost it all, his life as a gambler would be over. Even though he had considerable wealth outside of this bankroll, that other wealth was totally out-of-bounds insofar as his gambling went. But within those parameters, he wanted to grow his bankroll as fast as he safely could.

Is this the right way to look at bankroll? Not to me, but every player has to make that decision for himself.

Let’s say you have ten $20 bills in your wallet. Do you know the provenance of each bill? I don’t, unless I just received all ten of them from the same place. If you spend one of those bills for lunch, is it important to decide whether you’re actually spending one of the bills you got from a jackpot at a particular casino or one of the bills you got from a tax refund check?

Not to me. I might care that I had $200 and now have $180, but exactly which bill I was spending is irrelevant. I’m looking at the total only.

The fact that Alex is proud of “never spending a cent of his own money in a casino,” is understandable. But it’s short-sighted.

Alex is 45 years old now. He will not live forever. Video poker opportunities, in general, are declining. They will probably not be as good five or ten years from now as they are today.

Alex’s insistence of only using his pure money, when he has plenty of other money available, is restricting his opportunities in an environment where opportunities in the future won’t be as good. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me.

Alex should ask himself why it is so important to only gamble with pure money. Is it for purposes of pride? Okay. But who is he going to brag to and do they really care? If someone were concerned about his total wealth, would they be more concerned with the total amount or the pathway it took to get there?

With all that said, I’m not recommending Alex plunge and suddenly start playing bigger stakes because his real bankroll is much larger than his $11,000 pure bankroll. He still has to limit himself to good opportunities.

It’s still possible to find 100.8% opportunities and larger in Las Vegas if you limit yourself to quarter single line games. You won’t always find opportunities that size for dollars. But 100.4% opportunities for dollars offer twice the earning potential per hour played as 100.8% opportunities for quarters, simply because you’re playing four times as much.

Playing for dollars entails larger risks. If things went badly while playing for dollars, Alex could go through that $11,000 bankroll. While he has plenty of actual wealth behind that $11,000, I’m not at all sure how much psychological wealth he has. He’s going to have to figure this out for himself.

There’s much to be said for “making hay while the sun shines,” meaning take bigger risks while the opportunities are bigger. There is also much to be said about staying within your comfort zone. These two philosophies lead to different paths going forward.

There is no unique best path for everybody. The only thing I can recommend with certainty for you is that you should examine your alternatives. Sometimes tweaking your philosophy can pay off more in the long term.

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I Don’t Want to Lose That Much!

This particular incident happened at the Gold Coast casino in Las Vegas maybe ten years ago, on games that are long gone. The fact that these individual games are no longer available doesn’t change the thought processes of the players involved.

My game of choice at that casino back then was a $2 single line 99.81% version of Double Bonus Deuces Wild (DBDW). With a 0.30% slot club 24/7 (if you had achieved the highest tier level — called “Emerald”), the game provided a very small edge to the competent player. They would regularly have days where you could earn 0.50% or 0.60% on play up to $10,000 coin-in per day. If you played more than that, you reverted to the 0.30% slot club.

They had drawings. They had mailers. They had other promotions. Overall it was a modestly profitable place to play — at least on a $10,000-a-day coin-in basis.

This game came with a variance of 40.4 — which is very comparable to that of Double Double Bonus (42.0). These variances are moderately high, especially when compared with Jacks or Better (19.5) or NSU Deuces Wild (25.7).

A typical session of $10,000 coin-in (1,000 hands) ends up a thousand or more dollars to the red unless you connect on one or more hands of $1,600 five aces (every 2,565 hands on average), $2,000 four deuces (6,766 hands), $4,000 four deuces with an ace kicker (38,088 hands) or an $8,000 royal flush (44,211 hands). The “average loss” of $19 (based on a 99.81% return played for $10,000 coin-in) before you collected your $30, $50, or $60 dollars in free play from the slot club was a score you never saw. Over hundreds of sessions, your score would approach a $19 loss per session, but individual sessions varied wildly from that. Hitting three or more jackpots in one 1,000-hand session wasn’t that rare. Not hitting anything at all for several sessions in a row wasn’t that rare either.

Until they told me not to do it, I played on both my card and that of Shirley (my wife at the time). I would play through $20,000 each time I played and that would take 2½ hours or so. Since the casino is across the street from the Palms, and I played a lot there before it was purchased by Station Casinos, the Gold Coast was a fairly convenient place to drop in and drop out of for these small plays.

When I started each play, I would feed in ten $100 bills. When this went down to zero, I would feed in ten more bills. When I hit for $1,600 or $2,000 (which was paid in cash), I would frequently create a ticket for that amount.

There was nothing sacred about the way I did this, but there was some method. It was done to simplify record-keeping. For tax and other reasons, I need accurate records. Adding an additional $1,000 per time is easy accounting for me. If I were playing for smaller stakes, perhaps adding $100 or $200 at a time would make sense. But on this game, you could go through $200 in five minutes if you ran bad and continually reaching into my pocket and making sure to record each bill was tedious and I would have worried that I’d occasionally forget to record a Benjamin or two. I could have easily inserted $2,000 at a time, but I settled on $1,000 and it worked for me.

There were perhaps six of these machines and I’d see the same faces seated at them over and over again. A few dozen players had analyzed the game similarly to the way I did and played more or less the same amount (although several played for $1 or 50 cent stakes for which the odds were the same but the amount you could lose was less. It would also take you two or four times as long to play the 10,000 points if you played for the lesser stakes.) If all the machines were taken, it was common to be asked, “How long do you intend to play?” We all were pretty civil about sharing because it was obvious that the guy who had the machine this time may well be the one wanting a machine next time.

One day, a lady I knew sitting next to me, Helen, had 9,400 points when her credits went down to zero. She needed to play $600 more though the machine to get the maximum slot club benefits that day — or she could have used that as a good time to quit for the day.

She was debating whether she should put in $100, $200, or $300. Helen only had 60 hands to play and was trying to predict how much it would cost. The simple answer is: Who knows? I’m pretty good at predicting how the next 6,000,000 hands will go, but really bad at predicting the same about the next 60 hands.

Helen asked me how much I would put in. I was basically concentrating on my game but told her, “I always put in $1,000.”

“But I only need to play $600 more,” she responded.

“I would put in a grand.”

“Well, I’m not going to do that,” she told me. “I don’t want to lose that much!”

I gave her a “Do whatever you want” shrug and we didn’t talk anymore about it. But I went away thinking that how much I wanted to lose didn’t have anything to do with the equation. I would be planning on stopping at 10,000 points, as she was, and I also wanted to keep good records. Cashing out at whatever amount I had on the ticket when I had reached 10,000 points was no problem at all. I could either turn it into cash or save it until tomorrow when I was going to play again.

There could be exceptions to this, of course. If I had 9,980 points when my machine ran out of money, I would either have put in $100 or maybe quit for the day. If I had a $20 bill on me, it’s even possible I would have put that in instead of $100.  

Each player must work out for himself what technique works on this. For nickel players, obviously $1,000 at a time is way too much. For $5 Ten Play players ($250 per pull), $1,000 is probably too small. Inserting large amounts of money into a machine doesn’t cause me any kind of anxiety. I know players who agonize over every $20 bill.

Many modern casinos create tickets for you which allow you to put substantial amounts of money into the machine more easily. The Gold Coast didn’t have that at the time. Probably they still don’t, but I’m not sure. When I was restricted from receiving mailers there, I decided the casino was “too smoky” and haven’t been back.

You have to do what works for you. Since Helen had a different “default” than I did, it should be no surprise to anyone that she found my advice totally unworkable.

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A Reason to Leave

In many jurisdictions, including Las Vegas, casinos can restrict players from competing. The restrictions can be complete or partial — permanent or reviewable. For many players, including myself, being restricted is a state of being with which we are quite familiar.

I was waiting for a drawing at a casino in December and a friend, “Charlie,” stopped by to chat until the winners were announced. He started by telling me of the new luxury automobile he had just purchased. Eventually the conversation diverged into casinos at which he (and his wife) and I were or were not allowed to play. I mentioned that in February I was going to apply to Casino A for reinstatement.

When I was restricted from Casino A I met with the General Manager and argued why I thought I should be allowed to continue to play. The GM listened to me but said that my restriction would remain. It was a partial “no mail” restriction, and I was still welcome to play, but without the mailers the edge was too skinny to make it worthwhile in my opinion. It was clear he wasn’t going to budge. I then asked if we could revisit it in 2018, and he agreed.

Although I wasn’t successful in 2017 when I spoke with him, I’m going to try again a year later. I was glad I was able to meet and talk with him and present my case. Every restriction is a negotiation. Some players roll over and play dead with every restriction. They accept the first verdict and that’s that. I treat a restriction as a starting place for a negotiation.

If you ever wondered why some player ended up being restricted at a particular place and some other player with a similar record wasn’t, reread the last four sentences of the preceding paragraph.

I try to find a way that the casino can get basically what it wants and I still get to play. Perhaps I was restricted because I won the Senior Drawing too many times. Okay. What if I agree that whenever I earn at least $500 in such a drawing I don’t participate in them for three months? That way, the casino isn’t bombarded with “that guy always wins” complaints, which in this case might have been the underlying reason for the restriction.

Or perhaps they want me to limit my play on point multiplier days to such and such an amount, rather than being unlimited. Whatever. There are a zillion ways to reach a compromise.

It’s very possible that there’s a happy meeting ground where they can allow my play and I still feel I have a decent-enough edge. We won’t know this until we talk about it. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn’t. But, for me anyway, it works enough of the time that it’s worthwhile to go through the process.

Although the discussion with that casino’s GM will probably happen before this article is published, the particular results of that discussion will be for a later time — or most likely never. Let’s go back to my conversation with Charlie.

Charlie told me that he thought it was ironic that I was trying to get back into Casino A because he had just decided to stop playing there. I asked him why?

“Because,” he told me, “I’ve been playing $2 8/5 Bonus Poker there (which is the best game at that casino) and I’m down more than $40,000 for the year.”

“Okay,” I replied, “you’ve been unlucky there. Five cycles behind is no fun. But why did you decide you should quit playing there?”

“If I can’t win there,” he told me, “why should I keep throwing good money after bad?”

Before we could continue the discussion, they held the drawing, neither of us were called, and then we each left to do whatever else rather than keep chatting. But I thought this was a good subject to write about. Charlie is certainly not alone in the way he thinks. But I believe that such thinking is incorrect for intelligent gamblers.

Charlie’s logic was basically: I’ve run bad. The future will be like the past. Therefore, I should cut my losses and get out.

My thinking is: This is a 99.2% game. The slot club pays 0.30% there. If you play $xxx a month you generally receive weekly mailers of $yyy, plus food vouchers and other non-cash items. They regularly have promotions and drawings that add considerable equity. Reaching their highest tier level is obtainable for me and it offers benefits I value. Over a year, I expect to have an advantage of $zzz there.

Notice that in my thinking, the fact that I was ahead or behind any given amount in the past year was not part of the equation at all. My assumption going forward is that things will be “average” in the future. The fact that I’ve had non-average results so far this year is largely an irrelevant, albeit sometimes exciting and sometimes frustrating, piece of data.

For many people, being behind $40,000 would create bankroll issues.  In Charlie’s case, I don’t believe this is an issue. (Although clearly it was at least somewhat of a psychological issue if not an actual financial issue.)

I know that things in the future won’t end up being average. Every gambling situation turns out being better or worse than I calculated. Those folks who want guarantees should pick a different hobby. But just because I know things won’t end up being average doesn’t mean that being average isn’t the best assumption to make at this point. If the $zzz I’ve calculated is big enough to meet my needs, and the variance is reasonable enough given my bankroll, and I have time to fit it into my schedule given my other gambling and non-gambling activities, then it’s full speed ahead. Being behind five royals in a year is just so much “noise.” There have definitely been years I’ve been ahead more than that. There will be good and bad streaks in the future.

In my calculation, I mentioned xxx, yyy, and zzz. These are numbers you’re going to have to estimate for yourself for every casino you’re considering. The numbers I get may not be the same as the ones you get. You may or may not like the food at the restaurants in any particular place. If you play at a lot of other casinos, you may already have more food available to you than you can possibly consume. Some promotions make more sense for bigger players — or just for seniors — or just for locals who can come in every day if the situation warrants — or whatever. Estimating these things is something you can get better at over time.

Since I’m writing this before I actually know whether I’ll be re-welcomed at Casino A and, if so, under which conditions, my 2018 “prediction” is that I will be reinstated and Charlie will decide to return. As all gamblers know, sometimes your predictions come true and sometimes they don’t.

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A Different Way to Look at It

In Week 2 of my free video poker classes at the South Point, I usually teach beginning 9/6 Double Double Bonus Poker. Many of my readers wouldn’t be caught dead playing such a game. It returns only 98.98% when played well and there are plenty of better games around, at least in Las Vegas.

Still, players DO play this game regularly, so they might as well learn how to play it correctly. It might surprise you to know that in 2017, I played more coin-in on this game than any other! (It sure surprises me! If somebody would have bet me this five years ago, I would have bet against it. Of course, had I made a big enough bet, that would have affected the odds and I wouldn’t have played it more than any other!) While DDB is the most popular video poker game in the country, I didn’t play it because I particularly liked it. I played because with certain combinations of slot club benefits and promotions, this was the game that made the most sense to play.

In the class a few weeks ago, I was explaining that you NEVER hold a suited ace-ten in this game. One lady, who apparently goes for the royal every chance she gets, wanted to know how I could justify not going for the royal. The hand in question was A♠ T♠ 8♥ 7♣ 6♦.

As is my practice, I put this hand on Video Poker for Winners and displayed the results on the screen in front of the class. The display showed in Table 1:

 

[table “74” not found /]

 

After class I wondered if I could display these numbers in a way that would make more sense.I said holding the ace by itself was worth 21¢ more to the five-coin dollar player, and I pointed to the column that said holding the ace was worth $2.346 and holding the AT was worth $2.133. The lady nodded blankly, which told me she believed what I said, but these were just numbers. The numbers didn’t mean anything to her.
[table “73” not found /]

In this table, you have the value of each combination in dollars and cents (and tenths of cents.) That is, the chance you get a high pair (most frequently AA, but you can get JJ, QQ, or KK as well) is worth $1.274 when you hold the ace by itself but only $0.911 when you hold AT. This is a difference of $0.363. When you think about it, it’s not too surprising that you get fewer high pairs when you hold a ten in the hand. It both makes fewer “empty spaces” with which to make a high pair and when you pair up the ten, it’s not a high pair.

If you go through the differences on the bottom line, you’ll see that the two biggest advantages of holding AT (namely you can get a royal flush and you have a better chance of getting a flush) are worth almost a quarter apiece. But you lose in most of the other categories.

This chart is a little surprising to many players. After all, did you really think that the amount you get from high pairs is worth about half of the value of holding either the ace or AT? When you see these starting positions, you’re thinking four aces or maybe a royal flush. You’re not thinking of a measly high pair.

Don’t even think about trying to memorize these numbers. They are highly dependent on the exact five cards chosen. If one of the other cards is a spade, it greatly affects how much the flush draw is worth. If one of the other cards is a 2, 3, or 4, it affects both the chances for a straight, the chances for four aces with a kicker, and four 2s, 3s, and 4s with a kicker.

Is it useful to see how much each combination is worth in dollars and cents rather than in the number of occurrences? Maybe. Opinions will vary.

But if you think it’s useful, it’s already included in the Video Poker for Winners software. When you analyze a hand, you have a choice between “Show Possible Outcomes,” which gives you the information in Table 1, and “Show Coins Out,” which gives you the information in Table 2.

I didn’t know this was already included in the software until I looked while writing this article. I’m sure many of you didn’t know it either.

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Am I Healthy Enough?

In December, the M Resort had a promotion involving W2Gs. Simply put, every W2G you earned from December 1 – December 29 gave you a “drawing ticket.” For each drawing ticket you earned through those 29 days, if you also received another one on December 30, you received a bonus of $150 in free play. In addition to being able to earn as many of these $150 bonuses as you could, there were drawings based on those tickets.

 A W2G promotion is basically geared towards high limit players. Lower-stakes players don’t earn very many of these documents — and the best lower-stakes machines were excluded anyway. There were still some high limit machines where I believed it made sense to play this promotion. So, by December 29, I had received a few dozen W2Gs. These would be worth a lot more if I could earn the same number of W2Gs on Saturday, December 30.

Unfortunately, beginning Tuesday, December 26, I began coming down with a cold, or maybe something worse. Beginning that day, I began scarfing down mega-doses of Vitamin C, drank a lot of water, and slept a lot. Even a pint of chicken broth every day along with DayQuil. I’m not positive such a regimen works, but I was optimistic.

By Friday, December 29, I was probably 75% of the way back to being healthy. Staying away on Friday and Saturday would have cost me a significant amount in EV. This was not a close decision for me. I was healthy enough.  Was I still contagious? Probably not. I certainly told people I wasn’t. But I couldn’t be sure. I participated in their drawings on Friday (they forgot to call my name) and played heavily beginning at 1 a.m. Saturday (which was still December 29 casino-day wise).  Beginning at 4 a.m., when the casino day became December 30, I continued playing heavily so as to match the number of W2Gs I had already earned.

Enough about me and this promotion specifically. (I did okay. Not great. Nothing to brag or complain about.) But what if I had been only 50% of the way back to being healthy? Or 25%? Or 10%? Or 0% for that matter? And it isn’t just me, of course. It’s hundreds of players in each casino who are making this type of decision independently. Players who might be too sick to go to work, but definitely aren’t too sick to go to the casino.

You should always assume that many people in the casino aren’t completely healthy, but during this time of year especially, there are players in every casino who are infectious. Don’t even dream about not washing your hands regularly. Whatever your health regimen — flu shots, exercise, getting enough sleep, eating as best you can — it is especially important now. New Year’s resolutions generally don’t work very well, but now is a good time to make some anyway.

I don’t have any new advice in this column, but just another reminder to “be safe out there.”

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Video Poker’s Participation Awards   

A ‘participation award’ is one you get just for being there — whether you win or lose. There are people who believe that when raising children, winning and losing isn’t so important, but participation is. With that in mind, there are some sports leagues for children where every player gets a trophy at the end of the year.

I’m not here to argue the merits of such a program and I’m not here to tell you how to raise your kids or grandkids.

What I want to talk about today are video poker’s participation awards. It’s possible you didn’t know there are any such things. But there are!

They are called jackpots!

A royal flush, which is the top award in most video poker games, is really a participation award. Show me a player who has hit 20 royal flushes in the past two months and I’ll show you someone who has played a LOT. Show me someone who hasn’t ever hit a royal flush, and I’ll show you someone who hasn’t played very much at all.

If you want to change the discussion to four aces, or maybe four deuces depending on the game, or dealt quads, or some other hand that pays well, be my guest. If you play long enough, you’re going to get these hands. If you don’t, you won’t.

But, do I hear you say, in the sports league for children that awards trophies to everybody, your skill level doesn’t matter. Surely, it’s different in video poker where you need to make skillful choices.

Well, yeah, sort of. On a hand like K♦ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 4♦, there are games where you should hold the kings and others where you should hold the spades. If you hold the spades, rightly or wrongly, on average you’re going to end up with a royal flush once every 1,081 of these hands. If you hold the kings, you’re never going to get a royal flush on this hand.

So, if the computer says to hold the kings on this hand but you actually held the spades and the 1,080-to-1 shot came in, would you consider that skillful? If you take a picture of the royal flush and show it to your friends, do they ever ask what cards you threw away? Or what game you were playing? Doubtful. Mostly they congratulate you on your good fortune and wonder what it’s like to be such a winner as you!

I participate on several Internet forums related to gambling. On some forums, you’ll see players posting pictures of dealt royals when they’re playing 8/5 Double Double Bonus, which is a game that returns less than 97%. There are other games shown in the pictures as well, yielding approximately the same thing.

Other posters on the forum line up and immediately congratulate the poster on the good fortune. My personal feeling is that anyone who plays a 97% game is clueless about the winning process. Clearly this is a losing player who got a participation award to briefly provide them with some ammunition to play more. To me, posting jackpots on such a bad game announces to the world that you are not a knowledgeable player. Why not keep this secret?

If I actually post such a comment, I get my head handed to me. People want to celebrate their participation awards. People want to be praised for how good they are. They tell me (correctly!) that it’s okay to be a recreational player and rejoice in their successes when they come.

So, I generally don’t comment on these jackpot pictures anymore. But I take note of who posted them. When that person enters into a later debate on some matter on the forum, I’ll understand going in that their opinion does not carry the same weight with me as the people who are actually knowledgeable players.

In my own case, I’ve hit more than 500 jackpots of $20,000 and larger. Are they all participation awards? Absolutely! Every last one of them! The only thing that number of jackpots tell you is that I’ve been playing a long time for higher stakes than many others play. It doesn’t tell you anything about how good a player I am.

Until you know why a player was playing a particular machine on a given day, what slot club benefits and promotions were available, and the accuracy of the strategy used, you have no idea how good that player is. You cannot say with confidence that someone who has hit 200 royal flushes is a better player than one who has hit four — although you CAN say the former has participated a lot more than the latter.

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Why Do Casinos Do That?

In a December 26 post on gamblingwithanedge.com, someone named Sandy asked the (slightly abbreviated) following:

Apparently, EV is only positive in VP when you factor in comps. But comps and maybe other rewards that aren’t strictly “comps” as APs define it, are voluntary payments by casinos. You can’t complain to the Gaming Commission or Control Board that you’ve been cheated on comps if casinos reduce or eliminate yours. That being the case, why do casinos cooperate in turning the house edge to a player edge by giving comps?  

Today I’m going to respond to part of this. My posts are read by both players and casino employees and if I explain everything it creates a roadmap for casinos to change things in a way I don’t want them changed.

With that said, I think grouping all comps together yields misleading results. Let me break them down, somewhat arbitrarily, further.

Comps, short for complimentaries, to me, consist of non-monetary gifts casinos give to players as a way to induce players to play. These include such things as either free or highly discounted hotel rooms, meals, spa treatments, show tickets, shorter lines, VIP lounges, etc. These are nice, but if this is all I received for playing 9/6 Jacks or Better (99.54%), I would find the game unplayable.

Even though I’m calling these non-monetary gifts, some of them may be sold. Although I haven’t sold rooms for more than a decade, there were times long ago I did so. I’ve occasionally bartered certain benefits — e.g. free show tickets to my barber in exchange for a certain number of haircuts.

These comps are worth different amounts to different people. Room comps in Las Vegas aren’t so valuable to me because I live there. But for out-of-towners, they are worth more. Free alcohol is worth more to heavy drinkers than to teetotalers.

There are also monetary, or almost monetary, gifts given to players for the purpose of inducing the player to play: These include cash back, free play, monthly mailers, loss rebates, and other things. The distinction between items in this category and those in the comp category aren’t always clear cut. For example, airline ticket reimbursement could conceivably be included in either.

There is also a third category of casino gifts to the player called promotions. Some of these are monetary (e.g. point multipliers) and some are more in the comp category (e.g. half-price margaritas on Tuesday.) There are casino gifts ranging from “casino crap” (e.g. a logo cap) to a free or highly discounted cruise.

There can be earn-up promotions where you have to play x amount of points to get the gifts. Or maybe get one for free and play more to get additional ones or perhaps a bigger one. There are dozens of types of drawings and tournaments — all with the aim of getting the players to play more.

There are no limits to the types of promotions that can be offered. If a marketing director can think up some new way to induce players to come in, he/she can make a promotion out of it. Some of these promotions are well-thought-out and work well for the casino’s bottom line. Other promotions not so much. Not all marketing directors have the skills to predict how a promotion is going to appear to their strongest players.

There are promotions that are essentially costless to the casino but valuable to the players — such as earning six times drawing entries on Thursdays. If you estimate that drawing entries are worth a tenth of a percent, this promotion adds a half of a percent to the player without costing the casino anything. That could conceivably turn an unplayable game into a playable one.

In every casino, several of these items are going on at once with players playing a wide variety of games at various skill levels. Just limiting the discussion to video poker for now, you have 94% games, 95% games, 96% games, . . ., and maybe 99%+ games at some places. There isn’t a lot of difference to the casino, perhaps, between a 99% played poorly and a 97% game played expertly. They both contribute similar amounts to the casino’s bottom line.

Casinos can be very profitable if most players lose and a few players win. If a casino wants to make it so that winning is impossible, then most players will play elsewhere.  Even then there will be short-term winners. Players will still hit royal flushes on 95% games.

A significant part of the skill of good players is in figuring out which promotions are worth pursuing. Additionally, good players learn where they can “stack them up,” meaning play on multiple point days for a tournament and multiple drawings at once, while maintaining enough play to keep their monthly mailers coming while not winning so much the casino takes actions against them. Figuring out how much the point multiplier added to their bottom line is easy.  How much the drawings add is tougher. How much do you need to play to get a good mailer? These are not trivial problems.

Some promotions work better for low rollers. Some work better for high rollers. The best decision for you may well not be the best decision for me. Correctly figuring out where you can get the most benefit is part of the game.

Part of the premise of the original question is that casinos can easily evaluate how good a player is. That’s easier said than done. If a player is ahead after six months, can you say how much was skill and how much was luck?

How much should winning tournaments and drawings count towards whether the player is a net-winner or not? Different casinos answer that question differently. The casino has already budgeted $xxx for the drawing and within certain limits doesn’t much care which player wins it (so long as the same players don’t win most of the time.)

Running a casino well is as difficult as playing well. It’s always going to be a cat-and-mouse game to some degree. The smartest players learn to survive in this game. The smartest casino managers do too. In many casinos there is room for both.

Sandy is partially correct and partially wrong when she says that you can’t take it to the Gaming Control Board if casinos cut back on your comps. If a casino decides to “no mail” you, you’re stuck. If they take away already earned free play, you probably do have redress. If a casino offers things in a drawing and then reneges, sometimes the GCB will take it up. It’s a bit complicated about what casinos can and can’t do to you, but it is nowhere near “they can do anything they want.”

Are there things I’m not sharing with you here? Absolutely! But even so, I think I’m providing a framework with which to look at the situation.

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What’s Going On?

On a recent videopoker.com forum post in mid-December, one member, “George,” posted the following. It was in a thread that at the time was discussing players offering advice to players who sit next to them:

For the last few weeks, I’ve been hitting one particular promo spread among a few casinos. I’m going to guess well over 100 hours since Thanksgiving.
Never once, not a single time could I even tell you what game the person next to me was playing. Not if they played it well, just what they were playing.

George is a local Las Vegas player who I think plays quarters. I’m going to assume he plays at that level in the commentary that follows.  

I know George a little and I believe that he is seriously attempting to win at video poker. I have no knowledge of his actual scores, but I know he studies and attempts to play the best games using appropriate strategies. He pays attention to promotions and in this particular example believes he has found an edge.

I don’t know with certainty the particular promotion George has been playing. But I certainly know about believing a casino-promotion offering is so good that I’ve gone in and hit it almost every day until it’s over. I’ve had that experience more than 100 times in the past 23 years. I know well the tunnel vision that can result from this — where nothing and nobody else matters.

I’ve come to the conclusion that for me personally, such tunnel vision is expensive. Being at least minimally aware of my surroundings is important. Let’s look at why, to me at least. As they say, your mileage may vary.

  1. I’m going to assume that George’s tunnel vision included totally ignoring other players to the point of incivility. That may well not have been true with this particular player, but it is with some. One reason I’m using the fake name “George” is that it allows me more artistic license. If the real George wishes to identify himself in the comments on gamblingwithanedge.com and say I’ve pegged him wrong, he is welcome to do so. But this article is meant to be about a behavior of many players rather than one player in particular.

 

  1. I believe you need to be generally aware of your surroundings — including other players. This would include, at a minimum, a nod or a “hello.” It’s fine if you don’t want to talk to anybody, but basic manners make the world go ‘round. Even if you sit down next to a “chatty Cathy,” it’s not that hard to say you really need to concentrate and can’t talk and play at the same time.

There will be times when you accidentally leave your jacket on your chair or leave uncashed credits on your machine. Your odds are much better at getting those things back if there’s at least a basic level of friendliness.

There will be times that the machine you want is busy. If you have some sort of positive relationship, even a minor one, it’s easier to get the current occupant to agree to give you the machine when he is done. Your reputation follows you around. Players will respond better to a “Quiet George” than they will to a “Grumpy George.”

 

  1. A more important reason for at least being aware of other players around you is that they are often your best source of casino information. Even if you’re the most knowledgeable guy around, nobody knows everything. However good this current promotion is, it’s possible there is a better one somewhere else. Or a good one coming up that requires you to do some preparation (such as get a player’s card in another casino or perhaps learn a new game). It can be very cost effective to share information with a limited number of other players who play in approximately the same casinos at roughly the same stakes as you do.

 

You don’t want to share information with everybody. It’s wise to have some secrets. But to figure out with which players are worth sharing, you need to evaluate them. That evaluation includes which games they play, when they play, and how competently they play.

As a quarter player, if the person next to you is playing nickels, you can basically ignore them as a person with whom to share information. In most casino locations, nickel pay schedules are so bad that anybody willing to play them is almost always clueless. That player’s goal is to gamble as inexpensively as possible and he doesn’t have the knowledge to recognize that in most environments, he’ll lose less playing the best quarter games than playing most nickel games.

If your neighbor is playing quarters, you need to look at the game he is playing. On most multi-game machines there are a variety of games. If the player is not playing one of the top two or three games, again he can be ignored — assuming you’re a player who wishes to win. Winning may or may not be possible on the best pay schedule or two. It is virtually never possible on lesser pay schedules.

If this player is playing on a game you’re unfamiliar with, you should take note of what it is — perhaps 8/5 Super Double Double Bonus. When you go home, it’s easy to check out how much this game returns. It’s possible that it is a better game that what you are already playing.

You need to eventually evaluate this player’s play. On occasion, glance over and watch a hand or two. It won’t take long to conclude whether the player is basically competent or not.

If you identify the player as playing the right game and playing it competently, this person is at least a potential ‘friend’ with whom to share information. If you identify the player as not ‘up to par,’ that’s useful too.

Over time, you’ll get to know a number of potential allies. Depending on your personality and preferences, some will be a better fit than others. To see if they’re interested, share something you know (e.g. “Have you heard of the new policy at Sam’s Town about xxxx”). If they seem interested, share this information with them and see what comes in return. Some people are very good at taking all the knowledge you’re willing to share and sharing nothing in return. You don’t need friends like that.

This is a lengthy process, but to me it is very valuable.

George is enough of a “regular” at several casinos that others know him. If he is at least minimally friendly, he’ll have a number of unofficial allies. If he totally ignores everybody, he’ll have a much harder time in casinos. If he wants people with whom to share information, he’ll have some basis for making an intelligent decision about whom to trust.

This isn’t rocket science and everybody’s style is a bit different. But to be so absorbed in your game that you see nothing around you is not a good idea.

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If You Weren’t Such a Hypocrite . . .

Periodically I receive a version of the following email:

Mr. Dancer:

I have read your books and practiced on Video Poker for Winners. I’m a really good player. I live in Las Vegas and can see there are good games to play — except I simply do not have the bankroll to play at the stakes necessary to succeed.

But you do! So why don’t you bankroll me? I’ll share the results with you 50-50 of course and we can both do well!

If you weren’t such a hypocrite, you’d see the wisdom of this! This is a chance for you to put your money where your mouth is. If what you’re writing is just a bunch of lies in order to sell books, I could see why you’d pass this up. But you’re not doing that at all, are you?

So, when can we start?

Eve

 

Dear Eve:

I’m not interested. For a lot of reasons.

First, even if you are a player with the same (or better) abilities that I have, playing 100% honestly, you’re asking me to receive half of the wins and bear 100% of the losses — on a game where only a tiny advantage is possible. That would not be an intelligent gamble on my part.

Second, Eve, I don’t know you from Adam. Even if you tested out really well when I was watching, who’s to say what you will do when I’m not around watching you?  I’m not saying you’re a cheater. What I AM saying, though, is that some people do cheat and I’m not proficient at detecting beforehand who’s going to cheat me and who’s not. Since I’m not very good at this, I believe it is better for me is to stay away from it.

Third, this is not my business model. I have no desire to form some type of insurance company. Maybe somebody else can see the opportunity here and prosper at this sort of thing, but I’m 70 years old now and that’s not how I want to spend the rest of my life.

Fourth, there’s a big difference between investing in myself and investing in somebody else. Those are very different mindsets. Those involve very different risks.

Lastly, I don’t respond well to “If you’re not a hypocrite then you’ll do what I want you to do” types of arguments. It’s reminiscent of grade school challenges like, “I double dare you to jump off of that building!” No thanks. Go try and manipulate somebody else!

I have bankrolled two players in the past. One went pretty much as expected and I won a bit. The other player lost at a very high rate — possible, but unlikely. It’s been more than 20 years and I still think I was cheated — but I couldn’t prove it at the time and certainly can’t prove it now. I promised myself “never again” at the time and see no reason to break that promise to myself now.

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Is There a Different Strategy and How Can I Be Sure? — Part II of II

This is a continuation of last week’s column. You may wish to read that one before you start here. I actually suggested you do some homework between then and now. I understand that many of you did not do the homework (it’s not too late!) but those of you who did will get more out of this.

The Wizard of Odds strategy calculator provides a basic strategy and a list of exceptions to that basic strategy. These exceptions are generally caused by what are called “penalty cards.” This is going to be the area where we’re going to find our strategy deviations. A 1% change in hard-to-get hands is not going to cause major differences.

In the group of hands where it says you should hold the J instead of the normal unsuited AJ, the top nine hands are as follows:

  1. 2♣3♣4♦J♥A♦
  2. 2♣3♣4♦J♥A♠
  3. 2♣3♦4♣J♥A♦
  4. 2♣3♦4♣J♥A♠
  5. 2♣3♦4♦J♥A♣
  6. 2♣3♦4♦J♥A♠
  7. 2♣3♦4♥J♠A♣
  8. 2♣3♦4♥J♠A♦
  9. 2♣3♦4♥J♠A♥

 

These hands may look the same to some of you, but they are all different. The difference between the first two, for example, is whether the ace and four are suited with each other or not. Sometimes the two and three are suited with each other; sometimes not. Once you focus in on these types of differences, you can see they are all different.

What’s more, each one stands for a variety of hands. The first one stands for all cases where the ace and four are suited, the two and three are suited (in a different suit that the ace and four), and at the same time the jack is unsuited with each of the others. There are actually 24 different hands that are represented by that one line. In every line where there are three or four suits (which include all of these), there are 24 different hands represented.

What I did is copy all of the hands for the regular SDB strategy and pasted them into an Excel spread sheet. There turned out to be 334 of them. I then copied and pasted the hands from the Dotty’s version of SDB and pasted them side-by-side with the regular SDB hands. There were also 334 of them. I spot checked the two lists side by side and determined they were identical. Therefore, I concluded that I had to look elsewhere for the strategic differences.

The next type of hand I looked at was being dealt an unsuited ace king and only holding the ace. In the regular SDB version, there are 276 cases where only the ace is held. ALL of these 276 cases include a ten unsuited with the ace. In the Dotty’s version, there were 48 hands which did not include a ten, and also 354 that did include a ten. That means there are at least two types of strategic changes to identify.

I’m going to print, in black and white, the 48 cases where there is no ten and we hold the ace by itself rather than AK. How would you describe these hands in a way that accurately describes these hands and no other ones?

6♣7♣8♦K♣A♥ 6♣7♣9♦K♣A♥ 6♣8♣9♦K♣A♥ 7♣8♣9♦K♣A♥
6♣7♣8♦K♦A♥ 6♣7♣9♦K♦A♥ 6♣8♣9♦K♦A♥ 7♣8♣9♦K♦A♥
6♣7♣8♦K♥A♠ 6♣7♣9♦K♥A♠ 6♣8♣9♦K♥A♠ 7♣8♣9♦K♥A♠
6♣7♦8♣K♣A♥ 6♣7♦9♣K♣A♥ 6♣8♦9♣K♣A♥ 7♣8♦9♣K♣A♥
6♣7♦8♣K♦A♥ 6♣7♦9♣K♦A♥ 6♣8♦9♣K♦A♥ 7♣8♦9♣K♦A♥
6♣7♦8♣K♥A♠ 6♣7♦9♣K♥A♠ 6♣8♦9♣K♥A♠ 7♣8♦9♣K♥A♠
6♣7♦8♦K♣A♥ 6♣7♦9♦K♣A♥ 6♣8♦9♦K♣A♥ 7♣8♦9♦K♣A♥
6♣7♦8♦K♦A♥ 6♣7♦9♦K♦A♥ 6♣8♦9♦K♦A♥ 7♣8♦9♦K♦A♥
6♣7♦8♦K♥A♠ 6♣7♦9♦K♥A♠ 6♣8♦9♦K♥A♠ 7♣8♦9♦K♥A♠
6♣7♦8♥K♣A♠ 6♣7♦9♥K♣A♠ 6♣8♦9♥K♣A♠ 7♣8♦9♥K♣A♠
6♣7♦8♥K♦A♠ 6♣7♦9♥K♦A♠ 6♣8♦9♥K♦A♠ 7♣8♦9♥K♦A♠
6♣7♦8♥K♥A♠ 6♣7♦9♥K♥A♠ 6♣8♦9♥K♥A♠ 7♣8♦9♥K♥A♠

The three features you need to notice are:

  1. Each of the three bottom cards is in the range six through nine.
  2. None of these three cards are suited with the ace.
  3. The three bottom cards are not all the same suit.

On my strategy sheet, I omit the third element above simply because a 3-card straight flushes with no high card and either one or no insides are quite a bit higher than either an unsuited ace king or an ace by itself.

I write the other two rules as AK . . . . (< A with no fp and no lsp)

The “fp” stands for “flush penalty” and refers to a card suited with the ace. The “lsp” stands for “low straight penalty” and means a 2, 3, 4, or 5.

Now let’s look at the 78 cases, including a ten, where you hold the ace rather than AK when you’re playing the Dotty’s version rather than standard SDB.

2♣3♣10♣K♦A♥ 2♣4♦10♣K♥A♠ 3♣4♦10♥K♥A♠ 3♣5♦10♣K♥A♠
2♣3♣10♦K♣A♥ 2♣4♦10♦K♣A♥ 2♣5♣10♣K♦A♥ 3♣5♦10♦K♣A♥
2♣3♣10♦K♦A♥ 2♣4♦10♦K♦A♥ 2♣5♣10♦K♣A♥ 3♣5♦10♦K♦A♥
2♣3♣10♦K♥A♠ 2♣4♦10♦K♥A♠ 2♣5♣10♦K♦A♥ 3♣5♦10♦K♥A♠
2♣3♦10♣K♣A♥ 2♣4♦10♥K♣A♠ 2♣5♣10♦K♥A♠ 3♣5♦10♥K♣A♠
2♣3♦10♣K♦A♥ 2♣4♦10♥K♦A♠ 2♣5♦10♣K♣A♥ 3♣5♦10♥K♦A♠
2♣3♦10♣K♥A♠ 2♣4♦10♥K♥A♠ 2♣5♦10♣K♦A♥ 3♣5♦10♥K♥A♠
2♣3♦10♦K♣A♥ 3♣4♣10♣K♦A♥ 2♣5♦10♣K♥A♠ 4♣5♣10♣K♦A♥
2♣3♦10♦K♦A♥ 3♣4♣10♦K♣A♥ 2♣5♦10♦K♣A♥ 4♣5♣10♦K♣A♥
2♣3♦10♦K♥A♠ 3♣4♣10♦K♦A♥ 2♣5♦10♦K♦A♥ 4♣5♣10♦K♦A♥
2♣3♦10♥K♣A♠ 3♣4♣10♦K♥A♠ 2♣5♦10♦K♥A♠ 4♣5♣10♦K♥A♠
2♣3♦10♥K♦A♠ 3♣4♦10♣K♣A♥ 2♣5♦10♥K♣A♠ 4♣5♦10♣K♣A♥
2♣3♦10♥K♥A♠ 3♣4♦10♣K♦A♥ 2♣5♦10♥K♦A♠ 4♣5♦10♣K♦A♥
2♣4♣10♣K♦A♥ 3♣4♦10♣K♥A♠ 2♣5♦10♥K♥A♠ 4♣5♦10♣K♥A♠
2♣4♣10♦K♣A♥ 3♣4♦10♦K♣A♥ 3♣5♣10♣K♦A♥ 4♣5♦10♦K♣A♥
2♣4♣10♦K♦A♥ 3♣4♦10♦K♦A♥ 3♣5♣10♦K♣A♥ 4♣5♦10♦K♦A♥
2♣4♣10♦K♥A♠ 3♣4♦10♦K♥A♠ 3♣5♣10♦K♦A♥ 4♣5♦10♦K♥A♠
2♣4♦10♣K♣A♥ 3♣4♦10♥K♣A♠ 3♣5♣10♦K♥A♠ 4♣5♦10♥K♣A♠
2♣4♦10♣K♦A♥ 3♣4♦10♥K♦A♠ 3♣5♦10♣K♣A♥ 4♣5♦10♥K♦A♠
3♣5♦10♣K♦A♥ 4♣5♦10♥K♥A♠

 

The two features here are:

  1. There is a ten unsuited with the ace. It may or may not be suited with the king.
  2. There are exactly two cards in the range of 2-5, neither of which is suited with the ace.

The second rule can lead you astray if you’re unfamiliar with regular SDB advanced strategy. In the regular strategy, AK (<A with no fp, a T, and at most one lsp). In the Dotty’s version, we have simplified to AK (<A with no fp and no T).

Something to keep in mind is that ace king is exactly equivalent to ace queen and ace jack. So, using an H as a “high card lower than the first card listed” our rule becomes

AH …. (< A with T and no fp) (<A with no fp and no lsp)

A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about having an ace with a suited jack ten. Those rules take precedence over the ones I’m discussing today.

Next, I looked at a suited jack ten versus an unsuited king jack. Since a suited jack ten could become either a straight flush or a royal flush, and both of those pay schedule categories had a 1% increase, it’s possible there’s a change here. But copying and pasting the lists of exceptions to an Excel spread sheet side by side told me the two cases were identical — hence no strategic changes here.

For the suited queen ten with a flush penalty, sometimes you just hold the queen. It turns out there is a difference between the two games. I can print out the differences and let you see if you can figure out the rule, but you can do that yourself if you like. I’ve shown you enough examples so that you get the idea. In regular SDB, you hold the Queen by itself in these cases where one or more of the following conditions apply.

  1. There is at most one card in the 2, 3, or 4 range.
  2. There is an 8 in the hand.
  3. There is a 9 in the hand.

In the Dotty’s version, the first condition disappears and to hold the queen by itself there must be an 8 and/or a 9 in the hand. That is, on a hand like Q♣T♣3♣ 5♦7♥, in regular SDB you hold the queen while in the Dotty’s version you hold queen ten. In both games, on a hand like Q♣T♣3♣ 4♦ 7♥, you hold the queen ten. You might remember from last week’s column that you get fewer quad Js-Ks in the Dotty’s version of the game. This one type of hand is the primary reason why.

I checked the rest of the hands and couldn’t find any more differences. If you can identify some other case where the strategy varies, I’d appreciate you letting me know.

Finally, the question sometimes arises as to whether I really attempt to play these games taking into consideration all of these things. The answer is: “Yes I do.” It’s part of playing the game correctly and that’s my aspiration. I don’t always succeed and I sometimes make mistakes for a variety of reasons (mainly being tired, sticky buttons, or simply mis-fingering), but my goal is to play perfectly.