Author: Bob Dancer

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How Can This Be?

Bob Dancer

In late February, I posted a blog about leaving a machine after hitting a jackpot. My opinion was that, unless the jackpot you hit was a progressive that changed the nature of whether the game was playable or not, I keep playing.

Most responders to the blog agreed with me, but David Miller posted the following: It has been my personal observation that when I hit a large jackpot and continued to play the same machine, I have never increased my winnings by this continuation of play. After 35+ years of playing video poker I can only think of two occasions of observing (and my own play) where another jackpot of any large amount occurred when one continued to play the same machine. My advice: Thank the Lord and take the money and run.

While I thank David for his response, I’m trying to figure out how such an experienced player came up with a conclusion so opposite my own.

David’s term “large jackpot” is somewhat vague. I’m going to arbitrarily define it as 800 coins or larger on a five-coin bet. This would include royals, four aces on many games, four 2s, 3s, and 4s with a kicker on many games, and four deuces on deuces wild games. With that definition, I’ve increased my score after hitting such a jackpot more than 500 times. And many times, I’ve witnessed players sitting near me hit multiple jackpots on the same machine. How can David have so few?

While “David” is a common name and I’ve met many Davids without always knowing a last name, I’m assuming I’ve never met him and I’m also assuming his post is on the level and he believes what he said. So, what I’m saying about him here is speculation. Here are the explanations I’ve come up with:

  1. He may have been thinking of royal flushes only when he said “large jackpot.” There are many fewer data points if you’re only thinking of those jackpots rather than the 800 coins or higher definition I chose. Hitting two royals in the same day is a pretty rare event. While I’ve done it, (more likely of course on multi-line games than single line games), I’ve played a lot more video poker than most others have.
  1. While 35+ years is longer than I’ve been playing, perhaps he doesn’t play very much each year. He could have played one weekend every three years, with three or four hours of video poker play per weekend visit. I’ve probably averaged more than 1,500 hours of play a year for the last 31 years. Even though his 35+ years is greater than my 31, if this supposition is true, I’ve played a lot more than he has.
  1. Possibly David doesn’t remember clearly. I don’t know his age or how good his memory is. Having played 35 years, he must be at least eligible for senior discounts.
  1. When David says something “never” happens, perhaps he isn’t speaking precisely. To me, “never” means never. Maybe to him, he means “rarely” rather than never.
  1. There’s a difference in how professional and recreational players play. When a professional player finds a good play, he can play on the same machine for hours — frequently accompanied by other strong players playing for hours. As a group, there will be jackpots numerous times over the course of a 35+ year career. Even if hitting a jackpot represents the “high water mark of the day” 80% of the time, the other 20% of the time scores will get bigger. Over the course of a long career, 20% of a large number of occurrences is a sizeable number.
  1. The explanation for David’s comments that I believe the most likely, stems from his behavior. Perhaps he changes machines immediately after he hits a jackpot. Since he believes he’s not going to increase his score if he continues to play on the same machine, changing machines for him seems like a smart strategy. If this is the strategy he uses, it’s no wonder he has never increased his score on the same machine after a jackpot simply because he never plays on the same machine after hitting a jackpot.

While I don’t believe in the value of changing machines, it’s not always possible for me anyway. Often the machine I want to play is either a one-of-a-kind or one-of-very-few. If I insist on leaving every time I get a jackpot, there may well not be one of similar EV available. 

If my final guess is the correct one, while David’s statement is true, it isn’t at all relevant to those players who stay on the same machine.

If David wants to respond to my comments here, he’s welcome to do so.

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An Interesting Blackout

Bob Dancer

This is an article about slots rather than video poker. I know this will irritate some of my readers, and if that describes you, perhaps you had better skip this week’s blog. But I know that enough of my readers find “all things casino” interesting enough that they will allow me some grace in selecting my topics. Plus, this week I haven’t learned anything new about video poker and I did learn something new about slots I’m going to share with you.

I was playing Wolf Run Eclipse (WRE) at a Boyd property on a 10x point day. WRE is an IGT persistence slot machine that sometimes gets positive for the player. It has four or five separate meters, depending on the version. One of the meters is the “Grand,” which I have never hit in the thousand or so hours I’ve played this game — so I ignore it. When I started playing this time, the meter read ten thousand dollars and change, and if and when I ever hit it will be very nice, but I don’t pay any attention to it when I try to determine whether the game is worth playing.

The game has three meters that start at 5 free spins (mini, minor, and major) and one that starts at 100 (mega). I have hit the mega three or four times, but I generally ignore that too unless I need a “tiebreaker.” Each meter rises periodically until it is finally hit, in which case the player earns the number of free spins that are on that particular meter.

These progressives aren’t identical. The mini meter gives you one column (out of five) of wilds every spin. The minor meter gives you two such columns. Both the major and the mega give you three such columns.

The mini meter, in addition to being the least valuable, hits more frequently than the minor, which in turn hits more frequently than the major.

I have a formula I use to determine whether or not to play. It has different multipliers for each of the three lower meters. The “strike” numbers are different for different denominations. In most casinos the 1¢ and 2¢ denominations are tighter than the 5¢ and 10¢ of the same game on the same machine.

On the day in question, I was playing 1¢, 800 coins for an $8.00 bet. Had I found the same meter numbers on the game for 10¢ 80 coins or 5¢ 160 coins (both also $8.00), the latter would be better bets because they have a higher return to player (RTP). But this time the 1¢ version had the higher meters, so that’s the one I played.

I shaded my strike number a little for three reasons: 10x points, the mega meter was at 110 rather than the reset value of 100, and while I was going to be playing for the minor, the major was at nine — which is higher the reset value of five. 

As I played, I hit the mini four times and the minor and major continued to rise. By the time I hit the minor (which turned into a W2-g) the mini had risen high enough that it was worth continuing to play. So, I did.

When the mini finally hit, I noted that if it returned $860, I was even for my play at that particular casino for that particular day. This was a score that was definitely possible — probably even likely. 

As it turned out, after all the free spins were spun, the bonus was worth $845 — so I lost $15. I knew I had actually won because I had played for more than a half hour hammering an $8 machine. At 10x points, this generated a lot of points. I don’t count those points as profit until I redeem them, which I didn’t do on this day.

After the $845 was revealed, the machine calls it a “massive win” and starts to add that amount to my existing $700+ in credits. While in the process of this happening, my machine went totally black, along with the adjacent machines on either side. All three were IGT slot machines — and all three were different games. All the other games in the casino that I could see continued to work.

A slot manager came by to look at it. He probably had a message on his computer that told him three machines went dark. I asked him if this was likely to be a long-lasting problem. He said probably not, but the outage wasn’t planned and he wasn’t sure.

I wasn’t in a huge hurry, but I’d been planning on going to dinner. I wanted to retrieve my $1,600 ticket and be on my way. There was no way I was going to leave it behind. I knew the casino didn’t do this on purpose and was willing to give them a little time to fix the problem — but I didn’t want to wait all day.

After about ten minutes, all three machines began to reboot. I expected that when my machine came back on it would continue to add the $845 to my existing credits and I could be on my way.

That’s not what happened. 

When the machine came back on, I still had my $700+ in credits, and the mini bonus began to play again! There were more than 30 free spins. Some were for more than $100 each, and many of the spins turned out to be worth zero. 

As the bonus round played out, I started thinking about what I would do if it turned out to be less than $845? The machine was probably on camera, and they could verify what the bonus had been worth previously. Would they honor that? I also mused what I would do if the bonus round turned out to be worth more than $845? 

Before I worked out all of the ramifications, the bonus round ended, and it was worth exactly the same $845 this time as it was worth last time! I was surprised. 

The slot director came by and asked if everything turned out okay. I told him that it had replayed the bonus round, all 30+ spins, and the result this time turned out exactly the same as it had before the blackout.

He told me this was exactly the result he expected. At the start of the bonus round, he told me, the computer program decides how much this bonus round is worth. Once that number has been decided, it’s just bells and whistles for the bonus round to end up providing that exact number. The player doesn’t know how big the bonus will be until all the spins play out, but the machine knows and figures out a way to get there. 

I think this slot director is correct. I just hadn’t realized it before he said it. The machine has a specific RTP to give out, and it does.

This is very different from the way a video poker machine works. In video poker, the player chooses how to play each hand. Each machine holds more than the designated RTP because video poker players make mistakes. 

But slot players, taken as a whole, don’t make mistakes. They just hit the button and take what they get. The skill in this kind of slot machine is to wait until the meters are high enough before playing. But other players have played this machine to get the meters that high. So, the machine holds as much as it is supposed to — the casino makes money — and the knowledgeable players also make money playing this game.

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Shutting Out the Noise

Bob Dancer

Generally speaking, I prefer to play video poker and slots without interacting with anybody else. To be sure, this is a personal preference and not everyone agrees with me. 

I’ve found that if I’m chatting with somebody while playing video poker, my error rate increases. I never make a lot of mistakes, but the edges we’re playing with these days are so small, even a few mistakes are too many.

I don’t know why, but I can listen to music or spoken words and still play accurately. It’s when I have to engage my brain to form a response to somebody else that it interferes with engaging my brain to play accurately.

I can control whether I initiate conversations with others. It’s harder to control whether others start talking to me.

One device I use to discourage others from talking to me is that I frequently wear a large, over-the-ear, headset while playing. Sometimes I’m listening to music. Sometimes a story or podcast. Often, I’m listening to nothing at all. Someone seeing me wearing my headset generally can’t tell what I’m listening to — if anything.

If someone I know and like sits near me while I’m playing, I’ll typically nod my head in acknowledgement. It’s kind of a, “Hi. How are you doing?” acknowledgement without wanting or expecting an answer. This presents them with an opportunity to say something, if they wish, but not the necessity.

Should someone begin a conversation with me, or I need to interact with casino personnel, I’ll signal them to hold on a second, turn off my headset, and lower it from over my ears to around my neck. Then I’ll speak to them for as long as is appropriate. It almost never devolves into a situation where I continue to play and chat at the same time.

I’m not shy about telling people, accurately, that I need to concentrate when playing video poker. I try to be polite, yet firm. Even though I’ve been playing this game for more 30 years, there are hands I need to think about. If I always played 9/6 Jacks or Better, I know that game cold and probably can chat away with no loss in accuracy. But I play different games at different casinos, and, among other things, need to focus on which game I’m playing now. If I’m chatting with somebody else, I might not recognize a problem hand when it comes along. 

There are a number of players who know me. Over 25 years of teaching video poker classes, more than 100,000 players attended one or more classes. Many of them still frequent casinos and when they recognize me, sometimes they come and say hello. That’s fine. I don’t mind a break of a minute or two. 

There’s another reason for earphones. Many casinos these days pipe the music up to unhealthy levels. Circa, in downtown Las Vegas, is one of them. With good earphones on, the noise level is much lower.

Casinos differ widely in the type of overhead music they provide. While I enjoy classic country music, I have no appreciation for many other types of music. I know other players who have no tolerance for country music at all. The advantage of earphones is that you can replace whatever is “standard” for the place where you are playing to something you prefer more.

I’m in the casino to work and not for entertainment. But if I find I can make my working environment more entertaining and productive at the same time, so much the better.

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Back Under the Knife

Bob Dancer

In the past year and a half, I’ve undergone hip replacement surgery on my right side and rotator cuff (shoulder) surgery on my left side. I’m hoping to schedule a third orthopedic procedure in mid-April. After no such procedures ever, my body seems to be falling apart all over, all at once. One of the disadvantages of not dying young, I suppose.

Because of arthritis, I’m scheduled for a ligament reconstruction and tendon interposition on my right thumb. The surgery consists of removing the trapezium bone on the affected side and replacing it with a “unused” tendon from my wrist. This has a very high rate of success and is usually good for 10 to 15 years. Since I’m 78 years old now, there’s a good chance that 10 to 15 years will be “enough.” Don’t know for sure.

I’ve put this operation off for a while. I’ve tried medication and steroidal injections. To no avail. It’s now very painful to even sign my name, and many things I used to do (snapping my fingers, opening jars that aren’t really simple, unlocking some doors with a key) are now beyond my abilities. There is one key I need to use to gain access to a private mailbox company after hours. I need to take along pliers to turn the key because I can’t generate enough torque without the extra leverage. I hope I’m not observed by a policeman who concludes that gaining access to a building with pliers after dark is a suspicious activity. I can probably explain things satisfactorily, but you never know. If he thinks that my pliers look like a gun — anything could happen.

The problem with the surgery is that it includes a fairly long recovery period. I will need to wear three different types of cast/brace/splint for two weeks each after the surgery. I’ll have some physical therapy somewhere along the way. Since this is my dominant hand, this will interfere with such things as eating, dressing, showering, and other bathroom activities. I haven’t tried brushing my teeth left-handed before. We’ll see. Fortunately, I don’t live alone, and Bonnie is willing to help me if I need it. She was a nurse for 40 years and the things I’ll need shouldn’t be all that strange to her. The doctor doesn’t want me driving — but I’m probably not going to obey that suggestion. I have practiced driving left-handed and believe I can do so safely. I will probably text less than I do now.

How this affects my gambling activities remains to be seen. Fortunately, I’m in a position to shut things down gambling-wise for a few months if I need to. I’m going to try to have a backlog of these weekly blogs already prepared before I undergo the procedure, but I may need to shut this blog down while I recover. Even though I use my thumb when I use a keyboard, I think I can temporarily revert to a fingers-only technique should I need to. It’ll take longer, but I should still be able to do it.

I’ll miss at least one of my monthly improvisational showcases. Not that I’ll necessarily need to — I can still perform most of the skits wearing a brace — but the leader of my group restricts cast members with “devices” (walkers, slings, splints, crutches, etc.) from performing. I’m scheduling my surgery for April 23 because there’s a monthly showcase on April 19 and that should allow me to only miss the May showcase and be back for June. (www.lvimprov.com) 

Bonnie thinks this arthritis is a sort of carpal tunnel problem due to so many years of gambling activities. Although carpal tunnel is a wrist ailment and my thumb is a nearby-yet-different part of the body, I’m skeptical that this disease is due to repetitive use of my thumb. I don’t use my thumb much when I play, and I have a family history of arthritis. But wherever it came from, it hurts a lot and I’m going to get it taken care of — I hope.

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An Interesting Case Study

Bob Dancer

Someone told me about a casino, but swore me to secrecy about writing its name, or even the state it is in. If too many strong players knew the details about this casino, the casino couldn’t afford to continue the excellent benefits it now provides — which ruins the play for all players. But I can describe those benefits.

These benefits are for “semi” high rollers — that is, it requires $40,000 coin-in monthly if you’re a slot player, or $80,000 coin-in a month if you’re a video poker player. While these amounts aren’t for everybody, there’s a significant number of players who could play that much if they were profitably motivated. 

For the video poker players, the best game is NSU Deuces Wild. In addition to a 0.05% slot club, along with reasonable comps, if you play the $80,000 coin-in a month you receive $100 in free play, twice a month. This is a slightly positive game — not worth travel expenses unless you lived in that city or had another really good play close by so you could “double dip” when you visited that city. Most players will play lesser games than NSU, and play them badly, so the casino makes out okay even with this promotion.

Slot players, however, receive $1,000 in free play, twice a month, along with a 0.1% slot club and reasonable comps. This is more than a 5% return.

If you know nothing about playing slots with an advantage, this is not a good deal. The slots at this casino return about 91% on average. Playing games with an expected 9% loss to receive 5% in benefits isn’t a winning play.

But what if you knew something about slot machines?

I’m going to describe a hypothetical “Orange Bob” machine. This machine has mini, minor, and major meters that each reset to five spins — and then they rise when you get particular combinations. When the meters are at five, five, and five, the game returns 75%. Nobody with a clue would play it at that level — but there are many clueless players at this and other casinos. 

Whenever the mini, minor, and major meters increase by one unit, the return on the game increases 0.5%, 1%, and 1.5%, respectively. If you come across a game where the meters are at 10, 10, and 10, the worth of the game would be the 75% it started at, an extra 5% because of the rise in the mini, an extra 10% because of the rise in the minor, and an extra 15% because of the rise in the major. This turns it into a game that returns 105% and is well worth playing — especially since if you start playing now, the meters will continue to rise until you hit one or more of them. 

Also, assume that while the exact numbers I cited in the previous paragraph are only known to a few players, there are a lot of players with a general idea. These players have their own “strike points,” when they estimate a game is positive. These players search the casino for such opportunities — so a lot of the time you find a good situation when somebody has just given up on playing a game when it’s positive.

It could be that this player who leaves the machine in a good situation has no idea of what makes the game positive. It could be that this player ran out of money. It could be that this player had to catch a plane and could no longer stick around until the relevant meters went back to reset values.

The game can be played for five different denominations, with five different “number of coins” for each of these denominations. The range is from a $1 total bet to $50. 

Players seeking to play $40,000 coin-in per month will avoid the lower denomination/coins combinations, simply because each time you find the play you might get anywhere from 10 to 500 spins. You won’t find playable situations very often, and if you’re only playing $1 or $2 per spin, you’re not going to come close to reaching your $40,000 coin-in goal.

There are numerous games similar to these Orange Bob games, and if you know about enough of them, you can do all right.

The interesting part about this, that I never considered while playing video poker, is that you can play “on the come.” 

Normally, without the free play, you would wait until the machines (with expected meter rise before you hit it) were higher than 100% before you started to play — assuming you were attempting to play these machines at a profit.

With 5% in benefits, however, you can start to play when the machines (with expected meter rise before you hit it) are at 97% or so. Yes, you’re giving up 3% to the casino, but the casino is giving you 5% to do so. So, it’s not a bad deal.

If you’re looking for 97% or higher games, and most of your competition is looking for 100% or higher games, you’re going to find a lot of opportunities to play. Even with everyone and his brother checking the machines all day long, you’ll find plays because you’re willing to play at lower starting numbers than most of the others do.

I find this an interesting concept.

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Leaving After Hitting a Jackpot

Bob Dancer

A friend of mine, “Sam,” plays advantage slots. He was describing a recent experience on a Buffalo game. There are literally dozens of varieties of Buffalo games — some beatable by knowledgeable players — some not. It’s not my purpose today to discuss which ones are beatable — and how. I understand that this upsets some of my readers who want me to tell them more about beating slots, but that’s not what I want to write about.

One feature of most of these games is that, in addition to the “regular” way of winning, if you’re dealt three gold coins, you get eight free spins. While those spins are being played, you can earn an additional five or eight free spins by being dealt two or three gold coins, respectively. Sometimes you can accumulate 40 or more free spins during this process. 

During these free spins, the wild card symbols get multipliers. Your biggest scores come when you get one or more buffalos in the first column, wild cards with multipliers in the second, third, and fourth columns — and if you’re really lucky, more buffalos in the fifth column. The wild card multipliers work on other symbols in addition to buffalos, but usually it’s the multiplied buffalo symbols that provide the biggest wins.

It was one of these free spin situations that prompted Sam to talk to me. He was playing less than $1.50 per hand and after 56 free spins that started with three gold coins, ended up with an $1,800 jackpot. While other numbers in the game screamed “Play!” to the knowledgeable player, Sam decided to quit. After all, he argued, a jackpot this size is rare on games played for stakes this size. Hitting two or more such jackpots close together is rarer still. So, he decided to lock up his win and quit. 

He asked my opinion on his decision.

I told him I would have continued to play. While these machines return a certain amount over time, “time” is measured in the hundreds of thousands (or more) hands. His recent jackpot has nothing to do with the short-term expectation on the machine. Since the indicators said to play, I would play. I walk all over casinos looking for such opportunities.

Sam also plays video poker. On several occasions, he has hit a royal flush, four aces, or other sizeable jackpot and continued to play. He accepts that in video poker one hand doesn’t influence what is coming next, but somehow, he thinks it’s different in slots.

Video poker is a game of skill, he correctly argues. There is skill in identifying the pay schedule and in playing every single hand. Slots, argues Sam correctly, are largely luck. Although there is skill in determining if various progressives on a slot machine make the game worth playing, and leaving the game after certain things happen, the basic playing of the game requires no skill at all. You hit the button and take what you get.

While most slot pros quit playing a slot machine when one or more progressives on the game are reset, hitting one of these free spin bonus rounds doesn’t count as a progressive being reset. These free play bonus rounds simply give you ammunition to continue playing. 

Sometimes a jackpot is hit during the free spins, and in those cases, you usually should quit playing after the free plays are finished. At a minimum, you should re-evaluate and see if conditions remain ripe for continuing.

I never thought of this as a particularly subtle point, but Sam is a knowledgeable, winning player and he had it wrong. So, I decided that some of my readers could benefit from a discussion.

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Change in Point Structure

Bob Dancer

The ROW casinos, the Caesars Rewards properties in Reno, recently changed their point structure. For some of the machines that contain the loosest video poker, Tier Credits (TCs) and Reward Credits (RCs) are now earned at one point per $20 coin-in versus the former $10 coin-in. Although the ROW consists of the Eldorado, Silver Legacy, and Circus Circus equally, for practical purposes this new rule only affects the Eldorado because that’s where the loosest video poker machines are. 

They did a similar change about two years ago. Many players boycotted these casinos because of the change and after two or three months, the former $10-per-RC system was reinstated. It’s possible this will happen again, I suppose. We’ll see. These casinos seem to struggle to attract players. Tightening the slot club can’t possibly be the way to attract more players.

Although this specific change only affects one property, and most of my readers are not players at this particular location, similar downgrades happen at other casinos all the time. The question becomes: How does a player evaluate whether to continue playing there or not?

The Caesars Rewards system is complicated — and each property has slightly different rules than its sister properties. The difference between RCs and TCs is not quickly grasped by many players. In many cases they are earned at the same rate, but they aren’t the same. RCs may be redeemed for comps, sports bets, or, at a two-for-one rate, free play. TCs can’t be redeemed, but determine whether you are Platinum, Seven Stars, or any of the other tier levels. 

The old $10-per-point system made RCs earned by playing video poker worth 0.1% in comps. Cutting that in half means that they are now worth 0.05% in comps. That’s not a big change. If you normally play $20,000 in coin-in in a day, the $20 in comps you previously earned now becomes worth $10. If you redeemed the RCs for free play, the $10 in free play you used to get now becomes worth $5. Other than being ticked off that it’s not as big as before, that’s not enough of a difference to cause most players to quit playing.

But what about if they had 5x or 10x points? Well, that could be different. This casino used to have Mystery RC multipliers every Monday, with a limit of 30,000 RCs. Whatever multiplier you receive, it will now take twice as much play to earn that limit. Time will tell if that is going to be cut back on this promotion or not. 

There are TC multiplier promotions as well. In addition, there are daily TC bonuses. Players earning 1,000 TCs in a day get a 1,000 TC bonus. Players earning 5,000 TCs in a day get a 10,000 TC bonus. That’s the biggest daily bonus offered. Whereas it used to take $50,000 coin-in in video poker to earn the maximum daily bonus, it now takes $100,000. For most players, this is out of the question.

If you play enough to earn a lot of TCs, for every 250,000 you earn, you receive one Seven Stars Experience Credit. There are a number of things you can redeem these for. The most attractive to me is $450 in free play at properties in Las Vegas or Cherokee. For the same play, Reno video poker players will end up with fewer Seven Stars Experience Credits in 2025 than they earned in 2024.

The basic Seven Stars target of 150,000 is harder to get. I find it valuable. The major benefits are five $100 food credits, one $1,200 travel to any other Caesars property including $500 in resort credit, and a highly discounted 7-day cruise for two on Norwegian Cruise Lines. Most properties have some sort of a daily benefit if you have Seven Stars status. 

These properties all have monthly mailers giving you free play, rooms, and resort credits (which are not the same as Reward Credits.) These are generally based on your average daily theoretical. If $1,000 worth of play gives you the same ADT as it did before (even though it gives you half as many RCs and TCs), then the mailers shouldn’t change. We’ll see.

The bottom line, for me anyway, is not the number of dollars coin-in required to get a RC. It’s the promotions and the mailers. If the promotions and mailers stay the same, I’ll continue to play at the ROW, at least sometimes. If they get slashed as well, I won’t. 

The change in the rate of RC and TC being earned is a much smaller change than reducing the pay schedule by one unit. I’ll put up with NSU Deuces Wild with the lesser rate, but if they cut that game by 0.8% to the pNSU game, I’ll likely stop playing there.

It’s the package of benefits (the game, the slot club, the promotions, the mailers) that matters to me, not the individual components of it. Any reduction in benefits is unwelcome, but small reductions are not necessarily showstoppers.

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One Type of Bonus Round

Bob Dancer

I play a lot of persistence slot machines. Persistence slots, generally speaking, are those where the machine retains value from spin to spin until finally some trigger occurs which allows the player to collect that value.

Most slot machines, persistence or not, have bonus rounds of some kind. Some of these machines have multiple types of bonus rounds.

One common type of bonus round gives you a matrix of unknowns. Common shapes for these matrices are 5×5, 3×5, and 3×6. The object in this type of bonus round is that you keep touching these unknowns, one at a time, and when you do, they reveal a symbol. You keep going until you match three different symbols. It could be you’re matching Mini, Minor, Major, Mega, and Grand symbols. When you get three matching ones, you get that particular bonus.

Although these symbol names do not have to be involved, you match the Mini symbols most frequently and the Mini bonus is the least valuable. Very rarely do you match three Mega or Grand symbols. On some machines, you almost always get two Mega and/or Grand symbols along the way — but even though you have two of them, the third one is very elusive.

I’ve seen players agonize several minutes over choosing among the unknowns. If that gives them pleasure, great. After all, most of these players are playing with a big financial disadvantage and pleasure is the only payment they get for the money they spend.

Here is the way I go about it: 

First, I’m only arriving at one of these bonuses while I’m playing a persistence slot machine where I calculate I have the advantage. So, the faster I go through this bonus round, the faster I collect that advantage. Agonizing over which unknown to select is a waste of time, in my opinion.

Second, I’m not sure it matters what I pick. It could be that the machine is preset to give the Grand 0.001% of the time, the Mega 0.02% of the time, et cetera et ceters, and the Mini 42% of the time. (I just made up those numbers. They are intended to be reasonable, but not matching any particular slot machine.) When the bonus round activates, the machine calculates what your bonus should be and, whatever symbols you pick, the predetermined bonus is awarded. I’m definitely not positive it works this way, but if it didn’t, it couldn’t tease you so frequently about the biggest jackpots and almost never give them to you.

Third, I pick rapidly and randomly. Sometimes I go down a row or column and pick every symbol. Sometimes I go diagonally — starting from different places in the matrix. Sometimes I don’t look at the machine very closely, put both hands up, and repeatedly tap with several different fingers as my hands go up and down.

Whichever technique I use, and whether it takes me four seconds or four minutes, eventually three symbols match and I’m paid off accordingly. 

Often, when such a bonus round is finished, I’ve collected the bonus that I was “aiming for.” When that bonus goes to its reset value, the machine is no longer in a “player advantage” state. In which case, I cash out and search for an advantage elsewhere.

Almost as often, though, the bonus I hit is not the sensitive one. It could be that the Minor is high enough that I’m going to keep playing until it goes off. If the bonus round pays one of the other bonuses, the machine is still playable, and I keep going.

Sometimes, the value comes from a combination. That is, perhaps, the Minor and Major are both slightly less than the level needed to justify a play, but if I keep going until I hit either one, it’s probably a play.

At any rate, at the end of the round, I re-evaluate my position and act accordingly.

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Keeping Count in Video Poker

Bob Dancer

We’ve all heard of counting cards at blackjack. This is nothing like that. 

While I enjoy it, I find playing video poker for hours on end to be tedious. To combat this, I count hands to keep my mind in the game.

If I’m playing Jacks or Better, I count “quad scares,” which is the number of cards I draw that didn’t fill in a four-of-a-kind. Say I’m dealt 4 4 5 4 2. (No need to fill in the suits as flushes aren’t relevant here.) On the deal, when I drew the 2, it could have been the case 4, so that increases my count by one. After holding the three fours, if I draw two more blanks that increases my score by two more.

Straight flush scares count as two. If I were dealt 4♠ 5♠ 6♠ 7♠ K♦, I’d add four to my count because when the K was dealt, it could have been either the 3♠ or the 8♠, either of which would have completed the straight flush. Yes, I know a straight flush scare is not a quad scare, but this is the way I do it.

I count royal scares as being worth 10. This is way less than it should be, based on the value of the hand, but it’s what I use.

On a game such as Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus Poker, or a variety of other games where quad 2s, 3s, and 4s pay a premium and quad aces pay a bigger premium, I weight the scares for 2s, 3s, and 4s as being worth two each and ace scares being worth three each. In games with kickers, sometimes I’ll count kicker scares as well.

In Deuces Wild, I count straight flush scares as being worth one, five-of-a-kind scares as being worth two, wild royal scares as being worth three, four deuce scares as being worth five, and royal scares as being worth 10. 

At the South Point, sometimes I play Five Play Jacks or Better Multi Strike. I don’t count scares on this game, but completed quad, straight flushes, and royal flushes. When these happen on the 1x line, they are worth one, two, and ten, respectively. On the 2x line, these values are doubled. On the 4x line I multiply by four, and on the top line I multiply by eight.

If I’m playing Triple Play or Five Play, I usually keep the same system. If I’m playing Ten Play, Fifty Play, or Hundred Play, I’ll just keep track of completed hands rather than scares.

It’s been awhile since I’ve played Joker Wild, Super Double Bonus, Deuces Wild Double Bonus, or other games not mentioned above. But when I do, I’ll change my counting system to account for the relevant hands.

Does it matter at the end of the day whether my count ended up 107 or 216? Absolutely not. How serious is it if I lose track of my count? It’s not serious at all. I just make a guess and keep going.

While the count number itself is worthless, I find this process of counting keeps my head in the game and keeps my mind from wandering. And that, as they say, is priceless.

If you think this will work for you, you’re welcome to adopt my system. If you don’t think it would be helpful, it doesn’t bother me if you don’t use it.

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I’m Playing the Wrong Game

Bob Dancer

Perhaps 10 years ago, I was playing $10 NSU Deuces Wild alongside “John,” a player I had known for quite a while. He was dealt four aces with a three, and complained bitterly, saying he’s playing the wrong game. He’d been playing $10 Double Double Bonus (DDB) not long before and that hand would have been worth $20,000. Playing NSU, it was worth $200, or maybe $800 if he could pick up a deuce after he threw away the three.

I commented that he’s lucky he wasn’t imagining he was playing Triple Double Bonus (TDB). In that game, he would have missed out on $40,000 instead of the measly $20,000 he missed out on while speculating his payout playing DDB.

He was not amused.

Later he ended up with AKQ of spades alongside two deuces. That was worth $1,250 in this game and wouldn’t have been worth anything had he been playing DDB or TDB. “Maybe the video poker gods are trying to make it up to you,” I teased.

John didn’t enjoy my mocking him, but he took it in stride. We had a relationship in which teasing the other was par for the course.

John was not a professional player. He had basic strategy down pretty well and didn’t bother with the fine points. He often played games returning less than 99% even if he played perfectly, which he didn’t. He owned his own business and even if he lost $50,000 or $100,000 a year gambling, it didn’t make a lot of difference to his lifestyle.

He believed that he was the unluckiest video poker player ever and periodically found evidence to support this belief. If he was playing Hundred Play and drew to three of a kind, he knew connecting on four separate quads was the average result. 

From here, it was a small step to believe he “deserved” four quads and whenever he ended up with three quads or fewer, he felt he was being cheated. Even when he drew five or more quads from this starting position, he felt it was a case of “too little too late.” In his mind, these occasions barely made a dent in his overall “unluckiness.”

These beliefs took the sting out if his losing sessions. After all, in his mind it wasn’t his fault! He was mostly playing correctly, and the machines weren’t cooperating.

While he had attended some of my classes, he didn’t want me correcting him while we were playing. Which was perfectly fine with me. He believed my strategies were developed for people with average luck, or better than average luck. 

He was correct, of course. The strategies I use and sell assume that every unseen card has an equal probability of being drawn next. The strategies also assume that all players have average luck over a long enough time period. We all have lucky days and unlucky days. Just because a person believes he or she is luckier or unluckier than average doesn’t make it so.

Convincing John of this was impossible, of course. His theories allowed him to continue to lose year after year and still believe it wasn’t his fault.

So, our teasing was mostly lighthearted. He always claimed that I was a “luck sack.” I’d counter with “luck favors the prepared.” While neither of us ever convinced the other, we remained friendly for decades.