In 2001, I had Lasik procedures done on both of my eyes. Before that, I couldn’t see the big E on the eye chart without my glasses which I had worn for more than 45 years. I received the mono-vision version, which basically meant that I would see for distance with my left eye and close-up with my right eye.
Being free from glasses was wonderful. My vision was not so sharp in the intermediate ranges (say 2-8 feet), but overall, this was an acceptable trade-off. Continue reading The Eyes Have It
Michael Shackleford, my co-host on the Gambling with an Edge radio show, received an email from the slot director at the Riviera Casino in Las Vegas. The Riv was giving away $72,055 over the weekend of November 16-18 based on play from the prior ten days. In addition, play during November 10-12 would receive 5x points. The problem, however, was that there were five hourly drawings from 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. Friday; ten hourly drawings between noon – 9 p.m. Saturday; and seven hourly drawings from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Sunday. If you had a lot of tickets and wanted the best chance of winning some of the prizes, you basically had to hang out there all weekend. Continue reading How Not to Run a Promotion
Let’s assume that I think all video poker machines in Nevada are fair — and when I say fair I mean that each unseen card has an equal probability of showing up next. Now let’s assume that I play 200,000 hands of single line Jacks or Better and do not hit a royal. That’s about five cycles. The chances that I will go the next five cycles without a royal on a fair machine are about 1-in-150.
You then ask me if I still think the machines are fair. My answer is going to be, “Yes, the machines are most likely fair.” My ‘prior belief’ dominates my belief system. Continue reading How Do You Convince Somebody?
I have yet to join the Twitter-verse. For those still living in the 20th Century, Twitter is usually sent out over smart phones and is limited to 140 characters. Your ‘tweet’ (i.e., a message sent out on Twitter) goes out to all of your followers. They can then re-tweet and send it out to their followers if they wish. Sometimes tweets go ‘viral,’ meaning that millions of folks see your comments. Continue reading Video Poker on Twitter
More often than once a year, I get emails from people I’ve never met who want me to teach them to play video poker and then bankroll them. They assure me that they’ve always been good students, they’re positive they could do well at this, and they will give me a very fair share of the money they make during this process. Continue reading Maybe Your System Doesn’t Even Work
In last week’s article, I mentioned that I had played $500,000 coin-in on a game at the Palms. A man I know as “Al from New York” asked me how I could possibly get that much money into a machine. After all, feeding a machine with hundred dollar bills is a time-consuming process. (I normally don’t give out the real names of people in my columns, but Al complained that he never got credit for his questions, so I took that as permission to use his name.) Continue reading Feeding the Machines
On Saturday November 3, I was at the Palms for a special drawing. This was not the typical 7 p.m. weekly drawing open to everyone. This was a special invited guest drawing where fewer than 200 people (based on previous play) had been invited to receive a free cruise — and this group would have a special drawing at 9:30 p.m. where $20,000 in cash, free play, or cruise credit was to be given away. Continue reading Why Didn’t Somebody Tell Me?
I’ve written before that the reason I started gambling was because of the sex! Although there is some truth in that claim, the main reason I said it was to entice readers into continuing to read. Continue reading Why Do I Play Video Poker?
On October 27 the Palms gave away $50,000 to one player. There were 40 possible tickets in the drum — if everybody eligible showed up. Some players had more than one ticket. When players earned the tickets they received somewhere between $100 and $3,000 but for the final drawing there was no second place. It was “winner take all.” Continue reading Sharing a Big Jackpot
One of the websites I’m regularly checking out these days is Arnold Snyder’s www.write-aholic.com. I always knew Snyder was a gifted writer (But who knew he was an old hippie?) and I find a lot of his insights fascinating. His review of Jim Thompson’s The Grifters inspired me to pick up the book. I’m not going to be repeating the stuff Snyder wrote, so I recommend you start from:www.write-aholic.com/book-review-the-grifters-by-jim-thompson-regency-1963/. Continue reading A Look at The Grifters
