Category: Advice for Players

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A Tax on Ignorance

This article was originally published by me on July 24, 2012. Someone recently commented on it to me and I went back to check it out. I feel the article has stood up well over the past seven years and is worth revisiting, partly because many of my readers today weren’t readers way back then. Plus, I wish to extend the story next week.

I was reading a 2011 interview of Edward Thorp, a mathematical genius who created the first widespread blackjack card-counting system (Beat the Dealer) some fifty years ago, and then published a methodology for investing in various markets (Beat the Market) a short time later. He is widely credited with being the first “quant,” which is someone who uses advanced quantitative models for deciding where to invest.

He was interviewed by a group called “Investment Management Consultants Association” as part of their “Masters Series.” This organization is associated with both the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. This is a group of academics with top-notch credentials.  

Most of the interview concerned financial investing, but there were a few gambling questions as well. In particular, Thorp was asked why losers at gambling don’t simply quit.

Thorp said, “It seems to me that people are not just wealth maximizers but seeking to maximize something else, whether they do it accurately or inaccurately, whatever their total satisfaction is from whatever they’re doing. I imagine that’s the explanation for why people will gamble and lose money. They supposedly get an entertainment payout. Part of it, though, is that gambling has a tax on ignorance. People often gamble because they think they can win, they’re lucky, they have hunches, that sort of thing, whereas in fact, they’re going to be remorselessly ground down over time.”

Thorp was not speaking about or to advantage gamblers. Although there are a lot of smart gamblers that read my articles, Thorp was addressing a group of people who were accomplished in financial investing, but likely were not particularly knowledgeable about gambling. These people probably believed the house ALWAYS had the edge. For the vast majority of gamblers, this is a realistic thing to believe.

Although it’s possible that Thorp has never played video poker and almost certainly was not thinking of that game in particular when he addressed these writers, I found myself thinking about how Thorp’s comments applied to recreational video poker players.

There are “smart” recreational gamblers. These players know they are taking the worst of it but enjoy what they are doing and don’t mind paying for it. This is actually a rational way to act for some people. These players believe becoming skillful is too difficult, too time consuming, too boring, or too whatever. These players pay for their gambling excitement. Thorp wasn’t talking about this group of gamblers either because these players are not ignorant about their chances. 

There is a large group of video poker players who simply do not believe that pay schedules matter very much and that strategy is mostly common sense. These people believe they will win if they’re lucky and lose if they’re unlucky.

These players often use systems to limit their losses. Some of them believe that if they refuse to lose more than $100 each time they go gambling — but their potential win is unlimited — that this, then, is a good money management system. Others use variations on the Martingale systems. These systems can usually book a small win, but the occasional big losses wipe out far more than those accumulated small wins.

Still others believe in changing machines if either the machine has just hit a jackpot or has been too stingy in paying out jackpots recently. Both reasons are equally fallacious.

These people are not necessarily stupid (although some are). They have their strategies for playing as they do. They just don’t have the knowledge to realize that their strategies are largely worthless. And they don’t understand that this lack of knowledge dooms them to being a long-term loser.

A lot of these players defend their strategies and will argue with anybody who attempts to explain what modern experts believe is the correct way to think. In the days of Internet forums, everybody has the right to post what they believe. If you’re just beginning, you don’t know who is knowledgeable and who isn’t.

Gambling’s tax on ignorance is quite high. It is especially high for those who don’t believe it exists or think that they are immune to it. Most people who know they aren’t knowledgeable play for small stakes relative to their total wealth. To lose a lot, somebody either really must think that their system works or that they really know the right way to do it. And when the ignorant bet big, the results almost always involve getting into a financial hole that keeps getting bigger and bigger over time.

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Take Care of Your Money

As I told you last week, I was recently reading Colin Jones’ new book, The 21st Century Card Counter, preparing to interview him for the GWAE podcast. Although Colin is addressing his comments towards blackjack players, a lot of the general information is useful to video poker players as well. Today’s column was inspired by his Chapter 7: Traveling as a Card Counter.

The first thing I want to address is how much money you should take with you to a casino. If you have access to markers (casino speak for IOUs) at the casino, then you take as little as possible. If you collect money at the start of your play and turn it in at the end, there is less chance for it to be stolen from you between here and there.

But markers are a major difference between video poker players and card players. If you play big enough to use markers, in video poker you’re going to be getting W2Gs that require you to show ID. Therefore, showing ID at the cage is something video poker players have to put up with in order to do business. Many times, blackjack players do not play rated — meaning they do not give their identity to the casino. These people are not willing to show ID at the cage, so that precludes getting markers. For some reason casinos do not respond well to a request such as, “I’m not going to tell you who I am, but I want to borrow $20,000 in cash for a few days.”

So, let’s assume for the current discussion that we are not talking about markers. You’re going to be playing a game where, even if things go really badly, there’s a 99% chance that you will lose less than $5,000 today. (You can get such numbers from the Video Poker for Winners software, or another good product is Dunbar’s Risk Analyzer for Video Poker.) 

If that’s your only play today, it’s unnecessarily risky to start the day with $10,000 in your pocket. Nothing good can happen from having that extra money on you, and we all can think of plenty of bad things. One time in a hundred you’re going to run out of money with “only” $5,000. (That’s basically what having a 99% chance of it not happening means.) Unfortunate, but a cheap enough price to pay for the unpredictable, but real, chance that you could lose that money to either carelessness or malfeasance on the part of others.

Another point on this subject that Jones drives home is to be aware of your surroundings. If you get paid for a big jackpot, it can be noticed by others who want to separate you from your winnings. For this reason, if I hit a jackpot of $8,000 or higher, I ask if I can be paid “in private,” which can mean different things in different casinos. Having a slot attendant loudly counting out, “One hundred, two hundred, three hundred . . . “in front of anybody in the vicinity creates some risk.

In the era of cell phones, it’s very possible for somebody to text, “A 40-something guy in a green shirt with brown pants is carrying a lot of money. I’ll let you know when he’s heading towards the parking lot.” (That would not be me. It’s been decades since someone identified me as being 40-something, and it’s extremely rare that I wear brown pants.) So, your attacker may well be someone who wasn’t present when you were paid, but who found out from somebody else.

After a big winning session, I frequently stroll through the casino, zigging and zagging, too see if anybody is following me. Many times, I’ve approached a security guard and said, “I would like an escort to my car, and if you bring along another guard, I have tip money for both of you.”

If there is a parking garage elevator and there’s another guy waiting there who I don’t know, I’ll frequently “remember” something to do just as the elevator comes and let him go up alone. If there’s a large group in the elevator, I feel safer. If you’re healthy enough, walking the stairs in a parking garage is safer than taking the elevator, plus it’s rare enough that you can easily see if somebody is following you.

If you are mugged in an elevator, be sure to report it to security. Many casinos have cameras in the elevators and that can go a long way towards verifying your story and possibly apprehending the culprit.

There were certainly more things in this chapter that are worth remembering, but these were the items that tickled my “I haven’t written about that recently” button. Thank you, Colin.

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Those Who Don’t Know History are Doomed to Repeat It

The title quote is attributed to Edmund Burke, among others. But it applies to something that happened in Las Vegas recently. I didn’t see it all and there are parts of the story I don’t have, but the part I do have is plenty interesting. 

On Wednesday, July 17, I received a text from a friend telling me there was a video poker free-for-all at the Downtown Grand and the word is out. I didn’t know exactly what this meant, but clearly video poker players were making some money there.

The Downtown Grand is where the Lady Luck casino used to be. It’s on the north side of Ogden, which is one block north of the Fremont Street Experience. It’s not in the heart of the casino district, but it’s pretty close. 

I live a little more than ten miles south of the DG — with 90% of the trip on the freeway. I had something else going on that evening and didn’t want to get mixed up in a big mess. When a casino makes a “too good to last” promotion (which is what I figured it was), it lasts a short period of time. The earliest birds get the biggest worms, and anybody after that gets whatever scraps there are. Often the casino retaliates against any player who “took advantage” of their mistake.

On the morning of Friday, July 19, I had a gym date with a friend who had gone to check out the situation. He said there were 40-50 new machines with games such as Full Pay Deuces Wild (100.76%), 10/7 Double Bonus (100.17%), 10/6 Double Double Bonus (100.07%) for denominations up to $2 single line.

In addition, there were two multi-line machines which were locked up by a team. These machines went up to $2 Ten Play and had the same games on them.

They were offering no slot club benefits. If you wanted to park for free, you had to run $25 coin-in through a slot machine. Otherwise parking was $15 or $20, depending on which day of the week it was. Since you didn’t get any slot club points, there was no reason to put your card in, so he didn’t know exactly how fast the machines were. But he estimated he could play over 1,000 hands per hour.

Oh my! A $2 machine at 1,000 hands per hour places $10,000 into action. A 100.76% return on this game means an expected value of $76 per hour. He said there were plenty of machines and there was no trouble getting on one.

Okay. Maybe it was time to take a visit!

I haven’t played FPDW in more than a decade. Still, years ago I played the game for more than 1,000 hours, wrote a Winner’s Guide on the game, and taught a class on the game perhaps 30 times. At my age, my memory isn’t what it used to be, but it isn’t terrible. 

I took out a copy of the Winner’s Guide for that game and went through all the quizzes. This took me less than 15 minutes and I could now play with more than 99.9% accuracy on the game. If someone were starting from scratch, it would take considerably longer to get up to that level. Many people never do.

After Bonnie’s and my dinner-and-dancing date on Friday night, I headed to the DG. It was now pretty much as advertised, except some time in the past few days about half the formerly-$2 machines were now maxed out at $1. Still, checking every machine that wasn’t being played, I found one for $2 and sat down.

For those who don’t understand $76 per hour, it’s not like a paycheck. It’s a long-term average assuming you get the typical number of $2,000 deuces (frequency: 4,909 hands) and $8,000 royals (frequency: 45,282 hands). Any deuces wild player knows that if you play several hours and don’t hit one of these hands, you’re going to lose today. And that was my result on this day. I spent five hours and lost $1,900.

On the two multi-line games, one player (who I recognized) was playing $1 Ten Play. The other player was playing 25₵ Triple Play, the smallest amount you could play on that machine, slowly. I figured she was a “place holder.” The team only had so many competent players, with each one playing 6- to 8-hour shifts, and apparently there was one shift where they couldn’t find anybody. So, somebody’s friend was called in to “save the seat,” presumably with the team paying her a wage and covering her losses. The team didn’t want to give up a seat because they well could not get it back — and a seat on such a machine was worth thousands of dollars a day for as long as the game lasted.

I found an excuse to go down and play the next day (Saturday) as well. All the $2 games were gone but there were still plenty of $1 machines. This time I got two sets of deuces in five hours and came out $900 ahead. 

I attend a workshop Monday evenings in the downtown area and so that was a good excuse to go early and play at the DG. Now most of the $1 machines had been downgraded to 15-11-4-4-3-2-1. This is not a terrible game at 99.957%, but without any benefits it’s unplayable compared to games a few blocks away. I realize many players around the country would kill to get a game this good, but currently in Vegas you can do better and there’s no reason to play games where you do not have the advantage.

There were still nine $1 FPDW available and I was able to get one. This time I played four hours and won $800. This ended up being my last play there, and my net score was minus $200. A plus score would have been more pleasant, but for a short play, this was well within “normal.” Had the game lasted longer, I’d still play it some of the time. 

One of the players on the team machines was a lady I’ve known for more than 20 years and I went up to chat with her. The machines were cut back to 25₵ Ten Play or $1 Triple Play. She was playing the Ten Play version, as I would. It’s a smaller amount of coin-in ($12.50 per play versus $15) but the variance is much smaller. I gave her the name of the person I thought was running the team and she told me I was wrong but didn’t indicate who was really running the team. It didn’t really matter to me. 

I figured all the games would be downgraded by Tuesday, but I went there anyway to be sure because in the back of my mind I was planning on writing this article. All 40-50 machines were now at the 15-11-4-4-3 game rather than FPDW. And absolutely none of them were being played. The multi-line games still had players on them. I recognized one of the players as a competent pro but didn’t go up and talk to either of them.

I was quite surprised that those games outlasted the others. Although not all the players who were on it were competent, most of them were, and certainly the ones who were playing the highest stakes were. With multi-line games, you get into the long run much faster than you do with single-line games. It begs credulity that these machines were profitable to the casino. But if you left them, why not the others? 

How long the two multi-line machines had the FPDW on them, I don’t know. I am not planning another trip to the DG in the near future unless I hear the FPDW machines have been resurrected — which I doubt, but who knows?

There have been several times in the past two decades where a casino has offered $1 or higher FPDW. The machines have never lasted very long because the game returns a significant amount over 100%, is very easy to play, and there is a competent player base that has good communication. Add that all together, and a casino who puts it out there is going to lose money. How long the casino puts up with this money drain depends on the casino. In some cases, slot directors have lost their job over their decision to install such games.

So why did these games resurface now at the DG? Rumor is that the place is up for sale and the casino was trying to drive up coin-in. If that was their goal, they succeeded. But it must have been a very expensive success. Any potential buyer who dropped by early in the promotion would have been impressed with all the customers. Coming by after the FPDW machines were downgraded, the place was morgue-like.

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Choosing Between Promotions

In playing to win, you need to figure out where to spend your time. I came across such a dilemma recently and tried to figure out how to solve it. The problem was too complex for me to solve completely, but I created a simplified model using “reasonable” assumptions and was able to come up with a solution using the simplified model. 

Let me explain.

On Wednesday evening, July 3 of this year, Bonnie and I were eating at the South Point with friends. On the way into the restaurant at 5:30, I noticed the jackpot level for the $600,000 “Mad Money Madness” casino-wide progressive was at $23,000. When we finished dinner an hour later, it was at $23,250.

This is a jackpot that will go off before it hits $25,000 (at which time it starts over again at $10,000). If you’re the lucky player who hits it, you get the prize, of course. If you’re playing when somebody else hits it, you get $25 in free play. 

It was going up at a rate of $250 per hour, and likely it would go up faster as the evening wore on because evenings generate more slot and video poker players than daytimes do.

Starting at midnight, however, earning double points would begin. This adds 0.30% to the return.

Assume I would commit five hours to play — either before midnight (when the progressive was very likely to hit) or after. Which would have been the play with the higher EV? (Hybrid results of “play until the jackpot goes off and then if you have any more of your five hours left come back after midnight” were not being considered in this model, but might be a reasonable decision in real life.)

The are many combinations of games and denomination I could consider. I’m going to pick two — namely, NSU Deuces Wild for quarters and NSU Deuces Wild for $2.

This game returns 99.728% with perfect play — and for simplification I’m going to assume the return with the normal 0.30% slot club was 100.00% and the return with the double points was 100.30%. 

I’m going to assume a speed of 800 hands per hour. This is playing pretty quickly, but nowhere near a record pace. This speed has the advantage of making the coin-in for the quarter game to be $1,000 per hour and the coin-in for the $2 game, $8,000 per hour. Again, round numbers make the math easier.

My next assumption may or may not be valid, and that is a quarter machine and a $2 machine have equal likelihoods of being selected as the winner. This could be true, and it also could be true that the $2 machine has eight times the likelihood because eight times as much is being wagered. The rules are very vague on this. The phrase “any machine any time” could apply to either way of doing it. 

I’m also going to assume that in the next five hours, the progressive is going to be hit. Not guaranteed, but very, very likely.

Before I go on, take your best guestimate. Is it worth more to sit down now or wait for double points?

Okay. Figuring out how much the games are worth on double point days is easy. A rate of 100.30% means it’s worth $3 per hour on the quarter machine and $24 per hour on the $2 machine.

Figuring how much the game itself is worth before midnight is also easy. A game worth 100.00% is worth $0 per hour, no matter what your stakes.

So, it comes down to estimating how much the chances at the jackpot are worth. Again, to make the math easy, I’m going to assume 1,000 active players, and that each player has an equal probability of hitting the jackpot. So, on a per-person basis, actually hitting the jackpot is worth $25 — although 999 out of 1,000 people will get zero and one person will have a big smile on his/her face.

We are guaranteed to get $25 when the jackpot goes off so long as we’re playing and we don’t hit the big one. Adding these numbers together, the value of the jackpot to us is $50.

Adding $50 in EV to $0 (the amount the game would be worth with a 0.30% slot club) is also easy. Playing five hours before midnight gives us $50, or $10 per hour.

Comparing the $10 per hour to the $3 or $24 hourly rates we’d earn after midnight is also easy. If we’re playing quarters, sit down and play now. If we’re going to be playing a $2 game, wait for double points.

So, it turns out the problem of whether we should play now or later depends on what denomination we’re playing. I suggest denomination is a consideration that many of you didn’t think was a factor.

The third choice of “the game is not worth enough to bother with” is always an option. Different people will come to different conclusions about that.

If you don’t like my simplifying assumptions, make up your own. Your conclusion will likely end up being the same as mine unless you assume the $2 player had eight times the chances to win the jackpot as the quarter player did. (And I don’t know if that’s a true-to-life assumption or not.) If that’s your assumption, the right conclusion might well be for the $2 player to sit down now and start banging away as fast as he/she could.

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What’s Your Take?

Bonnie and I were recently returning from a cruise and were waiting in the Fort Lauderdale airport for our flight home. We were sitting next to some Vegas friends who were on the same cruise — a man and his wife, their 13-year-old son and their 11-year-old daughter.

I was absorbed in a book and wasn’t following what was going on, but all of a sudden, the girl, Kelly, asked me if I wanted her to get me a free drink from a vending machine? There were sodas, water, and a few types of energy drinks available. Maybe other choices as well. It was across the room and I didn’t look closely at it.

“And just how are you going to get me a free drink?” I asked. “They are usually sold at a premium in an airport and not given away.”

“Daddy found this code on the Internet. You enter the code into the vending machine, and it thinks you’re an employee. You then get whatever you want.”

“Have you tried it?” I asked.

“Well, we tried it and got to the last step and then we chickened out. I’m not a thief and couldn’t bring myself to do it for me. But to give to somebody else, that’s different. And I really want to see if it works. So, what do you want?”

“I want to pass on this,” I replied. 

Kelly then asked Bonnie, who didn’t really understand what Kelly was suggesting, so she looked at me for guidance. I told her it looked like a scam that may or may not work. But if it does work, it’s clearly stealing from the vending machine company. When I phrased it that way, Bonnie wanted no part of it either. Kelly got a similar response from both her parents.

Since none of the adults wanted to do this, Kelly concluded that it wasn’t the right thing to do — so she let it go. Had she taken the free drink, I would hope one of her parents would instruct her otherwise. For me to do so would be hypocritical, as I’ve done far worse. Some of those instances readers of my columns have heard about. Some they haven’t.

This is something I might have said yes to 25 years ago. I was new in Vegas and desperately trying to make it. Three dollars saved is three dollars earned.

Even then, however, I wouldn’t have done it in front of five people who knew me and looked up to me. It would have been something I did by myself or with at most one accomplice.

This time there was a dome on the ceiling housing a security camera — which may or may not be active. They didn’t have those 25 years ago. You could just look around and see whether anybody was watching. Not anymore. Although it is doubtful the security system was there to protect against this kind of scam, you never know. The chance of being caught definitely enters into the equation when you’re considering crossing a line.

Would you have taken the free soda?

In casinos, there are numerous situations not so different from this one. When they unexpectedly arise, you need to make a decision. Those with a strong moral compass have no trouble at all with these decisions. The same is true for those with no moral compass at all, although they make the opposite decisions from the ones in the previous category. Where it presents problems are for those of us who look at each situation as a new problem to consider.

I’ve heard it said that the difference between an advantage player (which I consider myself to be) and a cheat (which I do not consider myself to be) is that the advantage player always does things in a casino legally. I wonder. Temptations arise and we make decisions. Even on the decisions we can justify to ourselves, others may decide we have “crossed the line.”

I chatted about this article a bit with a friend and he listed a couple of cases that would be taboo for him that I thought would have been acceptable for me. And vice versa. He was amazed that I considered something off limits.

Dan Ariely is a professor at Duke University and the author of many books and articles including “Ask Ariely,” an advice column in The Wall Street Journal. One thing I’ve learned from reading Dr. Ariely’s works is that the decision we make now (when temptation is far away and just a theoretical concept) can be different than what we decide in the heat of the moment. Although Ariely’s conclusions are often about sexual matters, I believe they also apply to financial matters. Getting “more money” is one of the major things that inspire those who gamble — whether it’s gambling with or without the advantage. 

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Reasonably Ready

A little more than two years ago, I wrote an article called “You’re Not Ready Yet” which may be found here. The article described “Joe,” a player who wished to hire me as a mentor.

In the article, I told him that he didn’t have enough experience yet. He should go and study the Winner’s Guide for two separate games and master them at the advanced level. If he did that, and gained considerable experience in the casino, I would happily consider entering into a mentoring relationship with him.

But until then, I believed Joe was in love with the idea of being a gambler without going through the effort of actually becoming good at it. My best guess at the time was that Joe wouldn’t go through the necessary work to “qualify.”

Joe is someone who periodically emails a question suitable for the Gambling with an Edge podcast, so we’ve been in touch. About a month ago, I asked him how his gambling career progressed after that article. Here is his response, slightly edited for his anonymity:

I took your advice and studied the Video Poker Winners Guides and practiced on Video Poker for Winners for jacks or better and also NSU deuces wild. I probably spent at least 100 hours each doing both of these. I was able to play about 600-700 hands per hour at the “advanced” level with very few errors. By playing video poker in 2017 at a Caesars property, I achieved 7-star status.

Since I got 7-star status, I had been receiving lots of comps (at both Caesars and non-Caesars casinos). The non-Caesars casinos think that I am a “gambler” based on my 7-star status, so they tend to extend me comps just to get me there to try them out. I might have been able to take advantage of even more comps if I had not gotten injured on military duty – that slowed me down a little.

Some of the comps that I have gotten include: free flights to casino locations; free hotel stays; free food; free shows; free box seats at sporting events – football and baseball (basketball and hockey have been offered but not accepted yet); free tours; cruises on various cruise lines where I only have to pay for port fees and government taxes; and of course free bets, match plays, and free slot play.

Since my 7-star was valid through January 2019, I decided that I wouldn’t re-establish my 7-star until sometime in 2019 (in order to extend it through January 2021). I have not re-established my 7-star status since I have something else in my life that keeps me very busy, and I wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the benefits. Since I don’t live in Las Vegas or even anywhere near a casino, when I do go to a casino, I tend to play blackjack (when I can get away with it). I do NOT play blackjack at the same places that I play video poker.

Consequently, I would definitely have to restudy, and re-practice with the software to get back to “advanced” level whereas blackjack is kind of second nature since I have been doing that for almost 10 years.

When I get closer to retiring from what it is that I am doing now (probably in about two more years), I plan to move to Vegas. Besides the opportunities to use the 7-star and other gambling related benefits, I am a veteran and there are a lot of entertainment related benefits given to military members.

When I do move to Vegas, I plan to restudy and re-practice the video poker so that I can get mentoring from you.

Joe has progressed considerably further than I would have predicted. Good for him! There are dues to be paid and he has shown the willingness and ability to pay them! My prediction that he wouldn’t do this wasn’t based on him individually, but rather that a pretty low percentage of people in his position would have put in the work he did.

Whether or not we actually enter into a mentoring relationship down the road remains to be seen. But he has done what it takes to “qualify” and he will definitely get more bang for his buck now than he would have earlier when he didn’t have the knowledge or experience to put the information I can share with him to good use.

Way to go, Joe!

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I Can’t Help

I keep strange hours. Sometimes I’m up all night. Sometimes I’m up all day. Overall, I get my sleep, but nobody knows at any given time of day whether I’ll be awake or not.

At about 2 a.m. on a recent night, I was writing an article when I received a text message from a friend, George. The message showed two jackpots. One was for deuces with an ace kicker for $3,400 on a $1 13-4-3-3 Deuces Bonus game with two progressives, and the second was for the royal itself — $8,000. By looking at the numbers for the screen shots, they must have hit almost back to back.

I responded with “Congratulations,” but didn’t say more. This is not a friend who sends me pictures of every W2G he gets, and I don’t want to turn him into one.

As soon as I sent off the congrats, he texted “Can we talk?” I didn’t know what it was about, but I called him right away.

It turned out that he hit the aces jackpot and his sometimes-partner, Cliff, hit the royal. He said this time they were partners on all of the scores.

Cliff, it turns out, is a Canadian citizen in the United States on a permanent work visa. He has a temporary driver’s license, which gets renewed one year at a time, because he is not a United States citizen.

The floor person noticed the temporary license and asked about it. When she found that Cliff was a Canadian citizen, she said the casino was required to withhold 30% of the W2G — $2,400. Cliff has previously earned hundreds of W2Gs and this is only the second time money has been withheld.

When the money is withheld, it is sent to the appropriate taxation department in Canada. To retrieve any or all of it, Cliff would need to file a Canadian tax return. Right now, he only files United States returns.

The slot supervisor showed up and told Cliff that the 30% would be withheld, period. It would be withheld temporarily if Cliff said he could bring in a United States passport or a non-temporary driver’s license. If Cliff didn’t think he could produce one of those in the very near future, the money would be sent to Canada.

So, George asked my advice as to what to do.

I told him that my read was that the casino was acting appropriately. That’s the law. The $2,400 they were withholding wasn’t doing the casino any good because they had to forward it to Canada, but refusing to do it could get them into trouble if it was discovered.

I suggested that Cliff’s options were to become a United States citizen (which I understand is his intention, but it is sometimes a lengthy process), accept that losing 30% of jackpots occasionally was just an expense of doing business, or, perhaps, find another way to earn money.

I had no advice about filing a Canadian tax return. I don’t know the rules and can’t speak to the advantages and disadvantages of going that route.

Although I’ve met Cliff and like him, George is my friend. I suggested that if George and Cliff are going to continue to be occasional progressive-chasing partners who share some or all of jackpots, then this potential of 30% being withheld should be explicitly discussed. Right now, George and Cliff are sharing that 30% “penalty.” It probably hadn’t been discussed because it hadn’t happened recently, but now that it’s out in the open, it needs to be discussed.

I don’t particularly care how they resolve it. It could be that Cliff is the dominant partner and George is lucky to be allowed to tag along. In that case, sharing in the 30% is probably correct. If Cliff is the more knowledgeable partner, a different arrangement would be appropriate.

There are privileges that are associated with being a U. S. citizen. This particular one has been agreed to by treaty and is not likely to be changed in the near future. The fact that this particular one affects some of my gambling friends is unfortunate, but that’s the law and we all must live with it.

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If Bob Dancer is Playing . . .

A few years ago, for several days in a row, I was hammering a $5 Five Play 9/6 Double Double Bonus game. This game returns 98.98% and it is very un-Dancer-like to play so much on a game that bad.

I received an email from somebody I didn’t know asking me why I was playing the game. While I generally respond to polite emails, this time I didn’t bother. I share a lot of information, but I’m not required to share everything. I had figured something out, I believed, and I wasn’t talking except to a very few players who also sometimes share juicy things with me.

After it was over, one of our guests on the Gambling with an Edge podcast, Sam, who I hadn’t known previously, told me he was approached by somebody who saw me playing and figured that if it was good for me, it was probably good for others as well. The person asking didn’t have the bankroll to do it himself, which is why he approached Sam. Sam asked me if it would have been a good idea for him to bankroll the other player.

I knew the incident Sam was talking about. I’m still not talking about the details because parts of it are still alive and friends are still playing it on occasion.

I told Sam that in general, just seeing me there wasn’t sufficient to have an edge.

  1. This might have been an invited guest situation where some players have an offer that others don’t. If Sam didn’t know why I was playing, he didn’t get the offer.
  2. There could have been point multipliers available to players who get regular mailers and would not be available to Sam, who wasn’t an established player there. Even players who do get multipliers don’t always get the same multiplier.
  3. Maybe I had to play a certain amount quickly in order to be eligible for something juicy.
  4. Possibly there was a loss rebate promotion going on.
  5. There could have been one or more drawings included in the EV, some of which Sam didn’t know about and/or for which he wasn’t eligible. As an example, Sam wouldn’t qualify for a senior drawing, but I would. Or even if he did know about and was eligible for a drawing, possibly he would have had something else to do on the night(s) of the must-be-there-to-win drawing(s).
  6. There could be annual tier levels to which I aspired, but Sam didn’t care about. Several casinos, for example, offer cruises if you reach their highest tier level. Bonnie and I enjoy these. I know several players who are bored out of their minds on a cruise and playing extra to earn one isn’t something they would consider.
  7. I might have been playing extra to earn additional comps for some reason.
  8. There was more than one seemingly identical machine at this casino. I might have known one of them was superior for some reason.
  9. There were higher-EV machines available at this casino, but knowing what I knew, I believed they were actually lower-EV when you considered everything. If Sam played a higher-EV machine so he could “improve” on the way I was playing the game, his results would have been worse.
  10. I could possibly have had a deal with the casino that if I played $1 million on this game, I would get a $5,000 rebate — or something. That’s a half-percent in equity. That could easily change a “not playable” game into being playable. Perhaps it was a deal I negotiated individually. Perhaps it was one open to all players who played $1 million coin-in a month.
  11. It’s possible I screwed up and this play wasn’t as good as I thought it was. This doesn’t happen a whole lot for me, but I am 72 years old and it happens more than it used to. Sam couldn’t know if it was happening “this time.”
  12. There are bankroll issues on plays. Five-dollar five play 9/6 DDB takes more bankroll than most players are used to. Let’s say it went bad this time and the player (either me or Sam) lost $30,000. I understand the swings and am used to that. I wouldn’t be delighted by that result, but it really isn’t a big deal. It’s part of my world. How would Sam feel about that?

Did all of these things happen? No, of course not. Not on that one occasion, but they all have happened at least once to me. Were some of them in effect this time? Absolutely.
Seeing me (or another knowledgeable player) at a casino definitely provides some useful information for you. And sometimes you are also a regular at that casino and you know what promotions are going on — and can easily figure out why that game is being played today.

But if it’s not obvious to you why I’m playing, it’s probably not a good game for you. There are so many possible reasons why I might be playing, and without knowing which reasons are in effect at this time, it could very well be that it’s not a good play for you at all.

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Chasing a Progressive

There are hundreds of video poker progressives in greater Las Vegas. As a general rule, I avoid these games. Progressives are not my bread and butter. Still, I occasionally do sit down at a progressive that catches my eye, and recently there was such a case.

A $2 9/5 DDB progressive at the South Point was at more than $16,000 for the royal, with additional progressives for aces with a kicker and 2s, 3s, and 4s with a kicker. Putting all the numbers into computer software showed the game was currently worth about 100.80%, plus a 0.30% slot club. Additionally, in general the more coin-in you have, the better your mailers are. So, I sat down.

I had enough cash on hand, I thought, including the availability of markers. I was used to DDB itself, which has a variance of a bit more than 40. Doubling the royal jacks up the variance to around 100. Although I have the tools to figure out bankroll for this, I wasn’t near my computer and I had to wing it. I figured I was up to playing for four or five hours. If the royal hadn’t been hit by then, I’d reevaluate whether or not I wanted to continue.

There are 20 machines connected to this progressive and perhaps a third of the seats were taken when I got there at 10 p.m. on a Saturday evening. At midnight, half of the machines were taken, and the progressive was more than $18,000. The 2s, 3s, and 4s, with a kicker progressive had been hit a few times. It started out at $1,600 and was usually hit by $1,700. The difference between this jackpot at $1,600 and the same jackpot at $1,700 is 0.14%. Not chopped liver, but it’s not the primary prize.

Aces with a kicker were worth more than $5,000. That added more than 0.6%, but even without that, the royal progressive was high enough that the game was worth playing. When the aces were knocked off, the royal progressive was more than $19,000, which is worth about 101% even without the lesser jackpots.

At about 2 a.m., the royal reached $20,000. About 2/3 of the seats were full and at that point, somebody hit the royal. Time to go home.

I had run $40,000 coin-in through the machine. I failed to hit any W2G (regular aces are worth $1,600, in addition to the other jackpots already discussed.) My score was $7,100 in the soup. No fun. But not really a big deal. DDB is a heaven-or-hell game, and special quads and the royals add a lot to the EV. Blanking on those is expensive in the short run.

Generally speaking, when playing a progressive, the person hitting the royal comes out way ahead and the others lose. In this case, the guy who knocked off the aces with a kicker was also probably ahead, but most of the rest of us lost. Such is the nature of playing DDB progressives. Play the game enough and you’ll get your share.

I recognized more than half of the players when the royal was finally hit. Some I hadn’t seen for several years. I assume most of them knew who I was, as I’m well-known in the Las Vegas video poker community, although not in the video poker progressive-playing community. I don’t know this for a fact, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a few phone calls had been made in the nature of, “You better come down here. It is so juicy even Bob Dancer is playing it.”

Am I going to do this again soon? Doubtful. But maybe. It’s a positive play, albeit one with large swings. Between casinos restricting players and the general tightening of machines, it’s hard to find good video poker opportunities in Las Vegas these days. This is one avenue to stay in the game, although it’s not my first choice.

We’ll see.

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Safety Precautions

I usually play by myself and sometimes will eat a meal at the casino. When I do, I always bring along a book to read while dining. Sometimes the book is a novel. Sometimes it is non-fiction – perhaps a book by a future guest on the podcast. But eating by myself without a book seems like a waste of time to me.

On one recent day, as I finished playing, the credits on my machine amounted to $1,240. Not a particularly large amount, but large enough that I had to visit the cage to get it cashed. The ATM/Change machines at this casino would not redeem tickets of $1,000 and higher.

I needed to use the restroom before I went to the cage. So, I placed my players card, driver’s license, and ticket for $1,240 in my book, and carried the book as I went on my way. So long as I’m careful, the book acts like a safe of sorts. And I am careful. At least most of the time.

Somehow, however, I wasn’t careful enough this time. I still don’t know how it happened, but when I showed up at the cage, the book was “empty.” No ticket. No ID. No card. I checked my wallet “in case” I had put the things there instead of where I thought I put them, but no luck.

Shit.

Losing $1,240 is a nuisance rather than a disaster. Losing my driver’s license was much more of a problem. I immediately traced my steps back to the restroom, checking the floor along the way on the slim chance the items had fallen out and had not been picked up by anyone else.

Nothing.

As I was leaving the restroom, I noticed the attendant was holding a driver’s license in his hand. I identified myself and asked if it was mine. It was. I asked about the players card. He said he had thrown it away. It was still on top of the trash can, so I retrieved that as well. I asked about the ticket, and he said he didn’t know anything about that. Was he telling the truth? Who knows?

I went back to the cage and asked if they had cashed a ticket for exactly $1,240 in the past few minutes. No, they hadn’t. I then said I’d like to report a missing ticket. Soon a slot supervisor came and took my statement. We went to the machine I had been playing, where the display said that the last ticket redeemed was $1,240. I told the supervisor that I had been playing there for about three hours, always with my card, and surely their slot club records and cameras could verify that.

I had to fill out a written statement, which I did. A few minutes later a “Metro” (police officer from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department) came by and asked me for my story again. So, I told it. He wanted a written report. I told him I was willing, but if he could get a photocopy of the casino report that would be much easier.

I was asked to wait.

About 20 minutes later, another Metro came by and asked me if I wanted to press charges. I told him that my primary concern was retrieving the $1,240. He told me I was going to get the $1,240 back and the person who tried to cash it was in detention downstairs.

That was lucky!

Still, if someone had actually ripped me off, they deserved to be punished. If someone found abandoned property, maybe not. The restroom attendant was the only person who spoke to me and was definitely aware of whom the ticket belonged to. Anybody else? It’s possible it was dropped on the floor and I wasn’t sure of how the “finder-keeper loser-weeper” rule worked in this particular instance.

I was asked if I was willing to testify in court. I said yes, but I repeated that the only person I could identify was the restroom attendant who I described by age (50ish), race (Hispanic), build (medium), and other features (spoke English with very little trace of an accent). If anybody else tried to turn in the ticket, there was nothing I could say in court proving that person’s guilt.

In another 20 minutes I got my ticket back. I was never asked to identify anybody. I assume it wasn’t the restroom attendant who tried to cash the ticket.

Obviously, I’m luckier than I deserve to be. I didn’t have to discover the loss so quickly. The ticket didn’t have to be larger than could be cashed anonymously at the machines. Even discovering the loss, the one “skillful” element here was reporting it immediately.

Being able to stop the ticket before it was cashed made recovery easier. Had the ticket already been cashed, the casino might not have been so quick to pay me. There are cameras at the cage, and it could depend on who turned in the ticket. And whether they help me might partially depend on whether I’m a winning or losing player.

If it was cashed by a valued customer (i.e. one who loses a lot), the casino might not want to embarrass him by confronting him. If it was cashed by someone the casino didn’t recognize, the casino may very well have decided not to pay out the $1,240 twice.

Was there a lesson to be learned about better securing valuable things? Of course.

Two items flashed through my mind that I will leave for the reader to ponder. First, assuming I didn’t get the ticket back, how should I record that in my records? In case of audit, I want my records to match what the casino has. I didn’t come to a firm conclusion about this as I got my money back before I needed to record it.

Second, when I got the money back, how much should I have tipped? And to whom?