Advice for Players – Page 8 – Las Vegas Advisor

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

A Mailer to Appreciate

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

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

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

Adventure at Railroad Pass – Part 1 of 2

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

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

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

Dazed and Confused

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

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

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

What Was Your Best Gambling Decision?

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

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

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

How Much Should I Lose Before I Quit?

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

My answer usually was some form of the following:

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

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

Are you still playing alertly?

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

Help Me Make Sense of This

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

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

Posted on October 4, 2022August 29, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 6 Comments

When is a Wild Royal Flush not a Wild Royal Flush?

Using a W for wild card to indicate a deuce, assume you are dealt W W Q♦ J♦ T♦ on a Triple Play version of Deuces Wild. This is not a tough play. You hold all five cards for a wild royal flush. (Other terms for the same hand are royal flush with deuce and dirty royal.) Usually this pays 100 or 125 coins, depending on the pay schedule, and in the specific version you’re playing it returns 100 coins.

Posted on September 27, 2022August 29, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 2 Comments

How Would You Play This One?

I received an email from a player, “Sam,” discussing a promotion that has come and gone, in an unnamed casino in an unnamed state. He wanted to know how I would have analyzed whether or not to play it.

The gist of the promotion was that for two consecutive days, four hours per day, each W-2G received the following free play bonuses:

Posted on September 20, 2022August 24, 2023 by Bob Dancer — 1 Comment

An Interesting Hand in 8/5 ACE$ Bonus Poker

The cards in ACE$ Bonus Poker (ABP) are just like the ones in regular Bonus Poker (BP) except there are superimposed yellow letters on four cards: “A” on the ace of clubs, “C” on the ace of diamonds, “E” on the ace of hearts, and “$” on the ace of spades. The order of the suits is alphabetical and contract bridge players will also be familiar with this order.

If you get four aces in ACE$ order, either in positions 1-4 or 2-5, you get paid 4,000 coins instead of 400. I’ve written about this game numerous times and have usually said the only changes you make to regular 8/5 BP strategy to play 8/5 ABP perfectly are to break aces full when the aces are in proper sequence for the bonus.

Posted on September 13, 2022 by Bob Dancer — 7 Comments

Why Aren’t You Still There?

I wrote recently in a two-parter about a trip I took where I ended up quite a bit ahead. Sometime after I got back, Bonnie and I were having dinner with her sister, Robin, and Robin’s husband. Robin asked about the trip.

“Bonnie tells me you did pretty well there.”

Category: Advice for Players