Category: Advanced Strategy

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Waiting for a Machine — Part I of II

Bob Dancer

I’ve written several times about there being more players who want certain video poker machines at a certain time than there are machines available. Today’s article isn’t about that. It’s about waiting for a slot machine that you believe is positive.

Let’s talk about the hypothetical “Red Bob” machine. I have not searched patents and trademarks to know if any such machine exists, but if so, I haven’t heard of it. If there is such a machine, it’s just a coincidence. I’m making up everything I’m saying about this machine.

The Red Bob machine has three meters: Mini, Minor, and Major. Each of these meters increases when certain symbols appear. When one of these meters goes off, you receive however many free spins are on the meter. The Mini meter goes off most frequently and is the least valuable. The Minor goes off less frequently, but is more valuable because you get additional wild symbols on each spin. And the Major meter goes off still less frequently, but is more valuable still when it does go off because of still more wild symbols.

Assume you’ve collected data and have determined that the Mini meter is a play at 23 spins — meaning that on average, starting from right now, the amount of money you collect when the meter goes off is more than how much you’ll have to pay to get that meter to go off. There is a random element to this, as in most gambling games. Sometimes you’ll win, sometimes you’ll lose, but on average, so long as you only play games when the meter is at least 23, you’ll do all right.

Similarly, the Minor meter needs to be 37 to be a play and the Major meter is a play at 45. Just one meter needs to be high enough for it to be a play. For the record, I know of no machines where 23, 37, and 45 are the “strike numbers,” but I know of many games that are generally similar to this.

Assume you come across a Red Bob machine that has meters of Mini 26, Minor 17, and Major 13 and it costs $2 to play each hand. This is a play, because the Mini is at least 23, and we assume you can afford the $2 a hand. The trouble is, somebody is already at the machine.

At this point, I’m going to evaluate the situation. A pro, or semi-pro, will probably be playing the machine like he’s in a slot tournament. That is, he will keep hitting the spin button as fast as he can. He knows that he’s the favorite and the sooner he can get to the Mini meter to go off, the more time he has to make money on other machines. 

Generally speaking, I don’t wait around for a pro to finish. Most likely he’s not going to stop until the Mini meter is hit. And when that happens, the machine is no longer interesting to me because the Minor and Major meters are way too low to be profitable.

But sometimes you’ll find a “regular” player — that is, someone who might not know or care that he’s playing a game returning in excess of 100%. He’s in the casino for enjoyment and knows the casino usually wins. It’s the price he pays for entertainment. This player usually plays relatively slowly, listening to the music and enjoying the sights and sounds of the game.

I then look at the credits. If he has $239.17 in credits, I probably won’t stick around, unless I get some vibe that he’s ready to go (like maybe a wife telling him about dinner.) If he has $12.34 in credits, I’m going to find a nearby chair and wait. After all, running out of money in the machine creates a natural stopping point.

Once seated, I look around and see if anybody else is waiting for the game. They will have seen me evaluate the situation and sit down. Normally, they give me some sort of “evil eye,” or maybe use sign language to indicate that they were there before I was. If I see this, I nod acceptance of reality and move along. There are many reasons I don’t want to be in any sort of fight in a casino.

If I see nobody, then I watch the player to see if he gives up. I’m also alert to other players coming and thinking about moving in on the machine. If I observe this, I give them my own version of the evil eye. Usually that works.

If the player runs out of money in the machine and grudgingly puts in a $20 bill or smaller, I stick around. If he puts in a $100 bill, I figure he’s not going to run out of money.

If he does stand up, I move in fast. I’m usually seated within five seconds after he leaves. Once I’m seated there, I’m in a strong position to be able to keep the machine. If I dawdle, some other player might move in — and even if I was waiting longer, it’s not always simple to enforce my rights without making a scene — which is a situation I don’t want.

Once I’m there, I’ll insert my money and player’s card and keep playing until the Mini goes off. With the numbers presented in the example, it’s unlikely that either the Minor or Major will be high enough to be playable before the Mini goes off. But if the original numbers were 26, 34, 38, even if the Mini goes off quickly, I’ll keep playing until “one or the other” of the other two meters goes off. Even though neither is high enough by itself, the combination is playable — at least in my opinion.

I know that most of my readers are video poker players and don’t care about playing slots — but I felt that this situation was different enough from regular video poker waiting that it would be interesting to many of you. I have more to say about this subject, but I’ll give it a rest for a few weeks.

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A Story from Treasure Island

Bob Dancer

I became interested in video poker in the early-to-mid 1990s, which turned out to be a very fortunate time to do this. Players were not so knowledgeable as they are today, but neither were slot directors or game manufacturers, which led to casinos offering much juicier games and promotions than are present today.

Treasure Island was built by Steve Wynn and opened in October, 1993. In addition to $1 9-7 Double Bonus progressives, they had ample $5 and $10 9/6 Jacks or Better (99.54%) games, along with one for $2, all with 0.67% cash back. (They might have had some bigger games, but $25 and higher games were so far beyond my comfort zone, I ignored what was there.) You could get RFB (a room, and unlimited food and beverage) for a very modest amount of $15,000 coin-in per day. Plus, they had monthly promotions where they gave away multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars on one Saturday night during the month for which you earned drawing tickets on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday playing a game where the player had the advantage.

It turned out that 9/6 Jacks or Better, along with Full Pay Deuces Wild and 10/7 Double Bonus, were the three games for which I initially worked out strategies that I was ready to publish in 1994. By late 1994, I had built my bankroll up to $20,000 or $30,000 and was ready to tackle this game of video poker. It was just a guess as to whether or not I had enough bankroll, but I figured I had about a 1% edge (including the drawings), and if I could just hold on at the beginning, and avoid expensive habits outside of gambling, I was pretty much guaranteed to increase my bankroll bigtime. I had spent 20 years or so playing backgammon for money and so was used to the swings of gambling.

I soon realized I played a more accurate Jacks or Better strategy than most of the other players. The strategies published by Dan Paymar and Lenny Frome were decent enough, but simplified. Jacks or Better is arguably the easiest game to play 100% accurately so I taught myself to do that.

Treasure Island also gave away tickets to the show Mystere. I don’t remember the exact exchange rate, but it was something like $4,000 coin-in gave you two free tickets daily. I didn’t want to be seen selling the tickets, so I sold them to a few non-players for $50 apiece who then stood in line every night and resold them for $100 or so. I probably did this 100 times (two tickets each time)— adding $10,000 to my bankroll. Eventually the non-players began getting questioned about “Where did you get those tickets?” and I decided it was time to shut down that form of extra revenue.

Shirley came into my life in late 1995, and we both started playing at Treasure Island. The Mirage had largely the same monthly promotions, usually on different weekends than Treasure Island did, so we played there too. The Golden Nugget’s version of this was to give the money away via a slot tournament — perhaps $40,000 cash given away to 200 players each month, which added up to $200 in equity per person. Add this to playing a positive game and RFB — it was a good deal. They had good games at the Rio as well.

Other casinos like Bally’s, Caesars Palace, Desert Inn, and MGM Grand had similar promotions but I largely avoided those in the mid-1990s. Later Venetian, New York New York and others joined as well. One event per weekend was enough. I was writing and teaching, and there were local casinos with good games during the week. Most of the big Strip events had dances on the night they gave away the money, and this was almost as important to us as the money itself. If we started double- and triple-booking promotions, we might earn more money, but it wouldn’t be as much fun.

The Las Vegas casinos competing with each other as to which one could give the players the best deal lasted well after the turn of the millennium. Although players eventually got stronger, so did casino management, with the net effect that not so many players percentagewise were beating the casinos as there used to be. The best players, however, continued to succeed.

It’s fun to think back to the “good old days” periodically, but it’s more useful to think on how to beat casinos today. It is still being done — but not in the same ways we did it a few decades ago. And I suspect the methods we’re using five and ten years from now will be different yet.

I don’t know how long this “ride” will last. For me, at age 77, it’s more difficult for me to keep up than it was 30 years ago so I may need to give up beating the casinos earlier than I would were I younger.

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You’re Leaving Money on the Table

Bob Dancer

Bonnie and I sometimes travel to Harrah’s Cherokee, which is in the Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina. 

Although there are many reasons we go there, one is that we have casino friends, “Jack” and “Jill,” who also play there. I email Jack when Bonnie and I are going to be traveling east, and sometimes they make a trip there at the same time. And when that happens, we share at least one meal at Brio, the Italian restaurant at the casino.

Rather than split the cost of the meal, we each pick up the entire check every other time we do this. All four of us play at the Seven Stars level, so, among other things, each gets five $100 food vouchers a year. Often one of those vouchers is redeemed during our meals together.

This time it was Jack’s turn to pick up the check. I asked him how much of the meal his host was picking up, and Jack said he never asked a host to buy his food.

“You’re leaving money on the table,” I told him. “You and Jill each play $50,000 coin-in per day you’re there and annually you each earn Seven Stars status primarily from your play at this casino. Hosts will consider you valuable to the casino and will be willing to give you something.”

He told me between them they earn $100 worth of Reward Credits a day, sometimes more if there’s a multiplier, and that’s enough to cover much of what they spend on food.

“Okay,” I continued. “I don’t know what kind of benefits your play entitles you to, but let’s say the host is willing to pick up $250 in food for your four-day trip that usually you pay for with Reward Credits. That many Reward Credits can be turned into $125 free play — which essentially means cash. Are you so rich you can’t find a use for another $125?”

The answer was obvious. I had given Jack the name of our host previously. He had spoken to the host over the phone, but never met her and she didn’t know they were at the casino now.

“You’re going to be here tomorrow, and she’ll get in at noon. Why don’t you give her a call and see if she has five minutes to chat. Once she puts faces to names, she can look up your play and figure out what she can do — if anything. It’s possible, I suppose, that she can’t do anything, but I very much doubt that. Even if that turns out to be the case, it will only cost you five minutes to find out. The odds are very good that she’ll be able to do something.” 

Jill commented she would rather get free facials and manicures than free food. Jack thought a bottle of Scotch Whisky would satisfy him more.

“Let your host know that. Your host’s job is to take care of valuable customers. She has guidelines she must follow, but also, she has a lot of flexibility. It doesn’t hurt to ask.

“And sometimes you play at Harrah’s New Orleans too. If you don’t have a host there, get one. Let them know when you’re coming and see if they can offer you anything.”

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Gifts that Aren’t Gifts

Bob Dancer

Casinos reward players for playing. These rewards typically include cash back, free play, rooms, food, show/event tickets, and as many other goodies as a marketing director can imagine. I’ve received gift cards, spa treatments, cruises, shopping sprees, trips, and discounts on a variety of things.

Once you’ve received these rewards, for the most part you can use them as you see fit, including redeem them, ignore them, give them to family and friends, and, sometimes, sell them. If you’ve received a logo jacket, for example, and choose to sell it on eBay, no casino executive will object to this.

If the casino has offered you a hotel room, and you give this room away, again there’s no problem. But if you sell the room, and the casino discovers this, you may well be punished. Each casino has its own way of bringing players into line, but you usually will receive a warning before the casino takes any action.

If you continue selling rooms after the casino tells you that it’s not allowed, the casino will “solve” the problem by not giving you free rooms anymore — and maybe kicking you out altogether.

I can see the casino’s point of view on this. After all, selling rooms is one of their income streams, and if they can sell the room instead of giving it away for free, it helps their bottom line.

I can also see the player’s point of view on this. If a casino “gives” you something, you should be able to do whatever you want with it. It’s hard enough to beat the casino. Adding a few extra bucks from selling something the casino gives you makes it easier to win. Or at least lose less.

While I haven’t sold any comped rooms for several years, if I were to do it again, I’d try to do it in a way that would maximize my chances of being successful at it.

First of all, I wouldn’t go through a host. My host knows my preferences — perhaps one bed, no smoking, high floor, near elevator — whatever. If I all of a sudden I want two beds in a smoking room, the host is going to be asking questions. I could say it’s for my brother-in-law, and that would fly once. But if I tried it several more times, each time with a different set of room requests, the host may get suspicious. While the host is your “friend,” of sorts, the casino signs her paycheck. 

So, after the reservation is made, go though the front desk to make the changes in the “smoking or not” kind of requests. To the front desk, you’re just a name. To your host, you’re quite a bit more than that. Casinos identify you by what kind of games you play, what stakes, what frequency of play, what your win-loss numbers are, and a variety of other things. All this data is part of how your host knows you.

Second, if I get a comped room and sell it to somebody, I’d play some that weekend. It doesn’t have to be a lot. But no play at all waives a red flag. 

Third, I’d be discreet about it. I wouldn’t post an ad that offers discounted rooms to the such-and-such casino. Those ads might well be seen by somebody who works at the casino, and it could lead to it being investigated. Once somebody who works at the casino tries to “buy” such a discounted room, they’d find out that I was behind it — and the cat would be out of the bag. No thanks.

Fourth, I’d spread it around to several casinos if I had potential comped rooms at more than one place. Each time one does this is a risk. Doing it at several casinos rather than just one dilutes that risk a bit.

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A Look at Casino Drawings — Part II of II

Bob Dancer

Today we continue our look at casino drawings. If you want to catch up and read last week’s blog, I’ll wait until you come back.

You usually have to plan for a drawing. While it is possible that you’re automatically entered into a drawing and your prizes are sent to you in the mail, the far more typical way is that you need to show up at the casino and activate your tickets at a kiosk. You then need to stick around until the drawing is held and, if you’re lucky enough to be drawn, claim your prize within some relatively short period of time.

This means that if you’re going to compete in one drawing at 7 p.m. on a given night, you can’t be at another drawing as well. So you need to pick and choose where you have the best chance.

It’s not trivial to get to a casino, park, and deal with the crowds in order to win at a drawing. Today, if I don’t have an expected win of at least $250 at a drawing, I won’t be showing up. Your number might be different from mine, but financially it rarely makes sense to show up at a drawing when you only have one ticket in the drum. Yes, it only takes one ticket to win, but that’s looking at “possibilities,” not “probabilities.” I actually look one more layer deep. I look at the probability of being called and the average size win.

In general, the more tickets you have in the drum, the better your chances of winning. If you’re a $5 player, you have a significantly better chance of winning than if you’re a 25¢ or $1 player. If you’re a 5¢ player, five coins at a time, you basically have no chance at all.

It’s usually not a good idea to play a negative game in order to get drawing tickets. Having an expected loss of $1,000 in order to have a 10% chance of winning $500 in a drawing doesn’t make financial sense.

It can make sense to play a negative game if it’s “close.” Playing 99.73% NSU Deuces Wild with a 0.20% slot club is a negative game. A drawing can make up the shortfall. If mailers and comps are given to you in addition to the 0.20% slot club, then this situation was probably slightly positive to start with. 

If you’re going to be at a drawing, and Thursday is a 10x drawing ticket day, make sure you play on Thursday. Ticket multiplier days are a way for a casino to present something worthwhile to players looking for an edge and it doesn’t cost the casino a dime. It actually makes money for the casino because of the extra play generated on that day. The casino has already budgeted the drawing, say $20,000, and it largely doesn’t care which of the players win the money. Drawing ticket multipliers shift the odds from the players who don’t play on that day to those who do.

Don’t win drawings at the same casino too often. This is the “voice of experience” talking and it applies to players who play for relatively large stakes compared to most of the other people in the drawings. At small casinos, where the same people show up for drawings every week, it gets noticed if that one guy seems to win all the time. Players will complain, and when that happens, the casino will come up with a solution that the winning player doesn’t like. So if you win, take a month off or so. 

Read the rules carefully. If it’s the same rules for every drawing, probably most of the kinks have been worked out of them. But if they modify the rules every time, mistakes can be made. Sometimes point multipliers are in effect from 3 a.m. to 2:59 a.m., but ticket multipliers are in effect midnight to midnight. Double dipping might be possible! And they might have a senior’s drawing on Tuesday and a “for everybody” drawing on Friday, and, if you’re old enough, your play can count for both drawings. There might be limits to consider.

It’s possible that for the amount you play, winning a drawing is essentially a zillion to one longshot. If that’s the case, don’t even try. Concentrate on other ways to win in the casino — or in life.

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A Look at Casino Drawings — Part I of II

Bob Dancer

It’s been a while since I’ve written about casino drawings. In Part I, I’m going to address a selective history of drawings. And Part II deals with how to improve your chances in drawings.

My personal history deals primarily, but not exclusively, with drawings in Las Vegas starting in 1994. The ways they did it in Atlantic City and other places are mostly a mystery to me. 

While most casinos held drawings similarly to the way other casinos did it, any marketing director could say, “I’ve got a good idea. Why don’t we . . .?,” and you had a different twist on how to do it.

“In the beginning,” drawings used paper tickets on which you filled out your name and player’s card number. Sometimes you needed additional information like your address. If you had a lot of tickets, you had to allow considerable time to prepare them. Using rubber stamps or address labels made it faster than doing everything longhand, but it still required an effort.

Some players believed that folding the tickets was useful, and many players had their own techniques. Some casino executives drawing the tickets felt that folded tickets provided an unfair advantage, so they would intentionally feel around for unfolded tickets. I was never sure, so I folded half of mine and left the others au naturel.

The tickets had to go into some sort of drum. If the drum was large, say able to hold 20,000 tickets, and there were only 500 tickets in the drum, spinning the drum mixed the tickets pretty well. If that same drum was filled with 22,000 tickets, the tickets were so jammed that no matter how many times they spun the drum, the tickets stayed right where they were. In this kind of drawing, it was vital to place your tickets in the drum within the last half hour or so before the drawing. If your tickets were placed before that and are now at the bottom of the drum, you had zero chance of it being picked. Someone might dig down one foot or so into a batch of tickets to get one, but nobody could dig down six feet.

You usually received tickets based on your play — maybe every 1,000 slot club points earned you one ticket. Sometimes different tier levels received different numbers of tickets per slot club points. Sometimes video poker machines earned tickets at a different rate than slot machines. Sometimes there were “ticket multiplier” days. Sometimes everybody received free tickets.

Often, but not always, you had to be present to win. Often, but not always, if somebody called wasn’t present, they drew again. Sometimes you could win two or more prizes if your name were drawn more than once. Sometimes anybody could enter and win a drawing, but sometimes it was only for invited guests.

Sometimes the first name drawn gets the biggest prize. Sometimes they keep drawing until they get the right number of names, and then each of the contestants picks an envelope, spins a wheel, or does something else to decide how much they have won.

In Nevada, usually the drawings were fair — but more than once a casino was caught cheating. I have to assume that sometimes casinos cheated and were not caught. It isn’t that difficult for a casino employee to have a ticket palmed when he/she reaches in to pick out a ticket. If done well, it’s extremely difficult to catch. 

I’ve entered many hundreds of Vegas drawings over the past 30 years — possibly more than one thousand. I don’t know the total amount of prizes I’ve won, but it easily exceeds $1 million, including cash, free play, and sometimes physical prizes like cars, jewelry, and even cruises. That’s not all profit, of course. Sometimes I had to play a negative game to earn drawing tickets.

Sometimes there were cash or free play options. For example, if your name were drawn for a $25,000 car, the casino would arrange for you to buy any car you wanted at, for example, Finley Toyota, or would offer you $20,000 if you didn’t take the car.

Sometimes casinos issued 1099s when you won at least $600. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes, if you won more than one drawing over the calendar year, the casino would sum up your prizes and present you with the tax form if your total winnings were at least $600. Sometimes casinos would treat each drawing as a separate event tax-wise.

Next week I’ll discuss how drawings are different today than they used to be and give you some pointers on doing well in these drawings.

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How Do I Figure?

Bob Dancer

Bonnie and I regularly played at an out-of-town Caesars property where part of the monthly mailer was $200 in resort credit apiece. If we played our usual amount, our host would pick up food charges. So that left the resort credit to be spent at gift shops. They had a women’s store, a men’s store, and a jewelry store, in addition to a typical small gift shop where you could get various sundries. 

Generally speaking, you don’t expect casino gift shops to compete on price. At the men’s store, I was told that if I paid with cash or credit card, I’d get a 35% discount. If I used Reward Credits, I’d get a 20% discount. And if I charged to my room, I’d get no discount. Part of the deal with the $200 resort credit was that you had to charge it to your room. 

The resort credits weren’t worth anywhere near face value to us — but they were obviously worth something and made the play worth more to me than if I didn’t get to spend them. So how much are they worth?

No gift shop is worth the same amount to every player. I would wear a few of the shirts sold by this particular men’s store — but not all that many. A younger man — or a man whose taste is different from mine — might find he liked a much larger percentage of the inventory than I do. Bonnie is usually with me on these trips — and she can usually find something in one of the gift shops. If I tell her she has $400 to spend at such and such a selection of stores, she’ll find at least that much for one of us — or for one of our relatives or friends.

If I were thinking a $200 gift shop award might be worth $100, I asked myself, “Would I pay $100 in cash to get that $200 gift shop award?” For me, the answer was, ‘No.’ But I might pay $50 in cash. So, I figured that’s what the award was worth. 

I find it useful to turn this into a percentage — so I can add it into the mix along with the return on the game, the slot club, and other such awards. If I regularly played $10,000 and they gave me this award worth $50 to me, the award would be worth 0.5%. If I played $100,000 (which is closer to what I actually play), the award is worth 0.05%.

Frankly, something worth 0.05% would rarely be enough to tip the play-or-not-play scales into positive territory. Maybe if a play were already worth 100.3%, which is about the minimum I’ll play, I’ll make a play I might otherwise pass on. But that exact circumstance rarely happens.

It turns out that I find such awards most valuable for “keeping Bonnie happy” reasons. 

Bonnie and I keep our finances separate. If I win or lose $40,000 on a trip, it basically doesn’t affect her finances at all. But if I have the advantage on the play, and I can play on her card as well as mine, it’s good for her to make the trip with me, even if there is not much for her to do once she’s there.

So, gift shop awards, at least one nice dinner per trip, free movies in the room, and excursions to sight-seeing places are all part of what we do while we’re there. Sometimes I give her half of my win in a drawing. She’s 80 years old, I’m 77, and staying happy together is a significant part of our game plan. If there is suitable music, we dance for a few hours. If we earn cruises, she gets a big say in where we go. Bonnie’s generally a good sport about coming with me when I take these “business trips,” I want her to look forward to our time together. If getting to go shopping brings a smile to her face, I’m all for it.

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THE INCREDIBLY WRONG ADVICE IN BLACKJACK STRATEGY

This post is syndicated by the Las Vegas Advisor for the 888 casino group. Anthony Curtis comments on the 888 article introduced and linked to on this page.

AC Says:

There’s no shortage of bad gambling advice out there, as well as misinformation and faulty assumptions. Perhaps at the front of the list for blackjack is the notion that the skill level of the other players at the table affects your results. Or specifically, that a bad player, especially one who’s last to act before the dealer, will negatively affect the overall outcome of good players. You’ve heard it a thousand times, but it’s not true. Anyone who’s ever felt this needs to read this article in which Henry Tamburin presents evidence that settles the matter. It’s your skill level that determines your results, not the play of others. Pay attention also to the list of things that do matter. I’ll take slight issue with the last bullet point that observing a lot of small cards having been dealt in previous rounds signals a good time to raise your bet. That’s certainly the essence of card counting, but simply “observing” isn’t likely to yield solid information. You need to become proficient at counting to detect favorable situations.

This article was written by Henry Tamburin in association with 888Casino.

THE INCREDIBLY WRONG ADVICE IN BLACKJACK STRATEGY

Several years ago, I wrote an article that contained misinformation about blackjack that originated from players, dealers, movies, and the Internet. I thought I had heard and read all the nonsensical misconceptions about blackjack that have been spoken or written over the past 50 years; however, I was wrong, dead wrong.

That’s because I recently received a print magazine published in the USA for casino players that contained an article on blackjack strategy, which floored me…

Continue reading…

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This Game Tonight

Bob Dancer

The following incident happened while a friend of mine was playing slots, but there’s enough in common to gambling at video poker that I think it’s worth discussing.

“John” was scouting a casino in Las Vegas looking for slot machines in positive conditions. There are many, many slot machines that are sometimes positive — but most of the time, on each of these machines, the house has the advantage. Most players, however, are not aware of when the game is positive or not and simply play the game, quitting whenever they feel like it. Sometimes they quit when the game is positive, and then when the next knowledgeable player comes by, that player typically sits down to play it off. 

John has “strike numbers” on perhaps 20-30 different slot machine titles. That’s nowhere near all or even most of the beatable machines, but still, it’s more than most players know.

He found a game for $25 a play that he thought might be positive. This is a much larger game than usual for slot players. Most players can’t afford to play this game, but the size of the game was not a showstopper to him. He shifted the denomination on the machine so that it showed the $10-per-play game and consulted his notes. The $10-per-play game was nowhere near a positive play at the moment, and other pros seeking games would walk right by. He wanted time to think about this situation without drawing attention to the game.

His notes said that the game was a play when a certain meter was at 15 or higher — and sure enough this meter was at 16. So, it was a play. His notes also said the game is highly volatile. He knew that on a volatile $25 game, he could easily win or lose several thousand dollars. If he played this game in this situation several dozen times, he figured he’d make a sizeable profit. But there was no way to tell at the outset whether this time would be positive or negative.

He had $3,500 on him. He figured that would cover the swings most of the time. He wouldn’t likely run out of money, but if he did there were people he could call. He didn’t like making these calls — partly because that meant others would have the right to call him when they ran out. He trusted himself to run out of money very rarely, but some of the people he called wouldn’t have the same discipline. But if he asked for help, he had to be prepared to give help to others in the future. He didn’t want to open that door.

He actually called me to ask my opinion. John and I respect each other’s knowledge and have helped each other out occasionally. I know him well, know how he handles swings, and I thought he should go for it. I wasn’t in Vegas at the time, and he was, so there was no way I could get money to him if he ended up needing some.

He was just about to start when another pro, “Peter,” approached him and asked if he were going to play the $25 game. John knew Peter vaguely. He’d seen him checking out machines but wasn’t sure how knowledgeable he was.

John said yes. He thought it was a good play and he had the bankroll to play it. Peter said he had the bankroll too, but wasn’t in the mood to risk his daily score on such a volatile play.

Peter, it seems, had been losing recently and was sort of gun shy. He didn’t trust his own judgment, so he didn’t want to play such a big game. He could likely find a sizeable number of smaller games where he could increase his bankroll by dribs and drabs rather than making a big jump one way or the other all at once.

Peter said he had a few thousand dollars on him and suggested they partner up for this one game. John thought about this. It had some positive aspects to it. It essentially guaranteed he wouldn’t run out of money. 

At the same time, John had never done business with Peter before. Was he trustworthy? Who was going to eat the W-2G if there was one? Peter was friendly now, but what if Peter was the one playing when the bonus round hit and denied making a deal? So John passed and played it by himself. Peter wished him luck and left.

As it happened, the bonus round went off rather quickly and John ended up making $900. This was a nice result, but it certainly didn’t have to be that way.

I want to look at Peter’s reaction to this. Peter had actually seen the game first and passed on it. He had the financial bankroll — but not the emotional bankroll — to play the game. So, I believe he was right to pass.

Everybody has his own emotional bankroll. Respecting your bankroll parameters, both financial and emotional, is critical to long term success at gambling. I also think that Peter suggesting they be partners was a move that made sense for him. This would lower the swings and lower the risk. So now it might have been within his comfort zone. 

It couldn’t have been too much of a surprise for Peter that John turned down his offer to partner up. That’s probably the usual result. But you don’t know unless you try. 

All in all, the situation was well played by both men.

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A Variety of Games

Bob Dancer

Today I play different video poker games at different casinos — usually the highest-returning games offered in denominations that interest me. It wasn’t always this way.

In the “good old days,” which for me were the mid-1990s, the best $5 and higher games almost everywhere were 9/6 Jacks or Better. With slot clubs and promotions, this game could be played with an advantage at a dozen or so different casinos in Las Vegas. I learned the game 100% accurately and it was just a matter of putting in the hours, assuming you had the bankroll to survive the swings. Borrowing the title of a Josh Axelrad book that was based on playing blackjack, this was a matter of “Repeat Until Rich.” And I did. And many others did. 

There was some strategy choosing at which casino to play, and when. Casinos offered point multipliers sometimes, or had a promotion where they invited a lot of players in and gave away lots of money over a weekend — usually by a slot tournament or by a drawing — and if you played then, sometimes you got a piece of that money. Not every time, of course, but when you’re already playing a game where you have the edge, these extra “pieces of money” add up. In a typical year, I’d play in maybe 75 events (meaning some weekends I played at two different events), and collected the extra money at 10 or 15 of them. 

Back then, mailer money in Las Vegas was rare, whereas today it’s common. Today, it’s rare when I play 9/6 Jacks or Better. At the five casinos I play the most (limiting the discussion to video poker and not including playing slots, which I also play), I play five different games. Actually, more than five, because at two of the casinos, there is more than one acceptable game. I “rotate” which game I play depending on the monthly promotion.

And the games I play vary in denomination. At one casino, I play dollar single line, meaning $5 per hand. I’d prefer to play larger, but the higher-stakes games at that casino aren’t good enough. And the dollar game, plus slot club, mailers, and promotions, provides me with enough benefits that I keep playing there. 

I’m no longer playing just in Las Vegas. No longer just in Nevada. Although I’ve mentioned some other places I play periodically, and there are some I haven’t mentioned, it’s still a surprise to me that a resident of Las Vegas can find better video poker out of town. Don’t expect me to announce exactly which game I play at which casino. At some of the places I play, the good situation would not last if lots of players were playing it.

Playing a number of games keeps me sharper than playing just one game. Plus, 9/6 Jacks or Better is arguably the simplest game to play well. Every additional game I learn has special one-of-a-kind sorts of situations that I have to master. And when I do master them, sometimes they provide inspiration.

There is also the issue of keeping the games straight in my mind. The combinations that are the toughest to keep straight are the 3-card straight flushes versus two high cards, suited or not. Every game has its own rules and going back and forth between games, it’s easy to get mixed up. It’s also easier for a senior citizen to get mixed up than it was when I was still “in my prime.” 

So I find myself practicing more today than I did before. Just before I go and play a game I haven’t played in a month or more, I’ll spend a few hours mastering it again. I can get so I can play a game 100% perfectly, but it takes regular review to stay at that level for a number of different games simultaneously.

And it is no longer, “Repeat Until Rich.” The available edges are smaller today. Casinos continually become savvier and savvier in what games and promotions they can profitably offer. Casino mistakes are still out there, and I still try to exploit them when I find them, but they aren’t as numerous, as large, and don’t last as long as they did before.

There are still some players who do well, of course, and I am one of those some of the time.  But I believe the number of players who regularly exceeded $100,000 annual profit was higher twenty or twenty-five years ago than it is today. 

Still, I’m out there trying. It’s what I do. It’s what I enjoy. It’s part of what keeps me as intellectually sharp as I can be at my age. Yes, I’ve shifted to also playing slots as well as video poker, but video poker remains my mainstay. And probably will so long as I can find good games — even if those games aren’t the same ones I’m playing today.