Category: Video Poker

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I Thought About It

Bob Dancer

When you list the financial reasons to intelligently gamble at video poker, it starts with the return on the game itself and the slot club. Promotions get added in, and it’s not too long before you consider mailers.

Mailers aren’t guaranteed, and if a casino decides to reduce or eliminate your mailers, you have no recourse. From the casinos point of view, mailers are a way to encourage you to come and play again — and hopefully lose. From the player’s point of view, mailers are a reward for past play.

If you quit playing, the mailers will stop. If you stiff the casino, meaning you go and pick up goodies but don’t play, the mailers will stop. 

In my case, as regular readers know, I was planning on giving up gambling forever because of the new tax bill. It was only a matter of time before all my mailers disappeared. Still, collecting a few of them before they were cut off seemed to be a potentially lucrative approach. So how would I go about it?

My biggest mailers come from Harrah’s Cherokee, where Bonnie and I make 4-or-5-times-a-year visits. Typically, we stay 10 or 12 days and play considerably more than $1 million in coin-in split between video poker and slots. We get sizeable mailers for doing this — which figures.

Picking up the mailers isn’t easy. It’s a four-hour flight to either Atlanta (three driving hours away from Cherokee) or Ashville (one driving hour away but far fewer flights). Would I be better off coming in and staying a few days without playing, or do a quick hit-and-run and not stay there? Renting a car and a hotel room elsewhere are relatively small costs compared to the size of the mailers.

While the casino offers free rooms, it does so with the expectation that you’ll play. If I don’t play, possibly they’ll charge me for the room — at not-so-friendly prices. To get around that, perhaps it makes sense to book a room somewhere else.

I considered flying in on the last day of a mailer time period, arriving at the casino at 10 p.m. and picking up the expiring mailer money and sticking around for the new mailer time period that begins at midnight. And then leaving.

I could do that, I suppose, but the mailers will be coming in wintertime, and Cherokee is in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. Weather can play havoc with airline schedules. A plane delay could remove my chance of getting there before the free play period ends.

I usually get free food “on my card.” Probably I could redeem that while I’m there, but I’m not sure. While I possibly wouldn’t check into the hotel and leave a credit card, I’ve been there enough that there’s one of my credit card numbers “on file.” How much they would charge me, if at all, for eating on the comp without playing is an unknown,

I have a line of credit at that casino. At no time did I consider taking out a marker for, say, $50,000 and then not repaying it. Markers are negotiable instruments. Not only would the casino collect, but my credit score would take a significant hit. No thanks.

Plus (in the hypothetical world where I would be quitting gambling), there’s always a chance that the law would be changed, and I’d want to go back there in the future. They would remember if I had significantly stiffed them before.  

I didn’t reach any conclusions as to what I would do. I have thought about it, but am still not sure what I would do.

I suspect I would do nothing of the kind of things I’ve been discussing here. At the end of the day, my integrity is important to me. Hustling an extra few thousand dollars out of a casino on my way out the door doesn’t feel right to me. I might get away with it, but if I felt bad about doing it, what’s the point?

I understand that not everybody would reach this same conclusion. What would you do?

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Searching for a Reset

Bob Dancer

As part of the Big Beautiful Bill which passed Congress and then signed by the president in July of 2025, the W-2G rules changed effective January 1, 2026. The threshold used to be $1,200 and now it’s $2,000. Most slot and video poker players believe that $2,000 isn’t nearly high enough, but that’s a decision for another Congress to address.

On December 31 there was one set of rules for W-2Gs. On January 1 there was another. The machines had to be reset to lock up at $2,000 instead of $1,200 as soon as possible after the clock on New Year’s Eve struck midnight.

The thing is, this has to be done manually, machine by machine on at least some machines. While most slot machines at reset start off with meter numbers that are much too low to be of interest to advantage players, that’s not always the case. Some games reset in positive territory — meaning that if you’re the first knowledgeable player on such a machine when it gets turned back on — you usually have several games where you have the advantage. 

Often these games will have four or more denominations, and five or more “number of coins” settings for each denomination. Some games have way more than this. There are games where you will have 50 different games, all in positive mode, whenever the machine is reset. This could easily mean $10,000 or more in EV if you have the bankroll to play all of the games, including the ones at $50 a hand or more. 

You aren’t guaranteed to win on these — it is gambling, after all, with variance — but the odds are in your favor. 

So, shortly after midnight (early New Years Day), I planned to be in a major casino looking for slot techs making adjustments to machines. On most machines, resetting the machines won’t create an exploitable situation, but on a few machines they will. I had a list of machines that I thought might qualify — but I’m sure there were others that I didn’t know about.

Once I found a team of slot techs working on games that I thought would turn positive at reset, it would simply be a matter of sitting down and waiting until they finished — and then being the first player there. 

Most players were not aware of this opportunity, but surely some were. The thing is, I believe there were relatively few pros “in on” this deal — and lots of casinos to cover. I figured if I picked a casino with a number of the machines I liked, my chances were pretty good to get one or more of the lucrative resets. 

If at 1 a.m. somebody hit a jackpot for, say, $1,500, and the machines had not been reset yet, the machine would lock up. When an attendant game, they would just pay off the jackpot without issuing a W-2G. There are relatively few jackpots higher than $1,199 and less than $2,000, so not too many players would be inconvenienced by this. And the ones that were would be delighted to not get a tax form with their money.

And there is always a problem with staffing. When are the slot techs scheduled to work? And how many of them partied for New Years Eve? Maybe the casino would want to wait until 8 a.m. or so to start. If these slot techs were making changes to hundreds of machines, the casino certainly would want them to be at their best.

Plus, in the early hours of January 1, casinos are very busy with more-than-the-usual-number-of-inebriated players looking to get lucky. Casinos very well might not want to shut down any machines in order to maximize their profits from this party-like atmosphere.

I decided to go downtown at about 3 a.m. There are lots of casinos within walking distance which would all be affected by the new tax bill. While I don’t have player cards at all of them, if I can get on a reset machine I’ll happily play without a card. Better with a card, of course, because slot club points and mailers are valuable, but a reset machine could potentially be worth more than $10,000 and I wasn’t going to be a stickler about whether I got every slot club point.

On December 31, Bonnie and I went to a quiet NYE shindig at a nearby residence. I had one glass of wine starting about 7 p.m. and cut myself off so I’d be at my best later. We told the hosts we were going to leave at 9 p.m., no matter what state the party was in, and we did. I was in bed by 9:30 — setting my alarm for 2 a.m.

I got up with the alarm, did my morning routine, and was on the road by 2:40. It’s about 15 minutes from our house to the downtown casinos — so I was right on time with my plan.

I started at Circa because that’s the downtown casino with the most suitable slots. I walked around five casinos over the next half hour looking for working slot techs. Nothing! There were relatively few customers at this time of morning, and no slot techs changing machines that I could see.

I was surprised. I thought I had outsmarted most other players — but it turned out that whatever my calculations were, they were wrong. Oh well. Not the first time.

While I was out and about, I checked around for some machines that were in winning position. After all, a whole mess of players went through in the past few hours, and a lot were out-of-towners who were clueless about winning at slots. Maybe they left something!

I found a number of small plays and one “sorta big” play requiring a $10-per-spin input. I loaded it with $1,000 and began to play. I hit three or four $500+ intermediate jackpots, including a final one of $1,100. 

The game ended up showing $3,400 in credits which included the $1,100 final win — and the machine locked up! The attendant came and asked for ID. I told her I didn’t hit any jackpot — the $3,400 was accumulated credits. She “corrected” me, telling me that it was a $3,400 jackpot. I quietly told her that the last score was “only” $1,100 and that there was no taxable event.

She was unsure and said she’d have to talk to her supervisor. She took my player card and told me she’d be back. Five minutes later she correctly paid me the $3,400 that I was owed. 

At first, I thought the machine had been reset incorrectly and instead of the W-2G amount being set for $2,000 they set the machine lockup amount when you tried to cash out for that amount. Other casinos have similar features. I hadn’t experienced it at this casino before. Maybe this was a long-standing policy there. 

Although I did make $2,400 on this particular play, and a bit more on other plays, I didn’t find the reset opportunity I had hoped to get. I had planned my work, worked my plan, and it all came to naught. This happens sometimes.

Over the next few days, I continued to look for working slot tech teams. The change didn’t have to be done in the wee hours of the new year, and it would be just as valuable to me on January 2 or 3 if I could be there when it happened. But no. I failed to find any.

I didn’t have to tell you about this “failure.’ You would have never known had I not written about it. But the winning process, for me anyway, has included a number of these one-of-a-kind situations. When I find one, I try to figure out the best way to exploit it. This one didn’t pan out, but maybe the next one will.

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What Will I Do for Bonnie?

Bob Dancer

Author’s Note: When I originally wrote this, I was planning to quit gambling January 1. Since then, I’ve changed my mind about that, as I wrote in my 12/23 blog. When I was still in my “I’m going to quit gambling” mode, several readers asked me what I was going to do after I quit. Since many gamblers will be quitting, I decided to run this one anyway.

Before we were married, I told Bonnie that I was not a guy who would give her presents on traditional days (birthday, anniversary, Christmas, etc.) but I often received gifts from casinos which I would pass along to her, and she wouldn’t be shortchanged gift-wise. Although this initially struck her as odd, and not at all what she was used to with her first husband before he died, she decided she could put up with that.

When Bonnie comes along with me on casino trips (which is my hobby, not hers), often I find a way to reward her. When we went to the ROW in Reno, we’d each get $400 in Resort Credit a month, which Bonnie usually spent at one of the gift shops, and sometimes they had purse or jewelry giveaways which she enjoyed. She found herself well “taken care of.”

At Harrah’s Cherokee, we each got $200 in spa credit a month and most of our trips crossed monthly boundaries, so she would have two $400 spa days every trip, which we usually took four times a year or so.

Every additional casino I play at gives me something she can enjoy — whether it’s gift shop credit, free shows, meals, or whatever.

During our 11 years together, we’ve spent an average of three weeks a year cruising on NCL in balcony suites courtesy of casino largesse.

While in Las Vegas, I get free meals to the tune of $1,500 a month or so. In addition to feeding Bonnie, she has some in-town and out-of-town relatives, and we regularly treat them too. 

I didn’t provide this list to say, “See, what a nice husband I am” or “See how rich I am.” I provided it to indicate that when I stop gambling, all of these goodies will be going away. Some will linger awhile until the casinos figure I’m not coming back, but eventually they will all terminate. Casinos aren’t in the business of providing goodies to former players. 

I may periodically receive a “come back again” present from a casino. Going in to collect those things without playing at all is the surest way to stop receiving them in the future.

So, what will I do to keep Bonnie happy? The answer is some version of, “I haven’t figured it out yet.” It would probably cost $40,000 a year or more to give Bonnie what she’s used to receiving “for free.” While I still have some revenue from non-gambling sources and some accumulated capital (which I’m used to thinking of as “bankroll”), spending money on things I used to get for free requires developing some new habits and procedures.

Bonnie is not a greedy lady. She can understand why casinos won’t be giving us as much in the future. But still, she is used to a certain standard of living, largely supplied by me, and that was part of an implied contract when she agreed to marry me. Taking all that away from her is like a form of punishment she did nothing to deserve. Nor did I “screw up” somehow to cause this problem.

Bonnie brought assets into the relationship — some of which provide an income stream. I’ve paid for the bulk of expenses because I had both more assets and more income — and got a lot of things “for free.” We’ll probably shift to a more equal sharing of expenses. How we will do that, and how she will react to that, is unknown at this point. We haven’t had that conversation yet.

We’re both relatively frugal and figuring out how to do this is a puzzle to solve together. We’ll work it out somehow. We’re nowhere near destitute. We’re old enough that our assets will probably outlast us. (Hopefully. Unless the doomsday clock strikes midnight.) And the relationship works well for both of us. 

This is one of my blogs with more questions than answers. But that’s all I have for now.

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If I’m Already There …

Bob Dancer

As regular readers of mine know, I play somewhat regularly at Harrah’s Cherokee even though it is more than 2,000 miles away from where I live. The primary reasons are: $5 NSU, daily Next Day Bounce Back (NDB), and significant monthly mailers if you play there enough. The mailers usually include monthly cash, weekly cash, a $200 spa credit, and some food credit.

Other sizeable promotions they periodically have are: NDB multiplier days, Tier Credit multipliers, and Reward Credit multipliers. Bonnie’s and my trips usually last 10 – 14 days or so and we typically get one or two of these periodic promotions during our trip. 

Our trips are usually scheduled so we cross weekly or monthly time periods. On one Sunday each month, you will receive free Reward Credits for swiping at a kiosk. The beginning of the weekly benefits sometimes begins on Mondays, so we might begin our trip on the last Sunday of one month, and stay long enough to still be there for at least the first Sunday of the next month. That gives us two monthly rewards and a few weekly ones as well. It also gives Bonnie two separate $400 spa days during the trip, and food for several days each month.

During each week, the casino usually has two or three “piddly” promotions — such as play 250 points between noon and six p.m., swipe your card at the kiosk, and collect $25 in free play — or spin a wheel at the kiosk — or collect a gift card — or $20 food credit, or something else relatively small.

There is no way that I would make an extra trip to collect one of these small rewards, or even come one day early or stay one day later for a gift that small. But if I’m already there, I make sure I pick them up.

Playing at the Caesars Sports Book while I’m there is also a “If I’m already there . . .” situation. I’m not a sports bettor per se, but betting there is a fairly efficient way to convert Reward Credits to cash. I could convert those RCs to free play in the casino at a 50% rate, but doing so by betting sports does it at a 95% or so rate. And Bonnie and I each receive a free monthly $150 bonus bet in North Carolina in addition to collecting one each month in Nevada. 

As I write this, next Saturday is a “Hot Seat” promotion where every 15 minutes between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. two players are rewarded with free play. The amount of free play ranges from $250 if you are a Gold member to $1,000 if you’re a Seven Stars member. 

While rewards like this would be nice if they’re collected, there will probably be between 500 and 1,000 players playing during the promotion, so the chances of an individual player being called are pretty small. I suspect that if you multiply the size of the prize by the probability of collecting it, this promotion isn’t much different EV-wise than one of the piddly promotions discussed above.

But since I’m already going to be there and I play more than three hours daily, I’ll plan to be playing at a machine during that promotion. I don’t expect to be called this time, but over an entire career, I’ve put myself in these positions hundreds of times and sometimes have collected.

Our “normal” dinnertime when we’re in Cherokee is 6:30 p.m. But that Saturday we’ll eat before or after the Hot Seat promotion times. Bonnie and I are flexible enough in our schedule that eating at different times on different days is no big deal.

The following Saturday is some kind of Christmas show for which we have tickets. There will also probably be a drawing in the casino where they call names every 15-30 minutes between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Bonnie and I will both have more than an average number of tickets in the drum because we’ve played a lot for several days before the event. We might be in the casino playing (and listening for our names) until 6:30 p.m. or so and then go to the show. Even when they’re giving away $10,000 or bigger prizes, multiplying that times the probability of being called gives us a small EV. Not negligible, and actually higher than most of the other players there, but still small. 

Taking Bonnie to the show provides me with more value than sticking around for each drawing. She’s a really good sport for accompanying me while I’m “living my dream life” and when there’s something to do that is enjoyable to her, I try to find a way to do it.

I don’t know if they still have it, but on Friday afternoons between something like 3 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. they used to have a Seven Stars “meet the hosts” mixers with decent enough food and free drinks. This is similar to an “If I’m already there . . .” moment, but the inclusion of alcohol makes it slightly different. 

If I’m done with my play for the day, I might well enjoy the food and have a glass of wine or two. Or if I’m not done for the day, I might have a glass of wine, watch a movie in the room, and go to bed early — and then get up at 3 a.m. to finish my play before the casino day ends at 6 a.m. For me, this is a perfectly acceptable plan. But playing $5 NSU immediately after having a drink or two is not an option for me. 

Most of my readers are not $5 NSU players at Harrah’s Cherokee, but other casinos have their own “If I’m already there . . .” promotions periodically. Having a plan on what to do with them is part of a successful gambling career.

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A Change in Plans — Maybe

Bob Dancer

Ever since the “Big Beautiful Bill” was signed into law in July, and Russel Fox appeared on Gambling with an Edge explaining that I’d have to pay income tax on 10% of my W-2Gs whether I won or lost during the year, I knew I’d have to quit gambling come January 1, 2026. 

I received more than $6 million in W-2Gs both this year and last. In 2025, I made money but would be minus after this extra tax. In 2024, I lost quite a bit of money gambling and would still have this big tax bite under the new law. No thanks. 

Since July, I’ve at least mentioned this in numerous blogs, so this decision is no surprise to any of my regular readers.

While I was in Cherokee in early December this year, my gambling partner was a fly-on-the-wall during a Zoom call with Gary Kondler, who works for the Kondler and Associates CPA firm, which specializes in taxes for gamblers. It is Kondler’s belief that if gamblers use the session method of itemizing their wins and losses, mentioned in Shollenberger vs Commissioner, the BBB tax bill isn’t such a big deal. Yes, the tax bite will increase — but not outrageously so. Your W-2Gs, whose total must still be listed on your tax form, are not relevant in how much you have to pay.

Tell me more!

This is something I want very much to be true — and there are a variety of proverbs that warn you to be very careful if something seems too good to be true. I tried to do as much “due diligence” as I could.

It turns out that Gary’s father, Ray Kondler, was a guest on Gambling with an Edge in 2013. This was when GWAE was an hour-long radio show on Thursday nights rather than a podcast, but you can still listen to this show on YouTube by searching for “Ray Kondler.” While this show ran twelve years before the BBB tax bill, when I listened to it recently, Kondler impressed me and I came to the conclusion that I would like his firm to represent me.

Also on YouTube, when I searched for “Gary Kondler,” I found that he has appeared on several gambling related podcasts since the BBB came out, and I’m still convinced I want these guys representing me.  You can listen to these podcasts as well if you like. My financial advisor has contacts with the Nevada Board of Accountancy and found out that the Kondler and Associates firm has a solid reputation. Richard Munchkin and I are interviewing him on GWAE the day this article is posted, and the podcast will probably be posted Wednesday December 24.

I’m convinced enough that I plan to hire the firm and continue my gambling career. I am not an expert in this field, and everybody’s tax situation is different. Keep in mind that I am making no recommendation for you or anybody else. 

If I’m wrong on trusting Kondler’s methodology, continuing gambling could be a very expensive decision for me. It will be a few years before anybody knows for sure, because we’re taking about the 2026-and-beyond tax years and it takes a while after returns are filed to go through the system. And while the BBB is still the law today, who knows if it will be changed along the way?

I am willing to take that risk — for myself. Whether it’s correct for you to do similarly is something you’ll have to decide for yourself.

If you write emails to me, or post responses to this column, or ask me tax questions, my response will always be “I’m not a tax expert and I’m not qualified to answer your questions.”

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Before New Year’s Eve

Bob Dancer

Three weeks ago, I addressed end-of-year considerations about emptying your slot club accounts — or not. Today I’m addressing a different, albeit related, subject. And that subject is reaching a specific tier level.

Some casino slot clubs have tier levels — silver, gold, platinum, or whatever. Often these are annual awards earned January 1 through December 31, although they don’t have to be. 

I was prompted to look at this for personal reasons relating to Caesars Rewards. As I wrote this, I was planning one last trip to Harrah’s Cherokee in order to reach some not-well-known goals — and I needed to plan accordingly. It may well be my last trip to Cherokee, ever. The planning I’m doing may be applicable to some of my readers. Some of this is speculation because as I write this, I haven’t received the December mailer yet.

If you play at a Harrah’s or Caesars property, you know that Seven Stars is the highest tier level and that level requires 150,000 Tier Credits (TCs) per year. For slot and video poker players, these TCs are earned in one of three ways: playing the machines, receiving bonuses for reaching predetermined daily levels, and TC multipliers — which are promotions occurring periodically throughout the year. In the last few months of the year, TC multipliers are more common as players strive to reach the next tier.

Making it to Seven Stars is huge — with their $1,200 retreat, five $100 dinners, highly discounted cruises, and some other goodies. Ending the year with slightly less than 150,000 credits is a big mistake. But we’re played a lot of high stakes video poker at several Caesars properties, mostly Reno and Cherokee, and we’re far beyond the 150,000 level. For the past few years, we’ve reached this level before the end of February.

Most players don’t realize that you can earn quite a bit more than the 150,000 TCs required for Seven Stars, and get rewarded for doing so. For every 250,000 TCs earned, you get one Seven Stars Experience Credit (SSEC), which may be redeemed for a variety of things. For Bonnie and me, we redeem each of these SSECs for $450 in free play at either a Las Vegas or Cherokee property.

While the following numbers aren’t exact, they’ll give you an idea of how I went about my decision making — and may well be applicable to you in a similar situation. I planned a 10-day trip. At the start of the trip, Bonnie needed 90,000 TCs to reach the next SSEC and I needed 260,000 TCs. (Actually, I only needed 10,000 but I figured I could complete that and make it all the way through the next one as well.) There was one TC multiplier where you received 5x TCs up to 25,000 points. And I can comfortably play about $180,000 per day, split between Bonnie’s card and mine. At Cherokee, $180,000 played on video poker will result in 18,000 TCs. I play primarily video poker, but also some slots, which accrue TCs twice as fast.

For the TC multiplier, I don’t know if the bonus is 25,000 or only 20,000 and they count the 5,000 I’d earn as part of the 25,000. I’ve seen it both ways at various properties and sometimes the people at the booth don’t understand the difference and so can’t give precise answers. At Harrah’s Cherokee, they usually have one or more high level people at the booth, so I expect to get accurate answers there. But for planning purposes, I’ll assume the “worst case,” which is that I only receive 20,000 extra TCs. I don’t want to assume the best and possibly miss the next SSEC (and my $450 bonus) by 5,000 TCs.

For normal daily play there, earning 5,000 TCs ($50,000 coin-in) per day is pretty standard because doing that earns a 10,000 TC bonus. Here, though, Bonnie only needs 90,000 TCs and the multiplier day she’ll earn 35,000 (the 5,000 played, 20,000 multiplier bonus, and the daily 10,000 bonus). That will leave her needing “only” 55,000 other TCs to accumulate over nine days of play. So, I’ll play on her card 5,000 TCs for four days and skip playing on her card the rest of the trip.

On my card, ten days of 15,000 TCs (earning at least 5,000 daily with the 10,000 per day bonus), plus the 20,000 TC multiplier bonus means 170,000 out of the 260,000 needed. Earning an extra 8,000 TCs per day for the five days I’ll play on Bonnie’s card earns me an extra 40,000, and earning an extra 13,000 on the five days I don’t play on Bonnie’s card gives me an additional 65,000 TCs. This adds up to 285,000 — which is more than the 260,000 needed. Good. I can always play less.

They have Next Day Bounce Back (NDB)at Harrah’s Cherokee, and I think the current rate of free play is earned at 0.375%. I will try to earn my points by the ninth day. I don’t want to earn it for the 10th day I play because our plane leaves before the NDB is available for me to play. Playing $180,000 coin-in on a day when I’m not getting NDB costs about $675 in EV. Doing that to earn $450 in free play doesn’t make sense. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll have met my goals before the 10th day and so I won’t have to play at all that day. It’s also possible that playing $50,000 that last day and earning the 10,000 TC bonus will be required, but that’s only around -$165 in EV so it remains an option. Or, better, maybe $25,000 will be enough earning half the amounts as $50,000. That will only cost $80 in EV for missing out on NDB.

NDB on your card lasts for 30 days there, so if I were a local and planning to come back within a month, I could play right up to the last minute. But since I’m not planning on coming back, I sit out playing on the last day of my trip — other than picking up NDB from the day before and any other free play that might be available. If the mailer has weekly free play starting on Monday, for example, I might well plan my departure for a Monday.

While this trip actually ended the first week of December, and I have three additional weeks to earn the SSEC goals in Las Vegas, there is a Great Gift Wrap Up that ends December 14 where every Reward Credits earned throughout the year at any of the Caesars or Harrah’s properties counts towards gifts (or free play), I want all of my play done before that. 

My lesser play on Bonnie’s card compared to mine will mean she’ll receive lesser offers down the road from Cherokee than I will. But unless the tax law changes, we won’t be going there anymore so how big the offers are is irrelevant.

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I Might Be Losing It

Bob Dancer

My host at Circa called me up to invite me to a promotion in late November. I had actually been napping when she called (I had played graveyard the day before) and was a little fuzzy on the details she told me. I figured out that I’d have to play to earn tickets to a drawing — and while I do play at Circa, it’s mostly slots and I don’t play enough to have a real chance in drawings. 

I started to decline but she prompted that this one was really a good idea for me because only 50 or so people were being invited.  

She texted me a flyer announcing a drawing where 10 people would get $500 each. You could earn one drawing ticket for every 100 points you earned from Thursday noon to Saturday 2 p.m. If 50 people were invited and we all played the same, my EV for the drawing was $50. I didn’t study the text carefully. I would play some, but not a lot. 

I usually study rules carefully but this one was for a giveaway so small, I didn’t figure it was worth it. I couldn’t figure out why my host thought this was a good deal.

When I got there, I found out. They were also giving away a Ford F-150 Raptor truck! And for that, it didn’t matter how much you played — everybody got one ticket! The truck, including with big “Circa” stickers on both sides, was in the lobby of the drawing area. I had seen the truck displayed, but I figured I had no chance to win it, so I paid no attention. And now I had a 1-in-50 chance? Not sure how I got that chance, but here I was.

I’m not a truck guy and had no idea of what an F-150 sold for. I looked it up on my cell phone and learned they went for $85K each when new. I wondered how much they sold for if they had “Circa” logos on the sides? 

Would they offer a cash or free play option instead of the truck? I didn’t know. My host didn’t know. Probably not because it was now “used.”  But surely, I could sell it for $60,000 at least to somebody, couldn’t I? A 1-in-50 chance to get that much was worth $1,200 in EV. Now I understood why my host strongly encouraged me to be here.

They made a pretty big deal out of the drawing. There were only 48 contestants and two of them had two entries, because they had been runner-up in a previous drawing. When they called your name, you walked up to the stage down a big aisle they had set up to pick one of 50 small boxes. One of those boxes had a key fob in it.

They had already had the drawing for 10 $500 winners, and these were announced when you were called up to get your small box. When they called my name, they didn’t say I had won $500 — which was disappointing, but not surprising. I had played considerably more than my weekly average — but not really all that much.

Also surprising was when they called my name, they said I was one of the two people who had two entries! I had been runner-up for a previous Raptor drawing and wasn’t even aware of it!

How could I possibly not know of this? I don’t believe I even entered a previous Raptor drawing. I really must be losing it! Seriously, this doesn’t strike me as something I could forget.

Now I had two chances to get this truck. My EV just shot up to $2,400. When called the second time, I dutifully walked up and picked up my second box. 

Most of the entrants were from out of town. Some flew several friends and family members to witness their 1-in-50 chance. I thought I was doing Bonnie a favor by not inviting her. She’s a good sport and would have come if I had asked, but I was getting downtown at 9 a.m. and staying all day. I checked all three properties (Circa, Golden Gate, the D) twice, looking for games to play. And then Bonnie and I were hosting four family members to a Hugo’s Cellar “Thanksgiving Dinner” later that night because for Thanksgiving Day itself, we’d be in Cherokee.

Bonnie isn’t a slot player — although she’d definitely be willing to hit the buttons should I tell her which ones to hit. I have to watch her, though, because not infrequently she hits a button she shouldn’t and changes it to another game or denomination which isn’t such a good play. But it was going to be a long day and she had packing to arrange for our out-of-town trip, so I suggested she stay at home. Her sister and brother-in-law, invited to dinner, live only a mile from us and were very willing to bring Bonnie along with them. But had I known what a big deal this was, Bonnie would have been there with me.

This is the point in the blog where you’re expecting me to reveal that I actually won the truck. Well, I would if I did — but I didn’t. Some lady from out-of-town had picked the correct box and was quite happy about it. As she should have been!

To me, this story is about my legitimate concern regarding how this snuck up on me. Being on top of drawings and knowing what promotions are going on and how to succeed at them is something I’ve done for more than 30 years. And I’m really good at this part of my “job.” And I totally missed this one. As they said in the 95-year-old movie Little Caesar: “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?”

I’m planning on quitting gambling at the end of the year because of the new tax law. Maybe this was a sign I should quit now!

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Free Money is Always Good — Sort of

Bob Dancer

Derek Stevens, along with his mostly silent brother, Greg, owns Circa, the D, and Golden Gate casinos in downtown Las Vegas. The three properties share a slot club and the same ONE player’s card may be used at all three properties.   

Circa checks everyone’s ID every time using a hand-held device about the size of a cell phone. I assume they capture the information on your Driver’s License in the process, but I don’t know that for a fact. The D checks your ID on weekend nights — but not always all three doors. The Golden Gate, by far the smallest of the three properties, rarely has anybody checking your ID as you enter.

Sometimes the checking is done by regular security officers. Sometimes the checking is done by what appear to be temporary employees.

Strangely, on a midweek day in mid-November, a man in a tuxedo was checking IDs at Golden Gate. I produced mine and he asked if I was there for the promotion. I read mailers fairly closely and was pretty sure that no mid-week promotion was advertised for that casino, so I asked, “What promotion?”

He told me that if I sign up for a card at the players’ club, I’d receive guaranteed free play for some amount between $5 and $1,000. I told him I already had a card, and he replied that all I had to do was to show the card and I’d get the free play.

Free money is always good. 

On the way to the machines I wanted to check, I glanced over at the players’ club. There was a line of about 25 people and it wasn’t moving very fast. I didn’t see how many booth attendants were servicing the front of the line, but clearly not enough to make the line move very fast.

I figured it would take me 30-45 minutes to get to the front of the line. If I knew I was going to get $200 or more, such a wait would be tolerable. While I don’t know the distribution of the free play amounts for this particular promotion, historically in Las Vegas it goes something like 50% of the time it’s $5, 25% of the time it’s $10, 23% of the time it’s $20 or $25, and 2% of the time it’s higher than that. If those percentages held true for this promotion, my EV for standing in line for a long time was less than $10.

When I first moved to Las Vegas and was scrounging to make enough money to be able to stay, I would have stood in line. Not anymore. Today I have a bankroll, and my earning power is more than $10 per 30-45 minutes. So, I passed up the line and checked the machines I wanted to check.

Perhaps I should modify my “Free money is always good” statement to something like, “No money is totally free. Whether it’s good to get depends on what you have to do to obtain it. Correctly evaluating this is part of what makes a gambler successful or not.”

Also, please note that in no way am I criticizing the Golden Gate for their promotion. Clearly a lot of people were capitalizing on it and I would have done the same 30 years ago. It’s just that for me at this time in my life, no thank you.

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Winding Things Down

Bob Dancer

Every end of year presents decisions tax-wise. If you have accumulated cash back or free play at casinos and withdraw it, it’s a taxable event and is hence reportable. Many players, possibly most, don’t report such income, but that’s tax evasion — which is a crime. My goal is tax avoidance, which is different.

Usually, my decision comes down to whether I am ahead or behind for the year. While I’ve usually had positive annual results, there have been exceptions. In 2024, for example, I had a seriously-negative year. In December of that year, I emptied most of my slot club accounts.  This reduced my loss for the year and since losses aren’t carried over year to year, was a better strategy than if I collected the money from the slot club accounts in a year I was ahead and would have to pay taxes on it.

In 2025, I’m ahead and will not be clearing out accounts before December 31. Because of the new tax law that is going into effect January 1, I’ll be quitting most of my gambling at that time, so my slot club accounts will be cleaned out in January of 2026.

There are some cases, however, where I will not clear out my slot club accounts, because of the idiosyncrasies of the particular slot clubs. Some of my readers have accounts at these exact casinos, but many of you have accounts elsewhere where the same logic might apply.

South Point — When the South Point reduced its slot club from a 0.30% return to 0.15%, I quit playing. All video poker there now has a house advantage. The mailers competent video poker players receive are pretty paltry, so there’s no reason for me to play there anymore.

Telling people that I’ll no longer be playing at South Point (knowing that others might follow my example and also quit playing there) is not easy for me to do. Over the years, I’ve been a very strong advocate for that casino.

 Michael Gaughan and the South Point have been very good to my career and to me personally. The South Point was the major sponsor of my Gambling with an Edge podcast, and I taught classes there for many years. When Shirley, out of the blue, decided our marriage was over back in 2012, the South Point gave me a free room there for a few weeks until I got my feet on the ground again. Many competent players have been removed from the South Point slot club, but I was allowed to stay because of my relationship with Michael Gaughan.

 But the policies of that casino have changed. The slot club has been cut in half, and many monthly promotions are smaller now than they used to be. While I’ll always be grateful to Michael Gaughan, I won’t be a player there any longer. So why not close my slot club account there?

Because on Mondays, the South Point offers 50% discounts to seniors for food and other things if you use your accumulated points — and for about two weeks before Christmas every year everybody gets the 50% discounts using points. Since spending my points like this isn’t taxable, and I get twice as much in food as I’d get in cash, it makes sense to me not to clear out the account at this time.

Caesars Sports Book — I am not a significant sports bettor, but Caesars Sports Book offers monthly promotions if you have Caesars Seven Stars status. My current Seven Stars status remains in effect until January 2027, so I’ll continue to opt into the monthly promotion until then.

Although the promotion has changed before and can change again at any time, currently it goes like this: If you make a monthly $100 or higher bet using real money (which includes money deposited or earned and not withdrawn), you get a $150 free bet. Free bets do not return as much as regular bets, but they are free and, obviously, I win some of them.

While I generally make my $100 bets at around -200 (meaning I will win approximately 2/3 of them), I lose some of them. My free bets are made on underdogs, so I lose more than half of them. So, it is possible that my overall balance decreases periodically and I’ll need some money in the account so I can continue to make my required $100 monthly bets. I’ll probably leave $500 in it and clean out the rest in January. Over time, though, I’m a huge favorite to win during this promotion.

Four Queens — I have a current comp dollar balance of several thousand dollars. Bonnie and I like to take people to Hugo’s Cellar periodically, so I want to keep that balance active. That means I will continue to play a little at that casino to keep the food comps from expiring. So while I’m “giving up gambling” in the main, there are a few exceptions, like this one.

I will not be receiving meal comps at casinos in 2026 because I’ve stopped playing, so in addition to going to Hugo’s Cellar sometimes, we’ll probably eat at their Magnolia’s coffee shop much more often than we do today. The casino has an accumulated points balance, separate from comp dollars, and we’ll probably zero that in January.

There are other year-end things I will do. Bonnie and I each get five $100 meals at Caesars properties because of our Seven Stars status. We still have some that won’t expire until January 31. We’ll spend those in January — because we have other “free food” until then. It’s possible we’ll get more meals at Caesars next year simply because we’re still Seven Stars. We’ll see.

It’s possible that the new tax law will be reversed sometime in the future — and depending on when that happens, I might start gambling again. I will certainly look at what casinos are offering and make a judgment as to whether I can get up to speed again and how long that will take me. 

If this happens in, for example, 2030, I’ll be 83 years old by then and will not have played for five years. It’s fair to assume my skills will have greatly deteriorated in that time period. And who knows if there will be any games worth playing by then? 

While presumably I’ll be able to get up to speed again in video poker, if there are any games worth playing, I’ll have to start over again at advantage slots. While I know how to beat several dozen different kinds of slot machines today, new games will continue to be invented and any of the games I know today will likely either be non-existent or perhaps “everybody” will know how to play them so my information today will be worthless then.

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Week Two Aboard the Norwegian Bliss

Bob Dancer

In last week’s blog, I told of Bonnie and I going on two back-to-back Sunday to-Sunday Mexican Riviera cruises. I was still aboard the Bliss when I started the last blog post. I’m already home before I’m starting this one. Some of what I previously wrote needs amendment. Not because I intentionally lied to you, but either the host in the casino gave me bad information, or I misunderstood what was said.

I earned 1,000 points each week, entitling me to $500 off my next NCL cruise. I needed to make cruise reservations using these certificates within 60 days, and the trips needed to be completed within one year. So, two days after we arrived home, I called NCL’s Casinos at Sea department to make the arrangements. I wanted to use these certificates to pay for the port fees and possibly gratuities on the same cruises we earned by obtaining Seven Stars status at Caesars.

No can do. The certificates are only good for the cabins themselves — or an upgrade. We could upgrade to a “Club Balcony Suite,” for an additional $360 per person, but I could only use the certificates for my part of that, not Bonnie’s. So, If I wanted to use my certificates at all, we’d have to pay an additional $360. We would get a bigger room, bigger balcony, and a bottle of sparkling wine. For $360. For each of two weeks.

We decided to do this. It might end up being our last cruises (all of our cruises so far have been largely subsidized by casinos — paying retail for cruises doesn’t sound attractive at all — and I’m giving up gambling effective January 1, so we won’t be getting any more cruises “for free.” Paying retail for cruises goes against my frugal nature, and with the casino no longer attractive to somebody who has given up gambling, there’s far less reason to go.)  

When I said in last week’s blog that the certificates were worth 5% if you played video poker and 10% if you played slots, that’s only true if the certificates are useful to you — like if you didn’t get highly discounted cruises from Caesars or other casinos and were willing to pay retail for them.

There were 30 or so guests cruising back-to-back like we did — presumably, there’s a similar number every week. But somehow the Bliss has a computer glitch that kicks in on back-to-back cruises.

Usually, you use your stateroom key card as a slot club card in the casino. I went to the casino about 2 a.m. on Monday morning for my first visit of the week. The machines are largely available at that time, and I was optimistic that the new passengers would have left unplayed multipliers on the Ultimate X (UX) machines and also left some of the (relatively few) persistent slot machines in an advantageous state.

The first slot machine I checked was Rich Little Piggies (RLP). At home I rarely check these machines because a high percentage of machine pros know what to look for and they are checked regularly. But on a cruise ship, when there aren’t too many machine pros, this might be worth checking. When these machines aren’t being played, what shows on the screen is the 1¢ 75-coin game. While this is a low denomination that isn’t of particular interest to me, the screen showed the blue piggy at 25 with a fat yellow piggy. 

Simply put, this machine was in a positive state and lots of players had walked right by it since it was last played. This was a good sign because at least a portion of the UX vultures would recognize this RLP game as being good to play. And if they hadn’t found this game right out in the open, there were probably multipliers available on the UX machines ripe for the plucking!

Except my card wouldn’t work.

I went to the casino cage. They looked at what they could see on their computers and told me that my account was in good standing, and I should not have a problem. The slot attendants had gone to bed, but some of the table game dealers filled in for them. One of them tried my card and agreed it wouldn’t work and he had no explanation as to why.

I passed a man in a suit with an NCL employee badge on, and I asked him if he was in the slot department. No, but he was the overall casino shift manager and wanted to know what my issue was. I explained that my card worked last week and wouldn’t work now. He told me they sometimes had a problem on the first few days for a back-to-back cruiser. He thought the problem had been fixed, but they had a workaround that they could use. He told me he could get one of his slot people, who was currently off duty, to come and help.

“You’re going to wake somebody up?” I asked. “I can wait until tomorrow.”

“No,” he replied. “If you’re in the mood to play now, we want to help you. My slot guy should be here in ten minutes, so please wait over here,” and he pointed to some empty seats.

I did and about 15 minutes later I had another card. It was for the casino only and wouldn’t work to open my cabin door. It had a different design on the card so I could easily tell the cards apart. We tested it and it worked, at least on the machine we tested it on.

When I went back to the RLP game, the new card wouldn’t work. The guy who had been woken up to help me had left the casino. There was no way I was going to get him called back again. I’d just wait until tomorrow.

I was a little concerned. At this point I thought the promotion was worth between 5% and 10% and I didn’t know how many opportunities I’d get. It would depend on how much competition I had at UX vulturing — which I couldn’t know yet because the ship had just sailed 10 or so hours earlier. The good numbers on the RLP machine were an indication that I’d find plenty of opportunities to get my points, but it was just an indication, not a certainty.

As it turned out, I got the new card fixed the next day and had no problem finding enough plays to earn 1,000 points. But I didn’t know this when I returned to bed Monday morning at about 3 a.m.

The back-to-back problem also affected my internet package for a few days. It eventually got fixed but I missed something on Sunday that I really wanted. We were going to do a special Gambling With an Edge podcast on the recent Blackjack Ball, and we planned to tape it Sunday afternoon when we were still in the port of Los Angeles.

Unfortunately, my name wasn’t recognized when I tried to set up the internet account for the second week. It would be fixed a few days later, but Richard Munchkin had to tape the GWAE episode without me. He did fine, of course, but we both wish I would have been able to participate.

I don’t understand why the Bliss had computer glitches affecting back-to-back cruisers. The ship is about six years old, there are dozens of ships in the fleet, and dozens of back-to-back cruisers every week. They’ve had plenty of opportunity to fix the glitch, whatever it was.

The attitude of the employees was excellent — but somehow the system didn’t work properly. I don’t know if this affects other ships in the fleet or not.