Category: Video Poker

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Change in Point Structure

Bob Dancer

The ROW casinos, the Caesars Rewards properties in Reno, recently changed their point structure. For some of the machines that contain the loosest video poker, Tier Credits (TCs) and Reward Credits (RCs) are now earned at one point per $20 coin-in versus the former $10 coin-in. Although the ROW consists of the Eldorado, Silver Legacy, and Circus Circus equally, for practical purposes this new rule only affects the Eldorado because that’s where the loosest video poker machines are. 

They did a similar change about two years ago. Many players boycotted these casinos because of the change and after two or three months, the former $10-per-RC system was reinstated. It’s possible this will happen again, I suppose. We’ll see. These casinos seem to struggle to attract players. Tightening the slot club can’t possibly be the way to attract more players.

Although this specific change only affects one property, and most of my readers are not players at this particular location, similar downgrades happen at other casinos all the time. The question becomes: How does a player evaluate whether to continue playing there or not?

The Caesars Rewards system is complicated — and each property has slightly different rules than its sister properties. The difference between RCs and TCs is not quickly grasped by many players. In many cases they are earned at the same rate, but they aren’t the same. RCs may be redeemed for comps, sports bets, or, at a two-for-one rate, free play. TCs can’t be redeemed, but determine whether you are Platinum, Seven Stars, or any of the other tier levels. 

The old $10-per-point system made RCs earned by playing video poker worth 0.1% in comps. Cutting that in half means that they are now worth 0.05% in comps. That’s not a big change. If you normally play $20,000 in coin-in in a day, the $20 in comps you previously earned now becomes worth $10. If you redeemed the RCs for free play, the $10 in free play you used to get now becomes worth $5. Other than being ticked off that it’s not as big as before, that’s not enough of a difference to cause most players to quit playing.

But what about if they had 5x or 10x points? Well, that could be different. This casino used to have Mystery RC multipliers every Monday, with a limit of 30,000 RCs. Whatever multiplier you receive, it will now take twice as much play to earn that limit. Time will tell if that is going to be cut back on this promotion or not. 

There are TC multiplier promotions as well. In addition, there are daily TC bonuses. Players earning 1,000 TCs in a day get a 1,000 TC bonus. Players earning 5,000 TCs in a day get a 10,000 TC bonus. That’s the biggest daily bonus offered. Whereas it used to take $50,000 coin-in in video poker to earn the maximum daily bonus, it now takes $100,000. For most players, this is out of the question.

If you play enough to earn a lot of TCs, for every 250,000 you earn, you receive one Seven Stars Experience Credit. There are a number of things you can redeem these for. The most attractive to me is $450 in free play at properties in Las Vegas or Cherokee. For the same play, Reno video poker players will end up with fewer Seven Stars Experience Credits in 2025 than they earned in 2024.

The basic Seven Stars target of 150,000 is harder to get. I find it valuable. The major benefits are five $100 food credits, one $1,200 travel to any other Caesars property including $500 in resort credit, and a highly discounted 7-day cruise for two on Norwegian Cruise Lines. Most properties have some sort of a daily benefit if you have Seven Stars status. 

These properties all have monthly mailers giving you free play, rooms, and resort credits (which are not the same as Reward Credits.) These are generally based on your average daily theoretical. If $1,000 worth of play gives you the same ADT as it did before (even though it gives you half as many RCs and TCs), then the mailers shouldn’t change. We’ll see.

The bottom line, for me anyway, is not the number of dollars coin-in required to get a RC. It’s the promotions and the mailers. If the promotions and mailers stay the same, I’ll continue to play at the ROW, at least sometimes. If they get slashed as well, I won’t. 

The change in the rate of RC and TC being earned is a much smaller change than reducing the pay schedule by one unit. I’ll put up with NSU Deuces Wild with the lesser rate, but if they cut that game by 0.8% to the pNSU game, I’ll likely stop playing there.

It’s the package of benefits (the game, the slot club, the promotions, the mailers) that matters to me, not the individual components of it. Any reduction in benefits is unwelcome, but small reductions are not necessarily showstoppers.

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One Type of Bonus Round

Bob Dancer

I play a lot of persistence slot machines. Persistence slots, generally speaking, are those where the machine retains value from spin to spin until finally some trigger occurs which allows the player to collect that value.

Most slot machines, persistence or not, have bonus rounds of some kind. Some of these machines have multiple types of bonus rounds.

One common type of bonus round gives you a matrix of unknowns. Common shapes for these matrices are 5×5, 3×5, and 3×6. The object in this type of bonus round is that you keep touching these unknowns, one at a time, and when you do, they reveal a symbol. You keep going until you match three different symbols. It could be you’re matching Mini, Minor, Major, Mega, and Grand symbols. When you get three matching ones, you get that particular bonus.

Although these symbol names do not have to be involved, you match the Mini symbols most frequently and the Mini bonus is the least valuable. Very rarely do you match three Mega or Grand symbols. On some machines, you almost always get two Mega and/or Grand symbols along the way — but even though you have two of them, the third one is very elusive.

I’ve seen players agonize several minutes over choosing among the unknowns. If that gives them pleasure, great. After all, most of these players are playing with a big financial disadvantage and pleasure is the only payment they get for the money they spend.

Here is the way I go about it: 

First, I’m only arriving at one of these bonuses while I’m playing a persistence slot machine where I calculate I have the advantage. So, the faster I go through this bonus round, the faster I collect that advantage. Agonizing over which unknown to select is a waste of time, in my opinion.

Second, I’m not sure it matters what I pick. It could be that the machine is preset to give the Grand 0.001% of the time, the Mega 0.02% of the time, et cetera et ceters, and the Mini 42% of the time. (I just made up those numbers. They are intended to be reasonable, but not matching any particular slot machine.) When the bonus round activates, the machine calculates what your bonus should be and, whatever symbols you pick, the predetermined bonus is awarded. I’m definitely not positive it works this way, but if it didn’t, it couldn’t tease you so frequently about the biggest jackpots and almost never give them to you.

Third, I pick rapidly and randomly. Sometimes I go down a row or column and pick every symbol. Sometimes I go diagonally — starting from different places in the matrix. Sometimes I don’t look at the machine very closely, put both hands up, and repeatedly tap with several different fingers as my hands go up and down.

Whichever technique I use, and whether it takes me four seconds or four minutes, eventually three symbols match and I’m paid off accordingly. 

Often, when such a bonus round is finished, I’ve collected the bonus that I was “aiming for.” When that bonus goes to its reset value, the machine is no longer in a “player advantage” state. In which case, I cash out and search for an advantage elsewhere.

Almost as often, though, the bonus I hit is not the sensitive one. It could be that the Minor is high enough that I’m going to keep playing until it goes off. If the bonus round pays one of the other bonuses, the machine is still playable, and I keep going.

Sometimes, the value comes from a combination. That is, perhaps, the Minor and Major are both slightly less than the level needed to justify a play, but if I keep going until I hit either one, it’s probably a play.

At any rate, at the end of the round, I re-evaluate my position and act accordingly.

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Keeping Count in Video Poker

Bob Dancer

We’ve all heard of counting cards at blackjack. This is nothing like that. 

While I enjoy it, I find playing video poker for hours on end to be tedious. To combat this, I count hands to keep my mind in the game.

If I’m playing Jacks or Better, I count “quad scares,” which is the number of cards I draw that didn’t fill in a four-of-a-kind. Say I’m dealt 4 4 5 4 2. (No need to fill in the suits as flushes aren’t relevant here.) On the deal, when I drew the 2, it could have been the case 4, so that increases my count by one. After holding the three fours, if I draw two more blanks that increases my score by two more.

Straight flush scares count as two. If I were dealt 4♠ 5♠ 6♠ 7♠ K♦, I’d add four to my count because when the K was dealt, it could have been either the 3♠ or the 8♠, either of which would have completed the straight flush. Yes, I know a straight flush scare is not a quad scare, but this is the way I do it.

I count royal scares as being worth 10. This is way less than it should be, based on the value of the hand, but it’s what I use.

On a game such as Bonus Poker, Double Bonus Poker, Double Double Bonus Poker, or a variety of other games where quad 2s, 3s, and 4s pay a premium and quad aces pay a bigger premium, I weight the scares for 2s, 3s, and 4s as being worth two each and ace scares being worth three each. In games with kickers, sometimes I’ll count kicker scares as well.

In Deuces Wild, I count straight flush scares as being worth one, five-of-a-kind scares as being worth two, wild royal scares as being worth three, four deuce scares as being worth five, and royal scares as being worth 10. 

At the South Point, sometimes I play Five Play Jacks or Better Multi Strike. I don’t count scares on this game, but completed quad, straight flushes, and royal flushes. When these happen on the 1x line, they are worth one, two, and ten, respectively. On the 2x line, these values are doubled. On the 4x line I multiply by four, and on the top line I multiply by eight.

If I’m playing Triple Play or Five Play, I usually keep the same system. If I’m playing Ten Play, Fifty Play, or Hundred Play, I’ll just keep track of completed hands rather than scares.

It’s been awhile since I’ve played Joker Wild, Super Double Bonus, Deuces Wild Double Bonus, or other games not mentioned above. But when I do, I’ll change my counting system to account for the relevant hands.

Does it matter at the end of the day whether my count ended up 107 or 216? Absolutely not. How serious is it if I lose track of my count? It’s not serious at all. I just make a guess and keep going.

While the count number itself is worthless, I find this process of counting keeps my head in the game and keeps my mind from wandering. And that, as they say, is priceless.

If you think this will work for you, you’re welcome to adopt my system. If you don’t think it would be helpful, it doesn’t bother me if you don’t use it.

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I’m Playing the Wrong Game

Bob Dancer

Perhaps 10 years ago, I was playing $10 NSU Deuces Wild alongside “John,” a player I had known for quite a while. He was dealt four aces with a three, and complained bitterly, saying he’s playing the wrong game. He’d been playing $10 Double Double Bonus (DDB) not long before and that hand would have been worth $20,000. Playing NSU, it was worth $200, or maybe $800 if he could pick up a deuce after he threw away the three.

I commented that he’s lucky he wasn’t imagining he was playing Triple Double Bonus (TDB). In that game, he would have missed out on $40,000 instead of the measly $20,000 he missed out on while speculating his payout playing DDB.

He was not amused.

Later he ended up with AKQ of spades alongside two deuces. That was worth $1,250 in this game and wouldn’t have been worth anything had he been playing DDB or TDB. “Maybe the video poker gods are trying to make it up to you,” I teased.

John didn’t enjoy my mocking him, but he took it in stride. We had a relationship in which teasing the other was par for the course.

John was not a professional player. He had basic strategy down pretty well and didn’t bother with the fine points. He often played games returning less than 99% even if he played perfectly, which he didn’t. He owned his own business and even if he lost $50,000 or $100,000 a year gambling, it didn’t make a lot of difference to his lifestyle.

He believed that he was the unluckiest video poker player ever and periodically found evidence to support this belief. If he was playing Hundred Play and drew to three of a kind, he knew connecting on four separate quads was the average result. 

From here, it was a small step to believe he “deserved” four quads and whenever he ended up with three quads or fewer, he felt he was being cheated. Even when he drew five or more quads from this starting position, he felt it was a case of “too little too late.” In his mind, these occasions barely made a dent in his overall “unluckiness.”

These beliefs took the sting out if his losing sessions. After all, in his mind it wasn’t his fault! He was mostly playing correctly, and the machines weren’t cooperating.

While he had attended some of my classes, he didn’t want me correcting him while we were playing. Which was perfectly fine with me. He believed my strategies were developed for people with average luck, or better than average luck. 

He was correct, of course. The strategies I use and sell assume that every unseen card has an equal probability of being drawn next. The strategies also assume that all players have average luck over a long enough time period. We all have lucky days and unlucky days. Just because a person believes he or she is luckier or unluckier than average doesn’t make it so.

Convincing John of this was impossible, of course. His theories allowed him to continue to lose year after year and still believe it wasn’t his fault.

So, our teasing was mostly lighthearted. He always claimed that I was a “luck sack.” I’d counter with “luck favors the prepared.” While neither of us ever convinced the other, we remained friendly for decades.

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An Interesting New Year’s Eve Eve Promotion

Bob Dancer

I know I used the word “Eve” twice in the title. It was intentional. New Year’s Eve is December 31. This promotion happened on December 30. 

I go to Reno semi-regularly to play at the ROW, which is actually three connected casinos in the downtown area which all belong to the Caesars Rewards system. Players there learn to check the kiosks before they begin play, as many promotions require you to activate your account before you begin play.

In October, I noticed two icons for Mercedes NYE drawings. One icon gave you one drawing ticket every day you swiped your card. The other icon allowed you to earn entries for the drawing, based on your play — possibly with a multiplier. The multipliers there are often based on your tier level, with Seven Stars players earning bigger multipliers than Diamond players, who in turn earn bigger multipliers than lesser tier levels.

I figured the chances of me being in Reno for New Year’s Eve were pretty small, so I didn’t swipe these icons, nor did I read the exact rules of the promotion. In hindsight, this might have been a mistake. In general, if you’re not 100% sure you’re not going to be at a drawing, it’s probably a good idea to click on the icons daily. This preserves your options, “in case.”

In December, they began posting signs that read:

Drawing December 30, 2024 6 p.m.

Friday, December 27, 2024, 100x drawing tickets

Saturday, December 28, 2024, 75x drawing tickets

Sunday, December 29, 2024, 50x drawing tickets

Earn entries from October 1 to 5:45 p.m. December 30

Although I hadn’t earned any tickets so far, because I hadn’t activated the icons at the kiosk during my days there in October and November, I considered whether the rules made it worthwhile to play for the drawing.

They have $25 NSU Deuces Wild, among other games. What if I played $500,000 through one of those machines on Friday, December 27? Then left Reno and returned in time for the drawing three days later. Would that make any sense?

My calculations on this were made before I saw the exact rules. If I decided to seriously consider pursuing this, I’d read the rules carefully before I started.

Hypothetically, I assumed the car was worth $70,000 and there would be six additional winners for $5,000 each, making it a $100,000 promotion. (Again, this is speculation. I didn’t read the rules.)

The expected loss on $500,000 worth of NSU Deuces Wild is about $1,300 – with significant variance. Plus, there’s the expense of flying back and forth to Reno twice. The question becomes: Would I earn enough equity playing that much to make it worthwhile?

Equity comes in many forms. It includes the drawing itself. Surely that much play on a 100x day gives me a very decent chance at getting one of the prizes. 

I would also earn 50,000 Reward Credits, which is worth $500 worth of meals/room/comps or $250 worth of free play or $500 worth of bets in the sportsbook. Probably the sportsbook is the smartest bet. I’m just a recreational player there, so assuming I’m betting at a 5% disadvantage, that’s worth $475.

I would also earn 50,000 Tier Credits (plus a 10,000 daily bonus for earning 5,000 Reward Credits or more in a day). Since I was already way past the 150,000 Tier Credits required to Seven Stars status for the next year, what becomes important is the Seven Stars Experience Award — which are earned in increments of 250,000 Tier Credits each. There are options on what to do with these, but usually my choice is to convert them into $450 free play in either Las Vegas or Cherokee.

Before December 27, I’d know whether earning an additional 60,000 Tier Credits would push me over the threshold into another one of these awards.  While an extra 60,000 Tier Credits would be about one fourth of the amount needed for the $450 award, I would either cross a threshold or I wouldn’t. Earning 200,000 Tier Credits towards the next award before the end of the year isn’t worth anything.

Finally, monthly mailers at the ROW are based on average daily theoretical, among other things. Playing $500,000 in one day far exceeds my usual play. Surely my mailers would increase for three months or so.

So, adding it all up, does the equity earned exceed the expected loss of $1,300? I’m sure it does. By quite a bit. Now I wish I had clicked on those icons in October and November. While the entries earned would be dwarfed by what I earned on December 27, every little bit helps.

In the end, I decided against this play. There were SO many tickets in the virtual drum. I tend to avoid drawings where there are a lot of free entries given out. Even though it’s just one ticket a day per person who swiped at the kiosk, there were thousands of persons swiping every day. It adds up.

Although it’s a guess, maybe I could have earned 2% equity in the $100,000 drawing using the strategy indicated. While that’s worth $2,000 on average, there’s a ton of variance. By far the most likely result was not being called.

Even though I didn’t pull the trigger this time, thinking it through helps me figure out these things in the future.

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How Do You Figure?

Bob Dancer

A reader posed the following question, which I lightly edited: I came across a quarter pay table I have a question about. It’s a three-coin game, with progressives on the royal flush, straight flush, and four aces. It’s 9/6 Double Bonus, and the royal is currently at $1,122. I think it’s probably pretty positive, but how do I figure that out for sure?

I’ve never seen a three-coin quarter game, but I have played three-coin games for higher denominations. I invite my readers to try to figure it out before I explain how I would do this.

Before any of us get started, there are a couple of things to specify. Saying the game is 9/6 Double Bonus doesn’t tell us how much you get for the straight. One can find both 9/6/5 games (where the straight returns five-for-one) as well as 9/6/4 games (where the straight returns four-for-one). I’ll figure it out for both pay tables.

Second, the question said there were three progressives, but only provided the level for one of them. Presumably, this means that ethe other two progressives were currently close to their reset values, but surely that won’t always be the case. While the latter two progressives aren’t part of today’s problem set, I’ll outline at the end how you can include them in your calculations.

Once you have figured this out for both the 9/6/5 and the 9/6/4 games, then you can read the rest of this blog. As I frequently say when I ask you to figure something out yourself before reading on: Take as long as you like. I don’t mind waiting for you.

Here’s how I would attack this problem.

Video poker software is generally set up for five-coin games. The adjustment for three coins isn’t very difficult, but it’s not obvious to all players. Once you figure out, or are told, what the “trick” is, it’s pretty simple.

A three-coin quarter game costs 75¢ to play per hand. This makes it equivalent to a 15¢ game, played five coins at a time, which comes out to the same 75¢. While there are no actual 15¢ coins in the real-world United States, we can imagine such coins if that’s what it takes to figure this out. To calculate out how many of these 15¢ “coins” would be necessary to total the royal flush amount of $1,122, we simply divide $1,122 by $0.15. When we do this, we get that the royal flush is equivalent to 7,480 coins. This is almost a “double royal,” as royals typically return 4,000 coins.

So now we plug this into any video poker software. Doing so, I get 99.78% for the 9/6/5 pay table and 98.38% for the 9/6/4 pay table. Reset on the straight flush (250 x 15¢) is $37.50 and reset for four aces (800 x 15¢) is $120. If the existing progressive numbers are higher than these, simply divide the numbers by 15¢ and plug those values into the same computer software.

I suspect the game is more likely to be 9/6/4 than 9/6/5. Four-for-one is far more common for straights, and the original poster possibly would have noticed the “unusual” five-for-one had it been there. This leaves the game with a 98.38% return, which is nowhere near “pretty positive,” although in many casinos this would be the loosest game available for quarters or less.

So, those of you who were able to figure this out before I gave you my answer, congratulations!

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Encounter at Dotty’s

Bob Dancer

I was playing at a Dotty’s, a local chain of small casinos. The best game for me is 9/6 Jacks or Better. Without going through all of the slot club benefits and promotions, the one that is most relevant to today’s story is the “Big Bonus.”

In this promotion, all W2-Gs become drawing entries, and 10% of these entries get a 10% cash bonus. That is, if a $5,000 W2-G is drawn, the player who hit it will get a $500 reward if he collects it within a month.

Although the inventory of each Dotty’s varies, the most convenient Dotty’s for me has the game for $2, where you can bet anywhere from five to fifty coins and still get the full 99.54% return on the game. Since I want to get W2-Gs, I need to play for at least 24 coins ($48) per hand, yielding $1,200 for every quad, but I usually play for 25 coins ($50), yielding $1,250. I record the game on my gambling log as a $10 game.

The nature of 9/6 Jacks or Better is that you tend to lose during a session unless you hit a royal flush. 

Another promotion in effect at Dotty’s is the machine bonuses. For the stakes I play, these come around every five to ten minutes. The first five are always, in order, $1, $1, $1, $5, $2 — which are negligible amounts when you’re playing $50 per hand. These bonuses then increase to $10, $20 or $25 each time if you continue to play for more than an hour. These amounts are not so negligible. Suffice it to say, I usually play for at least a few hours when I come.

Most of the players in the place are playing for far smaller stakes than I am and very rarely, if ever, receive a $1,200-or-higher jackpot. Since I get them regularly, some players assume I’m killing the game, whereas in fact I’m usually losing. 

On this particular night, after I collected my fifth or sixth W2-G (and I was behind perhaps $2,000 after being paid), a lady approached me and asked if she could invest with me. She and her husband were homeless and playing keno hoping to strike it rich. Since I was obviously doing well, she wanted to pay me $200 for a share of my next jackpot.

I wanted no part of this particular arrangement. I told her that if they were indeed homeless, the last place they should be is in a casino, and the odds on the keno game they were playing were prohibitively in the house’s favor. I told her I was losing this night (I’m not sure she believed me) and many of the benefits I receive were deferred. I’m sure she understood I was telling her “No,” but I don’t believe she understood what I was talking about when I said “deferred benefits.” 

I was earning slot club points (which were cashed and mailed to me once a month), the Big Bonus drawing wouldn’t happen until next Wednesday, and the machine bonuses are paid in slot club points. The $40,000 royal flush was unlikely to be hit on this particular night. I had the bankroll to wait for it — but this lady didn’t.

I wanted to give her $20 or so to “go away,” but several other players were watching the exchange. If I started paying all players with a sob story, I would have been deluged with these stories. There are few winners at Dotty’s and the clientele tends to be less affluent than those players who play in the larger casinos. Paying players playing losing games and are always broke is a bottomless pit.

The lady and her husband went away and that was the end of this particular incident. The aftertaste of it remains with me, though. I’ve frequently been asked for money in casinos. I usually politely say “No,” and continue with what I am doing.

I know that most players lose in casinos, and many can’t afford their habit. And the ones I see don’t include the spouses and kids at home.  Yes, I’ve found a way to beat the casinos, but coming face to face with the ones who can’t, especially during the holidays, is a sobering experience.

Since I’ve been doing this for decades, I’m somewhat immune to these feelings. But not totally immune.

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It’s a Matter of Time

Bob Dancer

Timing is an important part of successful gambling. I include doing things in the right order. I’m going to list several examples. There are a lot more.

Some casinos require you to swipe your card at a kiosk before you play in order to get a multiplier or some other benefit. Some casinos don’t. Good players learn which is which.

Sometimes promotions begin or end at a particular time. If you’re going to start early, some casinos automatically activate your card once the magic time arrives. Others require you to remove and re-insert your card after that time in order to get the benefit.

If a promotion officially ends at a particular time, sometimes you will continue to get the benefit of that promotion so long as your card remains in the machine. 

Drawings universally have times associated with when you can earn entries, when you must activate your entries (if you must), and at old-fashioned drawings, by when do you have to have your tickets into the drum. Also, they usually have some sort of “must be present within so many minutes” should you be a lucky winner.

Casino slot clubs with tiers have time periods during which tiers must be earned. Being a few thousand points shy of the next tier is a shame if you just let the end of the earning period elapse without thinking about whether the higher tier had value for you.

Most players play at more than one casino. Often one or more of them will have some sort of time-related promotion going on. If you’re relatively indifferent between which casino to play at, you should play at the one whose benefits will expire soon.

It’s not exactly time-related, but frequently casinos have promotions where if you earn xxx points you get yyy. If you’re not interested in receiving the benefit, then it pretty much doesn’t matter whether you earn that many points or not. If you are interested, however, make it a point to collect that many points at least. If 5,000 points are required, for example, don’t be one of those people who earn 4,825 points and don’t check how close they are.

At some casinos, if 12 months (or some other time period) elapse since your last visit, all unredeemed comps and points disappear. To prevent this, some players zero out their points at the end of every trip. At casinos I visit regularly or sem-regularly I don’t do this, but I never let enough unredeemed points accumulate that it would be a real pain if I didn’t get back there in time. Even if my intention is to return to this casino every six months, for example, there will come a time that I don’t make it back. 

Some casinos have “next day free play,” where your play today earns free play starting at noon tomorrow and lasting 90 days. Let’s say the casino day ends at 6 a.m. and your free play becomes available at noon. If you’re not pretty sure you’re going to return with three months, don’t play after 6 a.m. the last day you’re there, and stick around until noon before you leave so you can redeem accumulated free play. 

Casinos will often have some sort of multipliers on a Monday or Tuesday, which tend to be the days where they have the fewest customers. If you can, arrange your trips so you can take advantage of this.

Casino restaurants, as do non-casino restaurants, often have happy hour specials where if you eat before the dinner rush you get discount pricing on several food or beverage items. If you’re flexible, your comp dollars will last longer if you take advantage of such specials.

Sometimes you can double dip on promotions timewise. I’ve seen cases where one promotion ended at 3 a.m. and a point multiplier started at midnight. For a three-hour window, both promotions were in effect. If you’re a “must be in bed by 10 p.m.” person, then you won’t be able to take advantage of this specific opportunity.

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What’s Good for the Goose

Bob Dancer

I attended a wedding recently in Las Vegas. I’ve known the groom for about 25 years. We both were successful players at the MGM Grand during the time I was able to make $1 million there during a six-month period.

I was seated at the wedding reception next to a player I’ve known even longer. “Sam” now lives in California and mentioned he has some advantage plays in California, Oregon, and Washington. I asked him if there was anything he could tell me about the plays.

Sam told me he had partners and they were all sworn to secrecy. They believed the plays wouldn’t last if other pros started showing up. I understood.

Sam later asked me if I was still gambling. I told him yes. There were a few casinos who were “giving away the store,” so to speak, and I was managing to get my share of what they were giving away.

He pressed me for details and I gave him approximately the same answer as he had given me, which was that I had a partner and we believe that if too many pros know the exact details, the duration of the promotion would be limited.

But Sam pressed on. He told me that we’ve known each other “forever,” and that should count for something. Again, I demurred, he took the hint, and we began talking about something else.

The thing is, I do have friends with whom I share things. But those friends also share things with me. Currently, three of my best four regular plays came on a tip from somebody else. On one of them, when I got into the play and found out some extra things, I explained the “enhancements” I had found to the friend who told me about the play in the first place.

Is there a possible scenario when Sam and I start sharing with each other? Sure. But I’m going to need some useful information from him before I start sharing my “good stuff.” I’ve given him some hints in the past and so far, it’s not been reciprocated.

Once a player, “Tom,” told me he was willing to share a video poker play with me for single-line quarters where, including mailers and everything, the player had a 1½% advantage. 

I thanked him and told him I wasn’t interested. That play might be worth $15 per hour — including the time it took to drive back and forth. There was a time when I would have jumped at that play, but now I want to spend my time on plays that are more lucrative than that. I played a lot for quarters as I was beginning my video poker career, and I certainly don’t mean to put others down who are now in that position, but that’s no longer my thing.

If Tom were actually a quarter player, then my best plays would be beyond his means. But he could easily know players for whom the plays were not beyond their means. I didn’t want to have to give up plays for something that would be worthless to me.

I told Tom that if he found a good play on $5 or higher machines, I’d certainly be interested. I could trade information or give him a finder’s fee, whichever he preferred. But for me to pay, the information had to be useful.

A player recently told me about a play at a casino that was exceptionally lucrative. Unfortunately, it consisted of four-times-a-week drawings — at a casino well over 1,000 miles from Las Vegas. That information wasn’t going to be useful to me personally, but I’m still glad I know about it. That might be information that someday I could barter with someone else in order to obtain knowledge that was potentially profitable to me.

Another player, “Ulrich,” told me about a play that had been good, but the casino changed the promotion a week before I showed up. Ulrich later swore he didn’t know, but I wonder. There are players who will try to trade useless information in the hopes that they will receive something useful in return.  Ulrich swore he’d make it up to me. We’ll see. It’s been two years, and I haven’t heard from him since.

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So Damn Cheap

Bob Dancer

Not long ago I wrote about a time I was in Reno when there was a power outage at the Eldorado, the hotel where I was staying and playing. After calling the Peppermill to make sure they were open, Bonnie and I, along with one other player, took a Lyft to that casino (maybe two miles away) and paid retail for a meal at Café Milano. I commented that it was a novel experience for me to pay for a meal in a casino.

One reader commented: “Does it bother you in the least that you’re so damn cheap that you won’t pay for a meal outside of a casino?”

Another reader came to my “rescue,” if that’s the appropriate term, but I thought the subject was worth exploring a bit. So here we are.

Since I moved to Las Vegas in 1993, I’ve received more than $1 million dollars in “free” food. I put the quotation marks around the word “free” because I always tip on meals, comped or not. 

This doesn’t mean I’ve saved $1 million dollars on food. On some of the more expensive meals, the tip was more than I would have paid for a meal that wasn’t comped. Still, I’m sure I’ve saved several hundred thousand dollars over that time period by this practice.

I don’t consider this “cheap.” (Or “damn cheap” or even “damned cheap,” which I believed is better English). I consider this as part of the slot club benefits that result from my decision to gamble at a particular game in a particular casino at a particular time. Food comps are part of the equation when I decide whether a game is positive enough to play.

There are times I pay for food in a casino. If I’m playing at the South Point on a Monday, I’ll often eat there using points because on Mondays, seniors get half price meals if they use their points. That makes their breakfast buffet cost $8 worth of points rather than $16 worth of cash.

I have essentially unlimited food comps at a casino 15 miles away from the South Point, but driving 30 miles roundtrip (and spending more than one extra hour traveling) to save $8 is a stupid type of economy, in my opinion.

Let’s say I have a $40 food comp at a casino. I check to see if the sales tax goes away when you use the comps. If I only want $20 worth of food and it’s a “use it or lose it” comp, I’ll sometimes take food home. Not always, though. If I’ll be driving around Las Vegas in the summertime and don’t have an ice chest in the car, I won’t take food to go because it will spoil before I arrive home.

If I spend more than the comp for a meal, I’ll usually pay with points (if I have them) in those casinos where sales tax disappears when you pay with comps and points.

When I’m playing and all food is free, it’s smart to take advantage of that food — saving both time and money. There are casinos I’ve played at where I don’t take advantage of food comps because the quality of the meals is sub-par. 

I play less in casinos than I used to, so Bonnie and I eat at home more than occasionally. I don’t usually have comps at grocery stores.

Near the end of the month, Bonnie and I take inventory of what unused food comps we have that will expire. Sometimes there’s no way we can use up all the comps. Often, we’ll go out to eat at casinos more in the last week of the month than the first week.

The original question asked if it bothers me in the least to be so damn cheap. The simple answer is no, it doesn’t bother me at all. One of the “secrets” of obtaining and keeping a bankroll is not to spend money on things I don’t need. And if I have food for free, I don’t need to pay for a meal somewhere.

But if Bonnie and/or I are hungry and no food comp is available, I pay for meals.