I’ve heard a great many players complain about the way certain slot departments, primarily involving video poker, are being run. I thought it would be an interesting thought exercise to decide how I would handle the job as a slot director if I were given that opportunity.
Continue reading If I Were a Slot Director
How We Do It: Buying a Seat
When it comes to securing a target, I’m not into gimmicks and shortcuts. I’m old-school that way: I believe in hard work (despite a dealer looking at my hands and saying, “You never work”), pounding the pavement, getting to a target on time (which means early), and securing the real estate quietly. There is a young generation of players who take our terminology literally, and think that the easiest way to acquire real estate is to purchase it. They run around, often getting to games late from oversleeping or laziness, and then think that a simple, grand solution is to buy the seat from any civilian in their way. I prefer acquiring real estate through foreclosure; buying a seat has a huge long-term cost, which matters to anyone who wants longevity for that specific target or that casino. Continue reading How We Do It: Buying a Seat
Whatever It Takes
When I moved to Las Vegas in 1994, I was 47 years of age and weighed 210 pounds — which was the heaviest ever for me. My exercise and weight management attempts fluctuated over the years and by 2010 I was up to 260 pounds. The combination of all the free food I wanted from casinos and a relatively sedentary life added up to obesity.
Continue reading Whatever It Takes
Location, Location, Location
I was going to make another installment in the instructional series—”How We Do It: Buying a Seat”—but realize that before we even get into buying “real estate” (our code phrase for seats), we need a crash course on real-estate appraisal. Different seats at the table have value for different reasons. Continue reading Location, Location, Location
Why I Don’t Play Progressives
A month or so ago on vpFREE a poster asked why I don’t play progressives. I thought about my answer for a while and decided to write about it here.
Before I start, I should say I “usually” don’t play progressives. There have been exceptions, which I’ll mention. Continue reading Why I Don’t Play Progressives
An Invisible Promotion
I recently wrote how I played during the $600,000 July Money Madness promotion at the South Point. To summarize, there were two progressives running at all times during the month. One between $10,000 and $25,000 — where, in addition to the one lucky winner, all players playing with a card inserted when it hit received $25 in free play. The second between $1,000 and $2,500 — where no additional money was given away to players playing when someone else hit the jackpot. Continue reading An Invisible Promotion
Legal Musings: Communist Candyland
If you whack a game by hole-carding, the casino will stiff you and then get the DA to intimidate you. The DAs are happy to be the minions of the casino, and the casino no doubt refers to the entire DA’s office as “staff.” So the DA, who’s never heard of a hole card in his life, will come in and say, “Aha!” Then there will be a pause because he’s not sure what he’s aha-ing. Then, he will accuse you of cheating because you “used information not available to others at the table.” Continue reading Legal Musings: Communist Candyland
Concentrating on the Deltas
While most of my video poker play is done in Las Vegas, I do have a few out-of-town plays which I like. I go back to some of them again and again. Unfortunately, publishing what and where would be a death sentence for the games. Continue reading Concentrating on the Deltas
How We Do It: Handling a ‘Random’ ID Request
Here’s the scenario: You’re walking around a casino floor (probably scouting games) when suddenly a security guard walks up to you and asks for ID. When faced with this situation recently, one rookie did the following: He produced his ID, left the casino shortly thereafter, went to the adjacent sister property the next day, then got backed off nearly immediately while scouting target games. Before getting into how horrendously bad this rookie’s situational response was, let me share with you a quick story (a more detailed version of which I can share someday if people want to hear it). Continue reading How We Do It: Handling a ‘Random’ ID Request
Working a Promotion That’s Hard to Figure
This past July, the South Point ran a “$600,000 Money Madness” promotion for the second time in 2015. A very similar promotion was run once in 2014. It’s reasonable to predict that we will see this promotion again sometime down the road. They have the software to run this promotion, so they just might run it once or twice a year for the foreseeable future. Continue reading Working a Promotion That’s Hard to Figure