Tag: Bob Dancer

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Worried About Blowing Your Cover?

In a recent Gambling with an Edge episode, Richard Munchkin and I were interviewing “Math Boy,” a Ph. D. in mathematics who for years used that knowledge to beat casinos. Math Boy told of the time in 2003 or 2004 when he met me despite his best intentions.

Math Boy wanted to stay “low profile” to other Advantage Players (or APs). The reason for this was that if he was playing a game, he didn’t want the rest of us to closely check out what he was playing and maybe decide that if Math Boy thought it was a good play, then maybe we should sit down too.

I understand this desire for anonymity, but since tens of thousands of people have attended one or more of my classes, any desire that I personally have for this kind of invisibility has long since vanished.

I have no recollection of this event, but I believe Math Boy’s version of the events. What he claims I said sounds very much like something I would say. I was playing Deuces Wild on the long-gone $1 Ten Play NSU machines at Harrah’s New Orleans. There was a lady sitting next to me, Math Boy’s wife, that I’d never seen before. Very likely there was no communication between us. I usually play quietly and concentrate on the game. Since I didn’t know the woman, there wouldn’t have been a friendship issue that could have sparked some conversation.

Math Boy recognized me and wanted to get his wife away from me without me taking any notice of him. He told his wife that he was hungry for lunch and wanted to go to the buffet. She told him that they would be serving breakfast for another half hour and then they could go to lunch.

Math Boy responded that if they went right then, they could get in for the breakfast price and after a few minutes they’d put out the lunch food which they could eat while paying the lesser price. Although it had nothing to do with me, Math Boy said I piped up and said: “That sounds like an advantage play to me!”

Math Boy went away cursing himself. He figured he had outed himself and that I then knew he was an AP. For the last 15 years or so he has believed that I have known who he is and have been on the lookout for him to find out what he’s up to.

He’s been worried about nothing.

Although I use the same timing ploy sometimes to get buffets for a lesser price, that is hardly evidence that somebody has all the skills to successfully exploit casinos. This is a fairly elementary move that many, many people know about. I probably didn’t even look to see who made the comment because it certainly wouldn’t have told me this penny pincher for lunch was knowledgeable gambling-wise. Or even if he were knowledgeable, he might well play for different stakes, or even play a different game.

If he played, for example, $5 15-9-4-4-3 Deuces Wild, which pays 0.8% less than NSU, I would have ignored him. At that time, I didn’t know that this “lesser” game had a MUCH higher theoretical, on some of the machines anyway, and you’d receive MUCH bigger mailers if you played it. There were possibly other players in the casino that day whose presence at that machine would have caused me to sit up and take notice. But not Math Boy, as he was “invisible” to me.

Sometime a few years later, another player I respected told me about the difference in theoretical. Possibly Math Boy knew this at the time, and possibly he played that game that day, but I need far more evidence than being frugal at the buffet to realize that he might know about the theoretical of the various games.

Apparently, though, Math Boy fretted about this event for many years. Too bad. Still, a lot of us regularly take precautions because we never know when somebody else is paying close attention. Better to take precautions when it doesn’t turn out to be necessary than to fail to take precautions when it actually does matter.

Author’s note: I sent a copy of this to Math Boy and asked if he wished to comment on it. His response was:

Sounds good. Only I live in a stochastic universe. I wouldn’t say I fretted about it for years. Or that I was sure I outed myself. I knew there was a probability that I might have outed myself. I’ve seen you a few times over the years and you’ve never looked at me with recognition. So the probability went from perhaps 20% down close to 0% over about a year.

Good. I’m glad he didn’t fret about it. Still, since this type of thing applies to a lot of situations and there just might be a lesson there for some players, I decided to leave it as written.

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A Story from Frank Kneeland

For the first six months of the Gambling with an Edge podcast, my co-host was Frank Kneeland. One of Frank’s claims to fame, video-poker-wise, was that he managed a large team of video poker players for two years in the early 1990s. On one of the shows, about six years ago, Frank told a story about a player on his team way back then.

Video poker teams at the time primarily chased progressives. If a game was breakeven at $8,000, his team might start playing at $11,000 or so (every team had its own strike numbers.) The team members would get a $10/hour “salary” and some percent of the royal if they hit it. The royal money would go to the team owner, who would pay all the taxes — minus the expenses of paying his team members. The tax laws have changed since then, and video poker teams are far less common than they were then.

I may have a few of the details incorrect in the story, but I’m sure I have the gist correct. I’m sharing it because it provides a lesson today

The player involved, “Joe,” had played on Frank’s team for several months. As far as Frank was concerned, Joe was the perfect employee. Joe would show up when called and stay as long as needed. Some players are “high maintenance.” Not Joe. He quietly played and rarely had any special requests.

One day Joe asked Frank if he was about to be fired.

“Fired?” Frank asked. “You’re one of my best employees! Why would I fire you?”

“Because I’ve never hit a royal flush, and obviously the success of your business depends on hitting royal flushes. Since I can’t seem to do that, you must think of me as an undesirable employee.”

“Hardly!” Frank replied. “I really don’t care who hits the royal. That’s all pretty random. But if I have enough competent players playing when the progressive is high enough, I’ll end up ahead. So just keep doing what you’re doing and don’t worry about it.”

Why do I bring this up today? After all, I hardly ever play progressives.

Because there are a lot of players really concerned about their score. If they are ahead, they figure they are pretty good. If they are behind, they figure the opposite. (Of course, players who don’t keep track of how much they are ahead or behind don’t need to worry about this. They have other problems we’ll address another time.)

The key to success, as Frank realized, is playing when you have the advantage. That edge can come from the game itself (as it did back then) or from the slot club, mailers, promotions, or sometimes other things. If you’re playing when you have the advantage, and not playing when you don’t, on average, good things will happen.

You just don’t know when those good things will happen. Every player who plays long enough will go through the type of dry spell Joe was experiencing. I have. Several times. And I’m confident that with my skills and game selection, if it happens to me it will happen to you too. It’s just part of the game. Not a fun part, to be sure. But a part that will surely show up from time to time.

Joe’s “problem,” if you want to call it that, is not that he was running bad. Since he only played when and where Frank told him to, the team as a whole was playing with an edge. Since he was getting $10 per hour, plus a bonus that he hadn’t collected yet but would when he finally hit a royal, Joe was personally playing with an edge.

Joe had one advantage over the rest of us. His salary guaranteed he couldn’t go broke while gambling. (He could certainly go broke if he overspent his income, but gambling losses would never cause him to go broke.) The rest of us don’t have that safety net. At the same time, I wouldn’t want to play for $10 an hour.

Joe was giving up expected value for the sake of a guaranteed salary. That fits well with some people. Especially people without the skill and bankroll to successfully play the games profitably. But also people who are risk adverse — who just can’t stand to lose.

I don’t like to lose. But it doesn’t bother me very much. I’m confident that things are going to turn out pretty well over all and today’s score doesn’t matter too much.

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I Don’t Do Mornings

For most of my life, I have worked by myself. For a total of about 12 years, I worked in an office. Two years in the 1970s in a think tank, and basically all of the 1980s in IT departments of three different organizations.

In each of the offices where I worked, there was at least one person with a coffee mug that said something like, “I don’t do mornings.” Each of these persons would invariably chug coffee in the morning and not be at his or her best. Most of them performed better in the afternoons, except for one guy who drank his lunch and didn’t do any better in the afternoon than he did in the morning. He didn’t last long.

Biologically, I have a lot in common with these people. If the outside world didn’t interfere, I’d go to bed at noon and wake up at 8 p.m. — give or take a few hours each way. It seems like one of the perks of being a self-employed professional gambler is that you can set your hours however you please. For me, it doesn’t work that way.  

I decided decades ago that I wanted to have more in my life than just gambling. That includes a wife, various sorts of appointments, and personal relationships with people who don’t share my preferred hours. I have yet to find a dentist who has regular office hours that include 3 a.m.

In addition to these relationships, there are many video poker opportunities that are time-dependent. The casino day can start at midnight, 3 a.m., 6 a.m., or at any other time. There is usually less competition for machines during these graveyard hours. Often, whenever the casino day begins, it’s the early bird who gets the worm.

Some promotions, including most drawings, take place during the day or evening hours. Although I did play regularly at a bar years ago that gave you an extra $500 if you hit a royal flush between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m., such promotions are rare. Usually time-sensitive promotions happen on the other side of the clock. For twenty weeks a year, I teach classes from noon to 4 p.m. It never seriously occurred to me to try to teach the same classes between midnight and 4 a.m. Those hours would be better for me, but I’d have far fewer students in my classes and very likely no casino would be willing to sponsor them.

Another problem is that the best times to gamble vary from day to day. It could easily be that I teach classes in the daytime on Tuesday, but a special promotion happens somewhere beginning at midnight Tuesday. I need to choose whether I can function at a high level for a lot of consecutive hours or find time to take a nap after class.

Me, I’m a napper. I try to arrange my schedule so that whenever I need to mentally “perform,” I’m well rested, fed, and exercised. This requires the willingness to go to bed at all hours of the day and night. My exercise routine takes place sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening (and, unfortunately, sometimes not at all). And I can eat “breakfast stuff” at any time of the night or day.

I know some video poker pros and semi-pros who absolutely will not (or possibly cannot) change their sleeping schedule around to fit circumstances. If that works for them, great. For me, I decided that it was far too expensive to act this way.

Many friends are nervous about calling me at any time of the day or night because they don’t know whether I’m sleeping or not. If I am, they don’t want to wake me up. And I’m glad they are nervous. I much prefer texts or emails anyway. If I do pick up the phone, at any time of the day or night, I usually say “good morning.” If I have indeed just awoken, I may not know what time it is. If I haven’t just awoken, I may not want you to be sure.

Before I married Bonnie about five years ago, I had a long talk with her about my lifestyle. She was 70 years old at the time and had always kept “normal” hours. She had never much believed in napping and frankly had never known anybody with such an unusual sleeping schedule. She and her heirs were already nervous about her getting involved with a professional gambler. Fortunately, she decided she could live with all this and now sees the advantages of napping herself.

Now that I’m in my 70s, I’m finding myself sleeping more than ever. How much is age and how much is my biological clock being screwed up from not having any sort of regular schedule for decades, I just don’t know. Probably both are factors.

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What Can You Learn in Video Poker Classes?

I’ve been teaching video poker classes for more than 20 years and periodically I address the questions: What can students learn? What do they have no hope of learning? Since the next semester at the South Point begins next week, Tuesday January 8, at noon, perhaps it’s time to address these questions one more time.

1. The “secret” to winning: The secret is to only bet when you have the advantage.

It’s not much of a secret, and it certainly isn’t very sexy, but the vast majority of gamblers do not practice it.

2. What are the pay schedules to look for? Each week you’ll learn a different game. Week 1 will be Jacks or Better, and the most important part of the class is learning to identify at a glance which Jacks or Better machines give you a realistic chance and which ones to avoid.

3. What strategy should you use? Every game has its own strategy. Applying a Double Double Bonus strategy for a Bonus Poker game is not a prescription for winning. Most weeks, we will teach an introductory strategy beginning at noon and a more powerful strategy beginning at 2 p.m. The introductory strategy usually gives up approximately 0.1% from perfection, but it’s relatively easy to master. The second strategy will get you to about 0.02% of perfection, but it’s more difficult to learn.

There’s one class every semester where we also teach an advanced strategy. This semester it is the 99.73% Deuces Wild game typically called “NSU.”

4. You will be introduced to materials that will give you the information you need to get good at the game. Buying the books and then putting them on the shelf won’t do you much good, although I appreciate every book you buy. But buying them and studying them will help you become at least a competent player.

5. Our final class taught on March 12 is all about slot clubs. It’s fairly rare today that games return more than 100% without the slot club — but there are numerous cases where the games return that much when you include the slot club and promotions.

Slot clubs vary in benefits — and different players value benefits differently. As an example, for players who play at many places and get more free food than they can possibly consume, additional meals are largely irrelevant. For players who do not get many meal comps, these meals have considerable value.

Equally important as what you will learn from these classes is a realistic understanding of what you will not learn.

6. You will not become an expert player after attending a class or two. Becoming an expert requires considerable study over a period of time. We will help you get on the right path, but you must spend time walking that path before you reach your destination.

7. This is not a game where you can study for a month or three and become competent forever. New games are introduced all the time. I’m still studying, and I’ve been playing at a pretty high level for 25 years.

8. The final thing I want to talk about is to answer this question: If the classes were really valuable, why would Michael Gaughan pay me to teach you how to beat him? The answer is that many of you will not put in the effort to become good.

Mr. Gaughan is gambling that the classes will create more enthusiasm than actual knowledge. It’s within your power to learn enough to make him on the losing end of this gamble. You can do it, if you put your mind to it. As a group, most of you won’t do it. But some of you will. Are you going to be one of the ones that learn the game or one of the ones who don’t?

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Playing 9/6 Jacks or Better Multi Strike

Except for the last few weeks, I haven’t recently played any version of Multi Strike. In the past, I played 9/6 Jacks or Better, 8/5 Bonus Poker, and 9-4-4 Deuces Wild Bonus in the Multi Strike variation, but it’s been so long that I felt I needed a tune-up. Now in my seventies, my memory isn’t what it used to be.

I’ll be teaching the 9/6 Jacks or Better Multi Strike class on January 29 at the South Point. Although my notes for the class are prepared, I teach better when I have recent experience. This gives me “depth” and a better ability to deal with some questions that I would have otherwise forgotten. Teaching classes well is one of my goals.

Plus, since the game returns 99.79% and the South Point’s everyday slot club is 0.30%, it’s not as though it’s a financial burden to play. The only version offered at the South Point is the 25¢ Five Play variation, which requires a bet of $25 per play. Even though the player has a slight edge, Multi Strike has a higher variance than many other video poker games. I did lose $1,500 on my first foray back into the game. But that loss was recovered in later sessions.

As most of you know, Multi Strike is a four-line game where you pay for all four lines up front — namely 20 coins. (I’m referring to the game in most of this article as a single-hand game, rather than the Five Play version you find at the South Point. This is done to make the explanations easier.) If you earn nothing on the bottom line, your 20 coins are gone. And this can sometimes happen several hands in a row.

If you at least get your money back on the first line, you get to play the second line (called the Level 2x line) “for free” and at double the payoffs. Earn something there, and you play the third line (called the Level 4x line), again for free, at quadruple the stakes. The same pattern holds for the fourth line (called the Level 8x line). Periodically you get a “Free Ride” after the draw but before you decide on which cards to hold; this moves you up to the next higher line whether you score anything on the current line or not.

What isn’t so obvious to all players is that you use four different strategies for the four different lines. The logic behind this is that in regular video poker the pay schedule falls into the “what you see is what you get” category. When the hand is over, it is completely over.

That’s not the case in Multi Strike. If you score on the bottom line, you now get to play the second line for free, and sometimes the third line, and sometimes the fourth line. Those are very valuable “plusses.”

The second line can give you two extra plusses. The third line can give you one extra plus. The top line, and any Free Ride you get, gives you nothing extra. The strategies depend on how many additional plusses you stand to get when you succeed.

If you know regular 9/6 JoB (which may well be the easiest video poker game to learn), you’re well on your way to learning the Multi Strike version of the same game because the strategies you use for most of the hands are considerably easier than the regular strategy. Why? Because for the bottom two lines you avoid ALL 3-card straight flush draws, which are the most complicated hands to play for most players.

This is not to say you can forget part of the 9/6 JoB strategy when you play Multi Strike. You still need the entire strategy because whenever you either reach the top line or receive a Free Ride, the regular strategy is appropriate.

For me, there were two different times where I found I could be making a mistake. First was remembering where I was in the game. Did I need the Level 1x strategy or the Level 2x strategy? From K♥ Q♠ 9♥ 7♥ 3♥, on Level 1x, I should hold the KQ and on Level 2x I should hold the hearts. For A♥ Q♠ 9♥ 7♥ 3♥, I hold the hearts on both of these levels. It’s easy to get these confused. Each of the strategies by themselves aren’t so difficult, but holding them all in my mind at once and using the right one each time is not trivial.

I made another mistake, which may well be the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in video poker. Perhaps you’ll make it someday too.

This mistake came from the different way Multi Strike deals cards. When Multi Strike finishes a level where the player advances, it deals the next level immediately. That is, let’s say you’re dealt A♣ J♦ T♦ 9♣ 8♥ on Level 1x and correctly hold AJ. (You only hold JT98 on Level 8x or with a Free Ride.) If you are playing the Five Play version, let’s say you end up with a pair of aces on one of the hands and two pair on another. The 15 credits will add up, and immediately the Level 2x hand will be dealt.

The problem came when I had three hands live on Level 4x and held trip 5s. On two of the three hands, the trips converted into quads. This is an unusually good result. Each of the quads paid 500 coins ($125), which is four times the normal $31.25 you regularly get for these hands in quarter 9/6 JoB, and the trips registered $15 instead of the usual $3.75.

Certainly, I’ve had many thousands of jackpots higher than $265 in my life, but I took a few seconds to admire my good fortune. When I was finished “admiring,” I hit the button to play the next hand — which is my normal practice in every other video poker game I play.

Except in Multi Strike, the next hand was already dealt. When I hit the button intending to play the next hand, what I actually did was throw away all the cards on the hand that had already been dealt! With three live hands on Level 8x, this was equivalent to throwing all the cards away sight unseen on $2 Triple Play!

What were the cards I threw away? I have no idea! By the time I realized what I had done, the original cards were long gone. I know I wasn’t dealt a royal flush or that would have locked up, but other than that, I just don’t know. Very likely throwing all the cards away was the wrong play — potentially a very big error.

Oh well. Spilt milk. The reason I bring it up is that it strikes me as a relatively common mistake others might make as well, at least on occasion. So, I tell you in the spirit of “forewarned is forearmed.”

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Which Is It?

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about a casino running a food drive for the local food banks and offering free play to players who donated the most food. For those of you who listen to the Gambling with an Edge podcast, you now know that was the Hollywood Casino in Toledo, OH and the player who brought it to my attention was Jimmy Jazz.

For both Jimmy and me, the question was, “Is this promotion beatable and if so, what’s the best strategy?” One of the items we addressed was, “What is the least expensive food weight-wise?” because the size of the donations was measured in pounds.

There were comments after the article was published on the order of, “This was a charity function, not a money grab.” When you have that attitude and think of the welfare of the food bank, you want a diversity of food, not tons and tons of the same food item. I can understand that point of view, but it’s not mine.

Let’s look at the charity aspects of the event first. The casino is to be commended for supporting local food banks. But without knowing any of the decision makers, I believe it was also a business decision.

The casino received good press for this. Players are more likely to play at a casino if they believe the casino is run by “good guys.” There were likely pictures taken and they’ll be hanging in the “trophy case.” There were extra visits generated on Thursdays during the promotion, and it could very well be (just a guess) that giving away free play for the donations was less expensive than offering double points, and both generated similar amounts of play.

For players, participation in this promotion may or may not be related to the fact that this is related to charity. If players decide to give more because they support this particular charity, great. If the charitable aspect to it is not important to a particular player, that’s okay too.

Insofar as I’m concerned, the fact that the casino labeled this as a charitable event was largely irrelevant. I have charities I support. Announcing which ones or how much I donate would make it about me rather than about the charities. No thanks.

I have participated in a number of promotions in and out of casinos that are similar to “Bring a new, unwrapped toy and get something free.” This is often a cost-benefit analysis to me.

I know people who will support anything sponsored by someone they admire. For example, the United States Marines Corps is behind “Toys for Tots.” For some people, this is a sufficient reason for them to always participate in this charity. One of the square dance clubs in Las Vegas holds an annual “Toys for Tots” dance. Some years, when we like the caller, Bonnie and I participate. Other years, we don’t. This is something we neither automatically support nor avoid. To us, the fact that the Marines are involved is not an important part of our decision.

Whether you should support a particular charity is sort of like the discussion of “How much should you tip?” It’s an individual decision and it’s hard for me to fault someone who makes a decision different from mine.

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An Early Christmas Present

In my email inbox, I regularly receive pictures of royal flushes and other video poker jackpots. Frequently, I get thanks in the email saying that if my writing and classes hadn’t taught the emailer how to play, they’d never have a chance. And then the picture of the royal is from an 8/5 Double Double Bonus game. I don’t recall ever saying anything about such a game other than to not even think about playing it if you want a chance at winning.

Recently, I received an email with a picture of a royal on a quarter 8/5 Jacks or Better game. While this game returns almost a half percent more than 8/5 Double Double Bonus, it’s still in the “no play zone” from my point of view. The subject line of the email said: “You’re Going To Want to Read This.” I would have read the email anyway, and the subject line made me think this was going to be junk mail, but it turns out it was from a reader of mine.

This player was playing quarter 8/5 Bonus Poker at a casino in a southern state. This 99.17% game is the highest paying game at that casino and, along with the slot club and other benefits, he felt it “wasn’t too bad” for a recreational player. Okay. I certainly don’t insist that others use my “if it doesn’t return more than 100% it should never be played” philosophy. It sounds like this guy, “Mark,” made a considered, intelligent, choice.

While Mark was playing, a cleaning lady named Sophia came running up to him. Sophia was regularly stationed in the area that included the machines he played, and he recognized her. About half of his visits he slipped her $2. Cleaning machines and picking up after sloppy players wasn’t a fun job or one that paid well. Plus, Sophia had come from somewhere in Central America and her grasp of English was rudimentary at best.

When Sophia reached Mark, she frantically signaled him to follow her. He asked her what was going on and she just kept saying, “Please come. Hurry! Hurry!”

Thinking there might be some type of emergency, Mark cashed out and followed Sophia upstairs. She took him to a bank of quarter 8/5 Jacks or Better progressives. Mark occasionally played these machines if the progressive was more than $2,000 which rarely happened because the meter was quite slow. Still, he didn’t expect Sophia to be cognizant of video poker pay schedules, although it didn’t surprise him greatly that she knew when it was relatively high.

When he looked at the meter, he saw it was at $9,400! Later he figured out that this was a 119% game, but all he knew now was that the game was much better than any other gambling opportunity he’d ever seen. He surmised that the casino shut down a progressive and they had to put the accumulated progressive somewhere — and this is where they dumped it! There was a bank of four machines and so far, all of them were vacant. Clearly that wouldn’t last long.

He thanked Sophia profusely, sat down, and started banging away. It didn’t have to happen this way, but he hit the royal before any other players even noticed how high it was. After the employees came and took his ID, he hunted Sophia down and gave her a $300 tip. Tears came to her eyes. Nobody had ever given her that much money before.

Karma doesn’t always work this way. It could easily have happened that he got a seat and somebody else ended up hitting the royal. But just getting a seat on a 119% game is pretty sweet. And if Sophia hadn’t come and found him, he would have never known.

If you treat people well, often they’ll be only too happy to help you back. That jackpot more than reimbursed Mark for all the tips he’d ever given to casino employees. And if he didn’t hit it? Well, that’s okay. If Mark can afford to gamble recreationally, his life is likely better off financially than Sophia’s. And helping others, whether it’s the holidays or not, is one of the things that makes the world go ‘round.

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Counting the Same Thing Twice

I received some emails from a player, call him “Sam,” who was trying to talk himself into playing 8/5 Double Double Bonus Poker Multi Strike, a game that returns 97.07% when played well. It returns far less than that for most players because the game requires four separate strategies to play correctly.

As most of you know, Multi Strike is a game where you pay 20 coins for four lines before you start. If you get no score on the bottom line, the hand is over. You’re out 20 coins.

Should you at least get your money back on the bottom line, you get to play the second line at double stakes “for free.” It’s not actually free. It’s simply that you’ve already paid for it.  Five of the coins you initially paid go for playing the second line, which happens about half the time, at double payoffs.

Score on this line and you get to play the third line at 4x. Score on the bottom three lines and you get to play the top line at 8x. Each of these two lines were pre-paid, five coins at a time. Periodically, to make the math work, you get a free ride on one or more of the lines which allows you to move up to the next higher line whether you score on the current line or not.

Sam had read enough of my writings to know that I would not be a fan of a game that paid so little. You can play it if you want, but for me, the game plus the slot club, plus the various promotions must exceed 100% to be playable.

However, Sam argued, if he hit a royal on the second line, he’d get $2,000. On the third line this was worth $4,000. And on the top line, the royal was worth $8,000. Surely, he argued, those big numbers would boost the 97.07% payout. Couldn’t that boost be enough to make the game worthwhile?

The answer is ‘no.’ Those rare hits are already included in the 97.07% figure. One or more of those jackpots could make you a winner today, but when you don’t hit them (which is far more likely), you’re going to be losing at a much faster rate than you’re used to. It’s not 97.07% PLUS the royals. It’s 97.07% INCLUDING the royals.

Another factor is taxes. The tax law is different today than it was a few years ago. W2Gs are the same now as they used to be, but for many recreational players who used to itemize, the standard deduction is now high enough so that itemization doesn’t make financial sense. And if you are in that category, W2Gs are taxable.

The only time you can “write them off” is if you itemize, and there are so many things that are no longer deductible. The math behind itemization has totally changed. The first $20,000 or so worth of W2Gs each year are far more taxable than they were a few years ago.

Therefore, playing a game that generates extra W2Gs is a game to be avoided unless you play enough that you’re going to get a lot those jackpots. So, a quarter Multi Strike game should be less desirable this year than last. The same conclusion applies to Ultimate X and other games involving multipliers.

Keep in mind that I’m not a tax expert and my explanations here are simplified. See your tax professional for guidance.

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How Would I Attack It?

A friend lives near the Hollywood Casino in Toledo, Ohio. In October and November, they ran a Thursday food drive promotion with the following features:

  1. On Thursdays, everyone who brings a non-perishable food item spins for $5 – $500 free play.
  2. Top five donators by weight every Thursday spin for between $100 – $500 free play.
  3. Top donator by weight for entire nine Thursdays from October 4 – November 29 period receives $5,000 in free play.
  4. See the player’s club for details.

In 2017, the casino totaled 8,000 pounds for the entire two-month promotional period.

For October of this year, the casino averaged 3,000 pounds of food a week among all players — which means 12,000 pounds while the promotion is only 4/9 of the way through. My friend said he could get canned food for 29 cents a pound and had a friend with a pickup truck who was willing to help out. His questions to me were: If this were me, would I “go for it” and what would be my strategy?

He also told me I could write about the promo after it was over, but he didn’t want me to encourage anybody else to compete against him.

First, I told him I wanted to see a copy of the rules. He told me he went to the club and they didn’t have any rules and were surprised that anybody would ask for rules on something this simple.

But it’s not so simple. I would like to see a better definition of “non-perishable.” Some things are obviously perishable or non-perishable. But what about flour? Dried beans? Other grains? Without an exhaustive search, on the Internet I found all-purpose flour in 50-pound bags where you needed to buy 50 or more bags at once to get the price of about 23 cents a pound. If this was going to be accepted, I might buy 50 bags and take them in over two or three Thursdays. But if they were going to be rejected as qualifying for the promotion, spending $600 for something essentially useless to me wouldn’t be smart.

On one Thursday I might bring in a two-pound bag of flour and see if that counted. If it did, I might “make my play.”

Second, I’d want some information on how much the “big players” were bringing in. Assuming I was going to bring in a few thousand pounds over the promotion, I wanted to have a good idea if that would be a winner. I suggested going to a pit boss or security guard and asking a question such as, “Has anybody ever brought in as much as 25 pounds?” The answer might be revealing. Asking about “only” 25 pounds might get you information without revealing that you were considering bringing in considerably more than that.

If you find out that one guy was bringing in 800 pounds a week, then this might be too expensive of a promotion to try to win.

If you bring in 2,000 pounds a week for five weeks in a row, you’ll definitely win some of the smaller prizes along the way. A few $500 prizes can help out a lot in financing your entries.

At the same time, word will spread among the other “big players,” and if they can predict how much you’ll bring in, they might well bring in just enough to beat you. Therefore, bringing in 1,000 pounds a week for four weeks and 6,000 pounds on the fifth week might be a better strategy.

The casino probably did not figure that someone would be bringing in the same type of food in great abundance. They probably figured they’d get a variety of food-types which would be appreciated by local food banks or whatever other charities this food drive was supporting.

It could well be that after the first or second week, they would institute a “Flour is no longer accepted” rule. Printed rules typically have a disclaimer such as “Management reserves all rights to change or modify these rules at its sole discretion.” Presumably unprinted rules give management even more discretion. It could easily occur that the first printed rules show up AFTER management has decided to limit certain items. Depending on your backlog at the point they enforced this rule, this could be expensive.

Let’s say your next-cheapest option is cans of generic-quality corn. After a ton or two of the same corn, a “No more corn” rule could also be added to the list.

My friend took a wait-and-see approach, considering possibly “coming out of nowhere” and bringing in 5,000 pounds the last week. Checking with a pit boss three weeks before the end, it seemed like one player had already brought in close to 6,000 pounds and that player only had a small edge over the second-place guy. Now it looked like 10,000 pounds minimum might be required, and who’s to say that would be enough? My friend backed out of the competition without even entering. I have no knowledge of the final numbers, obviously, because I’m publishing this a few days before the November 29 final collection day.

I don’t know the players in Toledo. Were this promotion in Vegas, I’m confident that a number of players would “go for it,” probably with ideas I haven’t even considered. There are a lot more gambling pros and semi-pros in Las Vegas who attack things strategically than there are in cities where casinos are a very small part of the economy.

It’s not that people in Las Vegas are inherently smarter than those in other places — in fact I’d suspect the opposite for many communities — it’s just that Las Vegas has a much bigger sub-community of gambling professionals than most other places. These people (including me) may well not be particularly bright at figuring out important things in life, but we are good at figuring out how to take money out of a casino.

If it turns out that 10,000 pounds is enough to win this contest in Toledo, it could well be that twice that number is required for the same promotion in Las Vegas. This is an important consideration. When you compete in such a promotion, you don’t want to be bringing a knife to a gunfight. There is only one $5,000 prize. It’s very expensive to come in second place.

An interesting caveat: Let’s say it’s one week to go, you’re tied with somebody else for the lead, and you’ve already spent $6,500 to buy the food you’re giving away. Assuming you cannot (or will not) enter into a deal with your competition, it can make a lot of sense to spend another $3,000 to try to win.

If you do win, you will have spent $9,500 and won $5,000 for a $4,500 loss. If you spend nothing the last week, you will not win and will have lost $6,500. Losing $4,500 is a lot better than losing $6,500.

One thing that is certain is that anybody who finds out you spent $9,500 and only won $5,000 will tell you what an idiot you are. They will “patiently” explain that it makes no sense to spend more than you can possibly win.

Except they’d be wrong. The “original” minus $6,500 score is irrelevant. If spending another $3,000 will gain you $5,000, it’s money well spent. But don’t try to explain that to a ploppy.

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My Experience with Gaming — Part II of II

In last week’s blog, I laid out the nature of my beef with the Rainbow Casino. I was basically fighting over whether I could have someone play off $2,400 in free play — or get a check for $1,200. Whether my case had any merits or not, this was too small to involve a lawyer.

I called up the Gaming Control Board and told them I had a complaint. An agent listened and said that if I wished to go forward with the matter I could come down to the office and fill out the paperwork. I told him I’d be down the next day.

The Nevada GCB here in Las Vegas is located off of Las Vegas Boulevard at Washington, which is in the downtown area, immediately north of Cashman Field. It’s in a building housing a number of other governmental agencies.

The night before I went to the office, I spent considerable time writing out exactly what I wanted and why I felt I was entitled to it. I had been led to believe that whatever I wrote down the next day was basically all I got to say before the decision was rendered. So, I wanted to give it my best shot. I suspect they would have written the report for me if I was not capable of doing so, but I believe I can better present my own argument for myself — given it’s too small to justify hiring an attorney.

I saw the same agent I had spoken to on the phone the day before and he brought me a form to fill out. I told him I thought I would need five or six sheets of paper and he provided them.

After I finished writing up my report, the agent read it. He surprisingly advised me to take the $1,200 and not ask to gamble with the $2,400. He told me it was possible I would end up with less than $1,200 and then I’d feel so bad. I didn’t tell him the game was available for quarters and if you play $2,400 coin-in for quarters on NSU, it’s basically impossible to end up with less than $2,000 — let alone $1,200.

I didn’t think it was in my interest to make it obvious that I was an experienced player. I thanked him for his suggestion and told him I’d prefer to take my chances.

The agent asked if I were an advantage player and then added that it really didn’t matter if I was or wasn’t. I didn’t know if I was on the record or not, so I said I wasn’t a beginner and let the matter drop.

I was then told the GCB would investigate the complaint and issue a ruling within 45 days. If both parties accepted the ruling, that would be it. If either side wished to appeal the ruling, the appeal would be held in a hearing room that was within the same complex of offices.

The ruling came back in about 30 days, basically denying all parts of my claim. The casino was ordered to pay me $1,200 by check within two weeks. While I’m writing this before the two-week period has expired and I haven’t received the check yet, I’m not expecting that to be an issue.

The decision listed several findings it had made, including mentioning that I was no longer allowed on the property. Many of those findings were clearly made after talking to casino employees. Several were different than what I remembered happening. I also recognized that I didn’t record the conversations, and it would be a form of “he said-she said” to figure out what actually happened.

I considered appealing — if only to make this into a three-part blog rather than just a two-parter. After all, whatever happens at the GCB is generally interesting to my readers and the listeners to my podcast.

The bottom line in my decision to not appeal was that I didn’t think I had a case. If you focus on the right part of the slot club rules, it’s clear that I only get 50% if I redeem the points in cash and the casino was within its rights to refuse to let me play the points off. Those rules were “hidden in plain sight,” but they were there, nonetheless.

While I could force the system to chug along and rule absolutely that I wasn’t going to get my way, I believed that eventual ruling was essentially a certainty. The idea of going through the appeal just to have more to talk about in this blog or on the podcast strikes me as more selfish than I like to view myself. I basically am doing nothing, which means I accept the ruling.

Still, I find it useful to have gone through this process. Someday I may well need to go through it again and there are advantages to having gone through it previously.

After I wrote this, I did get the check and deposited it. An agent from the GCB, Kevin Smith, called and asked me to call him back on a personal matter. I did, and he just wanted to verify that I had received the check.

I asked him why he had referred to this as a personal matter. After all, this sounds like ordinary GCB work. He told me that he couldn’t know who would listen to that message, and didn’t wish to be broadcasting that I had just received a check that would be considered large by many people. So he called it a personal matter.

Makes sense. I’m the only one who listens to that voicemail — but he couldn’t know that. I appreciate his extra care.