Tag: video poker

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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.

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A New Scam?

Bob Dancer

I recently received an authentic-looking text from the United States Postal Service. I was told that a letter addressed to me had the incorrect zip code. Please type “Y,” close the message, and then re-open it. I did.

I came across a link asking for me to fill out my name, address, zip code, and phone number. I was dubious. An unrequested message asking me for all of this information was a prescription for identity theft. I gave my correct address (post office box), and intentionally made some typos to my email address and phone number.

After I entered this information, the next screen told me there was a small charge for the redelivery. A charge of $0.3. It didn’t say $0.30, or 30 cents, but $0.3. And in order to pay this fund it asked for my credit card information.

Now I was more than 99% certain that this was not what it appeared to be. I closed the link and was glad I hadn’t given correct information previously.

When I closed the link, the original text message deleted itself. Very strange.

While I’m used to several scams, this was a new one, at least to me. If I’m getting these texts, probably some of you are too. It doesn’t have anything to do with gambling per se, but not losing money to identity theft counts as bankroll just as much as hitting a royal flush. 

Since my first “blog” this time was too short, I’m adding another short one.

A Certain Aptitude is Required

Bonnie and her daughter Susan went on a seven-day Mexican Riviera cruise aboard the Norwegian Bliss over Thanksgiving. Bonnie and I had gone on a five-day version of the same cruise aboard the same vessel about one month earlier.

Because she’s cruised a lot since we married 10 years ago, Bonnie has a Sapphire card. This is a tier level possessed by fewer than 10% of the passengers. And, just like in casinos, higher tier levels get more benefits than lower tier levels. Since Susan has not cruised a lot on Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) vessels, she gets fewer benefits. After Bonnie’s and my cruise, I emailed both ladies instructions as to how to work the NCL system. 

Even though she has been on a lot of cruises. Bonnie lets me do all the arranging on the cruises. She trusts that I will take care of her, which I do. Susan was an appropriate caregiver on the cruise but doesn’t have the experience to get the most benefits. She could wing it, and they’d have a good time, but my goal was to educate them on the ins and outs so they could have an even better time.

One of the benefits Bonnie is entitled to and Susan isn’t is a 90-minute “Behind the Scenes” tour that usually begins at 9 a.m. on the first sea day. It varies, but often includes the laundry, the galley, and dressing rooms backstage of the main theater. Bonnie and I both went a month previously and thought Susan would enjoy it. I think they offer a similar tour for everybody at $150 per person later in the cruise.

So, in my email I explained that when they boarded the ship they should go to the CruiseNext desk and sign Bonnie up for the tour. Once Bonnie presented herself at the CruiseNext desk on the day of the tour, they would give Bonnie a sticker to put on her shirt or jacket. Bonnie should take that sticker, go somewhere out of view of the people at the desk, and have Susan affix it to her own shirt or jacket. Then Bonnie can occupy herself for an hour and a half while Susan takes the tour. I told both ladies to make sure they had closed-toe shoes, which are required for the tour. I also told them how to sign up for specialty dinners, shows, and the officers’ dinner.

On the Sunday they got to the ship, they called me to let me know that they arrived, were aboard, and happily looking forward to their adventure. They told me they did everything I listed in my instructional email except they couldn’t get Susan on the tour.

“Why not?” I asked.

“When I asked them if I could get a sticker and then give it to Susan, they said ”No,” Bonnie replied.

“You weren’t supposed to ask them. You were just supposed to do it. That’s why I told you to give the sticker to Susan out of the sight of the employees at the desk.”

“I guess we didn’t completely understand that part.”

In casinos, I have “worked the system” for decades. It’s a necessary part of succeeding at gambling. While I’m sure my instructions would have been very clear to most readers of this blog, neither Bonnie nor Susan think like a winning player does. When in doubt, they simply tell the truth and ask permission for everything.  Oh well. Susan likes to sleep in on vacations, so she considered the loss of the tour to be no big deal.

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A Cold Night in Reno

Bob Dancer

On Monday, November 11, Bonnie and I flew to Reno to play at the Eldorado, one of the three casinos that make up the ROW, which is the only Caesars Resorts property in Reno.

We go often enough to get monthly mailers, so those offers were part of the reason we chose to go then. Plus, Mondays in November offer mystery Reward Credit multipliers between 4 p.m. and midnight.

The multipliers don’t seem to be much of a mystery. It’s a frequent Monday promotion there and the last dozen or so times we’ve been there for this promotion, as Seven Stars video poker players, the multiplier has always been 7x and the limit is 30,000 Reward Credits. In the Caesars system, this means you get your original points plus 6x more — so 4,285 or more base points earn you an extra 25,715 Reward Credits. That’s $257.15 in comps (or sports bets) or half that amount if you convert it to free play. 

Slot players get bigger multipliers and higher limits than video poker players do, but you have to pick one or the other before you start. While I play both games there, I play mostly video poker, so that’s the one I pick. Our offers also entitled us to some Resort Credits, which basically means Bonnie got to go shopping. (Reward Credits and Resort Credits sound the same, but they’re not. You cannot convert Resort Credits to free play or sports bets, but you can use them for other things Reward Credits are good for.)

I went upstairs for a nap. I was tired and didn’t need to play until later in the day. I didn’t set an alarm. I knew I wouldn’t sleep all day and since I play $50-a-hand machines there, it doesn’t take long to maximize the promotion.

Around 4 p.m. I woke up shivering. Although Reno itself was around 30 degrees outside, I set the room temperature to where we like it before I started my nap. But it was much colder than that now. Maybe 55 degrees. 

There were a few lights in the room still on, but the other light switches wouldn’t work, and the thermostat seemed broken. We looked outside the room, and most of the lights in the hallway were out.

We decided to descend the stairs to the casino level. I figured that the casino would have its own generator and even if the hotel were blacked out, the casino itself was the cash cow of the organization. Surely the casino would still be going despite any city power outage. I was so confident in this that I left my heavy jacket in the room. Bonnie is 81 years old and I’m 77, but we figured going downstairs wouldn’t be a problem. Surely this issue would be fixed before long.

Down on the casino floor, nothing was working. There were a few lights on, including some slot machines, but none were operational. The slot machines provided some warmth, so we sat down next to some to wait things out. Nobody knew for sure what had happened, but the casino employees were pretty sure this was a blackout over a part of the city and not specific to the ROW properties. Slot techs and floor people were manually turning off machines one at a time, but we talked them into leaving the machines close to us turned on so as to provide warmth.

Restaurants were closed as well, of course. We needed to eat. The only restaurants I know about in Reno are in other casinos. 

I don’t have comps at any other casino in Reno, so I figured we’d pick a place a few miles away, call to verify they were open, and catch an Uber or Lyft. We’d have to pay retail for food in a casino (a novel experience for me), and maybe the lights would be on in a few hours and we could Lyft back. We hooked up with a player we knew and took a Lyft to the Peppermill. 

Even though it wasn’t far from the casino to the Lyft to the new casino, it was cold outside. I do wish I had brought my jacket with me.

Over dinner, we discussed where to sleep if the problem didn’t get resolved soon. The other guy with us was enough of a player at Atlantis (about a mile away from the Peppermill) that he was able to get the casino rate for two rooms at $80 per night. The host said she’d be there only until 11 and and since we needed her help to get the rooms at that rate, we shouldn’t wait until after that.

We called back to the Eldorado about 7 p.m. and the operator said the power was on in her area and she thought the entire problem was solved, so we headed back. 

When we looked into High Limit slots, there were players playing, so we figured we were okay. I sent Bonnie up to the room and got to work gambling. I was playing $10 NSU, and in 20 minutes hit a $1,250 wild royal. It took 20 minutes to be paid. Not all machines were totally connected to the player system, and on some, any cash out at all required a hand pay. So, the slot employees were slammed. I was having doubts that I could get in my play for the promotion before midnight. The only way to guarantee it was not to hit any more taxables, but that would mean a loss of $10,000 or so, which wasn’t very attractive either.

Eventually, machines opened up in the High Limit slot area and when I hit a W2-G, I could move over to an adjacent machine and continue my play while I waited to be paid. I shared the “extra” machine with another player, who was also using it for overflow purposes. Fortunately we didn’t hit our jackpots simultaneously.

I finished playing at 11:30 p.m. or so and headed up to the room. When I got there, it turned out that when I had gone to the high limit slots area leaving Bonnie to go to our room by herself, the elevators weren’t working yet. So, she walked up 11 stories! 

As she started her journey, she connected with a casino employee who walked with her. Bonnie is an octogenarian with a cardiac history. This walk could have turned out to be fatal for her, but everything turned out okay. She didn’t want to bother me with this information while I was playing, so I never knew. Afterwards we had a talk about priorities. Yes, taking the time to help her could have caused me to miss out on part of the promotion, but her safety is much more important than that.

I don’t blame the ROW for this blackout. It hit much of the downtown area. This was a Reno infrastructure problem. It’s a fairly rare occurrence, and it just happened to bite us when we were there. Other than not getting our Monday night meals comped, and throwing our schedule off a bit, there was no harm to us.

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Whose Chair Is It?

Bob Dancer

I was playing Ultimate X on the Norwegian Bliss. In one area of the non-smoking part of the casino were four adjacent Super Star machines, each with 45 Ultimate X games on them.

I had finished checking the two machines on the right. I checked these machines a few times a day and overall, they’ve been fairly profitable. I found a few plays this time. Immediately before I moved over to the third chair, I saw a lady sit down in the fourth chair. I could see what I presumed to be her husband reaching for his wallet, and I assumed he wanted to sit down at the chair I was aiming for.

Still, when I sat down at the machine, he was still about three feet behind the chair, not touching it, and not making any overt move to sit down. As far as I was concerned, I had possession of the chair “fair and square.”

There are no official rules for whoever gets a chair when two or more people want it. Usually, it’s first come first served. An exception might be made if the person actually sitting down had pushed another player out of the way before sitting down. Nothing of that sort happened here. I had been neither aggressive nor rude in my sitting down.

The wife, however, immediately spoke up. “Hey! My husband was going to play that machine! He’s right there.”

At this point I had a decision to make. A decision where I have incomplete information on what’s going to happen with whichever approach I chose. There’s no doubt in my mind that she was telling the truth. I saw her husband close to the machine, reaching into his wallet, before I sat down. At the same time, I did nothing untoward that required me to give up the machine. 

If the lady called over a slot supervisor and argued her case, I’m pretty sure I would have prevailed. I can’t know this for sure. I’m inexperienced with how cruise ship casinos in general, and this one in particular, handle disputes. I’ve seen plenty of disputes in land-based casinos, but I don’t ever remember seeing one on a cruise ship.

Still, if it got escalated to a slot supervisor, at a minimum I would become far more “high profile” than I already was. Whenever and whatever games I was looking at in the future, I would become a “person of interest” to this supervisor, who would know I’d been in a dispute just the other day. Generally speaking, I’d rather be invisible.

So far there had been no heat with me checking machines for playable games. If players are fighting over a machine, a casino might well decide that it’s better off without machines players fight over.

This was not a particularly unusual predicament for me to be in. Situations similar to this have happened frequently as I’ve played slots. In many venues, there are more players looking for advantage slot machines than there are such machines at any given time. In Las Vegas, where the competition is fierce, players can be aggressive about getting and keeping machines.

But this time, for whatever reason, I let the husband have the machine with no argument from me. It felt right at the time. Had the same thing happened the next day, I might have reached the opposite decision. It’s a matter of “feel” for me and each situation is a little bit different. And once the decision was made, I moved on and didn’t worry about it. Yes, I probably gave up a positive EV situation, but there would be others, and my bankroll is such that it’s hardly a big deal to let one go. This time, anyway, it became a “don’t sweat the small stuff” situation. Next time, another aphorism may apply.

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Halloween Aboard the Bliss

Bob Dancer

Bonnie and I each earn at least one highly discounted Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) cruise per year because of our Seven Stars status within the Caesars Total Rewards system. Cruising to the Mexican Riviera out of Los Angeles is our default trip. I have extended family in Southern California and we use the cruise as an excuse to get together. We’ll show up a day early, treat everybody to dinner, and one of them will provide a place to sleep and transportation to and from the ship. It works for all involved.

This year, we cruised on the Norwegian Bliss. The first of our two cruises was a 5-day affair immediately after the Bliss repositioned itself from its summer run in Alaska. Schedule-wise it worked for us, and in another month, Bonnie will go with her daughter and enjoy the seven-day version of the trip.

We’ve been to the ports. Sometimes we get off the ship, and sometimes we stay aboard. For us, we use it as an excuse to go dancing every night. And, of course, now I know a bit about slots, I look forward to visiting the casino. When I was strictly a video poker player, I avoided ship casinos. Not anymore.

The Bliss has the best casino at sea I’ve ever experienced — out of possibly 80 separate cruises. Perhaps other ships have the same or similar features, but this is the best for me so far. The top feature of it is that two-thirds of the casino is totally non-smoking, and the smoking part of it is behind sealed doors. Although some smoke drifts through when people open the doors to the sealed area to enter or exit, it’s by far the best cruise chip casino arrangement I’ve enjoyed so far. There are machines and table games in both areas. Although I walked through the smoking area once to see what was there, I avoided playing there. The cigarette smoke is much more concentrated in that sealed room than in a regular casino. Even when I could find no more playable machines in the non-smoking area, I left the casino rather than check out what machines were then playable in the smoking area.

It used to be that NCL would give you a green casino player’s card along with a separate card you could use to get a free drink in the casino. You were supposed to be playing when you ordered the free drink, but they didn’t always check very closely. These cards no longer exist.

Now you tap your room keycard on the machine (very similar to the way you can pay for things with your smart phone at some locations) and you’re logged onto that machine. When you’re done playing at that machine, you can either cash out into a TITO ticket or tap your card again and the money will go to your account.

The next time you play (it could be in a day or two — it could be at an adjacent machine), if you have money in your account, you can simply download it at the machine. On this particular trip, I was able to build credits to an excess of $2,000. I downloaded $200 of it and carried it between machines in a TITO, which I find much easier to deal with. If it went to zero, I’d download some more. If I hit a sizeable jackpot (but less than the W2-G threshold), I’d put all the money on my card and download another ticket for $200 or so. If I dropped a ticket and lost it, I’d rather it be for $200 than $2,000.

On the last night of the cruise, I turned slot points into free play, played them off, and collected all of the money in my account. I was told I could leave both slot points and money on my card and the next time I sailed on NCL both the money and slot points would be there safe and sound. I’d be willing to risk that if I were sailing on two back-to-back cruises, but not if, as in my current case, it’s going to be a year or so until I return.

Just as in an out-of-town land-based casino where I plan to return again and again, I know for certain that at some point I’m going to die or otherwise not be able to return and redeem accumulated points and money. I’d much rather that money be in my estate and distributed according to my will than being left in the NCL account forever. I’m not sure what the NCL does with abandoned cash and slot club points, but I’m sure it doesn’t go to my heirs.

The third feature I appreciated was that there were nine Super Star machines in the non-smoking area, each including Ultimate X, among several other games (like Super Times Pay, Spin Poker, and several other video poker games, and Keno).  

The Ultimate X games came in Triple Play, Five Play, and Ten Play — and each had five separate denominations — and each of those came in Double Bonus, Double Double Bonus, and Deuces Wild. That’s 45 separate games to check per machine. To fully load such a game requires 10 coins per line — five coins to collect money as you normally do in video poker and five additional coins to build new multipliers.

These games could return 95% or so to the player if played perfectly with ten coins per line. (Playing perfectly is extremely unlikely due to the difficulty of the strategies and the fact that strategies aren’t published for pay schedules that bad.) If you can find a game with unredeemed multipliers, you play one dealt hand and each time you do so you’re playing at least a 105% game, and it can exceed 1,000%. The latter number is rare and usually occurs when a 10-coin-per-line player was dealt a flush or full house and left the game immediately afterwards.

Over the five-day cruise I found 300-400 playable situations on this game. I certainly wasn’t the only person checking, but the good situations kept getting created over and over again by the not-so-knowledgeable players. When you have this many opportunities and always played at an advantage, it’s close to impossible to end up behind. And, with a little luck, you can end up way ahead. Over time you’re going to hit 4-of-a-kinds and royal flushes. Those are always good, but when you hit such hands with a multiplier, they’re even better.

There were playable slot machines as well. Some rather new ones that many players didn’t know how to exploit, and also some oldies-but-goodies like Scarab. This is a game that is well known, and I never check in Vegas because so many players know about it. But on a cruise ship? I checked regularly and found several playable situations.

My biggest score ($1,000) came on a slot machine, as well as my biggest losses (about $400, twice). Overall, though, I was easily ahead on both video poker and slots. I need to juggle my time so that I can eat and go dancing with Bonnie, but there’s still time for me to go check out machines in the casino a few times each day. I didn’t hit any W2-Gs this time even though I was playing machines where they were certainly possible. Maybe next time.

Next year around this time the Bliss will be assigned to the Mexican Riviera route again. That’s good news for Bonnie and me.

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Spirited Response

Bob Dancer

As I wrote a few weeks ago, Bonnie and I were in New Orleans when Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida. We didn’t feel it at all in the Crescent City, which was 300 miles west of where the eye of the storm hit the mainland.

The following Sunday we flew to Atlanta, so as to continue our “play-cation” at Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina. When we fly from Vegas, we fly into Asheville — which is about one hour away from Cherokee. Although there are direct flights from Las Vegas to Atlanta, it’s a three-hour drive from Atlanta to Cherokee.

From New Orleans, however, flights to Asheville require plane changes and many hours. The flight into Atlanta took about an hour and a half, so that’s what we signed up for. Less flight time, and more drive time. We flew Spirit Airlines.

This turned out to be a fortunate play. Helene wreaked havoc on Asheville, to the surprise of essentially everybody. Had we planned to fly into Asheville, our flight would have been cancelled because the airport was closed for a few days while repairs were being made. Several weeks later, repairs are still being made to parts of Asheville.

On the flight, Bonnie somehow left her iPhone on the seat next to her when she left the plane. We didn’t discover this until we were in Cherokee — three hours away. The “Find My Phone” app said her phone was in the Atlanta airport (ATL), Concourse D. This, of course, was good news. It was likely in Spirit Airlines lost and found.

We called Spirit, hoping to make arrangements for them to ship the phone to our home. I was prepared to pay whatever the shipping charge would be. This has to be a fairly common occurrence.

But I couldn’t get through on the phone. The message said my wait was expected to be in excess of 90 minutes. I set it to speaker phone and put it next to me while I played video poker. Two hours later they still said the wait was expected to be in excess of 90 minutes. I finally left my number. They said they would call me back when they could. Since we were still in the aftermath of the hurricane, with airports still closed and Hurricane Milton approaching, it was understandable that the airline’s phone system was swamped. But they never returned my call.

On their app, they had a place where you could file a lost and found report. I did this. I also filed a lost and found report online for the Atlanta airport just in case Bonnie, perhaps, left her phone in a bathroom or somewhere after she departed the plane.

Our scheduled flight home left ATL on a Sunday at about 8 a.m. The lost and found office is open 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. My “plan” was to talk to somebody and agree to pay them $200 to be at the office on Sunday morning about 6 a.m. That is much cheaper than buying a new phone and, for the right person, a $200 bonus was something worth changing their schedule for.

But talking to somebody in lost and found proved impossible. Spirit has a chat feature in their app, but every person I chatted with, including at the supervisor level, followed the company line. Wait for the lost and found to respond to your request. They would not give me a direct number to the Spirit lost and found at ATL or the Spirit executive offices at ATL. 

The lost and found sent me an email saying they hadn’t located Bonnie’s phone yet but were still looking.

I was considering renting a car. It’s a long drive, and I didn’t want to spend my vacation that way, but, again, it would be cheaper than buying a new phone.

Out of the blue, another possible solution arose. A gambling friend who happened to be in Cherokee at the same time mentioned that girlfriend was flying into ATL from Tampa Thursday night and then driving to Cherokee. I asked if she was the helpful sort who might be willing to check the Spirit lost and found while she was there.

“Probably,” I was told, and he gave me her phone number. Through talking and texting, I gave “Mary” a description of the phone, my lost and found claim number, and the code that would unlock the phone. 

I asked her if she had a phone charging cord that would work on an iPhone 13. She did, but it was at home. She now had a newer iPhone which requires a different charge cord. By the time I called she was already at the Tampa airport. “Okay,” I told Mary. “Give it your best shot.”

A few hours later, Mary sent me a text with a picture of Bonnie’s phone on it. There was a distinctive mark on her case that I recognized.  “Yes,” I told her. “That’s Bonnie’s phone.” Turned out she didn’t need to show ID or have the claim number or see if she could open it. They just gave it to her. That strikes me as irresponsible, but Bonnie and I benefited from it this time.

“Disasters” don’t always work out okay. And after listening to all the horror stories of people’s houses being washed away in nearby Asheville, the possible loss of Bonnie’s phone clearly wasn’t a disaster at all. But it felt like one at the time.

I was not at all pleased with Spirit’s system for dealing with customer complaints.

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Found a New Game

Bob Dancer

Sometimes I play video poker at the Eldorado in Reno. The Eldorado, along with the interconnected Silver Legacy and Circus Circus, make up the ROW, and they are the only Caesars Total Rewards properties in Reno. Some of the machines at the Eldorado are pretty old, but gradually they are being replaced with newer model machines.

During a recent trip, I hit a jackpot in the high limit slots area and was waiting for an attendant to come deal with it. I went to a nearby bank of Triple Play/Five Play/Ten Play machines to check pay schedules. Although I checked them several months ago, new machines are being added at this casino all of the time.

The machines were multi-denomination, from quarters to Five Dollars, and the pay schedules varied by denomination — with the best pay schedules on the $5 machines. So those are the ones I checked. And I found a pay schedule too good to be true.

It was 10/6 Double Double Bonus Poker (DDB). This is a 100.06% game if the straight flush pays 50-for-1, and about a tenth of a percent tighter if the straight flush pays 40-for-1. This was the 50-for-1 version! Although the casino has looser-than-average games in their high limit room, a game requiring $75, $125, or $250 to fully load returning more than 100% is downright juicy!

I carefully checked to see that the royal paid 4,000 coins. I’ve seen pay schedules where you only get 2,500. I also checked three-of-a-kind to verify that it paid 15. I have seen games which were otherwise identical, only paying 10 instead of 15 for three-of-a-kind, and the difference is huge.

The Total Rewards slot club there adds significant value. In addition to the normal slot club, the ROW offers Reward Credit and Tier Credit multipliers more frequently than many other casinos in that system. Add this on top of a 100%+ game — now we’re talking!

I’ve played many versions of DDB and have the strategies on my computer, which was upstairs in my room. But not recently. It’s been a while since I’ve played this game and I’ve played several similar-but-not-identical games since, so I figured I needed a refresher course.

I went upstairs and spent perhaps an hour refreshing myself on 10/6 DDB. It’s a fairly simple game, and I’ve played it a lot during the past, but I especially wanted to refresh myself on all of the straight flush draws. I’ve recently been playing games that return 5-for-1 for the flush rather than 6-for-1, and the draws are different. I also reviewed the A versus a suited JT, and the unsuited AQJ. When I was comfortable with the idiosyncrasies of this game, I went downstairs to have a go at it. 

There were three identical machines in the high limit room, and one was taken by another player playing a different game. I decided to play $5 Triple Play. This was a $75-per-play game. This was more than I had planned to play this trip, but the game was looser than I knew existed, and I had a line of credit there in case things went badly. Which they can. Most of you know that DDB has a “heaven or hell” type of variance. Not as large of a variance as some other games, but if I fail to hit enough quads, especially the premium quads with kickers, I’m not going to like my score at all.

One of the “problems” with this game is that all quads are hand pays that range between $1,250 and $10,000. Each one requires the intervention of a slot person (or two, for the bigger jackpots). If I have two or more machines available to me, I can hop over to the “spare” while I’m waiting for any machine containing a jackpot to be reset.

I was stuck about $2,000 when I hit my first quad — which happened to be fives. I knew my machine would lock up with the $1,250 hand. Except it didn’t lock up!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

I examined things more closely and discovered I only received $1,000 for the jackpot rather than $1,250. The ‘only’ thing shorted in this pay schedule was quads between fives and kings, paying 200 coins rather than 250. This changes the pay schedule to about 98.5%. No thanks! That’s not a terrible return for most high limit video poker, but the Eldorado has some games better than that. I went back to the machine I was playing originally.

I had looked at the pay schedule closely — but missed this particular change. I was simply not aware that this pay schedule, with this one change from the “regular” pay schedule, even existed. It cost me $1,000 to “learn my lesson.” This was not a disaster, but I’m Bob Dancer and am supposed to see these pay schedules instantly. Well, I missed this one! But now I’m aware of it,. I won’t miss it again.

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What It Takes to Lose

Bob Dancer

I have a gambling partner, “Abe,” and, in 2024, we split gambling wins and losses 50-50. Our partnership encompasses video poker, slots, and occasionally other games. I am the stronger partner when it comes to video poker, although the difference between us is shrinking. He is stronger on slots, overall, but I am more knowledgeable about certain games.

Abe and I recently played at an out-of-Las Vegas casino, accompanied by our wives, and also accompanied by “Bo,” who is one of our slot gurus. Bo is a man who lives outside of Nevada, makes a very nice living playing slots, and sometimes shares information with us. We saw a new game at the casino. Bo had heard about it and had some good ideas about how to beat it.

The game needed to be played a lot by others before it was ready for us to play it. The right conditions didn’t happen at this casino, so we didn’t play.

When we returned to Las Vegas, we found that game in several casinos, but usually not in a beatable condition. Eventually we found a game that met our criteria. I took a picture and texted that to Bo. He agreed conditions were right. He said that if he were in town, he’d snap it up. Although he didn’t have data on this particular game, he believed that it was similar to other games he knew well and that we should hit the jackpot within the next six hours or so.

Over the next 18 hours, Abe and I played this game and proceeded to lose $27,000, at which point we “pulled the plug” and gave up on it. The top jackpot was still on the machine and not in our pockets. Possibly we’ll play this game in the future, once more data is obtained, but right now we’re not sure if it’s not as Bo believed it was, or if we were just plain unlucky. Either explanation could be correct.

Most players wouldn’t have lost that much on the game. To do that, you had to have the bankroll and a lot of confidence that you’re on the “right side.” Relatively few players have that combination of bankroll and knowledge, at least on this game at the present time.

The vast majority of slot players believe the house has the advantage on whichever game they’re playing. They might try a game, see how it goes, and leave before they’ve lost too much. They probably would never have played this game for the stakes we were playing simply because they were unfamiliar with the game and didn’t recognize what a profitable opportunity it presented.

The three of us, Abe, Bo, and me, are now analyzing what happened. Our current “best guess” is that we were on the right side of the game and got unlucky. Over time, we’ll collect more data and come to a more definite conclusion as to the profitability of this particular game under these conditions.

The knowledge and willingness to gamble that we have has served us well over time — just not this time. 

Oh well, we’ll shake it off and keep doing what we’re doing.