When I wrote recently about hitting a $120,000 royal flush at Dotty’s and explained when I planned to return to playing there (after a four-month hiatus, which I explained in the earlier articles), I received the following comment from a reader who calls himself/herself Hop Hoofer:
You have a very small edge. And playing with an edge is mainly for preparing for the worst. Since the best, the $120K royal, already happened to you, why would you still want to risk your money? Your score will be balanced out eventually and most likely your profit will be evened out if you continue to play. If you are already ahead a lot, I don’t see a point of chasing for the tiny edge and losing your profit back.
Good question, and frankly, easy to answer. Still, at least one other reader agreed with Hop Hoofer, so I figure it is worthy of discussion. My response is far more general than that casino, with those promotions and games.
My edge at that casino wasn’t so “very small.” There are a LOT of different promotions going on there, some of which I didn’t write about. I mentioned the bonus on W-2Gs and the basic slot club, and the cash-back coupons, but as you play, you also receive bonuses at the machine. They start off small, $1 at a time, for the first $20,000 coin-in per day or so, but then they start to increase dramatically. It’s much better to play $200,000 twice a month there than $100,000 four times a month.
They have small weekly drawings where you don’t have to be there but have a week to collect. Periodically they have additional promotions of several varieties, but what these promotions have in common is that the bigger players tend to receive bigger awards than the smaller players. The amounts I play put me into the “bigger player” category, so these prizes add up. But it’s a “little bit here — a little bit there” type of adding up and the mix varies over time
By far my biggest concern with Hop Hoofer’s comment is that, “You’ve already hit the $120,000 royal,” is a backward-looking statement. Smart gamblers look forward, not backward.
My decision to play a game is based on what I perceive will happen in the future. If I calculate that the odds are sufficiently in my favor, I’m going to jump in. Whether I’m ahead at this particular casino or game this week/month/year/lifetime or not is not a consideration.
Another aspect to Hop Hoofer’s comment is an underlying belief that we have only so many royal flushes in us, that there is some sort of video poker score keeper in the sky, and that things will even out over time. I don’t believe any of this. Assuming my overall bankroll isn’t in severe jeopardy, whether I’m ahead or behind $100,000 at a particular game/casino has nothing to do with how the next hundred hours of gambling there will go.
When I was married to Shirley and I got ahead a lot at a casino, she wanted me to “quit while I was ahead.” When I got behind a lot at a casino, she wanted to “quit because I can’t win there.” I concluded that, bottom line, the stakes scared her. She didn’t really understand the math of gambling and had heard that in the long run all gamblers go broke. And she certainly didn’t want this to happen to us. So, she wanted to use stopping rules to protect us from the math.
Hop Hoofer’s comment of quitting because I’ve already hit a royal there reminds me very much of Shirley’s arguments. I suspect the size of the game is outside of his/her comfort zone and the comment is a knee jerk, well-being, “Save your bankroll at all costs,” type of reaction.
But I do believe I understand the math. I do believe I can handle the swings. And I do believe that I have the advantage. So, it’s full speed ahead.
And while I disagree with Hop Hoofer’s “advice” and, in fact, will do the opposite from what was recommended, I welcome the comment. In this instance, it provided fodder for another blogpost.
And if Hop Hoofer or anybody else decides something on the order of, “That’s all well and good for Dancer but I would never do it,” that’s okay too. Each of us, including me, has to make the best decisions we can and live with the results. That’s part of gambling. That’s part of life.
Hop’s thoughts remind me of the old Steve Miller tune….Take the Money and Run. But, looking forward is the only way to gamble. Having the advantage works by trusting the math.
My question to Hop is this….when/if you get ahead, are you going to stop gambling forever? If so, I might understand your argument. But if the answer is no, it’s not based on the math and I don’t agree.
A person might want to stop because they’re tired, hungry, or just had enough for the day….whatever. But, Taking the $$ and running is not a recipe for success if you’re going to include professional/serious recreational gambling as part of your life.
I knew when I read his Hop’s comment a few weeks ago that Bob might want to address his thoughts…glad he did.
For some gamblers — professional & recreational — the concern is not only EV but also risk of Gambler’s Ruin. Does one have the bankroll to weather both the good and bad swings? $120,000 RF is quite a good swing, but what if you lost over $250,000?
As Bob wrote, “Each of us, including me, has to make the best decisions we can and live with the results. “
@Neil Davies, you didn’t get my point at all. And I have read many of your comments and please stop pretending to be a Pro, you are not even close. My following comments are direct to you.
“hen/if you get ahead, are you going to stop gambling forever” It depends how much edge I can get. For 0.2% edge, absolutely no. So how much edgee would you risk $150 per hand? And you have no guarantee that you can hit the royal if even you play 100K hands.
@Skippy get the point of what I originally posted. @Neil Davies, If you really know math/risk/ruin etc. I doubt you don’t, … 9/6 JOB pays 99.54%, which includes all the possible combinations of the deal and draw scenarios. One scenario is the deal royal flush, which pays 0.12% and it happens every 1 in 649740 games. It certainly not gonna happen that much even if you play a lot. Without this hand, the game returns 99.54%-0.12%=99.42%. Have you ever hit a royal flush/straight flush on the draw by holding no cards? If you haven’t, your return will be even lower. There are lots of these rare scenarios that you won’t even see in your lifetime. How can you still believe this game, in reality, pays 99.54%?
This is exactly why there are many APs can’t win over time, because they calculate based on the theoretical return instead of the more “feasible return” of the game as I mentioned. This is why if you want to be successful, you need a much bigger edge.
And you clearly don’t understand what the edge is. The edge you have absolutely doesn’t improve the odds to hit., it only improves your bankroll, it gets your bankroll last longer. That’s all that it is about. Bob Dancer got lucky and hit that $120K royal very quickly, which is good for him, imagine he couldn’t get it after 100K hands, I doubt how much loss would he prepare to take before he started his plan. Clearly, he has one, but he didn’t mention it.
“Each of us, including me, has to make the best decisions we can and live with the results. “ I totally agree with this. And no one should copy another’s success without further study/research and think it’s easy said than done.
Since Bob’s blogs are mainly about showing how his success can be achieved by playing with an edge, readers should be very careful about copying them since it’s not as achievable as what you read.
@Hop Hoofer, that knife cuts both ways. I have personally hit 2 royals within 10 hands of each other. My wife has hit 5 royals in a single day, call it maybe 4,000 hands played (on 5-play, to be fair). Both of these events are very unlikely, many people will never experience them in a lifetime, but they do happen. How would you incorporate them into your analysis?
The EV is the EV. You can choose to ignore some less-common hands if you want to calculate the probability of certain actual results after X hands/dollars played, and that’s totally fine for budgeting your bankroll — but it doesn’t change the EV.
If the edge is solid and the bankroll is sufficient , whether you are betting $150/deal or playing nickels at 25 cents/deal should yield the same answer. Doubt many low rollers who hit a $200 nickel royal flush hang it up so why should Bob after hitting one for $120K?
Now bankroll is absolutley an important consideration, but if getting a big swing in a session causes you to contemplate a stop loss or take the money and run approach you are likely overplaying your bankroll.
For me personally the single day swings in my investment portfolio typically exceed the worst and best days at VP. With that frame of reference it’s hard to get too excited or depressed about either a good or bad run at the machines. I don’t sell all my stocks after a 1000 point run up in the DJIA, why would I stop playing VP after hitting a commensurate sized Royal?
SB
I have had 3 dealt royals and played a lot less than 500,000 hands so why would you say even one won’t happen?
It depends on whether you are playing negative or positive expectation. As a professional Bob only plays when it’s positive expectation, in cash. He has said so repeatedly in books, contrasting himself with his co-author Liam Daily who plays a good game but is willing to count the perks as part of his enjoyment.
The other thing that I think about Shirley is that she treated it more like a job, but had less interest in it than Bob. Bob clearly plays like a job, and avoids any game he can’t get an edge on, but it’s also a profession that he enjoys for non-monetary reasons. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be writing here and teaching all the classes.
I freely admit getting some non-monetary benefit out of the rushes for the four of a kinds and jackpots. I could play boring 9/6 Jacks or Better to maximize return but will take slightly less return to play Bonus or Double Double, or add some volatility by playing a carnival multiplier like Super Times Pay, Super Triple Play, Hot Roll, etc. I try for a break even game and practice strategy to a basic level, but ultimately I have a day job that pays the bills, and this is (a thinking man’s) entertainment. If I was significantly ahead at high stakes, I doubt I would go higher unless there was good reason to.
As far as I remember, the whole thing started that Mr Bob Dancer explained that he hit a big payout (120k) from that Royal Flush but then took a break from playing because he did not receive any mailers or very small mailers only. And then he would return to play under the condition that he would keep these mailers coming into his mailbox. That makes perfect sence. On the other hand, the payout of 120k (calculated before the investment he had) is so big that questions arised whether it’s worth it to continue the play if you risk that the mailers will be completely stopped and you are maybe even told to stop playing those games.
Of course the pond of good videopoker is constantly getting smaller and smaller these days and you really have to look for your spots. Station and Boyd do not seem to bring back frequent multiplayer days so soon and this is a sad fact, as those multiplier days were a great thing to boost my theoretical return. So I am still a bit on Hop Hoofer’s side in terms of whether or not I would continue playing at Dotty’s. Perhaps there’s another reason to play the games that hasn’t discussed yet. How about filling time, killing boredom? If there’s not much to do on any given day and there is a game available with a microscopic edge for the player, then why not going for it. While other people just drive around in their cars and do sight-seeing or others ride their bicycle , to some people it’s this game that keeps them entertained.
Me personally, I play these games knowing that I can probably not play better than 99.25 per cent accurate and therefore even under the best possible conditions I will probably play just slightly under break-even , all comps and meals included. Still that’s fine for me as I have a day job that feeds me and I don’t need to depend on videopoker winnings. A vacation trip to Vegas with heavy videopoker play doesn’t cost me more than going to any other tourist destination and hang around on the beach day after day.
From Switzerland
Boris
What could be more boring than sitting at a video poker machine for hours and hours, playing as fast as you can, talking to no one, because you have a theoretical 0.02% advantage? Seriously!
I’d like to expand and underscore the thought that psychology is a big factor, and is THE deciding factor for a lot of people. Bob D, while very human, nonetheless comes off as a very mechanical creature when it comes to playing VP. Many/most of us are just plain different. Hitting a royal flush is a MOMENT for us, because it happens so infrequently, less often than it’s supposed to. But in his writings, Bob expresses absolutely no joy, no psychological feelings, over the occurrence. Bob always seems to get his fair share of royals, and so he’s even or ahead in the long run. That just isn’t true for many of us. Many of us DON’T get our fair share, so we have a reason to celebrate royals, and to stop playing (for the day, not forever) if we get one. I’ve only beaten the royal cycle of 40,000-45,000 once in my life, getting 2 royals on one trip. Every other time, it’s been more than one cycle to get the next royal. And don’t forget that one of the core members of the old Skip Hughes Group, one of the “computer guys”, stopped playing VP forever because of an unending losing streak, while playing 10/7 Double Bonus. “The math” is only odds; it does not guarantee that ACTUAL RESULTS will be the same as the odds. In most cases, you will do better than or worse than “the math”, not right on it. But you will do worse than “the math” more often than you exceed it. I have seen both pro’s and non-pro’s who are like robots, totally devoid of emotions, while they are playing. That is simply not me, or most folks. To us, it matters whether we finish a session, or a day, or a trip, ahead, versus behind. If we’re lucky enough to finish ahead, then I say, yes, we should either stop, or else drop down in denom, so that we ensure that we finish ahead for that session or day or trip. Or we can go with the adage that if you have a nice win, put part of it in your pocket and don’t touch it, and only continue to play with the remainder; that way, if you lose it, you’ll still be ahead. This is not only sound thinking; it’s psychologically advantageous.
Hop
My only reply to your response is I hope BD will respond again to your thoughts. He has a much better handle
on explanations.
I get the math, and I get the possibility of losing a bankroll. That’s why I make the best decisions for me.
Not pretending to be a pro, I’m not that good or devoted. I like to have fun by not losing money.
I think the real point here is that every draw is independent of what happened prior. There is no waiting period for the next royal. if you test this, you will find that the return is the same no matter where you start the count. Starting directly after a royal will not lower the future expectation or return. This is a very hard concept for most people to accept. Many people say they know the “Math”, but their gut tells them otherwise, or they just don’t fully grasp difference between the law of large numbers and independent events.
If I flip a coin 10 million times, proportionately I should get 5 million heads. This proportionality will not change if I wait for a string of 10,000 tails and check what happens after that. If this worked, the roulette table would be the most profitable game in the casino. Why do you think the casino’s rake went up 30% when they introduced the tally boards? People just can’t wrap their heads around independent events or perhaps separate it from the law of large numbers.
Independence also means that someone has or will eventually be dealt 3 royal flushes in a row with 100% certainty. Do you want to miss being that person because you stopped while you were ahead knowing that the law of large numbers said the mean of the sample means will approach the population mean and you wrongly believe your sample must start gravitating to the population mean? Probability does not work that way.
I think that is what Mr. Dancer meant when he said he does not look backwards, just forwards.
Hitting the royal flush ISN’T the goal. Playing a +EV game/promotion IS! Hitting that royal flush didn’t change the ongoing +EV advantage Bob or anyone else had so why quit?
LCLarry
No Royal means you lose, no matter how good the promotion is. You just need the top award after having played a certain number of hands. Perhaps in the short run you are able to balance that out with good promos and some almost top award payouts, such as Aces /with kicker etc. However, play it long enough and you will find out that without the Royal Flush that has to come and visit from time to time you are walking on dire straits. I have been playing 2 weeks in a row and was with zero Royals and not enough sets of deuces after that period. You can imagine what the score looked like at that point….
From Switzerland
Boris
What’s the saying about past wins and losses when it comes to future gambling?
Oh yeah: “Lady Luck has amnesia.”
Neil wrote: My only reply to your response is I hope BD will respond again to your thoughts. He has a much better handle on explanations.
I don’t mind talking about this topic at all, but I have gone over and over and over this many, many times. I’m not sure what question is still pending. There comes a point where some people are dug into their position and no matter what somebody else says, it doesn’t change anything.
I don’t want this blog to turn into a “one trick pony” where I only talk about one subject.
Boris said this:
“No Royal means you lose, no matter how good the promotion is”
This simply is not necessarily true.
I can state that just vulturing Ultimate X, I don’t need a royal flush to crush the game. And that’s WITHOUT a players card or promotion.
Yeah Larry on that one you’re right. Ultimate X is the game with those multipliers varying and if you’re familiar with those patterns then of course xou have the edge. Thanks for bringing that up. I just never played that game therefore I forgot.
From Switzerland
Boris
Also Boris, if Bob were to quit and this same promotion come up 2 months later, is Bob foolish to play since he hit a royal last time? Doing the same thing 2 months later is no different than continuing now as long as the circumstances are the same.
Change of subject: why has Boyd and Station stopped offering multipliers to everybody, incl VP? and why did they clean out their casino floors by removing their 99.50 p and higher games? Why does station only give senior days multipliers to invited locals? This is something I don’t like at all.
Bob has fallen for the common social media pitfall of responding to the dumbest 1% of his readers.
No matter what your take on this, it’s always interesting reading other people’s opinions when it comes to their approach about gambling.
And…Hop…one last mention. I very seldom comment here. I read the column a lot to gather good info.
Maybe you have me confused with someone else.
First this is my first post on here, and I want to thank Bob Dancer for all the articles and podcasts over the years. You, Richard, Mike Shackleford, and your guests have been very helpful and inspiring to me in my AP journey.
At a basic math level I am firmly in BD’s camp here — EV is EV, it doesn’t matter if you just hit a royal or 3 of them or none.
However what we should really be after in life is utility, not money. By utility I mean happiness, pleasure, and/or absence of pain. Money is one way to get some utility, but not the only one. Some blackjack book I read said a card counter is only at his/her all-time high mark about 1% of the time, and I assume it’s the same or less for VP advantage players. Some may derive a lot of utility from pausing at a high point, basking in the glow of that royal or big table game win, enjoying dinner and the drive home having triumphed that particular day or trip. That might be worth more in utility than the EV of the rest of the day’s play.
Now if you are playing a special promotion or in conditions that are quite lucrative compared to your usual opportunities, this sort of indulgence could be quite expensive in terms of EV. If you have spent a lot on travel to get there for a limited time, that time becomes premium. Advantage players have to take advantage of good edges when they come, or they won’t be successful in the end.
However there might be practical reasons to quit earlier than you planned. If you were to hit a second royal in a day, might you get barred? I’ve heard that casinos have barred even non-advantage players just because they won too much. If you play table games with no players card, you might also have to show ID if you reach or even get close to the CTR threshold. I have only one casino within an hour’s drive. I play table games on a players card and one thing I do to preserve my welcome is to not win too much in one day. Not sure if it is necessary, but I will err on the side of caution. If some very juicy but temporary situation came up, I might have to chance it.
Boris – Station Casinos spiral of horrendous business decisions and direction started in January 2020. I was one of the last players to play on their full pay Deuces Wild before they pulled them. Even then, the belt had been tightened and it was low denomination only. They pulled the buffets, EXTREMELY popular and got asses in the seats, amongst a lot of other things that locals and tourists enjoyed alike. Let me tell you this, their strategy of wanting to get into the premium player market and away from the lower profit margin locals market, is like playing with fire. We all know how their takeover of Palms went when the economy tanked. Wealthier folks know how tighten a belt too during uncertain times. The LV Strip was down 12% in revenue this November compared to last, I’m sure mostly inflation related and continued price gouging on the Strip. Station had to dump the Fiesta’s, etc god knows what else to front stacks of cash to build a new (another one?) premium casino south of Mandalay. What a joke. Vegas’s best days are long in the rearview and anyone doing business with Station better jump ship, this thing is taking on water and has been for a long time. Corporations taking over large entities decrease service, amenities, and ultimately run them into the ground in their pursuit of profit, all the while de-valuing the player experience. Why do you think downtown is so crowded and more popular than ever? Despite the crowds and crime, a lot of the lower bankroll players from all over are heading there in droves instead. At least they feel somewhat appreciated and welcomed and aren’t nickeled dimed for an inferior, and quite frankly, reduced level of every service imaginable. They don’t even provide housekeeping during a multi-day stay anymore. How does something like this even pass mustard the Health Dept? I would NEVER stay in a LV hotel for FREE, much less pay exorbitant rates plus the good ole rip off, I mean ‘resort’ fee, excuse me. I forgot you have to pay extra for such things as using a treadmill and printer. But local calls are still free!
I am not sure what people are arguing about here. It’s like talking about Trump, you either love or hate him and are not going to change their mind. Bob is clearly a professional gambler and knows what he is doing. Telling him what to do is pointless. It’s like telling Tom Brady how to play quarterback.
Hey JC, that was quite a linera analysis in my opinion. Not sure what went on in the station casinos managers’ heads when they made these decisions. One of the reason why they must offer better rates, lower priced restaurant deals and lower hotel rates than the Strip is because they cater to the locals’ market mainly. Whenever I drive by Green Valley Ranch or Palace Station and see the big sign saying ….that this senior day is for “invited locals only” (and that single multiplier day that I saw at GVR with the same disclaimer on the screen), I knew that I will not set my foot into one of those places until the day they face reality and bring back better deals.
Santa Fe Station once used to be one of my favorite places because liked it there. Those days are long gone. My players card level has been set back to the lowest tear and I have 1 single point on it because I had to try out something last time during my visit. That point will be auto-reset to zero some time this spring and this will be it for me. I had the president status before covid started and this is quite high for a tourist who only gets to play a few weeks every year.
Imagine the locals that go there and play , let’s say 2x / week, under these horrible conditions. These minor conditions may add up to a huge loss by the end of each year. Some locals will find out , perhaps when it’s too late already.
From Switzerland
Boris
One aspect of this discussion that hasn’t been raised is the tax implications. For Mr. Dancer, future losses in the same tax year can be counted against his winnings. I assume that as a professional gambler, Bob may be able to use losses against winnings even if he were to claim the standard deduction (although he probably doesn’t). That alone can be reason to continue to play as any losses help lower the eventual tax bill.
For us non-pros, we would have to itemize in order to count losses against our winnings. Recent changes in the tax laws have made itemizing harder to financially justify. That means I would be paying income tax on an entire win of a $4,000 royal even if I was down a $1,000 prior to the win. So when I’m fortunate enough to hit a win that generates a W-2, it affects how much I play and especially how high a denomination I play going forward for the remainder of the year. Professional gamblers like Bob can use the tax obligations to their advantage (and should) but for us recreational players, the tax burden can be quite unfair. The threshold for generating a W-2 on slots or video poker is $1200 and hasn’t changed in over 45 years! Gas was less than a dollar a gallon back in 1977. Isn’t it time to raise that threshold?
If Bob is playing a truly +EV game, is confident in the math, and is making enough “hourly” in the EV that he feels it’s worth it – then big picture, why would he stop?
A 0.2% edge on 200K coin in is $400. That’s $50 an hour for an 8 hour day… and I’m sure it’s less than 8 hours worth of effort.
@ Patrick Campell
In your final comments you mention the W-2 problem. In terms of tax , tourists like me are under heavy pressure as it comes to paying taxes on non-domestic winnings. It always depends in which country you live and what sort of contract exists between my country and the country I go and gamble. There are a lot of WSOP players from Europe visiting Las Vegas each and every year. Some of them may not have paid any attention to that subject as they probably only see the big number and the big dream in front of their eyes. Let’s pretend you manage to be at the final table and now you win 2 Million Dollars , guys like me would only receive 1.4 Million as the rest would be taken off the top rightaway. People from other countries may have to pay the tax in their country. It always depends.
For years I’ve been playing videopoker and whenever I see these banks with big progressives , I feel tempted to jump in and try my luck. The problem is that I would only get 70 per cent of whatever is shown on display. And then, believe it or not, my country would have me pay again, as foreign jackpot winnings are taxable. Would you play on under such conditions?
Since you mentioned that the threshold for paying taxes has never been lifted in so many years and the law goes back into the 70s (or 80s?) when it was implemented? It’s funny indeed if you think about how much 1200 dollars could buy you in those days and how much it’s worth today. Not only speaking about gas prices that have quadrupled since.
Last week, there was a player at the casino where I happen to be quite often. He won a 115’000 francs jackpot. He was paid top dollar and within 30 minutes after hitting that jackpot. I think this is the way it’s supposed to be. Interesting fact also, if you win big on a non-jackpot table game or win huge in a high stakes poker game in Las Vegas, you can walk away without paying any tax, but if you win a 1200 dollar “jackpot” on a slotmachine, they come and have you sign those silly white sheets of paper…..
From Switzerland
Boris