Hello LVA

Here's another way of thinking about it that may help. Let's say a team has 10 members and there are two progressives (10 machines) at the same denom and same return at two different casinos. I could lock up one of the casinos by placing all 10 members there.

The fact is it makes no difference what you do. You could split the team anyway you like and the expected return is exactly the same.

Dude, this is wickedly brilliant!! This is the best post I've ever seen from you. Create a challenge thus: The LVA video poker challenge; design a video poker system that guarantees a loss if the paytable is positive.

That's easy. The AlanLeroy System: Never hold anything. It takes all of the difficulty out of the game too....and you can go a lot faster when playing for progressives. Now combine that with Singer's Progressive Betting system and there's nothing that could go wrong go wrong.

Arc, I am really surprised at you. Are you trying to tell me that taking a 50-50 shot at playing two progressives with half a team at two casinos is the same as guaranteeing yourself a win by locking up all of the seats at one casino?

Im afraid you have been blinded by your own math, my friend.

edited to add: What happens if you happen to lose both progressives?

Let me tell you a little story...

Once upon a time there were four couples from Reno who travelled to Rincon to play a bank of five DDB machines when the progressives got high.

The Men played at four of the five machines at night. The women played at the same four of the five machines during the day.

When they were low on money they played slowly so they wouldnt have to give up their seats until "the next shift" (their spouse) came to take their place with more cash.

In the end a player in the fifth seat got the progressive, and the "team" lost money playing a 9/5 DDB game (negative expectation game) even though they were loaded with W2s from quads and quads with kickers.

And then, they tried it again... taking shifts... and they lost to a player in the fifth seat...

And then, a third time they made the trip, and this time they lost it again...

And they havent been seen again...

You play another day. What happens if you win both progressives?

It will be interesting to see what Frank would do. I suspect the situation is so unlikely it might never have occurred. Usually, there will be some difference in the progressives and it's unlikely he would have an exact match of team players with available seats.

Arc, you might be a smart guy with math, and you might be brilliant as a VP player, but you are a lousy businessman.

I think Frank will tell us that running a "progressive team" is a business. And if you lose too many progressives playing a negative expectation game, you will go out of business.

Please see my edit to my previous post where I again tell the story about the Reno four at Rincon. They had 80% of the seats and still lost.

You finally make some sense when you talk about having the number of players to match the number of seats. If I were financing a team, I would want to make 100% sure that my team is getting the progressive -- otherwise I am financing a money losing (negative expectation game) enterprise.

the only one who can keep playing another day after too many losses is Uncle Sam because he prints his own money. The rest of us -- like it or not -- have a definitive bankroll.

"play another day" is something that is part of your theoretical long term math. Sorry, no one but Uncle Sam can do that. If you don't win enough, you will eventually run out of other days to play.

Preliminary non-reply

There is one thing arcimedes said for which I need to provide a counter argument before I get to answering the last 3 days of questions.

arcimedes has stated multiple times that, “it's simple math”. The common definition of, “simple” is something which is uncomplicated. To be truly simple a concept must also be easy to impart to others. Though probability math might technically meet the first criteria for “simple” it turns out it fails pretty horribly for the second. In my book I have a quote from the book Randomness by Debora J. Bennett where a math teacher was asked what subject she found the most difficult to teach. She replied, “that probably teaching probability properly was the most problematic”. My research has born this out as it appears the reasons people have difficulty with basic probability concepts turns out to be sociological, physiological, and psychological. Scientists believe evolution has hard wired us to see patterns, spot connections and find meaning in all things to such a point that we think we see such things, even when what we are looking at is random and meaningless.

Now here's the kicker: Those of us, like myself, that easily understand randomness may actually do so because of a mutation and mental deficit which makes it harder for us to spot patterns. I have a mild form of dyslexia that crops up when I proof read. If I read a misspelled word I see it spelled correctly. I never see the hidden image in “magic pictures”. There are other examples and it becomes apparent in my daily life. Once I asked a passerby for information, and my companion immediately said, “You aren't going to listen to what he said. Did you see how he was dressed?” I replied, “no I didn't, and I'm not seeing the connection now.” Apparently, and this was news to me, people draw conclusions about a person's intelligence based on their appearance or dress. I never had. Basically folks with my disability tend to be less biased and less likely to see connections where there aren't any, and pay for that “gift” by having to take the long route to information others consider self evident. It has its ups and downs.

It might interest you to know that despite having a 168 IQ, six languages to her name and graduating top student in her entire county (South Africa) my mother had a very hard time understanding basic probability concepts, especially randomness. Some people's brains just aren't structured to grasp the concept. I might also interest you to know that when the first mathematicians tried to introduce the concept of randomness into society is was taken so badly there were multiple cases of people being burned at the stake, imprisoned and stoned to death. The author of the first book on gambling math (Gerolamo Cardano) never published it for fear of reprisal by the Church. What was so controversial in his book that he feared torture and death for saying it? He had boldly stated that, “some things can just happen and that their outcome was governed by probability”.

Is probability math and understanding randomness “simple”? Probably not, and by “probably” I mean there's a 93.267% chance you'll have a hard time explaining it to anyone that doesn't think exactly the same way you do-- for which the occurrence rate is slightly under .0009675%...taking into account base rate information you might meet one if you go on walkabout for the next 40 years.

Hope that's clear as mud.

Replies to questions to come later today.

~FK

Nope, repeating nonsense will never make it true. As I stated previously and you obviously didn't read, ALL VP games are negative if you ignore the RF. A progressive is not that much different. What is different is the variance which translates into bankroll requirements. But then I've stated this a dozen times as well. One has to wonder how long you will keep ignoring facts and continue spewing ridiculous nonsense.

That sounds like some kind of bedtime story that you would tell your kids to make them go to sleep. LOL

You should have ended it by saying............

And the moral of the story is if they would haved listened to Singer then they would have all been big winners and lived happily ever after!

OK the main question on the plate would seem to be how teams perceive competition. Let me give you a true non gambling related story to give you the gist. I know how hard this is to understand, so I apologize in advance if I over explain it.

My friend Scott used to buy Volkswagen Bugs in Indiana for about $200, drive them to Las Vegas and sell them for $1,200. He told me once it was like shooting fish in a barrel. He'd get up Sunday, check the paper for vehicle sales, saunter over the nearest seller with his cousin to drive the car back...and by later that same day he'd have his next week's work & income. After about two years of doing this unopposed he got competition. Someone else was doing the same thing. Arrgh!!! Now instead of getting to sleep in and having his pick of beat up bugs Sunday afternoon, he had to get up early and rush to the seller to beat out his competition. Here's the important part of this story. When he was able to purchase a bug, the profit he made from the transaction was identical to when he was the only shark in the goldfish bowl. $200 to buy it, and a $1,000 profit after resale. It simply took him longer to find vehicles with someone else snatching them up. What once took a single day now might involve a week of searching...but when he found a bug for sale the profit was the same. MORE TIME - SAME MONEY!

Now let's give you a VP example. Imagine a local bar has a video poker machine reserved just for you. You can go in and play it as much as you want whenever you want. When you leave, no one else is allowed to play it. It is just for you. For a year you go in at your leisure and play; some days you hit a Royal, others you don't. You average 1 Royal a week, playing 8 hours a day 5 days a week. Suddenly they decide to institute a new policy: They will only pay out one Royal a day for the entire bar and then they will shut down all the machines for the day. Now if you are playing your daily 8 hour shift it can get interrupted (by others hitting a Royal on their machines) and you have to go home for the day. You find that to get your 40 hours in, it now takes more like 4 weeks with all the interruptions. It still takes you 40 hours to hit your Royal. You still get paid the same for the Royal. Your losses on average are still exactly the same. The only difference is now your weekly jackpot has become a monthly jackpot. MORE TIME - SAME MONEY!

As professional progressive video poker players we expect on average to get one Royal Flush for every 32,000 hands of play we do collectively (or independently). In the absence of competition there are no interruptions, and we are guaranteed to get our next Jackpot during that one continuous play session. In the presence of competition there may be interruptions before our next Jackpot, requiring us to go home and wait for the next high one. In the fullness of time we will still average 1 Royal for every 32,000 hands we play. Our losses to hit that Royal will be identical to what they would have been without competition (what happens on other machines does not effect our machines—just like the mythical bar in above story). And our profit margin will be unaffected on that Jackpot. We may get less Jackpots, and it may take longer to hit them because of competition, but the per JP profit is unaffected. MORE TIME - SAME MONEY!

Competition on a progressive reduces the number of hands you can play in a day...nothing more, nothing less. It has no effect on percentage edge in any way other than to reduce the time you can take advantage of that edge for that particular Jackpot.

Now here's a made up conversation between a waitress and a businessman to illustrate a related thought process:

Honey I think you should come work for my company, you're only making $100 a day in tips and salary, I could get you $200 a day working for my firm.

Doesn't your firm only pay you once a month?

Yes, they pay me once every 4 weeks. How is that relevant?

Well I wouldn't want to work for nothing 27 days out of every 28.

But you wouldn't be working for nothing, you'd be making twice what you get paid now for the month.

But you said they only pay you once a month?

Yes I did.

So you work for nothing most of the month and then get paid a lot for one day. I was wondering, why don't you only go in for the day they pay you, and skip all the days where you aren't getting paid?

Because it doesn't work that way. They pay me on one day for the work I've done all month. If I only went in for one day, I'd only get paid for one day, and I'd be making $200 a month instead of $4,000 and unable to keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed.

I don't understand!

That is clear. How about you pass me a beer and we drop the subject.
_______________________________

There are two indispensable variables for calculating income as in the above story:

1. Amount (How much you are getting paid)
2. Frequency (How often you are getting paid)

If you look at one and not the other it will lead you to irrational conclusions like our made up waitress that would rather sling hash than double her income. She looked only at frequency. It is easy to make such judgments in the real world. The data points become obscured in gambling because of the random element, but they are no less present and they will lead to no less ridiculous conclusions if they are ignored.

If you are still unclear on anything let me know?