35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 14

Last week I talked about the great profitability potential on the advantage-play path we took during what I called the Golden Years of Video Poker. But now I will be discussing the change in that path after the Great Recession hit in 2008.

It wasn’t a sudden change but there was a definite trend downhill. The bean counters came in and initiated cuts that would help the casino bottom lines recover from the financial downturn.  Hosts were getting more restricted in giving out discretionary comps.  Players clubs were reorganized with higher requirements to earn benefits. And most damaging for the video poker player, paytables were being slashed right and left.

Advantage VP players definitely had to start working harder – doing more scouting, broadening game choices, being more flexible about when and where to play. Brad and I had to take to heart – and put into action – the precept I had been trumpeting for years:  Never marry a casino; just have temporary affairs!

I had shared the information here that we had reached a million dollars in profit by 2007, after starting on this advantage-play path in 1984.  I remember Brad saying then that he figured we definitely could/would reach the two-million mark in the next few years. Although now, 68 and 75, we both were still healthy and still loving to do what we had been doing for the last 23 years, I was a little more cautious about the future. I pointed out that things could change – in our life and in the casino environment.

And changes did come for us, although not right away.  Actually, from 2008 through 2014, in spite of many casino downgrades, we had one of our best and longest winning runs. We were halfway to Brad’s optimistic new goal.

How and why did that happen?  It’s all about volatility – the bad and the good effects.  During the Golden Age, we did have one losing year in spite of our play with a large overall percentage edge.  But with a smaller edge in 2008-2014, we had no losing years and, in fact, we had a string of some of the best yearly totals ever.  What is the main element of volatility?   Two words!  Royal flush!   We experienced a royal flush flood in 6 of those 7 years.

In 2015, that flood ended, actually turning into a royal flush drought, and we suffered just our 3^rd losing year ever.  We were now also playing with a much much smaller edge and despaired that we would ever be able to pull out a profit again.  However, we kept the faith and kept playing.  We made a small profit in two of the next three years and surprised ourselves by a large gain in the other year that covered the losing 2015 – and added to Brad’s 2-million goal.

Stay tuned and next week I will tell you about 2019, our last year on the advantage-play path.