Video Poker

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 21 – Summary

Now to conclude this series, I want to answer a couple of questions that sent me into some deep thinking:  What were the main secrets of your success?  Do you think luck played a big part in this success?

On that first question, my answer to anyone wanting me to give them my “secret” to be a winning gambler would be, “There is no one secret – no silver bullet of 25 words or less.  I gave thousands and thousands of secrets in the 5 books I wrote.”

But perhaps what many people may want are basic personal characteristics, not specific techniques.  So here are some of the general fundamentals that I think contributed to Brad’s and my successful casino gambling.

First, we had the passion.  Although we always enjoyed the recreational aspect of gambling, our long-term goal was not to lose money doing it.

Then, we learned that if we worked hard, we wouldn’t just not lose, but we could make money while we were having fun. I’ve said this over and over – successful gambling is NEVER easy.  This meant continuous study and constant research.  Most of the 35 years we played, I spent almost as much time looking for helpful information than we actually spent at a VP machine.   I also spent a lot of time communicating with other players. We never belonged to a formal information- exchange group, but I was always consulting with old friends and happy to make new ones with whom to share helpful casino details.

Then I was an organized detail person, reading every word of every casino mailing we ever received.   I spent hours making a calendar schedule that would allow us to make the best use of our time with the best plays.

Next, we were very disciplined. Yes, sometimes we wanted to play a favorite game, but another one was a much better play. Yes, we went through many painful losing sessions, but we never went on tilt and change to a lower-EV game.  If there was no good play at a particular time, we would choose another activity – a movie perhaps  or back home to watch TV;  we never played just to be playing.

Now for the question of luck.  Yes, we were lucky that we were able to do our early casino life during that wonderful golden period when gambling opportunities were abundant.  We were lucky that our health held out to let us continue until a ripe old age.

But perhaps the luckiest thing was that Brad and I found each other 36 years ago and found he and I were on the same page of life.  We have very different personalities and strengths, but that worked to our benefit.  I was the “secretary” who liked to stay at home a lot and do paperwork preparation and the organization, and Brad loved being in a casino as much as possible.  Brad always said I was the “general” who made up the war plan and he was the faithful “soldier” who went out to fight on the battlefield.

Back many years ago when he had his heart attack, the doctor suggested he drink a glass of wine every day.  So, on a morning when I was staying home in our office to work on my computer, I would give him his instructions for the day: Go to Casino A and pick up free play, go to Casino B and play 10,000 points on xxx machine and don’t forget to order a glass of wine from the cocktail waitress, and then stop at Casino C and use a food coupon to bring home our dinner.  Brad would laugh as he went out the door, “I bet I’m the only husband in the world that a wife sends him out in the morning to drink and gamble!”

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 20 – Q+A

Some of the questions that are coming in are obviously from players fairly new to casino gambling or at least new to video poker.  And I am glad for this newbie interest as many of us old-timers are slowly fading away.  However, some of their questions require answers that are too long to cover in a blog.  Casinos have so many different policies and there are so many exceptions to the rules that explanations need to be lengthy and full of details.  Actually, these types of questions were the reason for me writing 5 books over the years!

Take the subject of tipping.  Someone asked me to discuss tipping as you move up in stakes.  I wrote a whole 15-page chapter on the subject in my book More Frugal Gambling plus 4 more pages in the chapter about hosts, called “Rewarding Your Host.”

And questions about our experiences with hosts?  It took me two long chapters in the aforementioned book to discuss the ins and outs of that extremely complex subject. In that same book is a chapter if you are puzzled about casino couponing or bankroll management.

If you need a beginner’s guide to playing video poker, you could pick up Frugal Video Poker; and if you need help in looking for good VP games, The Frugal Video Poker Scouting Guide will definitely be helpful.  Someone asked about our recordkeeping and I would point out that I included examples in my very first book, The Frugal Gambler, the kind of records I used right up until we retired in 2019.

Yes, most of my books were written back when casino conditions were good for advantage players so you would have to ignore the information that is outdated.  However, many details in these books can help you do better in your play today.  Then in my latest book, The Frugal Gambler Casino Guide, I changed the emphasis because of today’s changing casino conditions.  New players – and even some old ones – may need to have a more realistic goal – not to “make money” but to stretch their bankroll so they can enjoy more entertainment time in a casino.  There is a new category of gamblers chipping away at the ranks of the advantage player; I call it the skilled recreational player.   

The point I want to make is that although the casino scene has radically changed in the last 35 years, the math of gambling has never changed and many casino gambling basics are still valid. And many techniques we used in our early days can be modified to make you more successful in the present day – or at least when Corona no longer rules.

This discussion leads me into a question that I have often been asked: “Did you and Brad ever play when you didn’t have an edge over the casino?”

I have already discussed, back in Chapter 12, one instance when we played slots with wild abandon.  It was going to be our last casino visit before our retirement.

But there were other times of non-advantage play, although not frequent. I was a devout worshipper of Plus EV.  I have mentioned before that I always had a healthy fear of going broke, and I knew one couldn’t outsmart the math.  So, during out first years of playing video poker, we stuck 99.99% of the time with over 100% plays, the higher  the EV the better.  I also knew that one could also go broke, even playing over 100%, by overplaying one’s bankroll, so we very slowly and cautiously increased our denomination level.  Only when we had accumulated a very large bankroll was I comfortable with doing some “recreational play.”  This was usually done when relatives came to town and wanted to play slots.  A favorite choice when daughter Angela and her hubby Steve came to Vegas to visit was the four of us sitting  at the “community fishing machines,” noisily competing to catch the biggest fish.

Once the new video slot machines came in, occasionally Brad and I would agree that we had already “made our fortune” and we would pick some slot machine that looked exciting.  It would be fun if we were with a friend with whom we could pool our small “investment.”   It was also fun when we occasionally got some free play that could be used only on slots, not VP.

A few times, back when I was writing my early books that included chapters on slots, I would need to play slots at least a little; I called that my “research play.”  And occasionally we were in a casino to collect free play and there was no playable VP.  I always said that I preferred slots to bad VP paytables.  Another time to choose slots was for some “cover” when I had heard that this casino was no-mailing customers who only played VP.  This was a delicate dance to be sure your negative slot play didn’t erase your total advantage on VP.

———–

A few more questions to address.  Next week I will be bringing this series to a close – finally!

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 19– Q+A

Q:  Love the financial details. However, I would be curious about just one year. What, if I may ask, was your final result the year you won the 250k? I would be happy just to know if it was more or less than 250k. The exact number isn’t really important. Special congratulations would be in order if it was more!

A:  We were running hot that whole year we won the Caesars Million Dollar tournament.  Even without that cash bounce – 250K after we split the 1/2 million with our tournament partners – our bottom-line result would have put us in our Top Five “best years.”

Brad holding the trophy, flanked by his two favorite girls at the Caesars  tournament awards dinner.

Q:  Were any of the games you played in your early days still around by the time you finished your gambling journey?

A:  9/6 JoB has always been available to us for our 35+ years of play, but for many of the early years we had stuck mostly to the higher-EV Full-pay Deuces Wild, which was widely available for our quarter-play level.  When we went to dollars, we often found strong enough extra benefits and promotions to make JoB a better per-hour choice.

In fact, our last big play, in early 2019, was on the 9/6 JoB Fifty Play at Harrah’s Tahoe.  I forget the exact promotional details, but the edge – maybe 2-3%? – was the best marketing offer we had come across for several years, worth a plane trip from Vegas.

I will confess that the heavy play that we would need to put in for this offer scared me a bit, because we were facing theoretically a possible huge loss that we probably could not “smooth over” by other big plays in the future.  Single-line $1 NSUD – the best play it seemed we were stuck with in Vegas – would never make up big losses.  But we decided to take the risk.    Disappointingly, we didn’t score the big win amount that the theoretical edge promised. But we knew from long experience that the edge math figures were for long-term play.  However, we didn’t lose;  in fact, we came home with a couple of thousand dollars trip profit, very happy –and relieved! – for the “good luck” on this short-term risky endeavor.

I remember another time many years earlier when we did a risky short-term play and the end results weren’t so lucky.  Harrah’s Laughlin had put in $5 Double Bonus (100.17 % EV) during the time that there were few positive games at the higher denominations; one usually needed to find the best-available negative game in a casino where the extra benefits boasted the play EV over 100%.  We pounded that DB game for many hours a day over a whole weekend.  I forget what edge we had but with the extras  it was what we considered a good play at the time.  We had a very substantial bankroll and had already started playing some at higher levels, but the 20K we lost that weekend gave us an emotional shock.  We should not have been so surprised since we had been playing Double Bonus at the $1-$2 levels for years and knew it was a very volatile game.   But losing so much so fast reminded us that although VP math was an undeniably trustworthy guide, it was only for a long-term journey.

However, this incident many years ago was different than the situation in Tahoe I described earlier, one  that made us fearful.  We knew that we would have many more opportunities to play at similar high levels so it didn’t make us change the way we played.  We kept playing, even at higher levels when we found an opportunity where we would have a good advantage.  And although it is never “fun” to lose, we were learning to accept the inevitable losses, even the big ones.  The longer we played it helped that we could look back at our records and be reminded of our positive long-term results of the past and keep the faith in the math for the future.

Q: What is your favorite casino?

A: I’ve been asked this question for 20+ years – and the answer has always been the same:  The one with the best advantage play at the moment!

Why won’t I give specific casino names?

For one thing it depends on when you asked the question.  If I mention where I will play on Monday, it is very unlikely that where I play on Saturday will be the same. If you asked me that in 2000, the casino I mention may likely not even exist today – perhaps blown up and its ashes in the wind.

Another reason I avoid specifics is that sometimes other players take my information as recommendations.  But if I am playing dollars at a particular casino, it might have no good opportunities for quarter players.  I might be playing at a Vegas casino that markets to locals and it would not give any advantages to out-of-town tourists or visa-versa.

Looking back over our 35+ years of visiting and playing in casinos all over the world, no one casinos stands above another – just a flood of happy memories from all over!

 

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 18 – Q+A

Your questions keep pouring in!

Q: When you said that your winnings had reached $1.6 million, did you mean gross collections without losses having been deducted, or did you mean net profit? The two different figures could be VERY different!

A:  Very different indeed!  And I probably shouldn’t have used the word “winnings.”  I have heard so many people talk about their “lucky” friends who always came back from  Vegas with “big wins.”  In 99.9% cases, those visitors were bragging about their big “jackpots” but never go on to say whether they brought home any of that jackpot money.  It is not so exciting to talk about all the losing sessions.

That figure I gave is NET win, that is – profits.  Whenever I talk about big individual jackpots, I try to always balance that with details about losing sessions.  Big jackpots are thrilling to experience, but all advantage players know that long-term successful gambling is a grind.  Video poker players know that they will suffer many losing sessions between those exciting jackpots.

Related to this question is one that asks whether we counted the value of comps in our cumulative profit number.

For the first years of our casino vacations, we would count comps in our calculations as a way to stretch our entertainment budget.  However, as we were spending more time in Vegas and in other casino venues and were also playing video poker at higher denominations, we were earning more comps than we could have afforded with our regular modest financial situation.   So that was the time we stopped adding the value of comps.  We would choose plays that had an EV (theoretical expected value) of over 100% on the play itself.  Any comps would be “gravy.”

Other related questions on this topic of gambling profit had to do with what we counted in our “Win” column.  Obviously, that included cash that came directly from winning on a casino game.  But there were other profit sources:  A big one was cash – or more frequently freeplay – that came from players club benefits and the casino marketing department.  Especially in the later years, when good games were being removed and paytables were being downgraded, these cash/free play offers were the only thing that could put the mostly negative games into positive territory.  Plus, promotions were always a major profit source, like multiple-point days, tournaments, and drawings. Couponing, especially in the early days, was almost always a good way to add some plus numbers in the “Win” column.

Some items that might have seemed to be in the comp category – and not counted as “winnings” – I sometimes did add as gambling profits.  We earned a lot of gift cards in various casino promotions over the years.  If we used them for purchases that we would make anyway – for example in stores that sold groceries, gas, electronics, clothing – I viewed them as cash-equivalents and therefore gambling profits.  Sometimes I would end up with cards we just couldn’t use – in the last years we were not in the accumulating-stuff stage – but we had children and grandchildren that never saw a gift card they couldn’t take off our hands!

So, checking our detailed records I kept the last 23 years of casino advantage play –   a winding path with lots of twists and turns, a few glorious mountaintop points, and many slogs through valleys – I see that we averaged a profit of about 62k a year, even though we never put in regular  40-hour weeks.  Although we treated our casino play as a business so we could enjoy a profit, it was definitely a part-time retirement endeavor.

This brings up another question:  What about IRS issues???

Once we began playing at higher levels, we started filing as a business, establishing a S Corp which included both gambling income and my gaming writing.  After a few years we disbanded the S Corp – too many state and accountant fees – and went to the simpler Schedule C.

Yes, I had to “fight” the IRS in several years, but I pretended they were like the slow learners I had in my early teaching career.  So, I would write/talk patiently – in simple terms – how gambling could be a legitimate business.  I was always able to convince them – albeit with a lot of time-consuming paperwork and long phone calls – before it was ever needed to go to tax court.

I can’t answer most tax questions that gamblers send me because the subject is so complex and depends entirely on individual circumstances.  I would refer you to the most detailed and up-to-date resource you can find on the market today, the book Tax Help for Gamblers. I brought on board Russell Fox for this last edition (the fourth – in paperback and online ) to add his expertise in explaining all the new developments, particularly in the exploding area of sports betting and the major changes in new tax legislation.

Early on in our casino adventure our goal was just to break even and enjoy the comps.   We actually surprised ourselves by making money on such a fun activity.   I guess you might say we overshot our goal.

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 17 – Q+A

Last week I finished leading you down that long winding path of advantage play we took, but I promised that I would answer the questions so many of you were asking during these last 16 weeks of reminiscing.  So, it looks like I will need to keep writing about our journey – at least for a little while longer.

One of the most frequent questions, not just now, but down through the years, has been about that wonderful “miracle mountaintop experience” that unites all video poker enthusiasts. For the nickel player plugging along unnoticed to the whale pampered by the casino while risking thousands of dollars in the high-limit room – the world stops turning for them, at least for a little bit of time, when a royal flush pops up.

How many have we had?  Which one of us has gotten more?  Which ones were the most exciting or memorable?

Brad and I have had a lifetime royal total of 1,317.  We always played out of one bankroll and it never mattered to us who “got more royals.”  We were a team and any royal brought joy to both of us equally no matter which machine it was on.

When we first started playing video poker, I did keep more detailed royal records.  Brad got the first one, December 31, 1991, $1000 on the quarter Full-Pay Deuces Wild coin-droppers at the Westward Ho.  We don’t have to check my records for that one – it is solidly etched in a brain cell somewhere in each of our heads.  The detailed royal record I kept through ’97 is an interesting read. Mostly $1000 at first with a few $2000 as we sometimes ventured up to 50-cent machines.  Then the momentous decision to go to dollars and the two $4000 ones I hit on July 6, 1995.  1997 was the last year I kept detailed records, and a summary showed Brad had 38 to my 24.  This was probably due to the fact that he played faster and took fewer breaks than I did – although many of our friends just thought he was the luckiest gambler they ever knew because he always seemed to hit royals more often than the rest of us. However, Lady Luck didn’t neglect me completely. Of the 5 dealt royals during that time, 4 were mine!

Starting in 1998, I listed our royals but with no details since we had started playing a lot of multi-line, and obviously were getting more of them.  This pumped up our total quickly since I counted each royal separately, even multiple ones from one hand.   If we ended up with 2 royals on a Ten Play machine hand, that added two to our royal total. When Brad was dealt a royal on Hundred Play, that added 100 to our royal total!

Our most exciting royals?  Of course, that very first one.  “You always remember the first time!”  And, not a surprise, the forementioned one dealt on Hundred Play.  And it’s always fun to beat long odds.  Once I was playing $5 Triple Play at the Palazzo and was dealt a flush that contained 4 royal cards.  Of course, I made the correct play by throwing away the off flush card, hoping to snag a royal. Double joy when 2 came up for a 40k win.

Another 40k win, one that was a shocker for me and the Harrahs casino supervisors who gathered around to discuss it, was a royal on a dollar Ten Play Double Super Times Pay Jacks or Better machine.  I was on a 10x multiplier and all I had to hold was a lone Ace.  I must confess I was mumbling not-so-nice words under my breath.  I slapped the draw button with disgust –  and a royal filled in that Ace on one line!

Here is a picture of what I called my “OH NO” dealt royal.

A back story is needed here.  I had been no-mailed by  Station Casinos for many years after hitting a royal on the top line of a dollar Multi-Strike machine.  You would think a big casino conglomerate could handle a 32 K+ jackpot without feeling I was a major danger to their bottom line.  But I digress…

So, after Stations bought the Palms, I was extremely disappointed; the Palms was our closest casino and had been a favorite since it opened.  They had good games with great players club benefits and mailed offers.  Now it would not be a good play if I got no mailings.

Fortunately, someone “upstairs” made a decision that they would look at the history of previous strong Palms players and add them back on the Stations mailing list.  I was very happy but decided to be cautious in my play selection at first since I felt I was kind of “on probation.”  In the past I had usually played quarter Hundred Play but instead of dropping down in the number of lines I would play, I decided it would be fun to still play all hundred lines but at the 10-cent level, which offered the same game, 8/5 Bonus.  So, I am starting to play, with Brad on one side and chatting with my usual playing buddy on the other side. Suddenly, I said, “Oh, no!”

I must have been pretty loud because both Brad and my friend stopped playing and turned to me with concerned looks.  When they saw the dealt red royal covering my screen, they started laughing.  They understood my reaction!

Fortunately, there was no negative consequence this time and I stayed on their mailing list and played there until major game downgrades sadly made this casino unplayable for us.

Stay tuned for more discussions of your questions next week.

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 16

Last week we took the short walk on the last leg of our 35-year journey down the winding path of advantage play and now we can look back at the big picture.  I had been writing – yea, preaching – for 20+ years about the importance of looking at casino play through the lens of the “long term.”  Now I can talk about it not just as a theory or a computer analysis but as a concept that Brad and I confirmed in our personal experience.

As I have detailed in these last 15 blog entries, advantage play was not a smooth level road, but more like an endless rollercoaster ride.  For the first 13 years, ‘85-‘96, casino play did not make up a major part of our time.  At first Brad had a full-time job, and even after he retired we were “vacation casino visitors.”  But we were studying hard all during this time, first at blackjack and then video poker.  We were learning to use the comp system to the max and this allowed us to eventually “do the casino life” for little or nothing out of our own pockets.

By 1997, we were in Las Vegas most of the year, finally moving there permanently in 2001.  This allowed us to take advantage of the ongoing casino benefits available to a regular local player.  Coupled with many out-of-town casino opportunities, our long-term winnings grew to over 1.6 million by the end of 2018.

This was not to say we didn’t have any losing streaks, and some were painfully long, lasting a whole year in 2002 and 2015.  Perhaps 2019 was the most disappointing since we knew it was going to be our last year doing battle with the casino edge.  It is natural to want to “go out with a bang.”  However, we realized that we were playing with a very thin edge and were suffering a royal drought and it might take us longer to get to that “long term,” and we weren’t going to have any extra time another year.  In fact, medical problems were already majorly decreasing our casino time those last 6 months in 2019.  So, we ended the year with a loss.  However, comparing that small number with our large cumulative winnings, it was just a small red blip on our computer screen’s sea of black.  We had proven the validity of that “magical long term.”

I was figuring that 16 weeks was about long enough to reminisce and give the final “financial report” of our 35 years of casino play.  So – this was going to be my final autobiographical blog.  But so many of you have been sending me questions or requesting more specific details about some of the subjects I have been discussing. Therefore, I will continue blogging here as long as I feel that giving answers or expanding on some subjects may be helpful information for those of you who are still wanting to enjoy the entertainment casinos provide but at the lowest possible expense.

Here are some of your questions I already have collected in my notes:

  1. How many royals did you and Brad have? Which of you had the most?  Which were the most exciting?
  2. What do you think are the most important factors contributing to your success? Do you think you all were just extra lucky?
  3. What were your most exciting jackpots?
  4. Didn’t you get a lot of extra comps because you had hosts who were friends?
  5. Did you ever ever play when you didn’t have an edge over the casino?
  6. I never hear about you and Brad drinking alcohol. Are you teetotalers?
  7. I know you filed taxes as a business. Did you ever get audited?
  8. Do you and Brad miss casino life now that you are retired in GA?
  9. Can I use any techniques you used in the past during my visit to casinos during the pandemic?

You can put your questions in the “Comments” here, on my Jean Scott Facebook page, or in a personal email at [email protected].

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 15

I will now take you on the last leg of this long winding path we have been describing for many weeks.  It is now 2019 and this is definitely a downhill journey.

Good video poker opportunities, which have been steadily declining since the Great Recession, have became an endangered species.  When you could find a positive play, the edge was usually razor thin.  At 80 and 87, I would often tell Brad that I wasn’t sure we would live long enough to get to this now much longer “long term.”

I had slowly been losing my passion for advantage play for several years.  I was missing the excitement of special games we loved, like Chase the Royal, Spin Poker, Multi-Strike, Super Times Play.  And I especially missed multi-line VP versions, from Triple Play clear up to Hundred Play, which had bounced up the fun factor for many years.  Now, we found almost all of the good plays – wanting to have as high an EV as possible – were single line.

Brad didn’t seem to mind sticking with single-line. Gambling – any kind – was still the challenge he had enjoyed since he played Tonk for pennies with his brothers at five years of age.  However, in early 2019 I noticed a subtle change in him.  He had a take-it-or-leave-it attitude when I was planning when and where we would go to a casino.  And when we did go and play, he was often the one who was ready to quit a session.  This was a definite change since in the past he would always play “forever” until I made the decision to quit.

As the months went by, the change in him became more evident.  He was having serious cognitive problems and he was forgetting the VP strategies he had known and used for years.  For a long time we had been playing together  when we were at high-level denominations and especially when our advantage edge was getting smaller.  We would like to sit side by side and take turns playing “our” machine while the other watched.  This would make sure of our accuracy but it was also more fun, especially when we were playing multi-lines and could share the excitement of good hands and sympathize with the disappointment of bad results!  However, now we needed to play together so I could help him remember proper strategy.

I had said for several years that I was ready to quit casino gambling, but as long as Brad was enjoying it, I would go along.  It was still our main entertainment option and also the center of our social life as we met with friends often to play together and enjoy our comped meals.  So, we continued to visit casinos, but on fewer days and with shorter playing sessions.

However, in September Brad’s physical problems became an emergency situation.  We had been dealing with his medical issues for 17 years, since his heart attack in 2003.   For a few years, we were on first-name basis with the ambulance drivers who would take him to the hospital emergency room.   Fortunately, modern medicine had many answers over the years:  7 stents in a heart artery, a pacemaker after a 5-minute cardiac arrest episode, a stockpile of meds, new cutting-edge procedures when his plumbing system malfunctioned.  But I just put multiple doctor appointments on the calendar with all the free play pick-ups and other gambling scheduled activities and for many years Brad’s health had not hindered our casino routine.

When the major health setback came in September, we were in Georgia visiting the family and I was so appreciative that they could provide the support I needed while Brad was in the hospital.  They took turns staying with Brad so I could get a good night’s sleep back at the house.

We stayed in Georgia several weeks until Brad was able to fly back to Vegas, but this was the beginning of his physical and mental health decline.  And it was the time when I realized that we needed to move to Georgia where we had a good family support system.

We played VP only about a dozen more times the rest of 2019.  Brad was very frail, using a cane and a walker to get around.   We still had many free-play pickups and food comps from our past play history so would visit a casino several days a week.  He would want to sit down and play VP but just didn’t have the energy to continue very long – and after a while would just want to watch me play.

I wasn’t very interested in playing since I was now deep into plans for our move to Georgia at the end of the year.  When we moved from Indianapolis to Las Vegas in 2000, we had joked that we wouldn’t ever be leaving our condo unless it was feet first.  Moving is always a big and exhausting project – doing it when you are in your 80’s is almost an impossibility.  Thank goodness – again – my family stepped up.  Daughter Angela took off work a couple of weeks and helped me…no, forced this  frugal squirrel to throw away, give away… Then Steve and granddaughter Kaity came to help out and we were able to spend Christmas together.  Movers came to load up 3 “pods” and we got on a plane and said good-bye to the city we loved.

Next week I will give a summary of these 35 years, and some of the highlights and the lessons we learned along the way.

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 3rd 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.

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 13

Okay, it’s time to slow down on the reminiscing about how much fun we have had on this journey down the advantage play path.  You wanted some numbers, didn’t you?

Beginning in 1997 I realized the need to keep a detailed daily financial record of our gambling activity, not just a diary trip summary as I had been doing for the previous 13 years. We were now spending big chunks of time in Las Vegas and playing VP at higher denominations.  That meant we were receiving W-2Gs and had to face major tax issues.  This was one of our considerations in making the decision to move to Las Vegas.  Nevada is a lot more tax friendly to gamblers than Indiana!

I will not be giving you a year-by-year detailed report of our gambling results for these 23 years since 1997. For one thing, that would fill many blogs.  But more importantly, I had always emphasized the importance of looking at advantage play through the lens of the long term. And although the IRS requires that we close our books on December 31 every year, the gambling gods have no such restrictions.  So, I think it will be more revealing if I talk about those 23 years as if it was one long gambling session.

That said, during that long period there is much I can share.  First, I would emphasize that we never looked at our casino play as a “job.”  We filed our tax returns as a “business” since we met the IRS requirements for that category.  However, we never “worked” in a casino full time.  We didn’t have to in order to cover our living expenses. Brad had retired from his federal government job in 1989 with a modest pension, and adding his small VA pension and both of our Social Security payments, our gambling wins could be used for other purposes. First, they allowed us to pump up our gambling bankroll quickly so we could play at much higher levels.  Second, we could fund our retirement accounts for better future security.  And then came the most pleasure with this extra money – we could share with our families.  We bought so many cars for them down through the years that I said we should have been given a discounted fleet rate!

Our yearly totals were all over the map during these 23 years, almost all being in the winning column, with especially large wins from 2000-2009.  However, that roller- coaster effect could clearly be seen. One year we won 81K; the next year we lost 17K. However, this period saw some big jackpots – a dealt royal on a quarter 100-play machine for 100k – a couple of dealt deuces on a dollar 50-play machine for 50k.  And then the astounding tournament win where we shared the ½ million first prize.  That helped push us into a category we never could have dreamed about back when we started so many years ago with the goal of “breaking even with the gravy comps.”  We became millionaire winners.

Some may say that we were “lucky” to hit these big jackpots.  And yes, we were lucky on those days we had big wins.  But what about the many days we lost, even the long losing periods that we went through when you felt you would never hit another royal flush again. This is the time we had to hold on to the math and have faith that if we always played when we had an advantage over the casino, we would eventually come out on top.  That is the concept we stuck to and the one responsible for us accumulating a million dollars in gambling wins.  I once said that if I ever wrote a book about our experiences, I would have to call it “How to Grind out a Million Dollars of Profit in a Casino over 25 Years.”

One of the Lucky Jackpots and the Prettiest (in my opinion!)

This was our favorite game to play when we went to Harrah’s Horseshoe in Hammond, Indiana  – APDW (almost positive Deuces Wild).  We often played all 50 lines, but sometimes (as in this picture) we played only 40 to cut down having to stop so often for W-2Gs.

As I have said so many times, nothing ever stays the same with casino life.  In 2008 the Great Recession hit the world – and that started changing our casino world too.  Stay tuned and next week I will discuss these changes.

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 12

I would really like to write an autobiography, just talking about all the fun times and interesting experiences we’ve had in the casinos over the years. I already am writing a blog which covers a lot of that sort of material but it would be nice to bring it all together in a book. But that’s all going to come down to time. Right now, Brad and I are still active players and I’m trying to update all my previous books, so finding time to write a new one is difficult. Although I have threatened to retire for many years, I probably never will, but I figure the book in my head will demand to come out some time!

I wrote that several years ago, answering a question about whether I would ever write a Frugal Gambler autobiography.  How things can change in just a few years!

Now, in 2020, we did retire from casino gambling, moving to Georgia to be near family that would be a safety net as we deal with Brad’s failing health. I thought I would probably wind down my blog writing since not being around casinos anymore I wouldn’t have any current gambling advice to share.  However, that “book in my head” started coming out, albeit in just small pieces, just the right size for a blog “chapter.”

Actually, when I started this series, I really didn’t plan for it to be an ongoing project.  Here was my thinking:  We had taken one last trip back to Vegas in February to attend the Blackjack Ball, staying at the Rio where we had many comps to use up and $600 in airfare reimbursement to collect.  This was given to us as free play so that meant we had to run it through at least once on one or more machines.  Some of my readers had asked what game did we play.

Now I had a problem.  I know many expected us to choose video poker and explain how we hunted for the one with the highest EV; that’s what I had been recommending in my writings for over 25 years.  But that is not what we did.  We played slot machines!!!

How can I explain why we did that and not disappoint the players who had been following us for so many years?  Or, worse yet, would this influence both novice and experienced players to throw aside all the wise gambling precepts I had preached all these years?

Here’s what I needed to do:  I must explain why we played slots – a very negative situation – for a very brief time.  There were many reasons.  The Rio had no positive VP machines and we had no extra benefits or there were no promotions to push it over 100%.  Furthermore, we were sure we wouldn’t be doing any casino gambling in the future – at least not for a long long time and perhaps never – so we weren’t concerned with future benefits. In fact, if we had been looking for future mailings, playing slots would probably generate more of them than would VP.  This was going to be very short-term play where luck is the overwhelming factor, so we decided to go for…. wait for it… the fun factor.  And it was fun, taking that free play and jumping from machine to machine, choosing those that looked like fun, ones that we had seen others having fun playing.  We’d play a bonus round and move on.  Hit a little jackpot and move on.  We played about an hour and ended up with about $400 profit from the $600 free play.  We called that good luck.

However, if I was going to write about this brief step off the path of advantage play, I needed to tell you about staying on the path for 35 years and how that was the reason we had such great financial success.  I needed to explain that this was fun too; combining profit and entertainment makes for a very exciting life!

So, in early May I got out all my records and I figured I would write one blog giving a financial summary of 35 years of advantage casino play.  Well, here is how I ended that blog:

I can see now that this “financial report” I promised may take more background explanation than I planned.  So, I just added Part 1 to the title and I will continue this saga in my next blog.

Blame it on pandemic boredom – but I still have a lot more I want to talk about.  So tune in next week for Chapter 13.  In the meantime, here is an old Rio photo memory.  And yes, Jean Scott had to enter this invitational  BJ tournament using her real name, which is on all my players cards!

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