2/6/2003
Are you frustrated by all the changes at your favorite casino? Why not “run Sin City from the ground up” — your own way? Go to http://casinoempire.sierra.com/casino.htm and “amass your own empire in this casino-simulation game that delivers the sights and sounds of Vegas! In the demo, you’ll manage the Poseidon, one of the game’s eight unique casinos. To win, you must quickly adjust the stakes, decor, and amenities to suit your clientele.” Now there’s a way to relieve the stress of casino change!
Fred Renzey has spent thousand of hours at the blackjack tables in the Chicago area, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Tunica, Foxwoods, and elsewhere. Along the way he’s noticed that most blackjack players consistently misplay a cluster of 7 hands. Be sure to find out which hands they are and the right way to play them. Read Fred Renzey’s full article at www.casino.com/blackjack/article.asp?id=1986.
This sad news from Billhere (www.billhere.com): “The 99-cent Westward Ho hot dog is no more. It’s now $1.49, plus 11-cents tax or $1.60. There is nothing sacred in this world!”
In the you-think-you’ve-had-bad-luck-in-a-casino department: “A newspaper investigation has revealed that one of the world’s big gamblers, George Lu, lost $93 million last year playing baccarat at Crown Casino in Australia” (www.casinowire.com/news.asp?id=4439). Somehow I have a hard time identifying with or empathizing with gamblers like this. Too far from frugal maybe? Or perhaps because he wasn’t playing video poker?
A note for people who have already bought or are planning to buy the Frugal Video Poker software: There’s an update now available. Go to www.FrugalGambler.biz, click on Frugal Video Poker, then click on Updates for a free download. And good news for all you Pick ’Em players, Jim is working on an update to include that good (99.9% EV when you find the full-pay schedule) game that’s popping up frequently now in many parts of the country. You’ll be able to download it for free in the same place within a few weeks.
We’re getting good reports from all over the country from those who are now using FVP. Beginners are finding it very easy to use to choose the best games in the casinos where they play and they like the feature that figures the slot club point percentage for cashback or comps that boosts the total value of the play. A frequent comment is that they can practice with a simplified penalty-card-free strategy that doesn’t “ding” them for minor rule exceptions that are worth only pennies per hour to the casual recreational player. (Brad loves this feature; he hates to be “gigged.” It reminds him of when he was in Air Force basic training.) And for those who are motivated to wring every single bit of value out of a game, they can use the perfect-play mode that includes all the penalty-card situations.
Many users also mention the advantage of being able to print out, in color or black and white, those same simplified strategy charts to take to the casino and use when they have a puzzling hand. And experienced players find the advanced features of the software helpful, such as analyzing sequential royal games or defining the payoffs for natural and wild hands independent of each other.
If you have any questions and/or have any suggestions for the next version of Frugal Video Poker, you can subscribe to our support group at
[email protected]. You can order the software at www.FrugalGambler.BIZ or at www.greatstuff4gamblers.com.
Q. What’s the difference between a poker player and a dog?
A. In about ten years, the dog quits whining. (CasinoWire.com)
2/13/2003
This week I’m going to share some e-mail I’ve received from my readers, who are forever educating me, either with new frugal ideas or a different way to look at old ones.
The first one comes from John Zaroff, who says that having a frugal attitude is one of the most important standards for video poker players: “We all play video poker as best we can and will argue long and strong about .1% difference in plays. But we neglect matchplay coupons, discounted or free rooms, cheaper rental-car options, etc.
“Let’s say I can call a host and get a room for $59 (casino rate) instead of $99 (rack rate). That $45 saved (including the taxes) is the same as the average theoretical return of three hours of dollar 10/7 Double Bonus with 0.33% cashback played perfectly. (I’ve ignored the comps in this example — that would make the savings figure even larger.) The guiding principle should be that every dollar you avoid spending is the same as making a dollar at the VP game you play. They both affect the bottom line the same way.”
Tom Jackson gave me one of his frugal hints: “I wanted to let you know of something that I read in your book back in ’99 that’s still proving useful to me today.
“You mentioned to always have a frequent flyer account no matter which airline you fly, because you never know if you’ll rack up more miles and can actually use them. Well, I took that advice and flew America West a few times when they had the best fare prices. I racked up about 8,000 miles, but didn’t know what to do with them, because that wasn’t enough for a free flight.
“One day I registered at Milepoint.com and realized I could get free magazine subscriptions for my points. Today, I used up the last of those miles on three months of the Wall Street Journal, my favorite paper. And to think I did this with airline miles I thought I’d never use.”
And here’s a warning for frugal freebie hunters from Edie of Santa Barbara: “Since we’re lovers of freebies, we went to the Plaza to earn a free jacket. We read about this offer in the papers and heard frequent ads over the radio. So we went, signed up, and played our little hearts out. When we had a $200 handpay that qualified us for this promo, we asked for the jacket. But alas, we were told in no uncertain terms that they had been out of jackets for auite awhile. We felt that we got burned and that their continuous ads for jackets long after they were no longer available was really unethical.”
My comment here: I understand their disappointment. Casinos should pull ads when they’re no longer valid. But since they don’t always do so and are notorious for changing rules and policies, I suggest that you always check at the slot club before beginning to play a promotion.
Do you have a new or unusual way to be frugal? Why don’t you send a short report to [email protected]. It might appear in a future Frugal Fridays column! Don’t worry about spelling and grammar. We have good editors here. Include your real name only if you want it used. If you want to remain anonymous, give yourself a nice-sounding nom de plume.
2/25/2003
Good news for Macintosh users, from my computer-savvy friend Jerry: “For two months now, I’ve been running your Frugal Video Poker software on both my Powerbook G4 & iMac (flat panel screen first generation) with Jaguar (OS X) and Virtual PC 5.0, together with Windows 98 SE. It has run flawlessly without one crash. Anyone who wants to use a PC-based video poker training program with an emulator will not regret working with this program.” Jim Wolf and I certainly appreciate the extensive testing Jerry has done with our software. A big thank-you, Jerry.
I will never cease to be amazed at the news out of my former “not-as-sinful-as-Nevada” home state of Indiana. This just in from casinowire.com: “Do kids play the lottery? They do in Indiana. A few years ago, Louisiana State University surveyed 3,270 adolescents in grades 6-12 and found that kids in Indiana played the lottery at much higher rates than kids nationally. Of those studied, 68.2% of Hoosier youth said they have played the lottery or scratch-off games, compared with 34.8% nationally. What does that mean? Maybe Hoosier kids are a little more honest on their survey answers, or maybe they’re a little naughtier! In any case, instant lottery ticket machines are everywhere. And Indiana plans to place 500 additional machines around the state.”
“”Nutmeg State (Connecticut) legislators win the You’re-Not-Gonna-Believe-This-One Award for a bill that would — are you ready? — put tollbooths at the exits of the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods casinos. They would charge $10 to leave, the Norwich Bulletin reported. This is not only nutty, but also dumb, as not everyone will have $10 heading out. The bill is unlikely to pass, the newspaper reported.”” From Fantini’s Gaming Morning Report at www.gaminginvestments.com. (Maybe they’ll have to change their state nickname to the Nutty State?)
And how about this next story, from the Las Vegas Sun in the “VegasBeat” column by Timothy McDarrah: “Police responded to an unusual incident at McCarran International Airport on Sunday afternoon. According to both airport and police officials, a couple waiting for their flight to board decided to practice for inclusion in the Mile High Club before the plane took off. They were given summonses for having sex in a very public place, on some chairs on the esplanade in the main terminal.”
Although in my younger days, when I had more energy and was hungrier, I sometimes took couponing to a gray area, I would never think of cheating in a casino. However, I do find reading about gambling scams interesting. Here are a couple of stories with some fascinating details about how people try to get an edge, albeit illegally, in their play: A baccarat scam at www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,5942832%255E2702,00.html and a British betting scam at http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=374454.
This will be my last item this week — I think I’ve well plumbed the depths of bizarre! In Bangladesh, police said they were looking for a man who allegedly allowed two neighbors to rape his new wife instead of paying a gambling debt. Read the details, if you care, at www.online.ie/news/latest_world/viewer.adp?article=1774892.
2/27/2003
A belated Valentine’s Day item, from VegasBeat in the Las Vegas Sun:
“Perhaps the funniest souvenirs offered to mark the day are a pair of commemorative chips being issued by the Riviera. On Friday it [issued] 1,000 $5 marriage chips, featuring a Claddagh-type wedding band with a pink satin background on one side and “”We Tied the Knot in 2003″” inscribed on the other. On Feb. 25 it [issued] a divorce chip, mainly black, with an inscription suitable for the occasion.”
An e-mail note from a player who laments the change in one casino’s mailed room offer: “”Until recently, the Flamingo Casino allowed flexible use of Sunday-Thursday complimentary nights. Recipients could check in on Friday or Saturday at a rate based on play and delay use of the comped nights until Sunday. Not anymore. Buried in a very long paragraph, printed in by far the smallest print I have ever seen, is a requirement that the three comped nights room offer will run the first three nights of your stay. Accordingly, check in on Friday and your three nights suddenly become one
night.”” (More proof that you should always read the fine print on any casino offer!)
News of the Weird, from Dan Paymar’s Video Poker Times, which you can subscribe to at http://www.vegasplayer.com/vp. “”In the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, the slot machines tell gamblers when the politicians think they’ve had enough. Pop-up screens that halt play for up to a minute advise players how long they’ve been at it after 60, 90, and 120 minutes. After 150 minutes, the machine shuts down and automatically cashes them out.”
A good post from John Kelly (a.k.a. Lodestone) on Skip’s VP List (http://vphomepage.com), illustrating some of the differences between Vegas visitors and locals:
A couple of themes I’ve seen in the various forums over the years:
1) LV locals are often puzzled over the attraction of the Vegas Strip casinos to seemingly knowledgeable visitors.
2) Visitors can’t understand how pros/semi-pros make decent money playing VP. On face value, for example, quarter FPDW is only worth about
$7/hour.
Having been both a visitor and LV local, maybe I can shed some light.
The answer to both can be found in the mailbox.
When I was a visitor, the overriding factor on choosing where to play was room offers. Visitors get much better mailings from strip casinos than LV locals usually see — the total value of these are often staggering, adding up to 4% to the EV of the play. Granted, this is mostly comps, not cash, but to visitors, comps are often just as good as cash. We would often play just enough to trigger Strip room offers, then head over to a local’s casino for better VP. Conversely, most locals casinos make weak room offers to visitors. Hence, the decision as to where to play isn’t as simple as it might seem. Throw in the spouse/kids/friends factor and it’s no wonder that many knowledgeable visitors will wind up on the Strip.
As a LV local “”advantage”” player (semi-pro? weekend warrior?), I get locals mailings that add up to 1% (sometimes more) of my total EV. Of course, you have to be disciplined enough to chase down each of the coupons. (I sometimes wonder if LV would have traffic jams if locals mailings were banned!) And you need play the minimum necessary to get these offers in order to maximize EV. Also, we play much faster than most newbies might imagine possible — often more than 1,000 hands per hour. Practice makes perfect.””
Clipped from the comic strip “”B.C.””: “”You know you’ve checked into a really frugal hotel when they leave a Cheerio on your pillow each night.”