6/5/2003
Dear Jean,
Recently, I purchased a copy of Frommer’s Las Vegas 2003. In it were two comments about LV slot machines that I don’t think are true and you’re the only one that I trust to give me a straight answer. Here are their two quotes:
1. “The payback goes up considerably if you bet the limit (from 2 to as many as 45 coins). But while the payoff can be much bigger, the odds against winning also go up when you put in the limit. (So if you hit something on a machine and realize your $25 win would have been $500 had you only put in more money, take a deep breath, stop kicking yourself, and remember that you might not actually have hit that winning combination so easily had you bet the limit).””
2. “”Are there surefire ways to win on a slot machine? No. But you can lose more slowly. The slots are on computer timers, and there are times when they are hitting and times when they’re not. A bank of empty slots probably means they aren’t hitting. Go find a line where lots of people are sitting around with trays full of money.””
What do you think?
Richard
Dear Richard:
First, thank you for your trust in my answers!
#2 is one of the worst pieces of information on reel slots I’ve ever seen — an utter myth, totally inaccurate. Yes, you can lose more slowly, but the best way to do that is to play more slowly and/or go down in denomination.
#1 has some grains of truth in it. In video slots, which are what they seem to be talking about, the payback does go up the more coins you bet, whether activating more lines or increasing the coin per line. But you’re facing the same odds at any point in your play. You wouldn’t have hit the same jackpot if you put in more coins — that’s true — but the reason it’s true is that the random number generator continues to spin as you’re putting in coins and will land in a different spot, with a different result. That baby is fast! Just a nanosecond in changing from the one-coin button to the max coin button will give different, but random, results. Of course, machines that pay more proportionately for max coin, like the royal on VP or a bonus jackpot amount, will see a higher proportional payback if you’ve played full-coin. But you’re not less likely to hit the royal or that big bonus jackpot at full coin than at less-than-full coin. The royal or bonus jackpot still comes up randomly (if the machine is fair) and has nothing to do with the number of coins bet.
You were wise to question these statements. People need to realize that they can read some pure bunk even in books that might also contain a lot of good solid accurate information. Frommer’s books are well-respected in the travel field, but Las Vegas travel writers are rarely, if ever, experts on gambling.
I’m glad you wrote with reel slot questions. Readers sometimes complain that I talk so much about video poker that I ignore slot players. I will be remedying this in More Frugal Gambling (coming out in August) where I have a nice long chapter on slot machines — how to choose the ones that fit your goals and how to play them so you lose less.
Jean
6/13/2003
Online in the Las Vegas Sun:
“”Rube Goldberg lives — in spirit anyway. A new slot machine gimmick that marries gadgetry and luck in a series of clanking, spinning, ball-rolling contraptions was unveiled Wednesday at the (Atlantic City) Tropicana Casino and Resort. Goldberg, a Pulitzer Prize winner who died in 1970, was famous for drawings of complicated machinery that accomplished little, but exerted a lot of energy in doing so.””
First, we have casino chickens that can almost always beat humans playing tic-tac-toe. Then we have slot machines combined with treadmills and exercise bikes. Now a gimmick you can read about at http://tinyurl.com/apd2. What will casinos think of next?
Staying with Atlantic City news for another online item (http://tinyurl.com/aonw):
As reported by the Associated Press: “”The rooms in the splashy billion-dollar Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa will be missing one item when it opens this summer — a Bible. The casino’s owners have barred the local chapter of Gideon’s International from placing Bibles in each of its 2,002 rooms, marking the first time that an Atlantic City casino has established such a policy.””
Global Gaming Business commented on this political correctness issue:
“”Some conservatives blasted the decision, saying that it is important for all hotels to have inspirational reading in the room to give people in crisis an outlet.
“”Casino officials say it is a nod to diversity, and that Bibles provided by Gideon’s International will be available in the hotel lobby along with several other religious texts, such as the Mormon Bible and the Koran.””
I understand the diversity issue, but it reminds me of an old joke:
What’s the difference between someone praying in church and in a casino? The gambler really means it!
A new BJ bonus game to look for, and probably avoid: Ten to Win.
Described in Global Gaming Business, a trade magazine for casino executives: “”A display behind the table flashes various award amounts. Each time a player receives a 10 in a suit determined by the casino, he has the option of trading it in to the dealer for the next card out of the shoe, in exchange for activating one of the 10 lights on his personal console. When a player has lit all 10 lights, a floor person activates a “”spin”” button and lights flash around the award display until landing on one of the cash prizes.
Now comes a clue to whether you want to play this game.
“”According to the developer of the system, Ten to Win promotes longevity of play, while boosting the house edge of the blackjack game as players trade in 10-value cards.””
Sounds to me like another BJ variation to empty our pockets faster!
I just read a new addition in my gambling library, Get the Edge at Low-Limit Texas Hold’Em by my good friend Bill Burton, the casino guide for About.com (order at http://www.billburton.com)
This is an excellent book for beginners who want to tackle the casino poker room or for veteran players who are losing because they have never studied the game.
Even though I rarely play live poker any more, except for an occasional casual game with friends or at the Moose Lodge when I go back to Indiana, I especially enjoyed the book because of the details of Bill’s personal journey “”from the kitchen to the cardroom and how, in just a few short months of intensive study and practice, he became a winning player.”” Study and practice — these are the requirements for any successful gambler, no matter what the game. So if your game of choice is Texas Hold’Em at low limits, this is a book I strongly recommend.
6/20/2003
Do I always do the sensible thing in a casino?
Usually. But sometimes I just pretend that I’m an ordinary human being with ordinary human emotions and temptations, instead of a super-disciplined video-poker-playing robot. It happened last Sunday. Brad and I went into a casino to earn exactly xxx number of points so we would stay qualified for that casino’s monthly mailing. We planned to play our usual game there, the best available game mathematically, a marginal play even with regular slot club cashback. But we were getting 2x points and we would also be qualifying for bounce-back cash and some comps, so it was a good play.
I was glad we could get the needed points in only an hour. I was feeling lousy — sore throat, swollen glands, sinus headache — I couldn’t wait to finish my hour’s time in the pervasive cloud of choking smoke and go to our cozy fresh-air-filled condo, take some Nyquil, and fall into bed.
Well, I finally did take Nyquil and fall into my bed that night, but it was six hours later than I had planned. What happened to my careful sensible plan?
Multi Strike Poker — that’s what happened. When we got to the casino, we found that they’d installed some of these new 4-line VP machines. I’d read about this new game and had even printed out a list of the various paytables and paybacks and a couple of strategy charts, which I had in the just-in-case-I-run-across-it section of my purse. The theoretical return of the best game on this machine is a bit higher than the one on the game we were planning to play, so we decided it would be a perfect time to try out this new game that some of our friends had been raving about.
Brad grabbed one machine while I sat in an empty chair beside him. As is our usual custom when we haven’t had time to study a strategy at home on my Frugal Video Poker software, he flies the machine while I navigate with the strategy chart.
This game was a new kind of fun and hooked us almost immediately. The way it works is that you bet 20 coins at the beginning to play “full coin” on four lines, but you’re then dealt only the bottom line. If (and only if) you make some winning hand on that line, you’re dealt the second hand. You have to make a winning hand on the second line to be dealt the 3rd and have a winner on the 3rd line to play the 4th. If this sounds unfair, a couple of nice juicy perks make up for this difficult rule of the game. As you progress past the first line, the payoff grows bigger: 2x on the second line, 4x on the 3rd, and a whopping 8x on the 4th. And randomly you get Free Rides, which move you to the next line even if you don’t win the previous one.
Actually, I want to tell you more about our experience with this game and give you some hints on how to play it smarter, but that’ll have to wait next week. Right now, I’m still feeling lousy. The doctor prescribed antibiotics, but I think they’re having a hard time working on an immune system that was under heavy smoke attack for seven hours straight.
So I’m going to go back to using common sense and go to bed. Talk to you next week when I’m sure I’ll be feeling fit as a fiddle.
6/27/2003
Last week I had to take to my bed in the middle of my discussion of Multi Strike Poker, due to an upper-respiratory infection exacerbated by a 7-hour session playing said game in a smoky casino. Well, I did recover physically — due to regaining my common sense and staying out of smoky casinos for a while. So now I’ll give you information on the game that might help you play it smarter.
First, this is a very difficult game, because you only use the basic game strategy for the 4th line (which you don’t get to play too often) and any line where you already have a “Free Ride” to the next one. Because it’s so valuable to get to the next line and earn a bonus payoff, you need to change your strategy the rest of the time. And that’s the sticky part. You need three different strategies for lines 1, 2, and 3. This will be a hurdle for many players, some of whom think it’s a bit much to have to learn a different strategy for every new game they play. However, this common player attitude is the very thing that will, hopefully, allow the casino to offer looser pay schedules, and the few VP students who take the time to learn all four strategies (one basic and three adjusted) will have a good shot at winning long term, especially if they use slot club benefits.
Most experts agree that you can get a reasonably close adjusted strategy for lines 1, 2, and 3 by inputting the basic one-coin paytable into a VP software program, then adding 6, 4, and 2, respectively, to each payline of the pay schedule. In other words, add 6 to each line when you are doing the schedule for Line 1, add 4 when doing Line 2, and add 2 when doing Line 3.
For example, for 9/6 Jacks or Better, the paytable for Line 1 would look like this:
Royal Flush 806 (800 plus 6) (NOTICE CORRECTION HERE)
Straight Flush 56 (50 plus 6)
Four-of-a-kind 31 (25 plus 6)
Full House 15 (9 plus 6)
Flush 12 (6 plus 6)
Etc.
The paytable for Line 2 would look like this:
Royal Flush 804 (800 plus 4) (NOTICE CORRECTION HERE)
Straight Flush 54 (50 plus 4)
Four-of-a-kind 29 (25 plus 4)
Full House 13 (9 plus 4)
Flush 10 (6 plus 4)
Etc.
The paytable for Line 3 would look like this:
Royal Flush 802 (800 plus 2) (NOTICE CORRECTION HERE)
Straight Flush 52 (50 plus 2)
Four-of-a-kind 27 (25 plus 2)
Full House 11 (9 plus 2)
Flush 8 (6 plus 2)
Etc.
You can program the paytables very quickly with the Frugal Video Poker software, then practice each strategy with the software telling you when you make an error. Frugal VP also gives you the capability to print out all three strategies (plus the basic one, if you wish) that you can take to the casino to refer to while you’re actually playing the game.
I predict recreational players will love this game, even if they don’t know the exact strategy changes, because it’s so much fun. Trying to get to that top line so you can score with an 8x bonus is a challenge that holds your interest despite many setbacks on the way up. It’s a very volatile game and you need to have a big enough bankroll for some long losing streaks, but there are many opportunities on the way up the lines for a big score that can get you out of a financial hole fast. And there’s always hope for the top-line royal, which pays eight time the single-line jackpot! On quarters, that’s $8,000 — a heart-stopper for sure.
Next week I’ll finish up this series by giving you some more advice and some resources that will make you a better Multi-Strike Poker player if you decide to tackle this game.
Special announcement: For those who have bought the Frugal VP software, good news. There’s now a free update that includes the Pick ‘Em machine. Go to www.frugalgambler.biz/fvp/update/fvp_updates.htm.