35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 16

Posted on August 22, 2020 by queen of comps

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].

Posted in Advantage Play, Blackjack, Casino Hosts, Comments, Comps, Coronavirus, Health, It's Personal, Luck, Medical, Memories, Q+A, Taxes, Video Poker | 14 Comments

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 15

Posted on August 15, 2020 by queen of comps

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.

Posted in Advantage Play, Comps, Family News, Health, It's Personal, Medical, Memories, Travel, Video Poker | 9 Comments

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 14

Posted on August 8, 2020 by queen of comps

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.

Posted in Advantage Play, Casino Hosts, Casino Policy, Comps, Memories, Video Poker | 2 Comments

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 13

Posted on July 31, 2020 by queen of comps

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.

Posted in Advantage Play, Bankroll, Comps, It's Personal, Luck, Memories, Non-Vegas Casinos, Taxes, Video Poker | 6 Comments

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 12

Posted on July 25, 2020 by queen of comps

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!

Posted in Advantage Play, Blackjack, Caesars, Casino Promotions, Comps, Gaming Writing, It's Personal, Luck, Memories, Slots, Video Poker | 10 Comments

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 11

Posted on July 18, 2020 by queen of comps

“We’ll never move to Las Vegas; where would we go on vacation?”

That was the answer I gave to questions for years: “You go to Vegas all the time and stay for weeks on end.  Why don’t you just move there?”

However, we had learned a key principle for successful casino gambling – flexibility.  Casinos are constantly changing.  I always said to never “marry” a casino but just have temporary “affairs.”  Good promotions come – then go.  New good games come in. Old video poker schedules are downgraded.  Helpful hosts retire or move to another casino home.  Casinos bring in new executives with new policies. A wise player has to be evaluating and adjusting constantly. We were finding it difficult to keep up with all the changes when we were doing our in-and-out Vegas visits.

But perhaps more to the point, Brad and I were changing.  When we had started this journey 16 years earlier, we thought staying in hotels for many days a year, with daily maid service and never having to cook, was a glamorous lifestyle.  But now in 1999, at ages 60 and 67, we were getting tired of schlepping our suitcases from hotel to hotel every few days, never knowing in the morning in what drawer to find our underwear. Plus being able to stay put in a friend’s condo the last two winters had shown us the many advantages a local life had over being just a tourist.  One of the best would be the ability to have a wider choice of good play opportunities when we didn’t have to “play for our bed” in the hotel where we were staying.

We looked at our financial situation.  It was very strong thanks to increasing profits as we had slowly progressed from quarter to dollar video poker for the last eight years.  We had enough savings to buy a nice 2-bedroom condo just a couple miles from the Strip – we called it “The House That VP Bought.”

Brad and I rarely make snap decisions.  We looked thoughtfully at all the facts when we switched our core game from BJ to VP.  We were extremely slow in going up in denomination.  And when we decided to buy the Vegas condo, we also decided we would not sell our home in Indianapolis – just in case we found living in Vegas wasn’t as good as we had thought.  Our plan was to stay in Vegas most of the year, but go back to Indy for the summers to escape the Vegas “oven.”

We kept to that plan for one year, but finding it hard to leave “all those good Vegas promotions” when it was time to drive back to Indiana.  And once back, we would hurriedly unpack the car in the evening, repack a small bag so we could start up early the next morning to take advantage of “good plays” on the riverboats in Illinois.  Brad said it would make more financial sense when we came back home if we just stayed at the Hyatt Regency the few days that we were in town rather than keep up a 2nd place.  So, the next summer when we went back to Indianapolis, we had a huge garage sale and sold that condo.

We never regretted becoming permanent Las Vegas locals. We were in the middle of what I now call the Golden Age of Video Poker.  Comps were gushing from casino play those days, many of them including luxurious travel options. Some Vegas casinos had sister properties in other parts of the country where we would be comped to deluxe accommodations, gourmet dining, and sightseeing experiences.  We could take the family to ski in Tahoe, to throw beads in the Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans, to tour the Memphis home of Elvis.  We could cross the country to visit casinos and sightsee in Chicagoland, Mississippi, and Atlantic City.  And cruises – casinos were giving them away right and left – to Mexico and Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, New England, Alaska.

Back when you really dressed up to attend the Captain’s Cocktail Party on a cruise:

No, moving to Las Vegas didn’t spoil our love for travel.  We were never at a loss for alternate vacation destinations!

Posted in Advantage Play, Atlantic City, Blackjack, Casino Hosts, Casino Policy, Casino Promotions, Comps, Harrahs Lake Tahoe, Memories, New Orleans, Non-gambling Activities, Non-Vegas Casinos, Travel, Video Poker | 4 Comments

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 10

Posted on July 10, 2020 by queen of comps

Last week I left you with a photo of 23 DayMinder planners. Yes, in 1997 I finally began to keep organized records, after 13 years of scribbling in a journal some sketchy details of our gambling activities.

1997 was the year I finally jumped onto the online highway, buying my first computer.   I had resisted for years.  “I’m almost 60 years old and never was good with technical stuff.  Back when I taught school, I had to depend on students from the AV Club just to show movies to my classes.  Besides, I’m retired and why would I need to bother learning how to use some complicated machine.  All I plan to do is play video poker.”

Well, we can see that I had no idea what my future would be like!

After I did get my first computer and learned the basics, my friends told me that now I could keep good gambling records.    My problem was that I tried to teach myself to use Excel, but not being  technically savvy, it seemed to take more time than keeping hard-copy records.  I should have taken some computer lessons, but I was too busy taking advantage of juicy casino promotions. So, I stuck with my DayMinder planners, never thinking that I would need to buy one every year for the next 23 years!

Fortunately, I did learn to use Word.   Back in 1996 I had started jotting down in long hand copious notes “in case I might want to write a book sometime.”  This book idea became strong in my mind, so I asked daughter Angela if she could help me out.  I was too busy in the casinos to spend long hours on my typewriter.    But on some of Brad’s and my road trips to visit casinos I could talk on tape, and then send them to Angela and she could organize and type out my thoughts.  I spent hours talking into the tape recorder and she spent many more transcribing.  She had a difficult task since I did a lot of “revising” on the fly: “Skip that last sentence and add this new one.  Go back and rewrite that whole paragraph.”  On and on it went.  But finally, she handed me a nicely typed rough-draft book manuscript.

Of course, the English teacher in me took out a red pen and the “bloody” manuscript looked like a major crime scene. I had always written in extremely small script so as I made changes – hundreds – maybe thousands of them – it looked like armies of mice with tiny dirty feet had waged war on every page.  And this was the way The Frugal Gambler got to the editor desk of Deke Castleman.  He “cleaned it up” – like he would do for my writing the next 22 years, but it would be the last time he would have to deal with my never-ending tiny handwriting revisions.  So, he joined Angela in rejoicing that I had finally jumped on the information highway.

By the way, if you have come lately to the world of video poker advantage play, you might want to read this first book and perhaps also the second one, More Frugal Gambling, both majorly discounted here on this website.  Of course, the information in both of these  has been updated in my newest book, The Frugal Gambler Casino Guide, but they not only would give you more interesting details about “how it used to be” but you might find some techniques that could be used even in today’s Covid casino world.  There are some wise building blocks for smart gambling that never change.

I haven’t mentioned much about our families in this series, focusing on the casino details.  However, from the get-go, our casino pursuits never took away from our family activities.  In fact, casino comps allowed us to plan luxurious family vacations we could have never been able to afford otherwise.  When Angela graduated from high school, we flew her and a girlfriend for a celebration in Vegas where they spent much of their time flirting with the lifeguards at the Riviera pool when they weren’t ignoring my warnings about underage gambling and sneaking out to play the nickel slots.  When she attended BYU, she would invite a carload of her friends to drive down to Vegas where they were amazed that they could stay and eat for free all weekend. When we still lived in Indianapolis we could see Brad’s family who mostly lived locally.  Once we gave up our condo in Indy, no one was sad because then they could come see us for an exciting free Vegas visit.

Once Angela married an Army Ranger and the two grandkids came along, there was no keeping us from seeing them grow up, no matter where the Army moved them.  I always said, “That’s why God created airplanes.” Many of the trips were comped by a casino, but occasionally we would actually pay for one of these.  That was the situation when Steve was stationed in Hawaii, one of the few states with no gambling, not even on the cruise ship we took around the islands.

 1998

A major change for us is coming up in 1999.  Next week I will tell you about us doing something we had said we would never do!

Posted in Advantage Play, Book Recommendation, Comps, Coronavirus, Family News, Gambling Resources, Gaming Writing, Memories, Non-gambling Activities, Online, Technology, Travel, Video Poker | 6 Comments

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 9

Posted on July 3, 2020 by queen of comps

1997 and 1998 were transitional years that brought many changes.  We were still “living” in casinos – 195 days in ‘97, almost all of them comped.  I was getting pretty expert at maximizing players club benefits, working for hours to put together a puzzle with dozens of mail offer pieces to make a long frugal vacation “picture.”  I was still laboring under the mistaken belief that even with heavy quarter play we weren’t “big enough” players to use a host. We always joined the players clubs separately, not joint accounts, so we would have double the mail offers, and we could often stay in one hotel room for a week or longer by switching back and forth between our names to register.  But we were getting a little tired of schlepping our roller bags up and down the Strip and even from the Strip to and from Downtown to take advantage of the free benefits we were earning at many casinos.  We eschewed taxis, considering a long walk was a good way to get our daily exercise, but in the summer Vegas heat that was often a pretty tough method to be frugal!

Although we were still flying back and forth for most of our Vegas visits, in ‘95 we started driving from Indianapolis for our long winter stays, and that reduced the schlepping.  But in ‘97 and ‘98 we were given another opportunity to make our Vegas visits more convenient and comfortable.  A dear friend had a condo in Vegas that he did not use often and he insisted that it would benefit him if we would “take care of it for him” during our long winter stays.   The few times he would come over from California for a weekend visit, we would pack up a bag and drive to a casino where we always had ready free rooms.

Previously I talked about our early foray into dollar VP play in ’95 and then pulling back to mostly quarters for a couple of years because we psychologically were not prepared for the wilder roller coaster ride.  However, our bankroll was growing, our 50-cent play was getting us used to bigger losing sessions, so in ’97 we were starting to take advantage of more dollar high-EV opportunities.

Many of these were on Double Bonus, a positive game at 100.17%, but we had to learn a new and much more difficult strategy.  Even at the quarter level we realized this was a much more volatile game than 9/6 JoB because of paying even money on two pair instead of double.  We had gotten used to the increased volatility of Deuces Wild, but it took time to accustom ourselves to this even bigger volatility jump.  However, we were finding it with many extra benefits and/or with high progressives that  softened the volatility somewhat.

Our favorite place to play DB when we were back at our home in Indianapolis was at The Empress riverboat in Joliet, IL.  The advent of casino riverboats in the states surrounding IN was a mixed blessing. It majorly reduced our lucrative Tonk and craps play – Indiana residents were spending all their gambling dollars at the riverboats instead of at the Moose Lodge Tonk tables or the crap games at the Catholic Monte Carlos. On the other hand, some of the riverboats offered good VP games with extra benefits, giving us casino options when we weren’t in Las Vegas.

The Empress, although a brutal traffic-filled several-hour drive from Indy, beckoned us with free rooms in the nice hotel on the shore and all the food we could eat; large cash bonuses for showing up and high slot club cashback; and a bank of $1 DB progressives with a super-fast meter and many short-coin players, consistently leaving for us those big jackpots .  We loved that game.  So much so that despite our not being morning people, we would get up early so we could be in the front of long lines waiting for the boat to open.  These machines were popular and the bank filled up quickly.

A casino  guard told us a funny story about the separate handicap line.  This line was also long but it wasn’t for our machines but for the new penny slots that had just been introduced into casinos.  Those banks filled up immediately each morning and there were people waiting behind the seats, ready to snatch one when someone got up.  Although there were a few players in wheelchairs in the handicap line almost every  person was using a cane.  The guard told us that the minute many of those people got through the entrance gate and past the guard’s line of sight, they would throw away the canes and race to those wonderful penny slots.  He said the casino had hundreds of canes in their Lost-and-Found!

We hit the royal 7 times in the two years we played those machines a couple of times a month when we were back home in Indy.  The jackpot was mostly from around $5000-5500, but Brad took one down for $8143.  Of course, we had many losing sessions when we didn’t hit the royal.  I wrote this in my notes on April 14, 1997: “Rode the dollar 10/7 DB progressive from $5500 to $8100 and then we had to leave because the boat was closing for the night and we were going back to Indy the next morning.  Lost $4655 – Ugh!”

However,  we took advantage of plenty of dollar opportunities when we visited other riverboats.  Many were progressives, and we liked those on 9/6 JoB or 8/5 Bonus.  Not so much volatility.  And when we were in Vegas, we frequently played progressives whenever we found them with high level jackpots.  But we didn’t actively search for them, sticking with mostly $1 DB at our “core” casinos where we could maximize our slot club benefits.  In mid- ‘98 we were thrilled when dollar FP Deuces popped up at the Reserve and Brad hit 2 royals on them the short time they lasted, and then we found one at the Silver Legacy on a side trip to Reno.  Brad and I both hit a royal on those.  But these jewel plays never lasted very long!

There were many other changes in these two transitional years.  Here is a picture that will give you a hint about some I will discuss next week.

Posted in Advantage Play, Comps, Memories, Non-Vegas Casinos, Reno, Slot Clubs, Slots, Travel, Video Poker | 7 Comments

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 8

Posted on June 26, 2020 by queen of comps

So…last week you read about my miracle jump from quarters to dollars at the Four Queens in August of ‘95, increasing our bankroll by $8000, and might be thinking that you would see me now talking exclusively about Brad’s and my exciting “big-money” adventures.

Not!

And if you are an experienced VP player, you will not be surprised that I will be talking as much about valleys as mountains!  After we left the Four Queens, we moved down to the Stratosphere and immediately hit their dollar machines.  And there, Lady Luck deserted us, and our losses were fast and deep.  We stopped and regrouped and looked at the situation.

Although all our play at both denominations was at a positive theoretical expected value (EV), the high EV of our quarter full-pay Deuces Wild (100.7%) play was a high base for adding promotional benefits.  Our dollar play was on 9/6 JoB (99.5%) and the promotions put us in positive territory, but not nearly as high a percentage place as the quarter Deuces. This is when, as Brad put it, I started worshipping at the altar of High EV, where I stayed for most of the time the next 24 years, until we retired last December.

Yes, there are other ways to calculate your advantage, the main one being what your per-hour theoretical win would be; it often was greater on the higher denominations.  Many gamblers use that measure with good success.  But it takes an extremely larger bankroll, and I saw too many of our acquaintances run into financial problems using it.  Brad and I were building up our bankroll rather quickly but in ’95 we wanted to keep our risk as low as possible, and that meant choosing the highest EV we could find and that was mostly on the quarter level.   Sometimes we could find a 50-cent machine, which was a more comfortable level for us, but mainly we stuck with quarters for the next couple of years.

The only exception was a period when we played a lot at the Frontier.  They had 50-cent full-pay Deuces Wild (FPDW) which we loved.  We hit that $2000 royal 3 times.  There was also a 6-coin quarter 9/6 JoB multiple-progressive near the deuce games and we would watch when one – or more – of the progressives was high and race over to claim a seat.  Brad loved that machine.  We hit many of the smaller jackpots, and Brad hit big on it twice, one for $1571 and another for $3803.

A big draw for a lot of the players was the short time in late December of ‘95 that the Frontier put in dollar FPDW.  I was so excited; Brad not so much so.

“I really want to play it,” I said.

Brad and I always discussed these decisions, and we usually wanted to play side-by-side.  But this time he resisted, “I’m quite happy playing the 50-centers.”  He saw my disappointment.  “But you are quite welcome to go play them.”  And he gave me a big wad of hundreds from his pocket.  “You’ll need them!”

So off I trotted further back in the casino where they were beckoning me.  Again, like at the Four Queens back in August,  I don’t remember how I was doing at first, but it was not a long time before I drew to 3 and a royal filled in.  While I was waiting to get paid, I ran back up to where Brad was playing to share the news.  He smiled and said, “You better just keep playing.”

About an hour and a half later, some man who seemed to know us rushed up to Brad and said that “his little woman” had gotten a royal.  Brad didn’t recognize the man, but being polite just commented that he had known that.

“You don’t understand – you have to come see, “insisted the man. “She just got another one – and it was dealt to her!”

What a way to end 1995!

’95 and ’96 were heady years for us, spending almost 300 days “living” in a casino, mostly in Vegas, but with trips to the riverboats in Illinois when we were back home in Indy.  We hit 24 royals – mostly $1000 on our quarter play but a few higher ones when we went up in denomination or played a progressive.  We were seeing a modest profit and covering all our expenses, which were becoming much lower because our heavier play was generating major room and food comps.  And we were having almost more fun than we could stand!

Stay tuned when next week I will report some changes when we traveled onto our 1997 pathway.

Posted in Advantage Play, Bankroll, Casino Promotions, Comps, Memories, Non-Vegas Casinos, Stratosphere, Video Poker | 1 Comment

35 Years of Advantage Play – Part 7

Posted on June 20, 2020 by queen of comps

Last week I talked about our major decision in 1991 to switch our core game from blackjack to video poker. I also discussed how we were happy to stay at the quarter level, earning enough comps to cover most of our expenses during our casino vacations.

However, in the summer of 1995, we did go up to playing dollar machines.  This was not a hasty decision; Brad and I are both very conservative in financial matters.  Ever since we had started casino gambling I always had what I considered a “healthy” fear of going broke!  Guess that was the result of my frugal nature.

In fact, we had just gone through a long losing spell caused by a royal drought, embarrassingly during the period when we were being followed by the “48 Hours” TV crew for a story about how we could be so successful in Las Vegas by using the comp system. Of course, that story had a “miracle” ending with my winning a car in a Stardust drawing.

That event seemed to set off a wonderful series of royal flushes.  I remember two we had in short order, at the Sahara where we – and many other knowledgeable VP enthusiasts– enjoyed a double-your-royal promotion. $2000 instead of $1000 was a great bankroll boost for us quarter players.  Unfortunately, like we would find so often in future years, the casino would soon find it unprofitable for their bottom line and end this player advantage! 🙁     However, back home that spring in Indianapolis we made 3 trips over to Peoria, IL, where the Par-A-Dice gave us a royal every visit.

So, when we went back to Vegas that summer, playing mostly Deuces Wild all over town, a pro saw us playing quarters at the Four Queens.  “You two should be playing dollars; you could make a lot more money with these good promotions going on here.”

We knew about the promotions.  Four Queens would often have 2 or even 3 going on at the same time.  Brad and I discussed at length whether we should consider going up to dollars.  Our bankroll was getting bigger.  But were we ready to psychological take this risk?  We already knew, even playing quarters, about the VP roller coaster ride.  Would we be able to take that ride when the downside would be 4 times lower?

I need to stop here and give some insight into our particular circumstances.  Not every gambler comes with the same life details.  Particularly I am concerned about people who read about our past years of casino adventures and want to “do just what you did.”  First, I am talking about the past.  It is not as easy to do these days.  In fact, successful gambling is never easy. If any gambler tells you it is, you can be sure he is lying.  But the truth is that advantage play was easier back when the casinos were more generous with player benefits.

A second, and very important fact you need to consider in reading our casino story, is that we never “needed” to make money gambling.  When we started, Brad had a full-time job and I was still doing private tutoring.  And after we retired, Brad had a pension and later we both had Social Security.  These were modest amounts but enough to cover all our living expenses.  I never recommended that people depend totally on gambling income for basic life expenses.  Those that have done so successfully for many years are a rare breed that have had to work their tail off and most certainly have gone through some very scary desperate financial periods.  Many many more have fallen by the wayside, most sooner or later deciding to add a part-time “real” job or choose to pursue a career in another field.  Sadly a few have not given up until they have lost everything – their friends, their family, and a few even their life.

When we had to make our decision at the Four Queens, we already had 11 years of casino gambling under our belt.  We had learned how to cope with the emotional stress of the roller coaster ride. And we had become acquainted with many kinds of gamblers and were aware of the dangers that befell those that were not careful in their money management.  But, we had enough regular income to cover our expenses, our retirement nest egg was securely invested, and we had built up our gambling bankroll to what we felt was sufficient.

So, on July 6th, excited – and maybe just a bit fearful, we hit the dollar machines for the first time.  I don’t remember exactly how the first hour or so went, whether we were winning a little or losing pretty fast, but I do remember my shock when I drew to four suited royal cards and that glorious 5th one popped up.  I don’t remember what suit it was – all I could think about was that giant four-thousand-dollar jackpot. Yes, four times the risk but also four times the reward!

As soon as I got paid, we decided to take a break and celebrate with a comped dinner at Magnolia’s.  It was still early when we finished our meal, and Brad and I discussed whether we should keep playing.  Maybe we would lose bad and feel bad that we lost part of the big jackpot?  On the other hand, those juicy promotions were still going on.

Yes, we went back to the machines – and the unbelievable happened just a few minutes later.  I drew to 3 suited royal cards and the other two popped up!!!

I didn’t care what promotions were going on.  After they paid me the $4000 a second time, I told Brad that I had to go to our room.  My nerves were shot!

Posted in Advantage Play, Bankroll, Casino Promotions, Comps, Four Queens, Media Appearances, Memories, Problem Gambling, Sahara, TV Appearance, Video Poker | 10 Comments