Jean Scott's Frugal Vegas

12/4/2003

How did I ever keep up before I had a computer and discovered the Internet? I learn so much by using online resources. Here are just a few samples of valuable information I’ve picked up recently on the cyber highway.

From the vpFree Forum
The following was written by a friend who is even more frugal than I am: “The Vegas city bus company CAT has a 24-hour pass, time-stamped from when you buy it from the driver, good for 24 hours on all CAT routes. For the cost of a little more than a mile in Las Vegas’ over-priced taxis ($2.70 flag drop + $1.80 mile + 20 cents waiting time, which is about every 33 seconds), you can travel on an unlimited basis for 24 hours for $5.” Go to www.rtc.co.clark.nv.us/cat.htm for more info.

Three Items from Viva Las Vegas Newsletter
* Nevada’s DUI-law presumption of impairment was recently reduced from 0.10 to 0.08. Be aware that the Las Vegas police conduct unannounced checkpoints.

* The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority moved its Visitors Center from Jean, NV, to Primm, NV, just beside the Fashion Outlet Mall.

* Jubilee Show All Access Backstage Walking Tour has restarted. An actual Jubilee performer will be your guide. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at 2 p.m. Minimum age is 13. Price is $10 for one hour per person or $16.50 for two hours per person. Reservations or actual ticket purchases are at the Box Office in Bally’s. (Brad and I took this many years ago and he found it very fascinating, especially the difference in pay for showgirls who appear topless and those that don’t!)

Subscribe to billhere’s Viva Las Vegas free email newsletter at www.billhere.com.

From Fantini’s Morning Gaming Report

“Mandalay Resort Group says it will install software to track non-gaming spending by its customers, Reuters reported. Such a move is consistent with their transition from a casino company with resort amenities to a resort company with a casino. It is estimated that non-gaming revenue will grow to be 70 percent of the total at their flagship property Mandalay Bay.”

This fact amazes me — just like the one that says the main purpose of the trip to Las Vegas for a majority of visitors is something other than gambling. I bet Bugsy is turning over in his grave!

From the Las Vegas Sun
A new reason to spend more time in a casino! An article in an online edition of the Las Vegas Sun about Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs), which are now in use in most Las Vegas casinos and hotels. These are battery-operated machines that deliver an electric shock to resuscitate people who have suffered cardiac arrests. People who have cardiac arrests in casinos have an advantage over having one at home, because surveillance employees see the episode on security cameras and can dispatch security guards very quickly. Read the whole article at http://tinyurl.com/okzd.

Of Hearts and Brad and Me
Speaking of heart attacks, many people have asked how Brad is doing since his in March. I’m grateful daily for the fact that he’s doing fine. Maybe he has slowed down a little, probably from the beta blocker he takes, but this has been a good thing really, since it has made me more conscious that I need to slow down a bit too.

Want to make a wager on whether or not I’ll be able to do it?

12/11/2003

Remember the item from last week’s FF, about defibrillators in casinos? Little did I know when I wrote those words that there’d be one in our casino hotel room a few days later!

Thanksgiving week we were taking a busman’s holiday to Reno, staying at the Reno Hilton. As I also reported in last week’s column, Brad was feeling great. He was taking his medications regularly: blood thinner, beta-blocker, and cholesterol-lowering pills. We’d pretty much forgotten the scare of the March heart attack and I didn’t stop breathing every time he “looked funny.”

Then, the day before Thanksgiving, after breakfast, Brad said he wasn’t feeling very well and told me to go ahead to the Hilton high-limit room and the Five-Play NSUD VP machines we’d been playing. He’d go upstairs and lie down, then come down to the machines and join me after a nap. Knowing that he’s a professional napper and being the dutiful and obedient spouse that I am (don’t laugh), I did as he instructed. My machine was hot — I was dealt a dirty royal and I got four deuces on one line all in the first ten minutes — and I was up $1,600. But with all this luck, my mind was not on the game.

Suddenly, I did stop breathing. How dumb was this! I’d never known Brad to choose a nap over VP — at least not in the morning! I grabbed the first casino employee I saw, an executive in a suit, gave him my slot card, and told him to take care of my machine with all its credits. I raced through the casino. Realizing I didn’t have my room key with me, I grabbed a security guard on the way, telling him I was afraid my husband might be having heart problems. He made a quick detour into an office, then joined me at the elevator, carrying the defibrillator pack.

When we got to the room, Brad was in bed with that awful gray face I hadn’t seen since last March, but he weakly told us he was okay. By this time there were four security guards in the room — good thing we had a large suite. I said we better call our host and get a limo to take Brad to the hospital emergency room. (I’ve got to quit thinking that hosts are for everything.) That’s when the security guard informed us that an ambulance was already on its way. The words were barely out of his mouth when three EMTs were there with a monitor on Brad’s chest.

Well, to make a long story short, the ambulance took Brad to the hospital, with me riding shotgun, where he was quickly diagnosed as having atrial fibrillation (meaning his upper heart chambers were beating three times for every one of the lower chambers, instead of a nice steady back-and-forth beat). Twenty minutes after receiving a heart-regulating medication, Brad’s heartbeat returned to normal and he was allowed to go back to the hotel. And he was put on Digoxin, which has pretty much controlled the AFib.

After we got home from Reno, Brad had another cardiac episode, another trip to the emergency room and subsequently a three-day stay in the hospital for all kinds of heart tests. But he passed them all with flying colors and it was determined that he had a bacterial infection that had probably precipitated the second episode. That infection has been eradicated with antibiotics and we’re now back to our usual routine, albeit careful to keep a slightly more relaxed schedule.

I was extremely impressed with the casino’s quick reaction to a medical emergency. Everyone was very efficient and caring. And the executive to whom I handed off my machine full of credits saw that I got my money back safe and sound.

I hope none of you ever have a medical emergency while you’re in a casino. But I think you can be assured that if you do, you’ll get swift help by highly trained personnel.

12/18/2003

Thank you so much, everyone who e-mailed us words of encouragement after last week’s column about Brad’s medical “adventures.” It’s truly wonderful to have so many friends all over the country who are thinking of us. And Brad wants everyone to know that the crisis is over and he’s feeling much stronger now — so he says you can quit worrying about him!

I need to clean out my computer file of “Things to Write About in Frugal Fridays.” Sheesh, it says there are 269 items. I guess I’ll never run out of material — so there’s that excuse for quitting writing down the drain!

From a reader (and good friend): “I had over $1,200 in my Silverton comp account. After a dispute over points earned on a multi-point day, I didn’t play there for over two years. After all that time, I stopped by to inquire about my comps at the slot club. Told that my comps had “”expired”” due to lack of play for two years, I asked if there was any way that my comp account could be reinstated, since I planned on playing there again. A supervisor told me to go ahead and play, and that within one week my comp account would be reinstated. I played 50c 10/7 DB for about an hour, returned a week later, and my comp points were back in my account! So, as Jean Scott always says, ask! It can’t hurt, and it sometimes gets you an exception to the rules!” (Another excuse down the drain — some people do take my advice!)

From a letter from Caesars, spelling out new rules for the new Park Place consolidated cross-property Connection players card:

“… Starting in January 2004, Nevada State law requires us to maintain only single Connection Card accounts. The account you currently hold for both you and [spouse] will be split into two accounts…” (Do you suppose the members of the Nevada Legislature got tired of reading my constant badgering of casino customers to not have joint slot club accounts and took matters into their own hands? Naaaah…)

And just when I thought that there would soon be nothing new under the sun for me to say about casino comps, I learn that the Cannery is running a promotion that you can use your comp points for a $25 voucher toward a real Christmas tree at a local lot.

So all my threats to quit writing will probably never be carried out. There will probably be a half-written Frugal Friday’s column on my chest when I’m in my casket!

Now, here’s a Christmas joke I’ve had in my file for almost a year, from Joke du Jour. It’s a little out of date, I think, because of the strife in the Holy Land, but let’s pretend the whole world is at peace this week.

A religious couple was touring the Holy Land during the Christmas season and decided it would be meaningful for them to spend Christmas Eve in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus.

Arriving there, they searched high and low for a room, but none was available at any price. Finally, they pulled up in front of the Sheraton-Bethlehem and the husband got out of the car, telling his wife: “”Stay here, sweetie. Let me see if I can do something for us.””

He approached the desk and the clerk told him there were no rooms. “”Sorry, sir. It’s Christmas Eve, our busiest time.””

No matter how much the man offered to pay, the clerk said he had nothing. Finally, the man told the clerk, “”I bet if I told you my name was Joseph, that the woman waiting in the car was called Mary, and that she had a newborn infant, you’d find us a room.””

“”Well,”” stammered the clerk, “”I — I suppose so.””

“”Okay,”” said the man. “”I guarantee you, they’re not coming tonight — so I’ll take their room.””

Happy holidays to all!

12/26/2003

I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season!

As you know by having read this column in the past, I try to tell it like it is. When a casino does something that I feel is sneaky, or unfair, or poorly executed, I pull no punches when I write about it. I’ve bitterly criticized the Orleans for treating many of us loyal customers like VIPs for years and years, then overnight cutting us off like we were pond scum — with no explanation whatsoever. Many casinos have changed their slot club or comps systems with no advance notice to their customers and/or no chance to redeem past benefits earned. Some casinos have heavily advertised a good customer promotion, then punished players who took advantage of it, cutting off their mailings or other benefits.

I’ve always said that casinos would be much better off if they were truthful and upfront with their customers, giving reasons for changing benefits, policies, or promotions. We might be disappointed when this happens — no one likes cuts in benefits in any business — but we like to be treated with respect and courtesy. And that means advance notice and clear explanations and fair implementation.

This week I want to share with you a letter that many of us recently received from the Las Vegas Stations Casinos (the related Fiestas sent a similar one). This is definitely not good-news correspondence for those of us who strive to play good video poker and look for full-pay machines. However, I was happy to receive a letter from a casino company that was clearly considering the feelings of its customers by alerting them in advance to a changeover in their comp system.

Here’s what the letter said:

“We’re making some changes and we want you to be the first to know. So, hurry into your number-one Station and play your favorite full-pay machine. Why? It’s your last chance to earn points at the current rate through December 31, 2003. We believe it’s important to communicate this information to you, our valued guest. Unlike other competitors who have taken full-pay games off the floor, Station Casinos and Fiestas are committed to offering the full-pay product that you, our guests, have told us you want. Unfortunately, in order for us to keep this committment, it is necessary for us to change the point structure to $2 = 1 point (like our competition). This change will occur on January 1, 2004. What does that mean? For every $2 played (coin-in), 1 Boarding Pass point will be earned. For your convenience, these machines will be clearly marked and the display will read:

“Boarding Pass points will be earned at a rate of $2 coin-in = 1 point on this machine.”

Though I don’t relish the change (cutting back on the slot club benefits of people who play full-pay video poker), I do applaud Station Casinos for warning us about it.

11/6/2003

I want to thank everyone who has written to me and said nice things about More Frugal Gambling. I especially enjoy hearing examples of how players have used my writings to allow them to stretch their gambling dollars into longer casino vacations. It’s also gratifying to read how people who never got comps are now getting them all over the place by using some of my suggestions.

My biggest surprise is the small number of posts from people who disagree, even mildly, with something I said. In most cases, it’s just a matter for clarification. For example, one person wrote: “Just one thing has me VERY upset. In at least two places in the book (i.e., page 323), you mention that the casinos take into consideration your skill level when determining comps (for VP players). Is this really happening?”

Actually, what’s happening is that some casinos are looking at the choice of video poker games a player is making. If he plays only pay schedules that have a theoretical long-term expected return of 100% and over, the casino may decide to cut the discretionary comps they get from a host, which negative-game players could easily get. Or they might cut back on their bounce-back-cash mailings.

The problem with this policy is that the casino is assuming that everyone who plays a “good” game is playing it computer-perfectly. This is far from the truth – the vast majority of people who have read about the best games to play don’t take the necessary next steps: learning and always using the proper strategy. This requires much study, practice, frequent review, and disciplined play – all things that most casual players do not want to do. Therefore, a casino that takes extreme measures to weed out a few advantage players usually uproots, upsets, or loses many players who have been regular contributors to their bottom line, often for many years.

There is computer-tracking technology available that can determine the skill level of a video poker player, but I don’t personally know of any casino using this sophisticated of a system at the present time. When I find out, I’ll let you know.

I have been notified of one error in the book. The vpFREE Web address of www.vpfree.com on page 396 is incorrect. That one goes to a Video Professor Web site. The correct address for this good VP site is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vpFREE.

Remember there are two e-mail addresses you can use for questions and comments related to More Frugal Gambling: [email protected] and [email protected]. I may not have time to answer every email I receive, but I’ll discuss as many as I can in future columns here. I’m especially hoping that all you eagle-eyes out there will let me know of any errors you find. We’d like to correct them before the book goes for a second printing.

Finally, I want to invite everyone who’ll be in Vegas next Monday (Nov. 10) to stop by the Palapa Lounge at the Palms sometime between 2 and 4 p.m. and join me for a cookie-and-drink break. Brad (aka the Cookie Monster) and my daughter Angela, the Frugal Princess, will be there, as well as my “”little”” sister Starr, an attorney from Indiana. There will be time for photos and book signings and chatting.

And don’t forget – if you want to buy a book that day, you’ll get a frugal gambling bonus coupon. Put 500 base points on your players card in one day during the next month, then go to the slot club booth where they’ll put $5 in free play on your card.

11/13/2003

Hi, Angela here, filling in for the Queen while she’s out of town. I thought I’d take this opportunity to update you on a few things, including my recent trip to Vegas for the More Frugal Gambling book-launch meet-and-greet at the Palms.

For the first time in more than 10 years, I traveled to Las Vegas by myself. Although I was accustomed to being there while my husband Steve was overseas, I didn’t quite know how to act without any responsibility for kids. It didn’t take long for me to get used to the idea, however. My Aunt Starr, Mom’s sister, was in town too, and we were able to play video poker side-by-side. We also roomed together and had a slumber party every night.

The book launch was held at the Palms casino on Monday afternoon, Nov. 10. It was a rousing success and, although the exact number of attendees was hard to estimate with people coming and going for the whole two hours, we guesstimate about 200 in attendance. For the first hour, the line waiting for Mom and me to sign books was unending. I had a great time meeting so many of Mom’s fans and riding on the coattails of her fame for a little while. The $5 free-slot-play coupon the Palms gave to everyone who purchased the book that day was a big hit with all these frugal fans.

As the title of this column suggests, I’ve finally “cut the cord” and have been able to fund my own gambling bankroll. Many of you have probably read how Brad always gave Steve and me gambling money whenever we visited them in a casino town, since we weren’t in the financial position to fund our own. This trip, however, I was able to bring a small bankroll with me, saved from a recent part-time job, my first foray outside the home to work since I had kids. I’d worked hard for that money, so I used it only for playing the best VP game I could find — and at the Palms that meant hitting the full-pay Deuces Wild progressive bank whenever I could find an open seat. I knew I didn’t really have enough money to take me through a long dry spell, but I wanted to see how long I could last. I played slowly enough so I knew I was using the most accurate strategy, consulting the strategy chart I always carry to look up any hand I wasn’t sure of. I took frequent breaks and quit whenever I was tired and felt I couldn’t concentrate well.

I had a few good sessions at the beginning of the trip, hitting a set of deuces early. I was never close to scraping the bottom of my bankroll barrel, although I was down some. After the launch event, the progressive was up on the Deuces Wild flattops, so with a somewhat tired hand from all the book signing, I sat down to play a few minutes before dinner. And yes, you guessed it — I hit the royal! $1,240!

Obviously, I was ecstatic, told everyone within earshot, and even ran to find my mom while the floorperson watched the machine. I’d hit one royal several years ago, but I was playing for Mom, on her money. That one was fun and she did pay me a bonus. But I count this as my real virgin royal!

After I was hand-paid, my aunt took over my seat; I had too much nervous excitement to play further (and I didn’t want to lose any of my winnings!). But while I was over talking to Brad, I suddenly realized that in all the excitement, I’d forgotten to cash out the credits on the machine when I hit the royal — $175! My heart sank, until I realized that I’d given my machine over to my aunt and not a stranger. Of course, she’d saved my money. I’d been lucky a second time! After telling Mom this story, she confessed that she’d done the very same thing herself a couple of years ago, but her story didn’t have a happy ending: Her $200 in credits were long gone. This is a lesson for everyone, not just the newbie gambler, to remember.

Thanks to everyone for your concern about my family this year and for asking about my Army husband, Steve. He was sent to Iraq earlier this year, but made it home safely. We’re being re-stationed at the end of this month

11/20/2003

A new version of the Frugal Video Poker software is now available, one that includes the popular game Pick ‘Em. You can order it here at the Greatstuff4gamblers bookstore. And if you already have the first version, you can download a free update that includes Pick ‘Em at www.frugalgambler.biz.

This week I have a guest columnist. My friend Jen Cuthbertson and her husband sprout useful Web sites right and left, including information on many gambling venues. Go to www.tunica-ms.com and from there you can explore their other sites. Here, she reviews Jim Wolf’s Frugal Video Poker. I like her perspective as a slot player who is just starting to become more interested in VP. She gives beginners some reasons why having VP software makes the learning process easier.

Frugal Video Poker
by Jen Cuthbertson

Video poker and Baskin-Robbins have a lot in common: so many flavors. For a newbie, it can be overwhelming. Also, simply trying them out in the casino can be a very expensive way to learn which game is best for you. Ah — but not so with Frugal Video Poker; with this software, you can select any flavor and topping, then dive in.

If you’re considering learning to play or just want to polish up your skills in VP, we highly recommend Frugal Video Poker, software developed by Jim Wolf. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to sit down and give this program a spin. I have to tell you, I’m a novice VP player. I admire players with high concentration levels, but I just don’t have it. I don’t have to think about playing slots. I needed something to help me learn VP with my “”relax-and-enjoy attitude.”

For some reason, I was relating “”learning VP”” to studying for a rocket-science exam. Not so with this program! I actually had fun using it, and it offered a challenge to this old brain. As a novice VP player, I found Frugal Video Poker extremely user-friendly. Jean has a magical way of making you feel she is there whispering in your ear giving tips as you play, with the scrolling marquee across the top encouraging you and giving advice as you play.

One of the most impressive features is the one where when you made the wrong hold on a hand, the software throws it back to you, disguised in another suit, a few hands later. This puts the practice-until-you-get-it-right theory to work for you without you realizing it. It’s a sneaky way of making you learn, but is often the best way with me.

Frugal Video Poker also has what I call a “”don’t-leave-home-without-it”” feature. After you’ve got plenty of practice under your belt, you’ll want to test your newfound knowledge in the casino with real money. The only problem is, you can’t take Jean or the software in with you. No problem. The program lets you print out strategy charts for your game of choice, so you can hit the casino armed with ammunition. Personally, since I’m longer intimidated by a lack of knowledge, I find myself ready for the challenge.

There are so many bells and whistles on the software, even a video with Jean and Brad Scott, that I could write about it all day. Each time I play I learn something new.

Remember back when you got your first home computer and the hours you spent playing solitaire or free cell? Switch to Frugal Video Poker and learn a skill that will definitely make your casino trips much more rewarding and enjoyable.

11/27/2003

We’re spending most of this week in Reno, where we will celebrate Thanksgiving Day, for the second year in a row, with 3 couples who are dear friends of ours, including their four children of various ages. I like having children around the Thanksgiving dinner table—it makes me feel so “family warm”—with all ages eating and chatting together. I’m sure this group will do as we did last year, going around the table with each person, from the youngest to the oldest, telling what they’re thankful for.

Yes, this dinner will be in a casino restaurant. But it will be as special and meaningful as any gathering of friends and family in any home. It will be a celebration of friendship.

Sometimes I’m asked how I deal with being involved with casinos and gambling, since, as I mentioned in both of my books, I was raised in a minister’s home where gambling was considered a major sin. I must say it’s never easy to go away from beliefs that were taught so strongly during early formative years; the “tapes” continue to run in the back of my mind even now, 47 years after I left home. But I have found an inner peace — by making sure that my behavior and actions when I’m in a casino are held to the same high ethical standards I have in all other areas of my life.

I do not subscribe to the current Las Vegas advertising campaign: “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.” I try to live here in such a way, both in and out of the casino, that if my friends or family from anywhere in the world learn of any details of my life, they would not be disappointed in me.

I hope everyone is having a thankful week. Counting our blessings is too important to emphasize just on Turkey Day.

And yes, I’ll answer before you ask: Our Thanksgiving feast will be comped! Did you have even a little doubt?

10/3/2003

Editor’s Note: Here, Jean Scott provides a sneak preview of More Frugal Gambling, in the form of an annotated Table of Contents – the annotations being Jean’s comments on the chapters. The book itself is due back from the printer on Tuesday, October 7.]

MORE FRUGAL GAMBLING

SECTION I: INTRODUCTIONS — The Queen of Comps and the Frugal Princess

I So Didn’t Want to Write This Book: The title says it all!

Following in the Queen’s Footsteps to Become the Frugal Princess — Finally! The down and dirty on how it really is to grow up with a nutty-frugal mother.

SECTION II: THE CASINO GAME

1. The Pyramid Falls: Some people thought I was too judgmental when I used a pyramid graphic to classify gamblers in the original Frugal. This chapter contains a kinder and gentler discussion on the subject of the different kinds of gamblers.

2. The Name of the Game — Luck or Math?: Choosing games wisely is probably the most important issue for the casino visitor who wants to make his money stretch further and his entertainment last longer. I discuss the choices of available games — tables, bingo, keno, sports betting, machines — and make a strong case for looking at factors other than just the house edge.

3. Not Your Grandma’s Slots Anymore: The Frugal Princess persuaded me to experience the slots before I tried to write about them — and a miracle occurred: I loved it! Because of this hands-on slot research, I was able to pack this long chapter with hints on how to make your slot play last longer and be more enjoyable.

4. Video Poker — Getting the Best of It: This chapter threatened to take over the whole book. Though still long, I pared it down to what I consider the essentials. However, there’s enough information here that someone who’s never before played video poker will know how to get started, while experienced players will find many ideas to help sharpen their skills.

SECTION III: TOOLS OF THE TRADE

5. Slot Clubs — You Can’t Afford Not to Join: The Frugal Princess reviews the basics and I offer literally hundreds of tips and tricks I’ve learned since I joined my first slot club in 1989. You’ll get many many more benefits from the slot clubs you join after you finish this chapter.

6. So Many Promotions, So Little Time: The promotion train I discussed in the original Frugal is still chugging along, and actually gaining steam as casinos proliferate all over the country and competition heats up. Here, I discuss how you can take advantage of some of the best promotional opportunities.

7. Joining the Court of KuPon: Couponing is still the number-one way for most gamblers to beat the casino. And amazingly, it’s a technique that the casinos encourage! I describe the various types of gambling coupons and give detailed instruction on how to maximize each kind.

SECTION IV: COMPS — THE GAME WITHIN THE GAME

8. Welcome to the Casino Comp World: Anyone can enter this world, but be warned! It’s a constantly changing place. The more you know about the comp system and keep up with the changes, the better you’ll be able to get your fair share.

9. Comps From the Slot Club and In Your Mailbox: This chapter describes the two systems — basic and mostly no-hassle — through which most recreation gamblers earn comps. However, few gamblers get what’s coming to them, because they don’t understand how the systems work. I let you in on many of their secrets.

10. Do You Need a Host?: To this question, most people respond with another: “”How would I even know how to find one?”” I provide the answer to this question and hundreds more, on the way to telling you everything you ever wanted to know about hosts and were truly afraid to ask.

11. Finding Your Way Through the Comp Maze: In this chapter I cover the multitude of hurdles you’ll face when trying to get comps, not just the ones the casino offers but even the “”secret”” ones you’ve legitimately earned.

10/10/2003

The wait is over for Angela and me — and it was worth it, if I do say so myself. More Frugal Gambling is in the house — Huntington Press’ warehouse, that is. It looks great! Bethany Rihel, HP’s long-time designer and marketing director, and Laurie Shaw, HP’s graphic artist, outdid themselves with this book’s cover, which is full of color and energy. Thank you, Bethany and Laurie!

Meanwhile, Vince and Doug in the shipping room are working day and night to get out all the books on back order. If you pre-ordered a copy, you should have yours by next week. Thank you, Vince and Doug!

Now starts the fun part.

And if the response to the original Frugal Gambler is any indication, Angela and I will be fielding hundreds and hundreds of emails and letters from readers over the next several months (and years).

To make it easy to correspond with us, we’ve established dedicated email addresses. Please send your electronic messages to me at [email protected] and to Ang at [email protected]. We’ll try to personally answer as many of them as we can, but we get such a flood of them, and so many contain the same questions, that we simply can’t respond to them all.

However, if you don’t get a response (and even if you do), watch this space!! I’ll endeavor to compile the most frequently asked questions and, occasionally, I’ll answer them right here in my Frugal Fridays column.

Speaking of Frugal Fridays, for a sneak preview of the book, check out last week’s column, where I list the Table of Contents and give a brief explanation of each chapter.

If you don’t have email and want to drop one or both of us a letter, address it to: Jean Scott or Angela Sparks, c/o Huntington Press, 3687 S. Procyon Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89103.

Either way, do let us hear from you. Angela and I are anxious to incorporate your questions and criticisms into future commentary.

10/16/2003

Editor’s Note: This week’s Frugal Friday is penned by John Little, a guest writer who had something pretty good happen to him at Santa Fe Station. Here’s the whole story.

Little Man Hits Big Jackpot

It was a dark and stormy night. … No, actually it wasn’t. It was a hot and dry afternoon as the northwest part of Las Vegas “”enjoyed”” its last 100F day. My plan was to go out and redeem some cash coupons, then earn enough points at the Santa Fe to get the mailing I wanted. I usually don’t play on a single-points day, but this was the last day of the month and I needed the points by midnight.

I cashed my coupon ($20) at the Fiesta and drove to the Santa Fe for some video poker. Slightly surprised that my preferred full-pay VP machine was open, I slid in a $100 bill and, twenty minutes later, had the credit meter up to $240. I’d just finished the first of two black coffees I’d ordered when I heard a beeping sound. First, however, I need to explain something. …

A few months ago, Station Casinos, which owns Santa Fe Station, started a promotion called “”Jumbo Jackpot.”” They promote it as “”Win Without Winning,”” because it’s a random payout that can hit on any machine at any Station casino at any time. You have to have your players card in the reader, but the Jumbo Jackpot can hit on any machine … even video poker.

Anyway, I’ve had this beeping thing happen before … once. I was playing at the Santa Fe and my machine beeped and I read the little scrolling card display that told me that I’d just been awarded $20 in free play (run it once through the machine and cash out).

So, here I am, watching the scrolling words come out:

“”Please…wait…for…an…attendant…to…verify…a…Jumbo…Jackpot…of…$113,917.”

My heart stopped.

“No freakin’ way!” I thought. I quickly looked at the readers of the machines next to me and they were blank.

“No freakin’ way,” I thought again.

I read it two or three more times and my stomach tightened up. I looked for a change person, asked her what this meant, and she said, “”Oh my God! You hit the big one!”” She added, “”In a minute, you’re going to be surrounded by a whole lot of people.””

Sure enough, suits (and a couple of skirts) came from everywhere — beepers going off, all talking on their cell phones, people asking my name, it’s a fog now.

They said they had to verify the hit. They said that there’d never been a malfunction, but they still had to check the computer system, surveillance tapes, etc. They wanted my ID. They kept asking me if I was excited (I was totally quiet) and I said that I’d be excited when they told me it was a done deal. I also said that I needed a drink and paramedics. The Marketing Director fetched me a Bloody Mary. I had to reassure them that I was kidding about the paramedics. They said to call my wife, but I wanted to wait … until it was for sure. “”Mike”” made several cell calls, then shook my hand and said, “”It’s a done deal.”

One hundred thirteen thousand nine hundred and seventeen dollars. And a jacket. And a T-shirt.

I had to sign papers authorizing marketing to use my picture. I was asked how I wanted the money. I could have had it all in cash. I said, “”Cash would be cool, but my shorts will fall down.” I took $5,000 in cash and a check for $108,917. I tipped the change people $300 and made sure it was split up among everyone. I gave them an extra $100 and said I wanted that amount split among any single moms working. I posed for the quick pictures (after making sure that someone was watching the $240 in my machine. Hell, it was my money).

After a while everyone drifted off. I sat back to play, with that oversized check next to me. People kept coming up and asking me if I’d won, touching me for luck (yup, loved that, especially the old men). I called my wife Amy (“”Oh my God! Oh my God!””). I called other relatives and a friend in St. Louis.

Amy picked me up as soon as the kids got up from their nap

10/23/2003

So many people liked the Jumbo Jackpot story in last week’s column that I decided to give you another one. We never get too old for fairy tales.

A couple of weeks ago, Brad and I were doing a bounce-back collection run on the east side of the Strip, going around the block to pick up our rewards at Ellis Island, Tuscany, and the Hard Rock. I hadn’t been feeling well that week, so our plan was to head straight back to our condo without playing anywhere.

However, I suddenly realized that the Frugal Van was in need of gas and we were going right past Terrible’s casino where, using a coupon that we keep in the vehicle for just such last-minute change of plans, we could play for about a half-hour and get a comp for $25 worth of gas at a Terrible’s gas station. So we pulled into the casino parking lot.

We often play at Terrible’s, since they have very good promotions. I don’t know exactly how to put this politely — how about, Terrible’s isn’t the Mirage? — but we enjoy being with the colorful group of gamblers in their customer mix, all seeming to have such a good time. Hey, we’re all a little eccentric at times! And I like a place where I can fit in when I’m in grunge mode. Brad can wear anything he pleases without checking with me to see if it’s “good enough.”

Anyway, we got out of the van in the parking lot and immediately met up with a panhandler. Brad is always a sucker in this circumstance, so I wasn’t surprised when he pulled out a roll of small bills (careful not to make a mistake and pull out the roll of big bills he usually keeps in the other pocket) and peeled off a single to donate. I’ve quit trying to convert him to the idea that it’s better to give money to charitable organizations so they can give longer-lasting help to the down-and-out. He doesn’t think it’s a bad idea and we send a check to the Salvation Army frequently. However, he also believes in crisis management — the wino probably really needs a drink or a cigarette right now!

But this time, I didn’t chide Brad for being an enabler. I really felt sorry for this guy, who might’ve been the dumbest beggar in Las Vegas. The majority of the customers at Terrible’s are nickel bettors; quarter players are considered high rollers. We play $1 and $2 denominations and feel like whales. The pickin’s were probably pretty slim for this panhandler, so I felt uncharacteristically cheerful about Brad’s donation and agreed with him that it might do some good — maybe even help us break out of our recent losing streak. We hadn’t met a wino for far too long!

We entered the casino and picked our machines. Brad reached in his big-bills pocket, looked at me, shook his head, and said, “I didn’t think we were going to play tonight, so I didn’t bring our regular gambling bankroll.” At which point, we both searched our pockets and came up with a little over $600. We usually play $2 VP, but with this little bit of money, it would’ve been touch and go to last until we got the necessary points for $25 worth of gas. So we decided to play dollars and hope for the best.

As usual, my story is going to be longer than I expected, so I’ll stop now. But tune in next week to hear the rest of the story. (Hey, if Paul Harvey can do it, so can I!) I’ll answer these burning questions: Did fantastic luck visit us? Should you go out and hunt a panhandler? And why in the heck would someone lose $600 or more to get $25 worth of free gas?

10/30/2003

Okay, I played a dirty trick on you last week and wrote a cliffhanger. I won’t make you wait any longer.

You’ll remember that we ended up in Terrible’s casino, after giving a panhandler in the parking lot a dollar, trying to make our scrapped-together bankroll of $600 last for a half-hour in order to get the number of points needed for $25 worth of gas for the van.

I know many of you asked yourselves, “What’s wrong with this picture? Why would anyone risk $600, or even $100, to get $25 worth of gas? Why not just buy the gas and not risk any money? Wouldn’t that be a wiser move?”

The explanation for this involves a discussion of the various personalities and goals of gamblers, something I talk about at length in More Frugal Gambling. But most of all, it gives a concrete example of our acceptance and use of the mathematically correct concept of “long-term” advantage gambling. We know that anything can happen in any one session or series of sessions. Skilled players can lose and seat-of-the-pants players can get lucky and win. However, we believe strongly — and have proved the concept in actual experience — that if you gamble only when you have some kind of an edge, the longer you play the closer you will get to the long-term profit that the ER (expected theoretical return) holds out to you.

Therefore, we say to ourselves on any play, like this play at Terrible’s, “We will not look at one session loss to judge whether this was a good play.” It was, of course. The game return was less than 100%, but slot club points for gas put it well into positive territory and a promotion giving a bonus on a royal gave it extra value. So, although it’s never as much fun to lose as it is to win, we’re never surprised if we have a loss, even a big one, in any one session. We’ve experienced them many times and actually joked when we started playing at Terrible’s, “Well, how much is our $25 worth of gas going to cost us tonight?” But we were only joking, for we knew that this night’s play would just be tossed in the big bucket that holds the results of every session since we started casino gambling almost 20 years ago, a bucket that has been full of our original bankroll and overflowing with profit since 19 years ago.

So much for math talk and down to the rest of the story. We managed to play almost to where we would have had enough points for our $25 coupon for gas. But our $600 was almost gone and we were nervous. Would our smaller-than-usual in-our-pocket bankroll stretch long enough, even though we were playing a dollar game instead of our usual $2 one? Up to that point, Brad’s belief that helping the down-and-outer would reap some good wasn’t even helping us get one set of quads to assure we could get over the hump.

But suddenly, in the nick of time, his belief came through like a trooper and I hit a royal for $4,000 and was also given the $2,000 bonus.

Was this skill? Yes. By playing a good game, we would lose less in our numerous losing sessions, so when we did hit the royal, it would put us in profit territory and not just cover some of our previous losses.

Was this luck? Yes. You could say we were lucky that we hit a royal this particular session, since a royal comes around only about every 80 or so hours on average.

Did donating to a panhandler make us lucky that day? There’s no mathematical answer to this question. You decide what’s the “right” answer!

”

9/4/2003

More bad news from the Coast Properties: All full-pay video poker games have been downgraded at the Barbary Coast. Sherman has now reached the sea, crying that there’s nothing left to burn down! Fortunately, other casino executives have taken advantage of this situation and I see more 100%+ VP signs than ever in non-Coast casinos all over town.

Interesting article from Wired magazine about the developer of MultiStrike: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/vegas.html.

Amid concerns about problem gambling, the National Australia Bank will withdraw automatic teller machines (ATMs) from Australian gambling venues. On a similar note, the Nevada Gaming Commission quashed a plan to equip slot machines with debit card devices, concerned that giving people direct access to their checking accounts via gambling machines could create more problem gamblers. http://casinowire.com/news.asp?id=4886. I have problems with the “”morals-police”” concept, but I must say I do think both of these are good ideas.

One of my best long-time frugal hints is no longer valid: You can no longer combine a two-for-one coupon and your slot card points for two free meals at the Station casinos. If you now use a 2-1, you must pay cash for the other meal. I hate when good things change to bad!

But I don’t hate Station Casinos, even though I’ve written a couple of negative things about them recently. We do play there sometimes and they just recently made a change I actually like. Instead of sending out several pages of coupons that I’d spend a lot of time cutting out and arranging in order, they now have a single-page calendar on which you can easily keep track of your offers.

The Stations have another program that’s very customer-friendly for Vegas locals. If you’re going to be out of town for a while, you can have your account “”frozen”” and when you return, you can start your point-requirement play where you left off earlier.

Someone wrote on the vpFree forum: “”In determining whether you have a sufficient bankroll for a play (or, if you will, whether it’s “”logical”” to play under a set of circumstances), it’s not simply a matter of deciding how large a loss you’re prepared to absorb. It’s also a question of whether you have the stomach to take a large sudden hit and continue playing with the same confidence you formerly had. If there’s doubt about the latter question, then a player may not have nearly the bankroll at his disposal that he perceives he does.””

My comment: Same old saw. There are two separate bankroll needs — a financial one and a psychological one. A lot of people I know have an adequate former, but an inadequate latter.

An it-depends-on-perspective joke, from jtpage552, an Internet friend: A couple with twin daughters was used to strangers always coming up and saying, “”Look, twins!”” During a Las Vegas trip, they were wheeling them in their stroller through a hotel lobby when a woman came around a corner and exclaimed, “”Look, a low pair!”

9/11/2003

TITO is now king, with his conquests over the erstwhile King Coin proceeding rapidly in casinos all over the world. I’m talking about the new technological darling of casinos: Ticket-In Ticket-Out.

Personally, I consider TITO the best advance in casino technology since bill acceptors. No more long delays for hopper fills. No more filthy hands and broken nails. No more painful waits for a bathroom break because you don’t want to cash out and fill armfuls of coin cups to take to the cashier. Fewer reasons for casino employees to expect a tip for small jackpots that really aren’t a win — this frugal aspect saves us hundreds of dollars a year. What could be the downside of such a wonderful new system? I was so overwhelmed by the convenience that I didn’t think there could be any.

But I’m starting to realize that all is not perfect with this King TITO. Machines still run out of paper and there’s sometimes a long wait for an employee to answer your light when they do. Why? The casino figured it could now cut staff to the bone. There can also be long lines when you go to cash in the tickets.

Too much in a hurry to stand in line? Okay, you can cash in your ticket the next time you come back to the casino. But you put it in your billfold, then forgot it when you flew home 2,000 miles — and now you realize you won’t be back until after the ticket expiration date, which is sometimes as short as 30 days. Or you carried it around in your billfold that you sit on for hours at a time and the ink started to fade or you stuck it in a pocket of a shirt that went through the wash-and-dry cycle. Talk about unsuccessful money laundering!

But the biggest problem has only slowly been revealed to me. It started about a year ago when I forgot to cash out some credits on a machine and when I remembered and went back, the $200 or so in credits was long gone. It was “”logical”” why I forgot. I was in a hurry to meet some friends for dinner. I hit a W-2G handpay right when I was ready to quit playing, and it took extra long to get the paperwork done. Already late, I grabbed the $1,600 they handed over to me, picked up my purse, and hurried to meet Brad and our friends. The handpay seemed like the end of the session. I didn’t even think about the credits on my machine or punching out the ticket. I was disgusted with myself for being so forgetful and repeated what I do so often these days, “”It’s a bitch to get old.”” So I figured this was an isolated incident and not one about which I needed to warn players, especially younger ones.

However, Brad and I started noticing that very frequently, especially in TITO casinos, when one of us took a break from playing and left credits on an adjacent machine for the other to watch until our return, someone would come up and ask if anyone was playing that machine. This would happen even if there was a sweater on the back of the chair and coin cups on the seats. We started discussing this phenomenon and decided there must be a lot of people going around the casinos looking for abandoned machines with credits on them and it must a pretty successful form of silver mining or so many people wouldn’t waste their time doing this. (Silver mining is the term that has been used for many years to describe people who walk around casinos looking for coins people have dropped on the floor or left in the machine, either in the coin tray or as credits.)

Then, when this subject was brought up on Internet chat forums and many many posters started confessing to losing money because of forgetting to punch out their tickets — not just senior citizens or casual recreational gamblers either, but people of all ages and very knowledgeable, experienced, and frequent players — I realized that this is a huge problem.

You say you’re always very careful with your money and would never be so absent-minded as to forget to pick up any that was yours? Probably every one of us who confessed to this money

9/18/2003

This week I’m pleased to introduce a new guest writer, my friend Winnie Grand. I thought it would be interesting for gamblers to know that they’re not alone in the casino-comfort department. With luck, at least a few game manufacturers and casino managers will read this and do something about some of these problems.
——————

Ouch! That right elbow gave a twinge as I lifted the cup. I’d heard of tennis elbow, but since I hadn’t picked up a tennis racket since my college days, I never dreamed I would have this affliction.

In talking to my friends who tend to spend long hours at the video poker machines, I discovered that this is not an uncommon problem among casino patrons. Upon investigating this strange fact, I found that the cause of tennis elbow is the repetitive motion whereby the wrist extends upward. This occurs because the muscles attach at the elbow and can become inflamed if overused.

I tend to play a video poker machine like one would a piano — with both hands poised on the buttons. The left hand plays the left four cards and the right hand plays the right card and the deal/draw button. On many machines, this isn’t a problem, because all the buttons can be reached with a minimum of movement. However, on some machines the deal/draw button is placed up and to the right from the other buttons, leading to the repetitive up-and-down wrist movement. This problem becomes even more apparent when you play a slant top that has the buttons at an angle. On these machines, the wrist is extended upward all the time and the slightest movement will cause the use of the muscle in the wrist. Machines would be much more user-friendly if our hand could curl downward as we play, giving relief to the overuse of our extensor muscles.

I was told that the reason for the placement of the deal/draw button away from the other ones was to keep the patron from making mistakes. Yeah, right!

But button placement isn’t the only complaint about the machines we play. Others problems are just as distracting to a satisfying experience. The following are a few that I’ve heard from various casino customers:

Spotlights: We all love the slant tops for the comfort of having somewhere to place our arms and be able to play with our arms at rest. But most slant tops have a severe glare from a spotlight just overhead. Sometimes this is so bad that we’ve been known to put sticky notes on the screen to try to block the bright light. Sometimes two of these spotlights strike the same machine –making it almost impossible to play!

Cold Drafts: Chilly drafts from outside doors and air-conditioning ducts are commonoplace. In most cases, though the staff is very aware of this problem, they’re unwilling or unable to do anything about it. So what can a suffering patron do? If you know to expect this, you can bring a jacket to the casino, even in the summer. If you’re an occasional and unprepared visitor, you can flee to a warmer climate (which usually means right outside). It would be helpful if the casino staff were trained to treat this as a priority item as a comfortable temperature makes for a much happier patron — and one who remains a patron.

Large Screens: I’m primarily a video poker player, so I don’t know if the following is an issue with slot players. Probably, the game manufacturers thought they were doing us a favor by giving us larger screens so we don’t have to strain our eyes. But these large screens aren’t appropriate for the games we play. Imagine sitting right in front of your TV, only a foot away, and watching your favorite program. It wouldn’t be too enjoyable, as eight to ten feet is a much more appropriate and comfortable viewing distance. When you play video poker, you’re limited by how far you can move back by the length of your arms! Also, your peripheral vision cannot take in all of the big screens. This leads to a lot of head movement back and forth and missed plays, as the entire hand is not clear at one time

9/26/2003

I attended the Global Gaming Expo last week. It’s always fun to see all the new games, but I most enjoy reconnecting with many of my long-term friends in the gaming industry, as well as making some new acquaintances I’ve only known through e-mail contact.

The evenings (and late nights) during this convention were loaded with parties all over town, and Brad and I attended as many as our bodies held up for — we usually cried uncle after the second one each night! Our favorite, not surprisingly, was the one for gaming writers, and you can imagine what a lively party it was! Writers are never at a loss for words. I launched this get-together tradition last year, planning a party that was held at the Palms Ghostbar. This year it was sponsored by Compton Dancer Consulting and was again held “up in the air,” at the huge, 12,500-square foot (we could fit our 1,025-square-foot condo in there approximately 10 times), luxurious Conrad Villa at the top of the Las Vegas Hilton, providing a stunning view of the city. We enjoyed sitting on the lawn outside the villa, by the swimming pool.

Roaming the convention floor meant total immersion in the casino industry, from small booths for niche products to mammoth and elaborate displays by the major slot machine manufacturers to show off their newest games. Of course, I was most interested in new video poker machines I might see in the casinos during the next year, although I usually can’t judge whether they would be a good playing option for me until my math-head friends figure and write about the EV and proper strategy. Ernie Moody, my hero for developing multi-line video poker, as usual wanted to show me all his new offerings, but I never got past his first demonstration: a marriage of two of my favorite video poker loves, multi-line and Multi-Strike.

The rest of that day I spent talking to Ernie, and to Larry DeMar and all of his cohorts from Leading Edge, the company that designed Multi-Strike. They all knew that I am one of Multi-Strike’s biggest fans, so they were anxious to tell me all about what they have in mind for its future. They’re hoping to offer MS with a progressive feature and are thinking about a version of Multi-Strike that enhances the Free Ride feature. Based on suggestions sent to [email protected], they’re looking at letting you keep a Free Ride for a higher hand if it is not needed on a lower hand. Another suggestion being considered is a Free Ride that guarantees play of all four stages on one hand.

But I think the biggest hit will be this cooperative effort between Leading Edge and Action Gaming, Ernie Moody’s company, to offer MS in a multi-line format. I played the prototype game they had there in Triple and Five Play and it was super fun. Get discouraged because you don’t advance to the next line often enough in the single-line format? Okay, we’ll solve that and give you more chances to advance on one hand. Of course, more hands means a bigger initial bet — 60 coins on Triple Play and 100 coins on Five Play — and I agreed with Larry that this would probably be the most successful in penny to nickel to quarter denominations. Not many people would want to play Five Play Multi-Strike in dollars, with $100 a button push!

I just hope that casinos will put in more MS machines, in whatever format or denomination, with better than average paytables; Multi Strike is a more volatile game and it will eat up a gambling bankroll pretty quickly. If people lose their money too fast, they won’t play a game very long, no matter how much fun it is. Most players will not take the effort to learn “perfect” MS strategy, because it’s quite difficult. So the pay schedules need to be a little more forgiving, so casual players can use their limited natural intuitive video poker skill and still have a chance to make their money last as long as on other video poker variations.

Actually, Ernie talked to me about this same problem concerning his multi-line poker.

8/1/2003

Recently, Brad and I played Multi Strike off and on for three days straight. I played more hours in those three days than I sometimes do in a whole month. The occasion was (a shock, I know) a vacation, one that we needed badly. We had just waved goodbye to the last of a month-long stream of visiting relatives, including our two lively 8- and 10-year-old grandchildren. We love them all and had a lot of fun, but our poor aging bodies can’t take such a sustained and intense pace as well as they used to. Plus, I’d finally been able to put behind me the most major stress I’ve experienced in a long time: the photo shoot for the cover of More Frugal Gambling. My daughter Angela and I literally shopped until we dropped for days, hunting for an outfit that would make me look young, thin, and beautiful. Talk about mission impossible!

So when a Strip tournament offer came that required a hotel stay, I turned my back on my computer. We put our van in the shop for some body work. And we checked ourselves into a casino fantasyland for a mind and body tune-up. And there to help us relax was Multi Strike. I hate playing in slot tournaments, but Brad likes to, so it worked out well. I could concentrate on Multi Strike until my eyeballs fell out and Brad would join me when he didn’t have tournament duties.

I won’t bore you with an hour-by-hour blow-by-blow, but here are some of the important details.

We were playing a JoB schedule, one we hadn’t played on Multi Strike before, on the $1 level. Ordinarily, we would have started on the quarter level while we were learning, but we needed to earn qualification points faster than this would have permitted. So the first few hours, we did as we usually do on a new game or one we haven’t played for a long time: Brad played while I sat beside him, referring often to a strategy chart. This learning process took longer than usual — switching between three modified charts depending on what line you are on and remembering to switch back to basic strategy every time we had a Free Ride or were on the top line. It required our intense and undivided concentration. If someone came up to talk to us, we soon learned that we had to stop playing completely.

We went through all sorts of streaks during the three days, a lot of them losing. You need a huge bankroll to ride this roller-coaster! But the high points that came occasionally kept us going: quads on the 3rd or 4th line for $500 or $1,000, a series of good hits on the top line, and a $4,000 royal on the bottom line (which we tried to appreciate without thinking of the $32,000 we would have scored if it’d been on the 4th line).

We ended up winning $3,400, but almost that whole amount was due to a fortunate accident. Brad had switched machines and neither of us noticed that when he put in some new bills, the game changed. So when he exclaimed after a few minutes, “I got four aces on the third line,” we were happy with our expected $500. However, the machine kept clicking up credits beyond 500, then locked up for a handpay of $3,225. Yes, unbeknownst to us, the machine had defaulted to Double Bonus when we put in more money. Once again, skill kept us going, so we were in a position to enjoy a visit by Lady Luck.

SPECIAL NOTICE
There will be a big Gamblers Jamboree in Tunica Nov. 14-16. I’ll be joining many gambling personalities in giving seminars that will cover all casino games. And here’s a frugal way to register. Mention that the Frugal Gambler sent you and you’ll get a 20% discount. There’s also a discount if two or more register together. Go to www.FrugalGambler.biz and click on the Tunica banner to read all the details of this information-packed three-day event.

While you’re at the Web site, you might want to click on Calendar, where we list book-signings and meets that are being scheduled in many places outside Las Vegas. Brad and I look forward to meeting old friends and making new ones at these events.

8/7/2003

From a recent press release: The vpFREE video poker Internet group announces the selection of Dan Paymar as the 2003 inductee into the vpFREE Video Poker Hall of Fame. Paymar’s books, articles and strategy cards have helped to educate players and popularize video poker.

Dan Paymar joins the five 2002 charter members, including Gary Catlin, the inventor of VP Tutor software; the late Lenny Frome, who was a video poker pioneer; Si Redd who introduced and marketed the first video poker machines in 1978; Stanford Wong, the blackjack and sports betting guru, who developed VPExactsoftware; and Dean Zamzow, who created WinPoker, which is a required resource for every serious video poker player.

Dan Paymar and the five charter inductees are honored on the Hall of Fame Web site at http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1955/20228/VP/HOF.html.

The vpFREE video poker group is a group of 2200 plus video poker enthusiasts who exchange video poker information via individual and Internet-based e-mail messages. The home page site for vpFREE is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vpFREE .

Future elections will be held annually to honor others who have made or continue to make significant contributions to the world of video poker.
—————–

Bill Burton has a new Web site where you can order his book, Get the Edge at Low-limit Texas Hold ‘Em: www.billburton.com.

Good poker advice: “”Look around the table. If you don’t see a sucker, get up, because you’re the sucker.””–Amarillo Slim, former WSOP champion.

Go to www.bankrate.com/nsc/news/auto/20030716a1.asp for some frugal tips on renting cars. I would add to the ones they have listed:

1. Book early and keep checking every few days; sometimes you can catch a lower rate and you can easily cancel the old reservation (since they don’t require an advance deposit or credit-card charge) and make a new one for the lower price.

2. Join the frequent-renter clubs at the companies you use. Most of these are free and they make check-in more convenient, with less standing in line. If the club you join lets you pick your own car at the lot, sometimes a tip to the attendant will allow you to choose an upgraded size without an extra charge.

From casinowire.com: Rich Cartiere, publisher of Wine Market Report, sums up local opposition to the construction of a casino by the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria in Sonoma County.

“There is a snob factor working against what is being perceived as a garish casino at one of the entrances to California’s wine country. The wine industry views itself as representing a fine sin, as opposed to a run-of-the-mill sin represented by a casino.”” Hmmph! I’m a little insulted.

Speaking of wine. I’ve encouraged Brad, since his heart attack, to drink a glass of red wine several times a week, since this has been touted as a good thing for the heart. He never was a teetotaler, but seldom drank alcoholic beverages in the past. The other day when I was too busy to leave my computer, I sent him out to play VP at a casino where we needed to get some points to maintain our bounce-back level. I called out as he was leaving, “Don’t forget to have a glass of wine.”

He stopped and looked at me with a henpecked frown. “I bet I’m the only man in the world with a wife who forces him to go out and gamble and drink!”

8/14/2003

This week I got a letter from the Texas Station marketing department. The first sentence mentioned “exciting news and programs we would like to share with you!” (Their exclamation point, not mine, for a change!) Well, that immediately put me on my guard. I rarely enjoy new slot club programs and I’m even more rarely excited about casino changes, which are rarely good news for my pocketbook.

I read on about the restructuring of their Player Development program. I also find that term eminently distasteful. If I want something developed about me — my personality, my attitude, whatever — I want to do it myself, not have it done by some organization or company that just wants my money. What happened to the warm and fuzzy word “host”? I want a letter from my personal casino representative, who knows me, and probably likes me, because I’m a friendly non-demanding customer, not one from the director of marketing who knows me only by my players card number.

But I digress. The letter does go on to mention hosts, but in a shocking sentence: “We will no longer have individual hosts assigned to individual players.” Whoa there! No one who knows I like caffeine-free sugar-free soda in my room instead of a bottle of wine, and cheese and crackers instead of candy in my fruit basket? No one who asks how my beloved grandchildren are? No one who knows we aren’t very big on gourmet restaurants and I like to eat in a buffet so I can easier stick to a low-carb diet?

“We are rolling out our ‘Host on Duty’ program, which means that any one of our three Executive Casino Hosts will be happy to assist you in any arrangements you may need. We feel this is a better way to assist our most valuable guests. Attached is our Executive Casino Host Schedule for your convenience.” A chart follows.

Hmmm, I’ll have to think about this one. I know Texas Station is a locals casino with a comp-only (no cashback) slot club system. So most of the time, most of us will just go to the slot club or a kiosk for a comp or have our cards swiped in the restaurant or outlet we choose. Many players never saw a host before anyway, so they won’t even notice the change.

This might work for a Vegas locals casino, but I hope the concept isn’t the beginning of a trend. I, for one, would certainly miss the old system: an e-mail from my host when she hadn’t seen us for a while; a short chat when she looks us up at our machine; someone who knows never to call me before 11 a.m. even if she does bear good news about an upcoming juicy promotion or fancy-dancy VIP event to which we’re invited.

To me the word “host” means someone who welcomes people into his or her “home” and gives personal attention, not someone who represents an impersonal organization and dutifully scurries about to drum up loyalty to that organization.

Maybe I misunderstand the word.

8/21/2003

Continuing from last week with the subject of casino mail I could do without, just today I received this in a letter from a casino: “Recently your friends at Casino XXX mailed an invitation to you for a [future party with free room nights, yadda, yadda]. The invitation inadvertently stated ‘complimentary offer’ when it should have been ‘$99 complimentary dollars.’ To make your reservation for this event using your Comp Dollars, please contact Casino Marketing at (1-800-YOU-BLEWIT).”

I know casinos are run by human beings. I also know that human beings make mistakes. But this left a very bad taste in my mouth and a very negative feeling toward that casino. I think they should have bit the bullet and honored the offer as it was written. I have a strong feeling that the marketing department at this casino might have have been surprised at the number of low-level customers who would have been so thrilled with the free offer that they would’ve come and played more and become higher-level players.

But this next incident takes the cake. Brad and I and some of our friends recently received an invitation to a slot tournament at a new casino that recently opened just off the Strip. In big letters on the front it said: “FOR VIP’s ONLY (FREE).” Inside it had an entry form that included blanks to fill in for a room, free I assumed, since no rates were given. Brad and I decided to skip this tournament because of time constraints, so we didn’t bother calling the tournament hotline. A friend of ours who did call to book his entry in response to the invitation, however, heard, “Oops, you haven’t played enough to qualify. Sorry.” Our friend, a bit of a wag, commented in an e-mail on Skip’s VP Internet List, “I guess maybe it was too complicated to screen me out before they sent me the mailer saying I was VIP status to play.”

I’m constantly shaking my head at the things casinos do!

Interesting historical facts about lotteries, from CasinoWire:

The first commercial lottery took place in the French town of L’Ecluse in 1420, with proceeds helping to pay for improvements to the town moat.”

A two-year study carried out by researcher Doron Herzog and financed by Mifal Hapayis (the Israeli National Lottery) follows the history of lotteries among the Jewish people from the days of the Bible until the establishment of the Jewish state. The study is published in the book One Fate, which contains documents, original lottery tickets, and other rare items from the 18th and 19th century. It reveals that the Israel has conducted lotteries since early times — starting with stories of the forefathers and continuing through the Israelis’ toils in the Sinai desert, settling the land of Israel, and up to the present. Even the plague of frogs in Egypt was determined by a lottery. Moses asked Pharaoh to decide on the day for removing the plague of frogs from Egypt. The Biblical scholar Tur-Sinai explains that Moses turned to Pharaoh saying, “”Cast a die and we shall find the day on which you want the frogs to be removed””.

Did you know that “”THE”” and “”IRS”” when put together spells “”THEIRS””?
”
8/29/2003 “I hear a lot of people say that they don’t like casinos that give points only for comps and none for cashback. The Palms is sometimes mentioned negatively in this respect. As everyone should know, I’m one of the biggest lovers of cashback, but we’ve found that the Palms comp points are as good as cashback, because we can use them for 1) many of the necessities of life, and 2) many of the luxuries of life we could not afford on our modest pension.

For some of you who don’t know what to do with all the points you have at the Palms, here’s some help, with suggestions on how to pump up the bill to use more points:

1. See movies. Go at night when the prices are higher than the matinees. Take all your friends or, if you don’t have any friends, make some by using your points for the tickets for strangers standing in line with you.

2. Load up on junk food at the movie concession stand. The prices are high.

3. Buy car-wash tokens for 1,200 points, at the slot club or at the gift shop, and distribute them as tips to anyone who does anything for you.

4. Slurp yummy drinks at the Coffee Bean, worth every penny of the high prices. (The fat-free and sugar-free Sunrise is my favorite drink, when I’m cheating on my low-carb diet.) Also buy nice gift baskets and coffee products there.

5. Treat yourself to an ice-cream creation at Ben and Jerry’s, also worth every penny.

6. Pay for your hotel bill if (God forbid) you didn’t play enough to get it
comped. Pay with points for rooms for your relatives so they don’t have to be under feet in your Las Vegas home when they come visit you. (And be assured that they WILL visit you more often when you move to Vegas.)

7. Eat at a gourmet restaurant and drink expensive wine with your dinner.

8. Eat at the food court and supersize everything.

9. Use in the salon for services and all kinds of hair and skin products, makeup, etc.

10. Use in the spa for massages and other pampering services and neat little gifts in their small retail area. Doing nice things for your body is never a waste of points or money.

11. Use in the regular gift shop for clothes, cigarettes, and sundries, and at the smaller Stuff gift shop adjacent to the Steak House, which sell swimsuits and sexy apparel. (It’s an aptly named store — since I’d literally have to stuff myself into any article of clothing I bought there.)

12. Stash your kids or grandkids in Kids Quest and let them have unlimited snacks. You’d be surprised how many points you can use up even if the time limit for one day is 5.5 hours. My grandchildren have tested this one
and will vouch for it. The record for bailing them out from one session is $97.

13. Drink at the bars and buy rounds for everyone around you.

14. Buy gift certificates for your own future use or for highly appreciated gifts for hosts, friends, and family:

A. In the gift shop, you can buy certificates that can be used in the
buffet, coffee shop, Gardunos, Little Buddha, for hotel bills, and for
gift-shop purchases.

B. The Stuff store doesn’t sell gift certificates per se, but they do sell gift cards, good at that same store, the Nine Steak House, Rain nightclub, and the Ghost Bar. The gift cards are sold in denominations from $50 to $200. These are even better than gift certificates, as you can use a partial amount on one of them, and the balance will remain on the card for future use.

C. Buy gift certificates in the Spa that can be used for products and services.

D. Buy gift certificates in the AMP Hair Salon for products and services.

Places you can pay directly with points, without going to the slot club first to get a comp voucher: Ben and Jerry’s and Regina’s Pizza (both in the Food Court); all non-food court restaurants (Alize, Nine, Garduno’s, Little Buddha, buffet, coffee shop); both gift shops; all casino bars; the spa and the hair salon. All other places you must first go to the slot club o

7/4/2003

This is my third and last column in this series on the fascinating 4-line video poker game, Multi Strike Poker.

I think almost everyone will enjoy the unique sound effects of this game. You soon learn to “read” your results with your ears, as the sounds build up the excitement by moving up a key when you progress to a higher level.

A danger for recreational and serious players alike: You need to really concentrate and keep track of where you are. A couple of times (in the later hours of the much-too-long session I described in Part One), I threw away a hand without holding anything because I didn’t realize where I was in the game. Especially if you’re switching strategies on each line (as I said in Part I, you need to do this if you want to get the best possible return), take care to be sure what line you’re playing. The game clearly labels the next line when you’ve earned a Free Ride, but it’s easy to forget when you should go back to basic strategy.

The biggest danger for players may be the tendency to play this fun game without checking the paytables. There are many available for casinos to choose from when they put in these machines, and many of those have very low returns. If you play your usual denomination, remember you’re betting four times the money as on a single-line game. So if you play these low-return pay schedules, you especially need to carefully limit your session loss to what your entertainment budget allows. Don’t go on tilt and chase your losses just because the game is so much fun and there are several possibilities for catch-up jackpots. You may go broke before these miracle hands show up!

Players who want higher returns will look for the better tables. As a rule of thumb, a pay schedule in a normal VP game will return about .2% more if you find it in Multi Strike and adjust your strategy as you move from line to line.

As I so frequently write, the more you study, the “luckier” you’ll be. Here are some resources if you want to have more luck in your play of Multi Strike Poker.

No currently available software offers Multi Strike Poker yet. But to practice playing this game, you can go to www.ledgaming.com. Larry DeMar, president of Leading Edge Design who designed this game, wrote to me: “It’s a practice version of Multi-Strike poker, which is nearly identical to the experience on the casino game. It’s provided to allow players to become comfortable on the game and to experience its volatility before putting their money at risk on the real game.” This is not a tutor, so it won’t warn you when you make strategy errors, like Frugal Video Poker and other software, but it will give you a good idea how the game works.

For a good introductory article on Multi Strike Poker by Bob Dancer that includes a simplified JoB strategy, go to www.igtproducts.com/IGTproducts/GameReview/MultiStikePoker/MultiStrikePoker.htm. Included is a valuable chart (which I printed out and carry with me when I go to casinos), showing all the pay schedules that return more than 98% if you use optimal strategy. You can also get helpful information by reading his June 10th and 17th articles at http://casinogaming.com/columnists/dancer/.

You can always trust the math information put out by Michael Shackleford. Go to his Web site www.wizardofodds.com/games/multistrike/index.html for a discussion of this game and a strategy for the best Multi Strike Deuces game paytable.

www.gamemasteronline.com/indexa.shtml?VideoPokerContent.shtml has very detailed information on the game.

Oh, by the way — people have asked us how we came out during that original seven-hour session. We were playing quarter Deuces Wild and got some lucky hits: 4 deuces on line 1, lots of straight flushes and other good hits on line 3, and a dirty royal and 5-of-a-kind on line 4. We ended up winning $1,052.

Did we lose in the health department? Probably. I already had a bad upper respiratory infection when I started playing

7/11/2003

Recently, while I was making out a list for Brad to take to the grocery store, I was suddenly struck by how similar our playing in a casino is to our shopping in a store. Each Tuesday I look over the grocery ad sheets we get in the mail and look for sale items. Likewise, all through the month, as casino mailers come to our mailbox, I look each of them over to see if I see any “bargains,” such as bonus-point days, coupons, or special promotions. When I read the local newspaper each day, I look for coupons and sales at Dillards and Macy’s department stores. Each Sunday I look for the newspaper supplements that tell me what’s on sale at Target or Home Depot or Office Max. But as I go through the newspaper, I’m also looking for casino specials that we can take advantage of to stretch our gambling dollar, like a new slot club launch or a new mid-month promotion.

Some grocery stores are nicer than others, but we aren’t too concerned about the ambience of a grocery store — we’re looking for a good price on fresh strawberries and caffeine-free diet Dr. Pepper. However, if one store routinely has fresher fruits and vegetables, we consider that place a better value even if the prices are a bit higher. If a casino has a great promotion, but no loose video poker machines, the better value might be to forgo the promotion and go to another casino with a great selection of good video poker with better paytables. I’ve said many times that I would go to Hell, where the Devil is the slot manager, if there were $1 full-pay Deuces with 1% cashback. Maybe that’s a little extreme — I’m allergic to smoke — but the ambience of a casino is way down on the list of how we choose where we play.

We don’t always buy our groceries at one store just because it’s closest and most convenient. We don’t always play at the same casinos just because they’re near to our condo. We read and research continually to be sure we’re getting good value for our money whenever buy anything, large or small. We read and study and plan carefully before we choose any gambling activity to be sure we’re getting the best odds possible.

Now, I realize that not everyone is like me. As Brad says, I’ve always been nutty frugal. Sometimes he ignores what I put down on the grocery list and goes where he wants to and buys things that are NOT on sale, just because he doesn’t want to stop at another store. And honestly, I don’t fuss at him when he does this. I can sit back and think, “I don’t have to be so nutty frugal anymore. Because I’ve been so nutty frugal all my life, we ‘ve accumulated a nice financial portfolio and can AFFORD to splurge and sometimes do what’s most convenient at the moment. In fact, I’m finally starting to find real value in relaxing (a bit) my strict adherence to the most cost-effective action.

See what happens when you get old? Yesterday when I went to a casino to cash a small bounce-back check, I decided to play, instead of 100%+ VP, LITTLE GREEN MEN!

”
7/18/2003

by Kaity Starr
The Little Frugal Princess

(Note from Jean: While I’m out of town, my budding-writer granddaughter, Kaitlynn (pen name Kaity Starr), age 8-1/2, has agreed to write Frugal Fridays for me. Her brother Zachary, age 10, helped her out some by adding a few facts and opinions.)

Zachary and I have been visiting our grandparents in casino areas since we were babies. We have always loved going to a childcare center in the casino while they and our parents play adult games. I would like to report on three we visited on our last trip to Las Vegas: the Palms, Texas Station, and the Gold Coast.

The Kids Quests at the Palms and at Texas Station are run by the same company and have a lot of the same activities. They both have the “Quest,” a giant climbing gym, kind of an indoor playground with slides, ladders, and tunnels. They show movies frequently and there are board games and a Lego Mania center. Some of my brother’s favorite things are playing air hockey and video games. I like the Barbie Playhouse Station, the art center, and the karaoke stage, where we can dress up to be a “star.” But the thing we both like the most is the “Disco Stage” dance machine, which is so popular you have to stand in line to wait your turn.

The Kids Quest at Texas Station is much larger than the one at the Palms and includes a ball pit and an air-filled jumping arena in their “Quest.” The Palms, unlike Texas Station, has a reading area, but as much as I love reading, I was having too much fun doing other things to spend much time there. Both have a snack bar and you can get anything from a drink or an ice-cream treat to a whole meal. The food does cost extra, but we don’t have to worry about that, because my grandma is the Queen of Comps and she never has to pay for ANYTHING in a casino. Now that’s frugal.

The Gold Coast childcare center is much different from the Kids Quest ones. They do have crafts, puzzles, board games, movies, and an area to play house. However, it is much smaller and there is no indoor “Quest” playground. The main activity is doing crafts, like painting, origami, and coloring, but there are no video games. In addition, the center provides sleeping pads for napping, but doesn’t provide any food or drinks.

I really enjoyed the Gold Coast when I was younger, especially the crafts. Now that I’m 8-1/2, I was sort of bored there this trip, especially after spending so much time at the much larger Kids Quests. But it is a very good place for little kids who aren’t very secure about leaving their parents, because the workers there are older ladies — it is kind of like going to Grandma’s house. It still is my grandma’s favorite — after all, it’s FREE.

Here are some of the details, taken from the brochures you can pick up at each center:

Texas Station: 5-hour max; Sun.-Thurs. 9 a.m.-11 p.m.; Fri., Sat., and holidays 9 a.m.-1 a.m.; charge for six weeks to 29 months — $5.50 (weekday) to $5.75 (weekend) per hour per child; 2-1/2 to 12 years old — $6.50/$6.75.

Palms: 5 1/2-hour max, same hours as Texas above; 3-12 years old — $5.75/$6.75.

Gold Coast: 3-1/2 hour max, 9 a.m-12:30 a.m., 2-8 years old (must be potty trained); FREE!

7/25/2003

Some people think I don’t take a stand on enough gambling issues. Fair enough, but this week I’ve decided to express some personal opinions. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me — and I might even change my mind on some of them next week. A woman’s prerogative.

1. Recently, Arizona Charlie’s put in a new bounce-back program called “Action Cash.” You earn points one week. Then the next week you have to come in EVERY DAY to collect your cashback. If you don’t pick up a particular day’s amount, it’s lost forever. The details in the press release went on and on, specifying various levels, redemption days, ad nauseum.

Nice try, you guys, but I don’t relish going to the same casino every day, no matter how much money it’s worth to me. I have a life. In my opinion, casinos should provide reasonable windows of time to collect any benefits. Too restrictive time limits just make people mad enough to cross that casino off their list.

2. Furthermore, I think that advantage players who play at one casino day in and day out to take advantage of a temporary promotion ruin a good thing for everyone else.

3. I’ve been reading a lot recently about people getting comped rooms being charged an extra fee. No matter what they call it — a “comp surcharge,” “resort fee,” or some other nebulous phrase — I don’t like it. To me, comped means free. However, with states looking for all sorts of new ways to tax casinos, I think this is a losing battle for me.

4. The Las Vegas Review-Journal recently published a feature article http://tinyurl.com/g65w) about advantage players, in which the writer strongly suggested that local authorities and the Nevada Gaming Control Board sides with and protects the casinos, rather than safeguarding the civil liberties of the player, when there’s a dispute. Actually, I vacillate on this issue. I’m an advantage player, meaning I rarely play a casino game in which I don’t have the odds on my side. I’ve put in many years of study to be able to become a successful gambler. I don’t use any illegal electronic devices in the casino, or cause a machine to malfunction, or break any state or federal laws to achieve this. I just use my brain, an achievement that’s rewarded in most human endeavors.

On the other hand, I know that casinos aren’t non-profit organizations, or at least they don’t plan to be.

How do I balance these two views? I think casinos and advantage players can peacefully co-exist. As long as people like me write about the possibility that the casinos can be beat, the casino gains great positive advertising. Players like to think they at least have a chance to win. However, no matter how many frugal ideas I write about, most players will not want to put in the study and practice that is required to put those ideas into action.

I consider the very few advantage players to be paid shills for the casino.

I may be wrong about all of these things, but these are my opinions. This week.

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.

5/2/2003

I haven’t climbed up on my soapbox and given a lecture on the state of the video poker world for several months now, although the online chat groups are overflowing with talk of it. There’s a lot of moaning and groaning about the decrease of good games, especially in Las Vegas. The Coast off-Strip properties (Suncoast, Orleans, and Gold Coast) have, in just a few months, gone from being among the best places in the world for gamblers who want at least a sporting chance of winning to a video poker wasteland where even casual players feel that they will mostly donate to the casinos’ bottom line.

However, gamblers in Vegas (and elsewhere) don’t take change sitting down. And I’m not talking about just the sharpies. Because a wealth of information about gambling is available today, many recreational players are becoming educated to odds and the difference between a good game and a bad one. They may not know the math, but when they see that their favorite video poker machines now have an entirely different pay table, they soon notice that their bankroll doesn’t last nearly as long as it used to — and they’re not happy. These players may not have the desire to invest a lot of hours learning proper strategy or to chase promotions like some of us, but they do note when a casino puts on its marquee that some of its machines pay out over 100%. And they’re underwhelmed, even insulted, when a casino advertises that it has hundreds of machines that pay up to 99%. Even those with very few mathematical skills vote with their feet as to where they get the best gambling conditions to win.

Not only the casual players are changing their casinos these days; the serious video poker players are also looking for new opportunities. Casinos they’re abandoning may be saying, “Good riddance.” But from what I hear on every side, these players are taking with them many of the customers the casinos should hate to lose: the friends and relatives who are not knowledgeable players. I get complaints frequently from serious video poker advantage players: “My wife just won’t learn good strategy or practice on the VP software; she insists on playing slots and loses more than I can ever win back with skillful VP play.” Or, “I tell my friends at work that they’d lose less at the casino if they study the games, but they say it’s all luck anyway, so why bother?”

It’s true, however, that knowledgeable VP players, that tiny minority of gamblers, have been impacted by the decrease in good games. But it’s not the end of the world that some think. The fact is that ongoing competition among casinos and the never-ending scramble for business are providing good new playing opportunities all the time. We’re just going to have to work a little harder these days to find them. We may not be able to always go to the most conveniently located casinos; we may have to search high and low for better promotions; we may have to be more flexible in our playing schedule; we may need to learn some new games; we may have to change the denomination level we play. I’ve always said that you shouldn’t marry a casino. Change is the one constant when you talk about casinos.

Good advice: “My advice to the unborn is, don’t be born with a gambling instinct unless you have a good sense of probabilities.”” — Jack Dreyfus of
Dreyfus Mutual Fund

5/8/2003

I’m frequently questioned, even scolded, by frugal fans when they see me playing a less-than-100% variation of video poker. Other well-known successful gamblers, especially writers, have the same problem: Someone sees them at a negative game and speculates, in print and online, that they don’t practice what they preach.

However, to use a cliche, appearances can be deceiving. There’s a big difference between a negative game and a negative play. In my book The Frugal Gambler, I have a chart (on page 34) that categorizes games as positive-expectation games (when played skillfully), negative-expectation games (where the math determines there will always be a long-term loss no matter what money-management systems are used), and potentially positive games. It’s this last category where you may be judging a player wrongly.

The first of the potentially positive games mentioned is “any game played in a tournament format.” This could include the negative games of craps, baccarat, roulette, keno, and slot machines if there’s good tournament equity — the long-term individual cash expectation is greater than its cost.

“Any game played with a coupon” — There’s a long list of non-skill negative games that I’ve played with a good edge because I had a coupon: baccarat, bingo, craps, keno, pai gow poker, roulette, big six, slot machines.

“Any game associated with a slot club or similar rebate program” — I often play the 99.7% Not-So-Ugly ducks (inferior pay table to full-pay classic Deuces Wild, but often the only alternative above the quarter denomination), because slot club cashback and/or bounce-back cash coupons put it well over 100%.

“Any game with a progressive feature” can range from the common video poker machines with a rising jackpot to the occasional bingo, slot machine, Caribbean Stud, or keno high jackpot that turns a negative play into a positive one.

“Any game played as part of a special promotion or with equity considerations” — Good promotions often give rise to a lot of savvy players playing negative video poker machines if there are no pay tables in that casino with a 100%+ payback. If the casino is giving a cruise for a certain number of points, these players figure their theoretical losses on the game itself and see if the cruise value more than makes up for this. If there’s a drawing for a car, they estimate the value of their tickets to see if, again, it has more in equity than their theoretical losses on a negative-expectation game. (Note: Theoretical losses differ greatly from actual losses during one playing session. Since the equity figures are long term, most of these drawing and promotional extras are best for players who will have many chances at these kind of opportunities.)

The last, and perhaps biggest, factor that can make a bad game good is comps. And this is a subject that deserves a column all to itself, so I’ll finish this discourse next week, after I get back from Mississippi where I’m currently spilling my guts to perhaps 60 or more hosts and other casino executives, telling them what customers really want changed in the casino host system.

In the meantime, think about how weird gamblers can be as you read this amazing fact from Casino Wire: “Against bookmakers’ odds of 1,000 to 1, scores of British gamblers every year bet up to £50 pounds ($79) at a pop that Elvis Presley is still alive.”

5/15/2003

Last week I talked about not judging players by the actual games they’re playing. It may be a negative-expectation game, but there may be extras, invisible to a casual onlooker, that make it a positive-expectation play. These could be a tournament, a coupon, a progressive feature, a promotion, a slot club benefit, or some other equity consideration.

However, the biggest trump to turn a negative game into a positive play is the comp card, and this is often a hole card, so it’s not always seen by other players. Free rooms, food, and shows are the usual comps that can be worth much more than the losses that will eventually be sustained by playing less than 100%+ games. But the savvy player at the higher levels who studies each casino’s comp system carefully will find other valuable but less well-known comps: airfare rebates, extra cash bonuses for which they can negotiate in exchange for very heavy play, along with jewelry, liquor, electronics, and other valuable gifts that can be given to friends and families. Some very big players even cross into the lucrative (but gray, in my opinion) area of selling comps.

There are several dangers I would like to point out if you plan to make up your losses at negative games with comps. First, be sure you know how to figure the math accurately for those losses. You really have to keep track of your coin-in.

Second, are you sure you’re playing those negative games accurately enough to achieve the theoretical payback that’s based on computer play? You’ll lose much more than you realize if you aren’t practicing and testing yourself on software tutors.

And third, even if you have all the figuring and accuracy down pat, you need to realize that your actual losses for any one period of time can be much more than the theoretical loss. You have to be sure you have the bankroll to survive the terrible volatility of most casino games, especially video poker. And you have to be sure you have the temperament to hold steady during long losing periods.

But there’s another danger in counting comps to put your plays over 100%. Brad and I did count comps when we first started, and many casual recreational gamblers may always want to do this. And if you were going to take money out of your pocket in the same amount for the rooms, food, shows, and other non-cash perks you get comped, it’s quite correct to count them in your total return.

However, you must be careful in your calculations here. We didn’t count comps in our total return for very long, because we soon were getting so many comps that we were increasing the number of our casino vacations and the luxury of our casino lifestyle to a level that we could never have afforded on our own budget. So we started counting comps as gravy and chose playing opportunities that were over 100% in cash return. If you want to count comps, figure the average amount you’ll lose over the long term by playing at a percentage below 100% in actual cash return. If you can’t afford that loss, you can’t “afford” all those luxury freebies.

A final note here. Not all gamblers want to put forth the extreme effort to study, so necessary when moneymaking in a casino the main goal. The vast majority just want to have as much fun as they can on the money they’ve earmarked for their casino entertainment. No one should judge anyone else as to the worthiness of his goals.

And hey, the most earnest by-the-book gamblers in the world sometimes like to throw a little money on a fun wager when they don’t have any particular skill or edge. That’s why once in a long while you might see me playing Little Green Men or Brad put a couple of dollars on the ponies at the racebook when he has to wait on me to finish up in the beauty salon.

5/27/2003

A story from a frugal fan about the magic word, ask:

“My sister and I had such a good trip to the Gulf Coast that we decided to return a month later and started looking right away for a room. We had a Friday night comp at the XX casino, but it was fully booked due to a tournament. Drats! Didn’t have our June newsletters from marketing at the other casinos yet, so we decided to phone a few and see what we could come up with.

Sis phoned XXX and reached VIP instead of marketing. The host curtly informed her that not only did we not qualify for a free night, but we (using info from both our cards) didn’t even qualify for a discounted rate. This was strange, since marketing at this casino has always been pretty good to us. Marketing wasn’t in yet, so she left a message asking them to contact us.

In the meantime, an hour later, we decided to call a different casino to see what they could offer. Well, Sis still had all the phone numbers in front of her and mistakenly called the same casino back. VIP answered again, but it was a different host speaking. So she decided to ask again. AMAZING! Less than 60 minutes after speaking to the first host, things changed mightily. Now we do qualify for a comped Friday night room. Hard to believe!

Ordinarily, we would not have re-tried VIP, but through this ‘mistake,’ we learned a lesson. Like you say, ‘Ask.’ And now we know to ask, and then ask again.””

BRIEFS
Gambling on the sea and on the go:

Item #1. Within the last year, several major cruise lines have changed the age limits for drinking and gambling on casino ships that are floating outside of U.S. waters. http://casinowire.com/news.asp?id=4804

Item #2. M-gambling (mobile gambling) allows players to buy lottery tickets, bet on sports events, or enter sweepstakes for prizes right over their cell phones, and it’s becoming more popular with European gamblers. http://casinowire.com/news.asp?id=4800

Looking for a frugal blackjack newsletter that’s loaded with strategy advice for blackjack players? Look no further than Henry Tamburin’s Blackjack Insider e-newsletter. The monthly newsletter contains regular columns and articles by some of blackjack’s most noted experts. Some of the popular articles and features include trip reports from LV Pro (a skilled blackjack card counter); reports on where to find the best blackjack games in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere; strategy articles for the beginner to advanced player; reviews of new gambling books and software; a schedule of major blackjack tournaments; Q & As; and lots more. You can read the current issue and sign up for your free subscription at http://bjinsider.com/main.shtml.

From a member of a VP discussion forum: “”As Jean Scott often notes in her posts about bounce-back for Vegas locals, it really matters where you put your gambling action, and how you do it. For example, the Palms rewards a high daily-play average, which you can ruin with a short play period on even one other day. Station Casinos want a given amount of action per quarter, and you run into diminishing bounce-back returns if you play beyond that amount.””

From the Internet: “”It’s gambling when you win and gaming when you lose.”

5/29/2003

An interesting post on vpFree (a lively Internet forum that discusses all things video poker; subscribe at
[email protected]):

“I had a modest budget of $600 for the weekend’s VP play. I went to the Palms to redeem my free play and to have dinner. Well, I lost $300 in the .25 Jokers so fast I thought the Joker had been taken hostage by terrorists. TWO quads in three hours (and they’re supposed to come up every 104 hands, I believe). Then $200 in FPDW .25 went away equally quickly. Disgusted, resigned to a weekend of watching Annika What’s-her-face not make the cut at the PGA, I put the last $100 in a $1 10/7 DB. I was playing my LAST FIVE credits, and made trip fives…then a straight…then a full house…then quad fives…then quad fours! $650 and a return from the dead! I went to dinner with a song in my heart, tap in my shoes, and money in my pocket.

“I lost it all back in four hours after dinner.

“I took the next day off, puttering around the house. I had $100 of bounceback scattered around town that HAD to be redeemed that day. So I went and played fetch…then over to Fiesta Henderson. Joker .25….quad. Quad. Quad. Straight flush. Cash out up $140. It’s time to play Deuces! The machine behaved like a trained seal, and gave me the ducks twice for a net win of $500. The dead have once again arisen!

“Net win = $40
Aging = One year subtracted from lifespan

“God, this is the swingiest game on Earth! It just goes to show you that a trip bankroll of $1,000 for a three-day weekend is by NO means excessive!

“(BTW, all coin-in was chalked up during 3X or 5X point times so net comp value was about 0.75% on about 17K of play; about $125 in comps were earned. The rewards for survival!)”

This great post by Kevin Lewis got me musing about the wild roller-coaster ride that playing VP takes us all on.

“”It’s the bankroll, stupid!””

More good VP players are cut down by the lack of an adequate bankroll than by any mean ol’ casinos.

“”It’s the slot club benefits, stupid!””

I know of NO successful (that is, long-term winning) VP player who depends entirely on profits from the game itself. In fact, the more you chase promotions and maximize slot club benefits, the more successful you’ll be. And for the great majority of players, most who don’t really have a bankroll (financial and/or psychological) big enough for a close-to-zero risk of ruin, bennies (extra benefits) are an absolute necessity in order to have a sporting chance of success.

Smile For the Day: “”In the case of an earthquake hitting Las Vegas, be sure to go straight to the keno lounge. Nothing ever gets hit there.”” — An anonymous casino boss.

4/3/2003

It was good last week to be “”back home in Indiana,”” as the song goes, but it’s even better to be back in Las Vegas. Actually, we have felt more at home in this, our adopted city, since long before we actually moved here permanently.

Some people have wanted details on what I talk about in these seminars for casino executives, like the one I just returned from at Caesars Indiana. My main purpose is to give them some input as to how patrons feel about their casinos and policies; so many operate in what seems to be a vacuum of personal customer contact. Each seminar has a different focus. Some revolve around the slot club or the host systems. This latest one zeroed in on casino promotions.

Brrrrrother! After participating in casino promotions for 19 years, I didn’t have to work up my emotions to talk about what’s wrong with so many of them. Although I did cover the first part of the good, the bad, and the ugly, I was soaring high on the rant scale by the time I got to the end. I not only had hundreds of nightmare examples from my own personal experiences, but I’d received scores of e-mails when I went on the Internet and asked other players to tell me about their experiences with promotions from hell.

The list is unending: drawings that took more time to fill out entry blanks than to earn the entries in the first place; casino employees who had no information; long waits for everything from drawing entry tickets to tournament registration; tricky offers with paragraphs of fine print; insultingly cheap gifts after promises of luxury items; unorganized activities that were more bother than they were worth; last-minute decisions by the casino that made advance planning for customers impossible; and long slow lines everywhere. Needless to say, I ran out of speaking time before I ran out of examples.

Does my ranting do any good? I’m surprised by how many of these seminar participants come up to me later to thank me for opening their eyes. “”We didn’t know our customers had all these negative feelings.”” They felt that their promotions were great and the customers just loved anything and everything that the casino gave them, not realizing that many promotions did more harm than good. Their bottom line may have looked good during the actual period of the promotion, but they never got how the promotion may have impacted future business negatively. And in the workshops later where the executives dreamed up new promotions to present to the whole group, invariably they looked at me to see if I thought that their ideas were customer-friendly. What an amazing concept — that casinos would actually think about how the policies and plans drawn up in their ivory-tower offices actually made their flesh-and-blood customers feel.

By the way, do you remember I told you last week that I was going to visit my 88-year-old father on this trip and we would probably play Scrabble? He’s getting a little forgetful, so I thought I might have to take it easy on him and not play so hard. This is a little embarrassing, but I’ll tell you the truth: I played my heart and soul out, but he beat the socks off of me. I just hope that in 24 years I’m not any more “”forgetful”” than he is now.

4/11/2003

This one’s a Frugal Friday Lite with no math and no technical stuff.

On the Web site www.dicedealer.com/celebrity_stiffs.htm, there’s an interesting discussion among casino employees about good and bad celebrity tippers.

From CasinoWire — One gambler to another: “”You think you have problems? I loaned a friend $15,000 to have plastic surgery done on his face and now I don’t know what he looks like.””

How important is a casino’s carpet? From the Reno Gazette-Journal:
According to Bill Eadington, a professor of gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno, casino carpet is taken pretty seriously and there’s much lore concerning patterns that keep customers focused on the games at hand. “”The carpet should be ugly,” said Eadington. “”The basic idea is you don’t want your eyes to look down. There is generally some dissonance involved. You want them [players] concentrating on the action.””

Eadington also says a big casino replacing five-year-old carpet that is not necessarily in dire need of replacement is a prime example of “”refreshment capital”” expenditures: “”The concern is that without refreshment capital, the customer is going to get tired of [the venue] more quickly. The other side of that is that new carpet alone will not bring in new customers.””

The Atlantic City Hilton recently had to pay $25,000 to settle a charge that it repeatedly operated a slot machine that had failed regulatory inspection. The Division of Gaming Enforcement discovered that one of the Hilton’s nickel Yahtzee slot machines always recorded 16 credits when 20 coins were deposited. And this is the funny part: Although the slot gypped gamblers, the Hilton actually lost money on the machine during the malfunction.

It was a breach of tradition when the Wild, Wild West casino at Bally’s Park Place in Atlantic City erected a gigantic clock smack dab in middle of the casino floor, thereby breaking the taboo against clocks in casinos — a taboo that originated in the early days of Las Vegas, when casino designers sought to insulate gamblers from the distractions of the real world. However, the clock was no big deal to one customer, who reasoned, “”If you can’t afford a watch, you shouldn’t be in a casino in the first place.””

From the the MGM Grand Web site: The MGM Grand is the “”world’s largest casino.”” It has 18,000 doors! There are approximately 771,700 gambling chips in its casino. If stacked, the chips would create a tower that rose 1.5 miles into the sky. In addition, more than 800 decks of cards are being shuffled at any given moment throughout the four casino areas of the property.

Sign in the no-smoking part of the casino on Caesars riverboat in Indiana:
“No smoking. Violators will be fed to the lions.”

4/18/2003

A little knowledge can be dangerous. I remember the first time Brad and I came to Vegas, 19 years ago. Although I knew nothing about basic strategy, much less card counting, I played blackjack because I’d heard that it was smart to play the tables, that only dumb gamblers played the machines. Brad was under the impression we were in Vegas to have fun, so much to my dismay, he was merrily playing slot machines. Well, the final score was a tie- we both lost our bankroll. But we did learn an important lesson: you need to study something a long time before you become an expert at it.

This lesson often hits home when people ask me for advice on playing video poker. Some quarter players, for example, read a little bit about playing full- pay VP. They find out that some games have a long-term average return of over 100%. So they diligently look for 9/6 schedules or Double Bonus or Deuces Wild. Then, when they lose on these machines, they can’t understand why.

The problems can be many. Maybe they found a 9/6 Double Bonus game, which has a low expected value, rather than 9/6 Jacks or Better, whose EV is much higher. Maybe they didn’t realize that a game can be called full pay and still not have an EV of over 100%, like classic 9/6 Jacks or Better, and therefore cannot be beat in the long term unless you add cashback or other slot club benefits. Maybe they didn’t realize that there are many games called Deuces Wild and many of them have low-paying schedules and only a few are over 100%. Even if they find a game that does have an EV of over 100%, they may not realize that they must learn a specific strategy for each and every pay schedule and many of these strategies, like the one for 10/7 Double Bonus, are very complicated and best learned and practiced on VP software.

And the biggest problem may be that beginners who haven’t studied video poker in depth don’t understand the volatility of the game, that they will have more losing than winning sessions and that they need an adequate bankroll to survive the inevitable long losing streaks. Some quarter players, especially if they’ve been lucky and won in their first few sessions, will think that the little knowledge they’ve picked up could be used for bigger profits if they went up to the dollar or higher machines. This is almost always a disaster. Just a few losses–or even one big one–at this higher level will wipe out all those wins on the quarter machines so fast that their heads will spin and their bankrolls will be devastated.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t start playing video poker until you’ve proven to yourself on tutoring software that you’re good enough. If you’re playing slots, a switch to almost any video poker machine, if you stick to the same coin-in per hand, will keep you from losing so quickly. For one thing, video poker usually has a higher EV than most slot machines of the same denomination. And secondly, because you have to think about each hand to decide what to hold, you’ll put your money through at a slower pace, so it’ll last longer and thus extend your playing time.

And if you only have time to study one thing about video poker, concentrate on how to read the paytables and choose the best ones. This will decrease your losses with the least effort. Bob Dancer, one of the foremost VP experts today, says, “”Surprisingly, choosing a machine with the right pay schedule is the most important element in winning video poker. Playing so-so on a good machine is much better than playing perfectly on a bad machine.””

However, I strongly urge you to stick with the lower denominations, especially quarters where the best schedules are usually found, when you first play video poker. In More Frugal Gambling, which will actually be coming out in this century, I talk about Lenny Frome’s great illustration of video poker as a three-legged stool. Choosing a good game is the first leg, but I warn about sitting on this one-legged stool–unless you’re very close

4/24/2003

Last week we attended what some might think is a strange event in a casino, an Easter Week presentation of the “”He’s Alive”” passion play, for which the Riviera Hotel and Casino had donated, for the sixth year, the use of a large ballroom. More than 100 men, women, and children from the Las Vegas community appeared in a fully costumed production, retelling the story of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.

This is just one small example that shows, although the casinos are lately pushing the sex envelope to make Vegas even more of a sin city, the majority of the residents here are much more interested in being upright citizens and good neighbors than being sexy. There are nine pages of churches in the Las Vegas Yellow Pages. A significant percentage of residents spend more time volunteering than gambling. We’re concerned about our homeless, want to have good schools, and think voting is a privilege. Remember, if you only visit the Strip when you come to town, you aren’t really seeing our city.

If you’re interested in seeing this free Easter presentation another year, you can go to http://www.passion-play.org/ or call the Riviera box office for more details.

FROM MY INBOX

“”My brother has a $6 Gold Coast pay ticket that he forgot to cash in when we were in Vegas. I’m mailing it to you, and you guys can have it. It expires in two months and we won’t be back before then. The casinos probably make a lot of money this way.”” I bet it’s very common for people to take home chips, winning sports books bets, and tickets from cashless slots.

This next one tickles me, especially since Brad was seen in a casino soon after he got home from the hospital where he was recovering after a heart attack.

“”True story: A friend and I were playing poker on a busy night. Around 2:30 a.m. or so, he tells me that the woman next to him mentioned something about her husband having open-heart surgery early the next morning.

“”Shouldn’t you be at home with him?”” my friend asked.

“”Oh, he’s playing at the next table over there,”” the woman answered, nonchalantly.

By the way, Brad is feeling fine and is back on the treadmill and our other exercise activities we have done together for the last 18 years.

“”Since you wanted to hear other cheapo things people do on their trips to LV, here’s one I just did (which I’ll probably continue doing). I carried home (to Los Angeles) as many of the plastic water bottles I used as I could and recycled them. Not only was I doing a good thing for the environment, but since most of those bottles say “”CA Redemption Value,”” I got 2.5c for each bottle that was less than 24 ounces (bottles that are 24 ounces or more pay 5c each at recycling machines). Why shouldn’t I make more money if I can?”” I see no problem here. In fact, I think you have out-frugaled me!

Brad and I are on the road again in May. On the 3rd we’ll be flying to Mississippi, where I’ll be speaking at a seminar for casino hosts at the Gulfport Grand Casino. Then, from the 18th through 20th, we’ll be at the Raving’s 5th Indian Gaming National Marketing Conference, at the Ohkay Casino-Resort in San Juan Pueblo, north of Albuquerque, New Mexico. There, my presentation topic will be “”How to Have Happier Players Club Members At Your Indian Casino.”” You can go to www.frugalgambler.biz/calendar/frugal_calendar.htm to find out the details of informal meet-and-greet sessions at these places. We love to sit down and chat with other frugal gamblers.

3/6/2003

Jean, you aren’t in Indiana anymore – and you haven’t been for a long time! Those famous lines from “The Wizard of Oz” (slightly reworked) hit home for me the other night while I was sitting in the living room of our Vegas condo. An odd noise, seemingly emanating from all parts of the condo, had begun, but when I walked into my office and looked out the window, I burst out laughing. It was raining – and raining very hard – a once-familiar sound that I no longer immediately recognized!

Las Vegas has had an uncommon amount of rain recently, breaking some records and disappointing visitors who had been escaping from the snow-bound East in search of balmier climes. Starting this Saturday, however, the 7-day forecast is our usual “boring” one: 72 to 74 degrees; sunny or partly sunny. It’s a rough life – but someone has to do it!

Sticking with the subject of Indiana: A former church secretary made her initial court appearance Friday in LaPorte, Indiana Circuit Court on charges she stole $342,000 from the parish to gamble (http://www.casinowire.com/news.asp?id=4464). As always, people can find “”sin”” in many places other than our so-called “”Sin City””! Stigmatization aside, in reality it’s no more difficult to lead a moral, upright life in Southern Nevada than it is anywhere else in the nation.

From Billhere’s free weekly e-mail newsletter (subscribe at http://www.billhere.com): Bellagio’s President, Bobby Baldwin stated: “”Gamblers lose about $140 per day on each of Bellagio’s 2400-plus slot machines, about 40% more than The Strip average.”” Doesn’t sound like good publicity to get more customers, does it?

Are you staying at the Palms and want to find free transportation to the Strip – or staying on the Strip and wanting to visit the Palms? Either way, the Palms has a free shuttle going back and forth between both locales. It makes a circuit from the west entrance of the Palms, outside the Race and Sportsbook. Stops are the Fashion Show Mall, near Treasure Island at the Saks 5th Avenue entrance; the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, downstairs valet entrance; and then the Desert Passage Shopping Center at the Aladdin, downstairs valet entrance, before returning to the Palms. Call the Palms for the current schedule.

Read in Ellis Island’s monthly calendar, sent out to regular customers: “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it.”

3/14/2003

I’m going to talk this week about gambling and losing. Some have suggested that I talk too enthusiastically and positively about playing video poker and too often imply that it’s easy to win. Well, this column may help give a more balanced picture.

Playing video poker has never been easy. You have to study hard just to get started. Then you have to study even more to stay on the right track. Finally, you have to continue studying no matter how experienced you get because playing conditions are constantly changing. But in spite of how much you know about choosing good games and playing perfect strategy, you’ll lose in many of your sessions. And the longer you play, the more likely you are to have a losing streak from hell.

Last year we hit that streak and for the first time in 12 years of VP play, we ended up the year in the red. (Some of you may remember that in 2000 we had a “”technical”” loss, only because we delayed picking up some of our cashback since a TV crew was coming in early January and wanted to film us collecting it.) We’d suffered through some long losing streaks before, but for 11 years when we closed our gambling logs on December 31, the final net cash number (not counting comps) was a plus. Sometimes it was a very modest amount; sometimes it was a surprisingly large amount. We didn’t care how much, really. Our goal has always been to break even on the actual game and enjoy the comped life — and we’d always achieved at least that, and often much more.

This red-ink ending of a year was difficult for us to accept. As I’ve said many times, it’s not nearly as much fun to lose as it is to win. And it wasn’t that the amount we lost was that large: If we’d been playing quarters instead of dollars, our loss would’ve been $1,000, just one royal away from breaking even. The loss was just a tiny percentage of our gambling bankroll and it had no negative effect on our present or future financial condition.

Still, we were affected emotionally.

Losing streaks are good times to take inventory. Thus, we sat down and looked through our records to see if we could find any reasons for this bad year. No, we hadn’t played any negative-expectation games unless accompanying cash benefits put us over the 100% mark. We’d reviewed our strategy charts and practiced on computer programs so we knew we were playing accurately. We hadn’t changed games too often and when we did, we reviewed the strategy before we played the new game. We continued to emphasize promotions and maximize slot club benefits.

So what was the reason for our loss? Tune in next week for the rest of the story.

3/21/2003

This week I’m continuing the subject I started last week: losing at video poker. If you remember, I told you that 2002 was the first year we ended up in the red during the 12 years we’ve played. I promised that I’d give you reasons for that loss, perhaps some that might help you avoid some losses or at least be able to deal with them better.

The first reason for our loss: We played within a very broad range of denominations. Sometimes we played $1 or $2 machines, betting $5 to $10 a hand. Often we played dollar Triple Play, which meant $15 a hand. Sometimes we played $5 single-line machines or $1 Five Play, both requiring $25 a hand. And once in a while we even tackled $1 Ten Play and had to pony up $50 a hand. At the $1 and up level, the choice of steady and good video poker plays is limited, with many available only on certain promotion days and others appearing and disappearing quickly. We were always trying to play with the best hourly advantage we could find, so we couldn’t be real choosy as to the bet level. We preferred staying around $10-$15 per hand, but went up or down, depending on the opportunities.

We had the financial bankroll to play any of these games we found, but by the end of the year, our psychological bankroll was being stretched to the limit. It takes nerves of steel to go through streaks where you’re getting royals frequently at the lower levels, but can’t buy one when you’re at the higher levels.

This led to the second reason for our loss: We didn’t play as many hours as we used to when we were younger and more energetic AND when I wasn’t doing so many writing projects and speaking gigs. Brad and I averaged only 20-25 hours of play a week between the two of us. At that rate, one year may not (probably WILL NOT in many cases) be long enough to get to the winning long term for EACH of the levels played.

This brings up a third reason: We played a lot of multi-line VP. Yes, on one hand, if you have “”average”” luck, you’ll get to the long term faster. But, in our experience, you seem to have either good luck or bad luck with multi-line — with little of the average sort. Good luck means you’re dealt better-than-average starting hands and therefore, your results on the rest of the lines will be better and propel you to the winning long term faster. Also, the total EV of the game includes getting a dealt royal on occasion, albeit a rare one. If you don’t get dealt a royal — and we didnít — and if you don’t play long enough to get that average number of good starting hands — and we didn’t — then you haven’t played enough hours to get to that winning long term. And we didn’t.

I have more to say about losing — so I will continue this topic next week — because there’s a happy postscript to our losing year.

But I want to insert a personal note here. Last week, right after I finished writing the first part on this subject on Monday evening, Brad became very ill. We thought he was having an asthma attack and a reaction to some asthma medication. But his condition worsened on Tuesday and I drove him to the doctor’s office, where they diagnosed him. It turns out it wasn’t asthma. He was in the middle of a heart attack. I’ll never forget how gray he looked as they hurriedly loaded him into the ambulance to go to the hospital and I didn’t know whether I’d ever see him again alive.

Well, there’s a happy ending to this story. He immediately had angioplasty to unblock two sections of one artery, one of which was 99% closed, and two stents were inserted to keep the artery unblocked. He spent two nights in intensive care and one night in a regular room. He came home last Friday and he’s feeling good, slowly regaining his strength. He says that after this “overhaul” he should be good for another 20 years or more.

I’ll continue to write about how to cope with losing at VP, but you can understand if this subject is just not as important to me now as it was two weeks ago.

3/28/2003

I’m filing this column early since by the time it comes out, Brad and I will be enjoying a trip back to Indiana. It’s part business — I’m speaking at a seminar for casino executives at Caesars’ Indiana riverboat-resort (across the river from Louisville, Kentucky). But it’s also part pleasure, returning to our old stomping grounds and visiting friends and relatives. The latter includes my 88-year-old preacher Daddy, who is expecting to beat me soundly at Scrabble — as he still might do in this play-for-blood family competition. You may remember in the introduction to The Frugal Gambler that intensity in playing games has always been our family tradition — I’m still at it 61 years after I first played Uncle Wiggley!

This week I want to wrap up the series on losing at VP. To summarize what I discussed in the previous two columns: We had a losing year in 2002, our first in 12 years of play, not because we were doing anything wrong, but because of factors that made a long losing streak more likely: a broad range of denominations played, a limited amount of playing time, and the play of multi-line games.

There’s another reason for our loss in 2002: We were playing with a slimmer edge than we ever had in the past. And nothing will threaten a gambling bankroll more than this. We’ve discussed in several columns in the last months the ever-decreasing number of good VP plays. Gone are the days when the dollar-and-up players could frequently find juicy edges of 1%-2% and higher. I see more and more of these players having to settle for a .1% or .2% edge — and some are settling for a basically even game and counting comps to get them any edge at all.

This is the reason why, when people ask me if they should move up in denomination, I advise them to stay at the quarter level where there are still good percentage plays, albeit requiring more scrambling to find the best edges.

It takes a very large gambling bankroll to survive the long losing streaks that you’ll definitely be reduced to when you play advantage VP with a tiny edge. And it takes an even heftier psychological bankroll. It’s no fun to lose anytime, but to lose for extremely long periods can bankrupt the mind of even the normally cool and stoic player.

But I don’t want to leave things on too pessimistic a note. There’s a happy ending to our story. One night in January of this year (showing something non-terrible can happen at Terrible’s Casino) in one 45-minute span of time, Brad and I each hit a royal — and those two jackpots covered our entire loss of 2002. In addition, we’ve been seeing good results in our overall play ever since. The losing streak from hell has finally ended! Our financial bankroll was never really in danger, but our psychological one was severely strained. Still, we survived, and hopefully we’ll be fully recovered before that next bad losing streak comes along, hopefully never again as long as this one, though, of course, we have no guarantee of that. That’s the nature of gambling, especially VP with its built-in volatility.

Again, I will sign off with a personal note — my life seems to be lurching from crisis to crisis these days. Brad is recovering quickly from his heart attack and I’m trying not to worry about him — at least not much — anymore. But a new worry has come to our family. Army Ranger Steve, our son-in-law, has been deployed to somewhere in the war zone. So many have asked to be kept up on these developments that I have added a “Personal Notes” section to my Web site, www.frugalgambler.biz. On the homepage, click on “Calendar,” where I’ll try to post updates (I’m finding it difficult to answer the flood of e-mail I’m getting). I do want everyone to know how much we appreciate your messages expressing your concern and prayers.

And maybe we will see some of you Midwest friends at Caesars Indiana. On the same “Calendar” page of my Web site, you can find details of an informal get-together at Caesars