Questions from your Comments

In your column “A Gambling Constant – Change” you mention the obvious perils of piling up slot card points.   What do you feel is a fairly standard rule-of-thumb for a minimum number of points to keep active in a casino?

Unfortunately, there are almost no rule-of-thumb guidelines when you are talking about casinos.  Every time I want to generalize about a gambling or casino topics I find the exceptions list overwhelmingly long.  There is no casino where it is 100% certain that it will never close, or change owners, or change policies, all of which could put your players club benefit “bank” at risk. Therefore, I can only warn you to be aware of the danger.

One question for you ~ do you think it’s better to play games with the best pay schedules that take more money to earn a point? Or, to play the lower pay schedules and earn more points?

Short answer – you need to look at the return of a game PLUS all the extra benefits and then pick the one with the highest TOTAL return for the best overall play

 Here is one very simplified example:

 Casino A – JoB – 99.5%

                   Slot club benefit – .1%

                   Total – 99.6%

 Casino B – Bonus Poker – 99.1%

                   Slot club benefit (perhaps on multiple-point days) – 1.0%

                   Total – 100.1%

The long answer takes several chapters in my book Frugal Video Poker, talking about other variables, i.e., volatility.   But it is valuable reading for video poker students who want to learn how to boost their total return – winning more/losing less – by adding tournaments, drawings, comps, and various slot club promotions.

And, by the way, this information can be valuable to players all over the United States, not  just in Vegas.