{"id":122747,"date":"2022-07-26T09:18:55","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T16:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=122747"},"modified":"2022-07-26T09:19:01","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T16:19:01","slug":"my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"My Lucky Shirt — Part 1 of 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This true story happened some time ago, but so far, I haven\u2019t written about it. I was playing $25 single line Double Double Bonus (DDB), rather heavily, at an out-of-town casino for more than a week. What casino, pay schedule, slot club, and promotions that made this a good play in my opinion are for another story, another day. Suffice it to say that I believed it to be a play where I had enough of an advantage to warrant playing hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you can figure out where and when this took place (perhaps you saw me — a lot of players know what I look like), please keep it to yourself. There are reasons I don\u2019t specify all the details of the game here, and please don\u2019t undermine my reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those unfamiliar with this game, the primary returns are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Royal Flush<\/td>$100,000\u00a0<\/td><\/tr>
Four Aces with a 2, 3, or 4<\/td>$50,000 <\/td><\/tr>
Four Aces with 5-K<\/td>$20,000\u00a0<\/td><\/tr>
Four 2s, 3s, 4s with an A, 2, 3, or 4<\/td>$20,000 <\/td><\/tr>
Four 2s, 3s, 4s with a 5-K<\/td>$10,000 <\/td><\/tr>
Four 5s – Ks<\/td>$6,250\u00a0<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To be sure, the returns for the full house and flush were a critical part of the return on the game and my decision to play it. But those aren\u2019t a factor in today\u2019s story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Days 1 and 2 (Tuesday and Wednesday), I played a $5 game that wasn\u2019t DDB. I lost about $9,000. Day 3, a Thursday, I found the DDB game, figured it was a better game to play, and promptly lost $47,000! No fun at all. (Understatement alert!) In 2,000 hands ($250,000 coin-in), I only hit three quads, all for $6,250. I was willing to continue playing the game, but I was out of cash on hand. I had gone through the cash I had brought and the $50,000 in credit extended by the casino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was planning on only playing the $5 game when I showed up and had set up a $50,000 line of credit. On a $5 game, that would be plenty. But the DDB game was five times as large with a bigger variance. It was a struggle to get my line of credit increased, but eventually I got that done. I had dinner with a gambling buddy who had hit two $20,000 royals on his trip and was willing take my check in exchange for $30,000 in cash. I was very fortunate to have a friend show up at exactly the right time with both cash on hand and enough trust in to take a check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key part of my strategy was to visit my host at this time and ask if there was anything he could do to \u2018ease the pain.\u2019 I was down more than $50,000. Some hosts at some properties have some discretionary powers. Asking when you\u2019re behind is more likely to succeed than asking when you\u2019re ahead. I was able to get a little something that I would have not received had I not asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day 4, a Friday, I hit aces with a kicker for $50,000, along with three $20,000 hands. I was only able to hold on to about $25,000 of that — but still, it reduced my trip loss by almost half. Along with the $30,000 cash infusion and the increased line of credit, I was optimistic. I\u2019m fully aware that one day\u2019s score is a poor predictor of how the next day is going to go, but I was optimistic nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day 5, a Saturday, my first jackpot was a $100,000 royal flush in diamonds! Sweet! I figured I may still lose on this trip, but I\u2019m not going to get buried. Bunches of quads kept coming that day and I ended up $117,000 on the day. I was now enough ahead that I knew I could survive two semi-bad days in a row and still be slightly up. As many of you know, DDB is a \u2018heaven or hell\u2019 game, and I had experienced a bit of both of those things on the first half of my trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had not played big at this casino before, and I don\u2019t think the staff knew I was Bob Dancer — as that\u2019s not the name on my Driver License. So, I decided to use some misdirection. I had won on my previous trip playing $5 machines — and some casinos get nervous when you demonstrate a pattern of winning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I was wearing a random shirt that day, I explained to every employee who came near how it was my lucky shirt, and I was going to wear it again tomorrow. I would shower, shave, and put on clean underwear — but the same shirt would be on my back. If I stank a bit, I didn\u2019t care!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day 6, a Sunday, wearing my lucky shirt, I hit another royal flush. This time in clubs. I gave full credit to my lucky shirt and told them they were going to see it again tomorrow! Too bad if I didn\u2019t smell as good as I could! I held on to almost $90,000 of that jackpot and I played and played and played on all three shifts, running about $800,000 through the machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I figured the decision-maker who was in charge of determining whether or not to change pay tables might be off for the weekend. When he\/she returned Monday, the game (or perhaps me) might be removed. I wanted to play as much as I could while the game was still around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m going to continue this story next week. Spoiler alert: I eventually had to burn my lucky shirt because it let me down!<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This true story happened some time ago, but so far, I haven\u2019t written about it. I was playing $25 single line Double Double Bonus (DDB), rather heavily, at an out-of-town casino for more than a week. What casino, pay schedule, slot club, and promotions that made this a good play in my opinion are for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"My Lucky Shirt --- Part 1 of 2 by Bob Dancer","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[29,2,9],"tags":[428,261,196],"yoast_head":"\nMy Lucky Shirt - Part 1 of 2 - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Lucky Shirt - Part 1 of 2 - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This true story happened some time ago, but so far, I haven\u2019t written about it. I was playing $25 single line Double Double Bonus (DDB), rather heavily, at an out-of-town casino for more than a week. What casino, pay schedule, slot club, and promotions that made this a good play in my opinion are for […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lasvegasadvisor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-07-26T16:18:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-07-26T16:19:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/dancer-column-2.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"300\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@lva_tweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@lva_tweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/\",\"name\":\"Gambling With An Edge\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/dancer-column-2.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/dancer-column-2.png\",\"width\":500,\"height\":300,\"caption\":\"bob dancer's weekly column\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2\/\",\"name\":\"My Lucky Shirt - Part 1 of 2 - Gambling With An Edge\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-07-26T16:18:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-07-26T16:19:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#\/schema\/person\/c27a91b6679cdf3c71f73bd2bdc844c7\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/my-lucky-shirt-part-1-of-2\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"My Lucky Shirt — Part 1 of 2\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#\/schema\/person\/c27a91b6679cdf3c71f73bd2bdc844c7\",\"name\":\"Bob Dancer\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/GWAEDancerVP-e1466809008667.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/GWAEDancerVP-e1466809008667.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Bob Dancer\"},\"description\":\"Video Poker Expert\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/author\/bob-dancer\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/dancer-column-2.png","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122747"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122748,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122747\/revisions\/122748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}