{"id":50139,"date":"2018-05-01T09:29:44","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T16:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=50139"},"modified":"2018-05-01T09:29:44","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T16:29:44","slug":"a-measure-of-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/a-measure-of-success\/","title":{"rendered":"A Measure of Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the website gamblingwithanedge.com, there are numerous things posted — including my blogs and all of the GWAE podcasts. There are other bloggers on that site as well. One of the features of that site is that there is room for comment. <\/span><\/p>\n

In a comment to my March 27, 2018 blog, \u201cLiz\u201d wrote, in part:<\/span><\/p>\n

Many gamblers think they are \u201cadvantage players\u201d, meaning they think they have an edge. I see six classes:
\n1. Gamblers like Dancer who have the edge but won way more than average
\n2. Gamblers who have the edge but won way less than average or even lost because they didn\u2019t play enough or ran out of money<\/span><\/p>\n

The remaining categories dealt with those who do not have an edge. When I first read this, I wondered if indeed I was in the first category and, if so, what did it mean. That\u2019s what today\u2019s blog is about. <\/span><\/p>\n

However you define these things, there\u2019s got to be a category in the middle of these two. The first one says \u201cway more\u201d and the second one says \u201cway less.\u201d Surely there are APs who have won less than \u201cway more\u201d and more than \u201cway less.\u201d This middle category is likely bigger than the other two put together.<\/span><\/p>\n

How much you win each year is income. How much you\u2019ve won and held onto is gambling bankroll which is a measure of wealth. I assume Liz was speaking about accumulated bankroll.<\/span><\/p>\n

Accumulated bankroll is a lifetime achievement award. I\u2019ve been doing this since 1994. I have been successful since then and have continued adding to my accumulated wealth. It stands to reason that I would have accumulated more than someone who started in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

How much you started with surely is a factor. I started with $6,000 back in 1994. Many other players have started with more.<\/span><\/p>\n

How good of a saver you are is important. In the years that I\u2019ve been playing, it\u2019s been both me by myself and me with two wives (at different times.) All three of us are very frugal. For every $100,000 we brought in, we spent perhaps $40,000 and invested the rest. Over decades, that added up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without going into details, going through a divorce is detrimental to the bankroll.<\/span><\/p>\n

Someone with extra income that they deposit into the bankroll account makes that account increase faster than someone without extra income. That income could be from a job, alimony, inheritance, sale of an asset, royalties, or selling your services. Social security or disability payments or retirement income may be added in as well. I\u2019m sure there are other sources of income that I\u2019m leaving out, but those who have some accumulate bankroll faster than those who don\u2019t. And the mix of income sources is different for every player.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your investment strategy (and results) matter. Timing matters. If you invested $100,000 in the stock market in 2003 you have quite a bit more than if you invested that same amount in 2000. Even so, if you\u2019ve kept that money in until today, in either case you have more than $200,000 today. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How good are you at avoiding taxes? Tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion isn\u2019t. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve had \u201caverage luck\u201d over your playing career, your results will be average if that average result happened on all of your stakes. But if you\u2019ve been very lucky for quarters and somewhat unlucky for dollars, overall you might be in the hole. In my <\/span>Million Dollar Video Poker<\/span><\/i> autobiography, I wrote of a six-month period where I was luckier than average on pretty large machines. <\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s always the question of skill versus luck and I don\u2019t know how to come up with an exact number. In drawings, I\u2019ve won more than $1 million over the years. But I\u2019ve participated in a lot of them. I only entered when I thought it was a good deal. I\u2019ve read the rules closely and paid attention to ways to gain an advantage over players who haven\u2019t read the rules. I\u2019ve bent tickets in casinos where that seemed to work. I put physical tickets into full barrels just before the drawing took place, knowing full well that the drum was too full to thoroughly mix the tickets. I\u2019ve played for the drawings when other things were going on as well — such as point multipliers, or additional drawings, or earning annual tier credits, or something. How can anyone say how much luck was involved in my results and how much skill? <\/span><\/p>\n

There are no records anywhere of exactly how many tickets have been in each barrel and whether my results have been better or worse than average in drawings. There are also players who play $500 a week and enter the same drawings where I play $200,000 a week, and to those people, it appears that I\u2019m the luckiest guy in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Keeping your welcome in casinos is a big part of success. Over time, all successful players lose their welcome at various places. \u00a0Avoiding or delaying your exodus is valuable, as is talking your way back in. <\/span><\/p>\n

Belonging to a relevant network of informed players is valuable. There\u2019s a balance between sharing enough information to stay networked and sharing everything. There are people you can swear to secrecy and those you can\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just plain scouting is valuable. In every casino, things are different today than they were a year ago. If you\u2019re not aware of those differences, you can\u2019t make informed decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Players differ in their risk aversion. For a given bankroll, some players will bet bigger than others. Some of these bigger players get wiped out, but most don\u2019t. The smaller players won\u2019t get wiped out, but they won\u2019t earn very much either. There are disadvantages to wherever you position yourself on this.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to talk about this more next week, including how close to the cheating line you are willing to go. Do you ever cross it? Some players have prospered using techniques that the rest of us consider \u201cfoul play.\u201d But they have prospered nonetheless.<\/span><\/p>\n

Liz\u2019s paradigm has some merit, but it\u2019s impossible to figure out these things exactly. Every AP has a different game plan than every other one, and their results are very hard to compare.<\/span><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the website gamblingwithanedge.com, there are numerous things posted — including my blogs and all of the GWAE podcasts. There are other bloggers on that site as well. One of the features of that site is that there is room for comment. In a comment to my March 27, 2018 blog, \u201cLiz\u201d wrote, in part: […]<\/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":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[428,196],"yoast_head":"\nA Measure of Success<\/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\/a-measure-of-success\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Measure of Success\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On the website gamblingwithanedge.com, there are numerous things posted — including my blogs and all of the GWAE podcasts. 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