The short answer is yes, you can play video poker professionally and make a living wage, as long as you can string together a positive expectation, meaning that either the machines themselves, of the machines in conjunction with the slot club, promotions, and other casino considerations provide a greater than 100% payback.
The medium-length answer is also yes, but with a major caveat. To be a professional gambler, to win year in and year out, you have to be part mathematician, part banker, part actor, part geek, part martial artist. You have to be skilled, dedicated, and disciplined. You have to be willing to spend your life in casinos. You have to eat, sleep, and dream game theory. You have to carry a lot of cash and chase small edges with big bucks. You have to stay healthy as a racehorse in unholy environments, alert as a hoot owl under distracting conditions, and cool as a spring breeze under the blazing heat of scrutiny.
You have to be able to get away with the money. The casinos are managed by the most suspicious people in the private sector, who breathe down your neck every minute of your working day. Casinos are also the most surveilled environments this side of the National Security Agency.
You have to ride the financial and emotional roller coaster of gigantic bankroll swings. You have to take the big losses in stride. And you have to take the big wins without going on tilt and blowing the whole wad, which you’ll undoubtedly need to see you through long losing streaks in the future.
Harder still, your family and friends wonder what kind of life you’ve chosen for yourself. And for them.
The long answer, about video poker specifically, would fill a book. And it so happens that we've just published that book: Bob Dancer's Video Poker for the Intelligent Beginner, which is due back from the printer the second week in January.
In it, Dancer covers more than 75 video poker pay schedules, everything from 8/5 Jacks or Better to 25/15/10 Super Bonus Deuces Wild. He goes on to provide an in-depth lesson on learning the strategies for 9/6 Jacks or Better, 10/7 Double Bonus, 9/6 Double Double Bonus, Full Pay Deuces Wild, and NSU Deuces Wild; by the time you're done with the peculiarities of each game, along with the problem-hands questions and answers, you'll be a whiz at reading strategy charts and playing computer-perfect VP.
The last section is called "Beyond the Machines," which gives you a complete answer to your question about what it takes to be a pro. In this 100-page section, Dancer discusses everything you need to know about: slot clubs and casino promotions, including calculating cashback rates, joint slot club Cards, cash equivalencies, point multipliers, gift cards, year-end awards, drawings, tournaments and slot marathons, bounce-back cash, cards of the day, coupons, and more. There are additional chapters on video poker progressives, bankroll considerations, scouting casinos, video poker teams, and mathematical challenges, such as volatility, variance, standard deviation, and binomial theorem.
All throughout the book, Dancer instructs on how to use the Video Poker for Winners computer program in order to analyze the games, generate the strategies, and maximize the profit potential of slot clubs, promotions, and mathematics.
It's tough to become a video poker professional, even under the best of circumstances. But Video Poker for the Intelligent Beginner just made those circumstances a whole lot easier.
