Those Who Don’t Know History are Doomed to Repeat It

The title quote is attributed to Edmund Burke, among others. But it applies to something that happened in Las Vegas recently. I didn’t see it all and there are parts of the story I don’t have, but the part I do have is plenty interesting. 

On Wednesday, July 17, I received a text from a friend telling me there was a video poker free-for-all at the Downtown Grand and the word is out. I didn’t know exactly what this meant, but clearly video poker players were making some money there.

The Downtown Grand is where the Lady Luck casino used to be. It’s on the north side of Ogden, which is one block north of the Fremont Street Experience. It’s not in the heart of the casino district, but it’s pretty close. 

I live a little more than ten miles south of the DG — with 90% of the trip on the freeway. I had something else going on that evening and didn’t want to get mixed up in a big mess. When a casino makes a “too good to last” promotion (which is what I figured it was), it lasts a short period of time. The earliest birds get the biggest worms, and anybody after that gets whatever scraps there are. Often the casino retaliates against any player who “took advantage” of their mistake.

On the morning of Friday, July 19, I had a gym date with a friend who had gone to check out the situation. He said there were 40-50 new machines with games such as Full Pay Deuces Wild (100.76%), 10/7 Double Bonus (100.17%), 10/6 Double Double Bonus (100.07%) for denominations up to $2 single line.

In addition, there were two multi-line machines which were locked up by a team. These machines went up to $2 Ten Play and had the same games on them.

They were offering no slot club benefits. If you wanted to park for free, you had to run $25 coin-in through a slot machine. Otherwise parking was $15 or $20, depending on which day of the week it was. Since you didn’t get any slot club points, there was no reason to put your card in, so he didn’t know exactly how fast the machines were. But he estimated he could play over 1,000 hands per hour.

Oh my! A $2 machine at 1,000 hands per hour places $10,000 into action. A 100.76% return on this game means an expected value of $76 per hour. He said there were plenty of machines and there was no trouble getting on one.

Okay. Maybe it was time to take a visit!

I haven’t played FPDW in more than a decade. Still, years ago I played the game for more than 1,000 hours, wrote a Winner’s Guide on the game, and taught a class on the game perhaps 30 times. At my age, my memory isn’t what it used to be, but it isn’t terrible. 

I took out a copy of the Winner’s Guide for that game and went through all the quizzes. This took me less than 15 minutes and I could now play with more than 99.9% accuracy on the game. If someone were starting from scratch, it would take considerably longer to get up to that level. Many people never do.

After Bonnie’s and my dinner-and-dancing date on Friday night, I headed to the DG. It was now pretty much as advertised, except some time in the past few days about half the formerly-$2 machines were now maxed out at $1. Still, checking every machine that wasn’t being played, I found one for $2 and sat down.

For those who don’t understand $76 per hour, it’s not like a paycheck. It’s a long-term average assuming you get the typical number of $2,000 deuces (frequency: 4,909 hands) and $8,000 royals (frequency: 45,282 hands). Any deuces wild player knows that if you play several hours and don’t hit one of these hands, you’re going to lose today. And that was my result on this day. I spent five hours and lost $1,900.

On the two multi-line games, one player (who I recognized) was playing $1 Ten Play. The other player was playing 25₵ Triple Play, the smallest amount you could play on that machine, slowly. I figured she was a “place holder.” The team only had so many competent players, with each one playing 6- to 8-hour shifts, and apparently there was one shift where they couldn’t find anybody. So, somebody’s friend was called in to “save the seat,” presumably with the team paying her a wage and covering her losses. The team didn’t want to give up a seat because they well could not get it back — and a seat on such a machine was worth thousands of dollars a day for as long as the game lasted.

I found an excuse to go down and play the next day (Saturday) as well. All the $2 games were gone but there were still plenty of $1 machines. This time I got two sets of deuces in five hours and came out $900 ahead. 

I attend a workshop Monday evenings in the downtown area and so that was a good excuse to go early and play at the DG. Now most of the $1 machines had been downgraded to 15-11-4-4-3-2-1. This is not a terrible game at 99.957%, but without any benefits it’s unplayable compared to games a few blocks away. I realize many players around the country would kill to get a game this good, but currently in Vegas you can do better and there’s no reason to play games where you do not have the advantage.

There were still nine $1 FPDW available and I was able to get one. This time I played four hours and won $800. This ended up being my last play there, and my net score was minus $200. A plus score would have been more pleasant, but for a short play, this was well within “normal.” Had the game lasted longer, I’d still play it some of the time. 

One of the players on the team machines was a lady I’ve known for more than 20 years and I went up to chat with her. The machines were cut back to 25₵ Ten Play or $1 Triple Play. She was playing the Ten Play version, as I would. It’s a smaller amount of coin-in ($12.50 per play versus $15) but the variance is much smaller. I gave her the name of the person I thought was running the team and she told me I was wrong but didn’t indicate who was really running the team. It didn’t really matter to me. 

I figured all the games would be downgraded by Tuesday, but I went there anyway to be sure because in the back of my mind I was planning on writing this article. All 40-50 machines were now at the 15-11-4-4-3 game rather than FPDW. And absolutely none of them were being played. The multi-line games still had players on them. I recognized one of the players as a competent pro but didn’t go up and talk to either of them.

I was quite surprised that those games outlasted the others. Although not all the players who were on it were competent, most of them were, and certainly the ones who were playing the highest stakes were. With multi-line games, you get into the long run much faster than you do with single-line games. It begs credulity that these machines were profitable to the casino. But if you left them, why not the others? 

How long the two multi-line machines had the FPDW on them, I don’t know. I am not planning another trip to the DG in the near future unless I hear the FPDW machines have been resurrected — which I doubt, but who knows?

There have been several times in the past two decades where a casino has offered $1 or higher FPDW. The machines have never lasted very long because the game returns a significant amount over 100%, is very easy to play, and there is a competent player base that has good communication. Add that all together, and a casino who puts it out there is going to lose money. How long the casino puts up with this money drain depends on the casino. In some cases, slot directors have lost their job over their decision to install such games.

So why did these games resurface now at the DG? Rumor is that the place is up for sale and the casino was trying to drive up coin-in. If that was their goal, they succeeded. But it must have been a very expensive success. Any potential buyer who dropped by early in the promotion would have been impressed with all the customers. Coming by after the FPDW machines were downgraded, the place was morgue-like.