[Note: Season 1 of Colin Jones will resume next time, and there is further good news: Netflix and GWAE have announced that Colin Jones is renewed for Season 2!]
A few times per year, my elderly parents used to make the drive from New Jersey to Boston. Like all old people who haven’t grasped the power of the “cellular telephone,” they would stock the car with snacks, bottled water, batteries, blankets, and other survivalist items, just in case the 4-hour drive turned into nuclear winter. They—meaning my daddy—would also use old-school paper diagrams of the land and roads, that they called “maps” (before the word earned a capital letter). The map was marked with an asterisk in Connecticut for a particular rest stop—the one that had immaculate bathrooms.
As an AP, I’ve used casino bathrooms as a second office. In a pinch, the bathroom is the quickest, safest place to reload a BP (cash/chip reloads should never be done under the open sky on the casino floor), count chips, strategize with a teammate (there might be no cell phone reception in the casino), and sometimes hide. I once had to do a quick change of clothes to effect my escape from an imminent backoff at a tribal property. I left my hat, shirt, and pants in a bathroom stall.
Many of us APs spend a lot of time on the road, which is a separate life within AP. The speed traps in Capay and Onawa. The GWAE podcasts. The voice chats on Discord. And for some, the piss jugs. Avoiding the PJs might explain the growing popularity of Buccee’s. Sure, Buccee’s gives you a choice from dozens of identical gas pumps, and salt-water taffy, fudge, and brisket, all under one roof. But for the road-weary AP, Buccee’s is just a clean, well-lighted place, including the bathrooms.
So it is not without thought and experience that I’ve come to have a deep appreciation for bathrooms and the workers who keep those bathrooms clean. Even the toke hustlers who set up shop in Vegas bathrooms add value (in a nightclub bathroom, those little toiletries and “amenities” can be really valuable FTW!).
Instead of paying them higher wages, society has recognized the tremendous value added by such workers by giving them loftier job titles. When I was a kid, there was a “janitor” at school. Apparently that term has an unrefined connotation, so we’ve upgraded that to “custodian,” or “bathroom attendant,” or “Executive VP of Custodial Services.” In casinos, I think these workers might just be “Maintenance Technicians” as part of that department.
I have not heard anyone use the label “AP” for these workers, despite the fact that they make money at the casino. So what is an “AP”? That question has been coming up a lot lately, in particular as it pertains to machine players, many of whom learn a simple fact or two by following someone’s Twitter account, and then go out picking up some money at the casino.
Before I delve into the debate, let me issue a disclaimer: My comments are not a fox-and-grapes condemnation of those players who are currently making tons of money in machine play (MP). I’ve been recommending to new APs that they make sure their portfolio includes machine revenue. MP is widely available, can be quite lucrative, has a short startup time, allows for solo execution, and is somewhat scalable. So to me, this is not a debate regarding the merits of the activity, per se, but moreso the labeling. Should a machine player be called an “AP”? (And when I talk about MPs, I’m not talking about the analysts who derive strategies, sometimes performing statistical analysis after collecting data. I’m talking about those players who read a tweet or watch a three-minute YouTube video and then go out and collect money.)
Let me tell you a Vegas story. Back in the day, when Steve Wynn was Vegas’s favored son, he was quite hands-on with the management of his casinos. He didn’t like the fact that some of his employees were, in his opinion, overpaid for the job. To that end, he tried to take a cut out of the dealer toke pool, and redistribute the shaved money to floorpeople who weren’t getting a piece of those tokes. And if some of the shaved money boosted the casino’s bottom line, that was a plus.
The move to shave the dealer toke pool received widespread press coverage, lawsuits, and all the expected pushback from the dealers. <rant>“It’s so hard standing up 6 hours per day. And we have to deal with unruly, drunk, abusive customers. You have no idea how hard this job is. We earn our $90k and then some. You should actually pay us a higher minimum wage. And our tokes are a birthright. What? You say you have a PhD and don’t even make $90k? Well whose fault is that, brainiac? Not ours! You know we get yelled at by drunks, right?”</rant>
What didn’t get a lot of press coverage was Steve Wynn’s idea on cutting costs for the custodial staff. Here’s the summary of the never-before-published white paper that was leaked to our GWAE “investigative journalists” (please don’t call us “bloggers” or “trolls”). So the janitors are making $20/hour or more, on top of benefits. To make things worse, they’re all joining a union. At this point, they barely even do much work. The faucets, towel dispensers, and hot-air hand dryers are all automated. Even though the janitors fill out a log and swipe their ID to indicate when they’ve supposedly cleaned the bathroom, their main function is just to make sure the toilets and urinals are flushed, because it looks really bad if a customer sees some leftovers. So these unionized janitors are just pressing a button from time to time, and they’re making over $20/hour doing it, and it takes no training whatsoever. Idea: The casino can crowdsource the janitorial services.
Following the leak of this white paper, a Twitter account widely followed in the MP community (@SteveWynnIsNotGreedy) tweeted this sensitive info: “The Wynn has installed several new wongable machines. If you go behind the high-limit Regal Room to the even-more-high-limit private Los Banos Room, you’ll see they’ve installed a dozen Pool of Gold machines, and four Triple Ultimate Royal Diamond machines. I don’t know the manufacturer, because they’re not obviously labeled, but they’re quite distinctive with a modern chrome and white porcelain housing. The TURD machines can be played in private booths, but the Pool of Gold machines are along the wall of the Los Banos Room. Swipe your card when you go in to make sure you earn the reward. If you see a Pool of Gold machine with any golden pool accumulated at all, then it’s positive EV. Just push the button until the golden pool is cleared. At that point, your card is awarded a random amount of free play. It looks like the minimum is $1 per golden pool cleared, but I’ve seen as high as $4, and the average seems to be around $1.50. Since you can easily find three golden pools per hour, that’s maybe $5/hour. By the way, the graphics are so impressive that some MPs say that it almost feels like the machine splashes them when they play. What’s crazy is that the plops put the machine into golden shower mode, and then they just walk away, leaving the accumulated golden pool. Idiots!”
“Then there are the Triple Ultimate Royal Diamond machines. You’re looking for a machine that has at least one TURD symbol. If there are three TURD symbols, you’ll get a higher bonus. These plops just sit down on those machines, leave three TURDs and get up and leave! Morons! I’ve also seen a machine that had three TURDs and a golden pool, but I couldn’t verify if that gives you a bonus multiplier. Just keep clicking until the symbols clear. Usually it takes only one click! I estimate that the four TURD machines would generate an additional $8/hour. The plops don’t seem to be wising up, and competition isn’t too bad, so it’s pretty steady. We just need more of these machines. Not sure why everyone isn’t jumping on this sh**.”
Think about the guy that Steve Wynn fired. Each day, that guy drove to the casino. He would put in eight hours, though not all active work, of course. There’s a lot of walking around. He did his best to increase his earnings by joining the union, and proudly carried his union card. His “work” consisted of pushing a button from time to time. He earned $20/hour, with no variance, and his “graph” went steadily up, definitely positive. He was called a “janitor” or “custodian.”
What about the new guy who showed up when Steve Wynn crowdsourced the task through incentivization? Each day, this guy drives to the casino. He puts in his eight hours, though not all active work, of course. There’s a lot of walking around. He does his best to increase his earnings by joining the rewards club, and carries his Platinum Card around his neck. His “work” consists of pushing a button from time to time. He earns about $13/hour, with variance, and his graph goes erratically up, very likely positive. He’s called an “AP”?
“And when I talk about MPs, I’m not talking about the analysts who derive strategies, sometimes performing statistical analysis after collecting data. I’m talking about those players who read a tweet or watch a three-minute YouTube video and then go out and collect money.”
Can we lump in those that bought a $250 book then zoomed out to the nearest casino looking for sloppy OCP dealers?
No, because the people who bought a $250 book had to take some capital risk that their $250 would be wasted after reading a 700-page book, unlike following free websites and Twitter. And then the actual extraction of OCP money takes some skill that would presumably improve, over a span of years. The MP play often requires one piece of information, enabling a trivial extraction (click button until money is collected).
Regardless, making consistent bets that are +EV, no matter how you learned them, is AP. Doing the work to figure out if a game is exploitable or not would be a different “job title”. Skillset shouldn’t be a consideration. This is the same gripe I have about Dancer. He doesnt ‘beat’ VP. He beats the players club!
Now whether that person is a full time, part time, recreational or other is a different story. Even a lot of plops, or civilians if you will, know many of these MP’s and execute them only to blow it back on their favorite -EV game. Personally, I tell people that I’m a “Pro Gamer” and leave any thought of “AP” or “casino player” out of it.
A lot of the newer video game themed gambling machines do have nice graphics and a lot of the interfaces can be confusing to a new machine player who is not accustomed to playing those machines or reading the instructions to the game. Then again knowing how multi-cultural the US is becoming it’s possible that the people playing the machines can’t even speak or read English, but they are fluent in $$$ signs and understand that symbol. I could see how people are leaving cash or free plays at the machines for a player who has more situational awareness of their surroundings to capitalize on the mistakes of others. Failure to follow instructions seems to be a common theme.
Who hasn’t seen a boomer play a video game in the early 90’s when pressing the jump button, only to see them move both arms up in the air as if that is what’s making the character jump on screen.
To me it doesn’t matter what the individual opportunities are. What makes someone an AP is that they are constantly looking for opportunities, not necessarily just in casinos and, in addition, they evaluate them, decide whether each is worth their time and effort and prioritize those which are deemed worthy. An AP need not be supporting themselves via these activities but must be doing it on an ongoing basis. Some one who does this once or just a couple of times does not qualify, in my opinion.
In other words it’s the overall nature of what they do, not the nature of the individual opportunities.
I don’t think that that the way in which the opportunity is identified matters. If you are able to analyze and identify opportunities on your own, then great. If you identify opportunities by having others tell you about them then that’s fine too. However, I will stick to the criteria that an AP would first evaluate the opportunity either on their own or by, at a minimum, understanding the analysis of the one providing the information in order to properly prioritize it for themselves before taking advantage.
By this definition, someone who only ever identifies one opportunity, but takes advantage of it on an ongoing basis might technically qualify as an AP. However, due to the nature of the person I’ve described, it would be exceedingly unlikely that they only ever identify one opportunity. I suppose that the person playing the “machine play” you describe could qualify, but their standards would have to be pretty low!
With apologies to Edwin Starr and Bruce Springsteen:
Labels, huh yeah
What are they good for?
Absolutely nothing, oh hoh, oh
Labels huh yeah
What are they good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again y’all
Labels, huh good God
What are they good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me
Folks play for different reasons. Success has different meanings to different folk. Pardon me, but I never liked pigeon-holing. Chester Bennington, RIP, said “To pigeonhole a genre as being successful or unsuccessful is weird.”
On wongable machines, there was a bank of machines at the GN in the 70s where you got your coins back after ten consecutive losses. They took them out eventually because there were disheveled street folk always hanging around them waiting for someone to leave with the counter up to 8.
In the post on 6:5 BJ, you ask what is blackjack. You prefer a wider definition. Years back I said 6:5 is not blackjack (and continue to do so). I admit that I was stretching the semantic envelope, but hoped in vain to inoculate the public from this virus before it spread. On the question of what is an AP, again we get to pick the breadth of our personal definition. I generally prefer to include those who do not play to make a comfortable living, but enjoy comps or just playing the game in a more “correct” manner. Like a local bridge club as opposed to World Bridge Federation championships. In any case, it’s all semantics and depends largely on purpose. Lexical semantics vs. conceptual semantics. We get some leeway in talking about the definitions as they aren’t strictly defined. Blackjack, the game, was not added to the OED until the 1972 supplement, and it just sys vingt-et-un. Mokokoma Mokhonoana said: “Poetry is the art of hiding the inadequacy of language.” Metaphors can work where words fail. Or a metaphor of metaphors: “Temba, his arms wide”.
To me, an AP has always meant skills-based, e.g. that you can beat a -EV game off the top. A card counter fits that definition. Someone who is a MP is just a scavenger looking for +EV plays left by others. A card counter creates +EV despite a house edge while a MP creates no value but extracts said value, respectively. I’ve always used the example of a MP making money is no different than a homeless person looking through the trash for deposits.
A typical MP cannot do (video) reel-stripping, discern when a bonus machine got NERFED, and option-math based plays. How an AP plays Scarab is a lot different than a MP in the same play. An AP handicaps or weighs the odds on a lot of marginal or poor plays that typical MPs walk away from.
I used a Markov-Chain to teach advanced Scarab techniques because the value of an option is determined from the ending values. These MP cannot discern the likely outcome nor the range of outcomes.
Someone who finds an Ainsworth $10K at $9,780 and has the bankroll and time to play is hardly an AP. Where are the skills involved? Is the skill “speed-stopping” the bet button over hours? Or perhaps his skill is vulturing or camping?!
Here’s the main point: A MP cannot break apart the slot machine into its components and tells us the frequencies, the EV contribution of each component, etc (the whole is the sum of its parts). Games get nerfed in me neck of the woods and I am usually the first to discern it.
Here is an example: Regal Riches got nerfed in my local casino because the game started to give “cock-blocking Pokies (symbols) thus killed the EV contribution from accumulated Blue Wild symbols; then it cut the frequency of Blue Wild symbols, etc thus killing the straight up Green & Yellow plays.
Right now APs are (video) reel-strip the premium symbols because the premium symbols are the value drivers. There are easily over 200 stops on a reel in a typical video slot machine. Btw, these APs don’t have the Par Sheets.
A card counter does not create the +EV. He/She only recognizes the imbalance of high vs low cards to capitalize on that fact. So in that sense, the card counter is in fact a scavenger him/herself.
Yes, but a key distinction raised is how high the bar is to execute the move. Namely, learning how to jump in and scavenge a machine might literally take less than five minutes of reading someone’s Twitter, while counting cards will take hundreds of hours of training. And when the bar is hundreds of hours, the masses are easily deterred.
“A card counter does not create the +EV.” – LC Larry
This is a great response and the same reason (logic, argument, etc) why MPs believe they are APs.
Suppose a live BJ is -EV off the top, e.g. it has a house edge or the player is expected to get less than $1.00 return for every $1.00 wagered ON AVERAGE, respectively.
So how does the card counter or AP make money off the game … he tracks cards go gain INFORMATION. +EV is created when the card counter ACTS on key counts during the game: (a) makes larger wagers on high RCs or TCs AND (b) makes play deviations from Basic Strategy based on the count, respectively, which ARE all skill-based.
A back-counter or wonger is more of a scavenger (vulture, camper, etc). I think this is LC Larry’s best argument.
Suppose the the live BJ is a No Mid-Shoe entry game; it is IMPOSSIBLE to scavenge (back count) that game but the card counter betting from the start of the shoe can make money in that game. This example should help discern the argument about scavenging in BJ.
This is why people like LC Larry don’t get the issue: Value creation to get to +EV. In MP, someone else creates the value (called equity in MP speak) and ABANDONS and is no different than a homeless person chasing after ABANDONED deposits in the trash can.
In a live BJ game, the card counter is NOT chasing after someone else’s ABANDONED EQUITY!!! Big difference. MP is all about chasing abandoned equity if that equity is the only reason to get to +EV, respectively.
In summary, a card counter DOES create his or her own +EV; and that +EV is discerned by the amount of the (higher or larger) wagers. If I have to increase my bets at the right time to overwhelm the house edge, I am creating +EV.
The main difference between a MP & AP is that the AP can discern the Breakeven Point (BEP), e.g. solve the economics of the game without having access to the Par Sheet. As a general comment, the typical MP cannot do math at the AP level.
Here are two examples of MP vs AP on Bonus machines, e.g. accumulator slots or what is currently known as “persistent state”.
Money Storm Deluxe: It has 3 levels of Must Hit By (MHB) jackpots and while any jackpot can be awarded early, the most likely event is that a specific jackpot goes to its MHB number, respectively. In my neck of the woods, the meter speed are 40 bp, 100 bp, & 200 bp for the top to bottom jackpot, respective. MPs typically use the heuristic approach of 95%, 96%, and 95%, respectively as to when to play top to bottom jackpot, respectively. At the $0.50 wager, the MHB are $200, $50, and $20 such that the “numbers” are $190, $48, and $19, respectively.
APs would instead use a robust beta estimator of the ratio (Sigma Jackpots / Sigma Coin In) to discern when any Jackpot is a play. That ratio (for each jackpot) is the “insurance policy” that best correlates with the BEP.
Happy 8 / Jolly 8 is a Scarab rip off. Player accumulate Wild Symbols that gets awarded by the 8th spin. MPs tend to use a heuristic approach of: If accumulated wilds > spins completed, then play.
APs would instead use option math. Recall that the value of an option is determined by solving backwards: taking the expected ending values to the current price.
Hint, APs understand the value of sunk costs, e.g. it has no bearing in the BEP analysis because it’s the marginal benefit vs marginal cost. The MP heuristic approach does not work well in some situations such that I find a lot of +EV plays that MPs avoid.
In summary: APs play bonus machines differently than MPs because APs tend to have a better command of math and logic.
What is a Nerf?
The biggest problem in making money from Bonus Slots is information asymmetry. So unless you have the Par sheets, saw the RTP on the screen, etc, you are missing key information. The MP / AP industry standard is to assume the RTP is 90% or 10% house edge and start with that number as your benchmark.
A Nerf is a change in the economics of the Play. A Nerf speaks nothing to the RTP of the game. When a hustler is scavenging Abandoned Equity left by the prior player(s), the then known costs and benefits of that play results in +EV. So a Nerf is now that same play, ceteris paribus, is -EV because the costs increased, the benefits got cut, or both. Notice, I spoke nothing with respect to the game’s RTPs.
So I will share the Bonus Award Nerf on Hex 3. I never shared this data before but can share now since it has very little value. From Inferential Statistics, using some assumptions like randomness, independent trials, etc we collect limited data to estimate the function that generated said data. It’s the [Covariance of (X,Y) / Variance of X] where X is the explanatory or independent variable and Y is the dependent variable. And, the Gauss-Markov theorem is your friend.
Hex 3 version 1.0 gave a median prize of 75 base bets (sans progressive jackpot) and Hex 3 version 2.0 gave a median prize of 37.5 base bets (sans progressive jackpot and based on limited data), respectively. It’s clear to see the Bonus Award got roughly halved (because I don’t have the Par Sheets). That Nerf killed the Play of chasing the Bonus Award on Reel 1 & 5.
A few things to keep in mind:
– you must keep accurate data
– you must use robust beta estimators (one Internet team who shall remain nameless tried to solve Hex 3 and made numerous mistakes: they did not use a Dummy variable for the progressive jackpot and the worst crime was not knowing which data came from Ver 1.0 vs Ver 2.0)
– you must understand Convexity; that Internet team used linear approximation for curve fitting involving exponents
– you must understand the same Ways to Win had different EV’s, e.g. 5-3-5-3-5 was better than 3-5-3-5-5.
I don’t want to name the Internet team that couldn’t do math at the AP level but patted themselves on the back for their “great” work on Hex 3. Charlie Munger once said “If you mix raisins with turds, they’re still turds.”
Summary:
1/ There is a lot of misinformation on the Internet and be wary of MPs who cannot do math at the AP level but still call themselves APs.
2/ A Nerf is a change for the worse in the economics of a Play on a Bonus machine. A Nerf does not address the RTP of the game.
3/ In Hex 3 Ver 1.0 vs 2.0: the non-progressive Bonus Award was roughly cut in half so it’s cost – benefit relationship was made much worse. That is why we use Dummy variables in regression analysis (the awarding of the progressive jackpot was binary!).
Here is a walkthrough on a Play showing the main differences of APs vs MPs.
I have a lot of friends who work in Asset Management or the Buy Side and are judged daily against some financial benchmark. The way they outperform the benchmark is on the margin. The same applies for APs in Bonus Slots: the steady money is from Marginal but +EV Plays overlooked by the MPs. A lot of MPs will not chase an opportunity if the wager is too large say $6 a spin or $15 a spin. Or, the MP is too math challenged and the concept of BEP is too foreign. It’s always nice to find a fat Play worth $600 or more but APs are like bandits picking off +EV that are out in the open on the casino floor that others can’t find.
The game is Money Storm Deluxe and the marginal but +EV plays for me are the middle jackpots. The top jackpot is almost always taken down by the hustlers running cards who needs the points: Lose on the Play, win on Points into Free Slot Play and juicy mailers. The bottom jackpots tend to go to the Campers that find them first.
The Play is $0.50 per spin. The middle jackpot Must Hit By (MHB) $50 and is currently at $47.42. MP use the heuristic of 96% (of $50) so $48 is the number. Since $47.42 < $48, the Campers aren’t playing. The bottom jackpot must hit at $20 and the reset is $17. The $3 delta in the bottom jackpot requires $150 coin in and thus the meter speed is 200 bp. The meter speed for the middle jackpot is 100 bp. Any jackpot can hit early but the most likely event is the jackpot goes to its respective MHB number.
As someone who can do math at the AP level, that game is a Play without disclosing the current bottom jackpot.
I need to move the meter $2.58 for the middle jackpot. Worst case coin in is $258 (due to 100 bp meter speed). Also at the same $258 coin in, I will get two bottom jackpots for $20 each (assumes MHB) for a total of $90 in jackpots.
My Beta Estimator is the ratio of $90 / $258 or 34.88%. My expected jackpots at the worst case scenario will provide 34.88% of my coin in needs. Simply stated: So long my Bleed Rate is less than 34.88%, I make money. I’m taking down that middle jackpot.
A few spins later, the bottom jackpot is awarded early (before its MHB). The middle jackpot is now at $47.62. I redo my math and the coin in requirement is now $238 to move the meter $2.38. I recalculate my Beta Estimator and the new ratio is 29.41% and I cashed out and walked away.
A dumb-ass Camper said to me if you liked at $47.42, it’s a better play at $47.62. I told him he could have the Play. It was now -EV and the Camper lost money as expected.
After the bottom jackpot got hit (early), it was clear only two more jackpots remained in the worse case scenario: $50 for the middle and $20 for the bottom.
The moral of this post: $47.42 was less than the market Number of $48 (96% of jackpot) but was a +EV play. $47.62, which is higher than $47.42, was no longer a Play.
The point is the hidden assumption used in the heuristic. That rule of thumb assumed the midpoint convention for the bottom jackpot(s) when chasing the middle jackpot. That heuristic was a bad Estimator for Marginal Plays.
If $47.42 is too small of a number, use $474.20 instead. *Wink*
APs know (a) the math and (b) steady money is from Marginal Plays.
Here is another example of a Nerf and remember that I don’t have access to the Par Sheets.
The game is Coyote Moon Deluxe with 40 play lines and 3 levels of MHB jackpots. Each round in bonus round will increment each jackpot, respectively, so bonus rounds and retriggers are important.
I recently faced a 88.65% bleed rate after 40 spins. I had dead spins after dead spins. 40 spins at 40 paylines is 1,600 paylines.
It was clear (to me) the game got changed and without access to the Par sheet, I suspect the changes were:
– reduce hit ratio
– blackout wins account for more of the EV of the base game
– reduce the frequency of awarding a bonus round, etc, etc
I do track bleed rates to get a sense of the game and Coyote Moon’s bad bleed rates were typically 60% to 70% so 88% was out of tolerance. Recall 1,600 paylines is a lot of paylines to draw inferences from. And keep in mind the game awards a lot of Wild symbols in the base game.
Here the Nerf is a massive increase in the variance of the Play. If you are a mean-variance scavenger like myself, the Play is now less attractive. Lastly, the hustler may need to bring a bigger trip bankroll.