I recently wrote that I had hit a $120,000 royal flush at Dotty’s in October. I mused that possibly the plug had been pulled on my welcome as I had hit a number of big jackpots there in the past. Several readers responded that surely my time was up there.
In November, I received no mailer at all. I looked at this as a “possible sign” of the end of my welcome, but not definitive. In October, my mailer was for $1 a week for the first three weeks, and a whopping $2 for the fourth week. I left them uncashed, except for cashing one of them on the one day I went in to play.
The usual pattern at Dotty’s is that your mailers reflect the amount of play and your win/loss for the past four months. My previous big hit there (a $40,000 royal) came on June 23, so I figured I could start playing again on October 24 — which I did, with spectacular results.
Usually when you get the $1, $1, $1, $2 mailer from them, it means it’s your last mailer until you play some more. It’s very likely my play in October was after the cutoff for the November mailer. So, the fact that I didn’t receive any mailer at all didn’t necessarily mean I’d been cut off.
On November 28, though, I received a $1, $1, $1, $2 mailer for December, not to mention a coupon for a Dotty’s logo holiday coffee mug!
I’m not planning on collecting any of this mailer, but it was very nice to get. It means I’m not cut off. In March, I’ll begin playing again. I’ll play heavily one day in late March (perhaps $100,000 coin-in or so) and wait to see what happens in May. If I’m getting a mailer (which is roughly 0.4% coin-in, except immediately after a royal flush), it’s a decent place to play. Along with their other promotions, even 9/6 Jacks or Better is a positive game.
I’ll play 9/6 Jacks or Better for $50 per hand. That way, only hitting the royal has the potential of cutting me off. If I’m playing Deuces Bonus for $150 a hand, there are numerous hands which put my welcome in jeopardy. So while the Deuces Bonus is a better game if I could continue to play uninterrupted and still get the mailer, that’s not the way it is at Dotty’s. One jackpot of probably $15,000 or higher brings your mailers down to miniscule amounts for four months. So the 9/6 Jacks or Better game for the smaller amount is actually the better play. I need to play for at least $48 a hand in order to receive W-2Gs for all quads. Cutting back to, say, $5 per hand and not risking ever being cut off would be a losing proposition because a significant amount of the value at Dotty’s comes from the bonuses you get on W-2Gs. I wrote about this more extensively less than a month ago should you be interested.
I’ll skip playing in April (in addition to giving them no action in December, January, and February). When (if) a decent mailer comes in May, I’ll resume my normal amount of play. If such a mailer does not come, I won’t play there anymore. Without a mailer, the house has the advantage in that game and that’s not for me.
Still, the miniscule mailer I received for December was very encouraging. To me it means I’m not cut off. At least not yet. That may well happen in the future, but so far at least, I’m still in their good graces.
I understand that whether or not I am still welcome at Dotty’s is basically of no concern to any of my readers. Still, how I evaluate and interpret information as I receive it is part of the process that I’m attempting to convey.
Also does the ease of Jacks or Better 9/6 factor into it? The penalty situations are relatively minor and with moderate practice it is straightforward to play computer perfect. The flush five games have flowcharts and exceptions that most amateurs don’t bother with. Not sure about Bonus Deuces as I tend to stay away from Deuces games, due to my unfamiliarity with the strategy.
I perfonally find the deuces-strategy less complicated the longer I play it. I see a lot of players that prefer double double bonus or other games over deuces wild. I take it it’s because only deuces or the royal flush can save you the day and nothing else. Completely disregarding the fact that NSUD in fact is a top game that comes close to 100 per cent and with a good club it’s even slightly EV+.
From Switzerland
Boris
Yes JoB is easier — but that’s not a major factor. I’ve been doing this long enough that I can get close enough to the strategy of any game.
While I know JoB at the 100% level, and BDW at only the 99.95% level and likely won’t be improving, the total package of bonuses for W-2Gs there still makes BDW at $150 per hand the better choice than JoB at $50 per hand — percentagewise. If I include how long I’m out of action with BDW because I need to take more 4-month breaks in that game than I do in JoB, JoB is the better choice.
Hi Bob,
9/6 returns 99.54% with perfect strategy and Dotty’s player’s club returns 00.15% (as far as i can tell) on the machines with 9/6 JoB. What kind of “mailer” would you need to make that a positive game?
Tito
Don’t know if you read BD’s article last month (actually a 2 part article) about Dottys. He goes into great detail about he calculates the play.
Here’s a link https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/gambling-with-an-edge/comparing-two-different-games-at-dottys-part-one-of-two/
In a nutshell…..Dottys pays a 10% bonus on 10% of their issued W2Gs, but you have to play at a level where you’re getting lots of W2Gs to make it worthwhile.
Tito:
A complete answer is longer than blog-length because it includes multiple promotions, as well as a mailer. suffice it to say, if you play $100,000 or more per week there at 9/6 JoB at $48 or more per hand, you’re playing a positive game. You’ll see when you do that.
If you’re not interested in playing that much there, it doesn’t really matter.
Hi Bob, thank you for your response. A better question would have been, what other promotions have you seen been offered besides free play vouchers/coupons and the player’s club? I’m thinking maybe multiplier days or some sort of weekly happy hour? Again, just guessing because I’ve only received the slot play coupons in the mail =(
You have a very small edge. And playing with an edge is mainly for preparing for the worst. Since the best, the $120K royal, already happened to you, why would you still want to risk your money? Your score will be balanced out eventually and most likely your profit will be evened out if you continue to play. If you are already ahead a lot, I don’t see a point of chasing for the tiny edge and losing your profit back.
And conveying your process very well Bob, I might add. Thank you for that!
I like Hop Hoofer’s comment. It’s precicely what it is. A royal flush is nothing but a big boost after a long stretch of nothing. Sometimes you can hit another one, but that’s not common. And only WITH a royal flush in your suitcase you are a little ahead in this short sequence of maybe 50’000 hands or so.
I have experienced an opposite run lately. I played my first 10 days without hitting anything and this made me a loser in the range of several royal flushes. Then, all over sudden, they came in. I ended with a few royals that brought me back to even. In fact, I was a little ahead and on top of it I received all the comps during these sessions. If I add it all togehter and calculate the percentages, it will be not much above 100 per cent, but I need to give the free rooms and the food a certain value as well.
I could have been without any royal till the end of my trip and it would have ended badly. That’s why I like what Hop Hoofer writes. If you’re way ahead and have had your royal and the edge is super tiny and questionable if you will continue receiving any comps in the future, then you could just as well forget about it and go play golf or watch some movies, the long run will get you and therefore you will probably give away some of the big wins you had from the mega payout (royal flush).
From Switzerland
Boris
Hop Hoofer wrote: You have a very small edge. And playing with an edge is mainly for preparing for the worst. Since the best, the $120K royal, already happened to you, why would you still want to risk your money? Your score will be balanced out eventually and most likely your profit will be evened out if you continue to play. If you are already ahead a lot, I don’t see a point of chasing for the tiny edge and losing your profit back.
Thank you for your comment. I have a long comment on it, so will make it into another blog post. The reason I’ll give a lengthy response to your comment and not Tito’s is because your comment is applicable to many games and many casinos. Tito’s comment was directed towards Dotty’s in particular, and I’ve already written a lot about that casino that, frankly, is a play for relatively few players.
I play all kinds of games at the pro level. After playing many many hands over years, I still think hitting a royal flush is a nightmare.
However, it seems Bob can always hit the royal flush when he needs it. This is beyond my understanding in general. I had several dry spells of royal flush sessions but no royal flush shows up over 200K (~50k main hands) hands of multi-play games. I also had several losing streaks that I had no royal flushes over 150K single-line games. Overall I am down a lot of royals.
And I have never hit a dealt royal flush after many many actions. 1 in about 650K odds is tiny, but I also know some casino friends who rarely play VP but already got 3 dealt royals…The variance is certainly another nightmare for me.
I know that prior to the pandemic you used to be a regular teacher per se at South Point. Will you ever consider doing that again for us novice players?